Some thoughts on how to align the theoretical understanding of team performance with Resilience Engineering theory

Recent contributions to the field of Resilience Engineering (RE) have added to the continuous development of new concepts and methodologies to improve resilience at different organisational levels. Part of these contributions has focused on training for adaptive capacity of individuals and teams to cope with changes and disturbances of work, since literature recognise that working tasks (at least in complex settings) are not as stable as procedures, manuals and regulations might depict. It is becoming accepted that more is needed than training for recognition of pre-defined situations and application of corresponding procedures, that is, individuals and teams should be prepared by their training to also cope with unexpected situations. In previous volumes of RE contributions we have introduced new methods in order to address these unexpected situations (Bergstrom, Dahlstrom and Petersen, 2011; Dekker, Dahlstrom, van Winsen and Nyce, 2008). In this volume we will rather discuss the theoretical foundation of team training and the potential to align such a foundation with RE theory. Guided by two of the four cornerstones of RE(Hollnagel, 2011) our argument is that traditional approaches to sharp-end training should be reviewed, revised and readapted to concepts more aligned with RE thinking. (Less)