Black Swans, Gray Rhinos & Dragon Kings
Interview with Chris Godley on the next great challenges for emergency management
Welcome to the first Futurisk Expert Interview, featuring Christopher Godley, Director of Emergency Management at Stanford University.
Earlier this year, I attended the California Emergency Services Association (CESA) 2023 annual conference in Lake Tahoe, where Chris delivered one of the most compelling keynote addresses I have ever seen. The message of his talk was superbly aligned with the essence of Futurisk, so I was delighted to invite him to kick off this new interview series.
You can listen to the complete interview or enjoy a condensed version of the discussion below.
Chris Godley: I always prioritize "why." When in doubt, I ask, "Why?" instead of "what," "how," or "who." Regarding this subject, looking at the future, the main question is, "Why do we want to anticipate the future?" Well, the most obvious answer is that if we know what's coming, we can prepare, make informed decisions, and everything will go smoothly.
But the real question for me is, why are we having trouble dealing with events as they're coming our way? And, why is it important? Today's events were yesterday's future, as they say. As emergency managers, if we're not able to move strongly and with confidence into these uncertainties, it impairs our capabilities for both preparedness and response.
Now if you ask, why aren't we ready for this? Why aren't we prepared? Well, it's human psychology 101. We are people coming to these events. Psychology drives how we perceive threat and how we anticipate the future. It has a profound impact on us personally, but also in terms of how the profession moves forward. It impacts how well we do our jobs and how well we're able to prepare our communities to deal with these events.
Lorraine Schneider: You mentioned confidence. How do you cultivate confidence in yourself and in your team?
Chris Godley: Confidence essentially boils down to trust. Trust in yourself: knowing your skills, knowledge, abilities, and limitations. When facing unexpected or catastrophic events, many people feel unprepared and lack confidence. However, if you're aware of your limitations, whether it's in planning, communication, organizational development, leadership, or any other skill set needed, it allows you to gain a deeper understanding of yourself and how to apply those skills in novel situations. It gives you the ability to step into a role and build the necessary capabilities and skills around you to compensate for your shortcomings. This applies not only to individuals but also to organizations. It all hinges on trust—trust in yourself, in others, and in the information you receive.
Lorraine Schneider: Do you believe that your background in psychology is what makes you an effective emergency manager, and should we account for it more in our job as emergency managers?
Chris Godley: I studied psychology, but I didn’t intend to become a psychologist or psychotherapist. I actually wasn't sure how to apply my psychology background for many years. However, as I advanced in emergency management, I observed how communities, individuals, relationships, and organizations came together during crises. I noticed a shift towards focusing on processes, systems, and organizational structures, while neglecting the human element. For instance, cognitive dissonance explains why people may reject threats and hazards while avoiding discussions about them.
In emergency management discussions, the emphasis often remains on plans, logistics, operations, and communications. My psychology background made me more mindful of the importance of addressing human factors in all our programs, plans, resources, and organizations. After 9/11, the federal government aimed to standardize knowledge, skills, and abilities. The idea was that if we had standardized resources, we could handle any incident, but this approach often falls short because it neglects human factors. It doesn't account for how people respond to events and threats. So, over time, I've grown to appreciate psychology more as it relates to my career.
Lorraine Schneider: We met a few months ago when you gave a keynote address titled “Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, and Dragon Kings: The Next Great Challenges for Emergency Management.” Can you briefly describe the concepts of black swans, gray rhinos, and dragon kings for anyone unfamiliar with these terms?
Chris Godley: The term "gray rhino," coined by Michele Wucker, represents a threat that is highly probable, well-understood, and often ignored, despite clear warnings and evidence. It's not a random surprise but an event with telltale signs. Examples of a gray rhino event are Hurricane Katrina or the 2007 Minnesota Bridge Collapse.
A "black swan," popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is an extreme event that surprises everyone, defying past expectations. Nothing in the past can really point to its possibility of occurring in the future. It's not just rare or wild, it actually seems impossible. A second characteristic is that it has an extreme impact that it is going to profoundly challenge and shock communities, neighborhoods, and society. After the fact, we're going to look for explanations that make sense to us and that allow us to put the black swan back into a box that we can deal with. An example of a black swan event is 9/11.
The "dragon king" changes the world. It literally comes in and transforms how we look at particular geography or a hazard. The event is extremely large, and it may have an outsized impact. It has some degree of predictability if you know what to look for, and it typically occurs at a tipping point. An example of a dragon king is the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. It transformed the way that not only the United States, but the entire world, viewed nuclear power going forward. Fears of radiation were reborn. So, this dragon king event transformed the entire sector of energy consumption, and it arguably may have transformed the pace of climate change due to the rise in carbon emissions post the Three Mile Island accident.
Looking at events through the lens of these animals/symbols, forces you to adopt more flexible, transformative thinking in comparison to the rigid risk management model of probability versus risk and impact.
Lorraine Schneider: During your keynote, you asked the audience to predict major disasters by 2045. What were some common themes or interesting responses you received?
Chris Godley: It's fascinating because I asked these questions to experienced emergency managers who specialize in anticipating disasters. They expressed concerns about technology-related threats, such as cyber incidents and power failures. Massive grid failures specifically are a major concern for many. Climate change was also a prominent theme, with worries about extreme drought, heat, and intense rainfall. Worries about solar flares and electromagnetic pulses emerged, reflecting the evolving landscape of potential disasters. So, almost every bad thing you can think of showed up on the list.
Lorraine Schneider: Having conducted this exercise several times, do you find that emergency managers show creativity in thinking about future threats, or do you see room for improvement in their ability to anticipate and plan for these events?
Chris Godley: It's a great question. Many emergency managers are dedicated and hardworking but often lack the time and space for creative thinking. They tend to stick to established processes and plans. However, I'm encouraged because I see a growing recognition among emergency managers that the challenges are becoming more complex and overlapping. People are starting to innovate and think creatively. They're developing new relationships with community organizations and exploring innovative solutions. While time constraints can hinder creativity, I believe we can find ways to carve out the necessary time and space for smarter, more innovative approaches.
Lorraine Schneider: For your polls, you chose the date 2045. I imagine there was a specific purpose behind picking that specific date?
Chris Godley: I chose the year 2045 because most emergency managers are midway through their careers, and it's a timeframe within their professional experience. It's not a distant future but one where they will likely be actively engaged in their roles, making it relevant and relatable.
Lorraine Schneider: Among the various future hazards and threats discussed, which one keeps you most optimistic and which one do you find the most challenging or concerning?
Chris Godley: It's going to be the effects of climate change. We think we understand what Mother Nature is going to do. Climate change has produced maybe a dozen direct impacts: weather events, drought, heat, hurricane intensities, winds… But it's going to produce 50 secondary level impacts, and these are the ones that are going to get us. It's not one big event that's going to challenge us as a community or society. It's going to be a combination of maybe one event and 12 secondary impacts.
One example of this is the Arab Spring. It all began in the early 2000s when the jet stream shifted, bringing drought to the northern Sahara region of Africa. And suddenly, you had millions and millions of young people unemployed. There wasn’t enough food. The economy was wrecked. So, we went into social unrest. Then, it was political unrest and turmoil. We saw actual conflict developing, conflict like in Syria, which is still going on today. So, that's one secondary impact, armed conflict.
The second one is mass migration. These folks weren't going to sit there and take it anymore. They started heading north into Europe. And with mass migration, a humanitarian crisis began. Another secondary effect.
The third impact was that it generated a political crisis in Europe and the United States where nationalism rose up in the face of this massive immigration. The Arab Spring triggered the rising nationalism in many parts of the world, either directly or indirectly.
Lorraine Schneider: This reminds me of Steve Jobs' famous quote, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." Applying it to emergency management, we as the professionals should be able to connect the dots looking forward because that is part of our role.
Chris Godley: When we do hazard analysis now, we have to look not just at what are the direct and immediate impacts of drought, we also have to look at the impacts of the secondary issues. Here in the United States, 10% of this country is going to move in the next 20 years because of climate and weather-related issues. Thirty million people are going to pick up their belongings and are going to go one state over, half a state over or out of the US entirely. That is a monstrous migration that we've not seen since the Dust Bowl in the 1930s (on a percentage basis). And that migration shift in the 1930s, of course, had transformed the nation. So that's what we can anticipate in the next 20 years.
This does not include the migrants that will be coming into the country from Central and South America, where climate change is going to have devastating effects. People there are not going to have any choice. So we're going to have quite a bit of turmoil going on in terms of migration and population movement, which of course could translate into social and political turmoil as well.
Lorraine Schneider: Despite all of this doom and gloom, what is the thing that keeps you optimistic about the future?
Chris Godley: I guess I should have started with that. We can do this. People can do this. I've seen people solve the most insane problems. I have seen heroism on major and monstrous scales from people I've worked with in emergency management, the university setting, in government, or in the military. I have seen people step up to the insane challenge. I have seen them do extremely well. And that's what gives me my optimism. Honestly, if we can define a problem, I guarantee you we can find some of the solutions to that problem. I guarantee you we can do that.
Find Chris Godley’s latest presentations and research at https://cgodley.su.domains.