Crisis , recovery , innovation : responsive organization after September 11

After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, many firms, directly affected by the attack, resumed trading when markets reopened less than a week later. How were these companies able to respond, working under conditions of fear and grief, so quickly and effectively? Drawing on conversations with executives and employees in financial service firms with offices in the World Trade Center and adjacent buildings, this report documents the importance of strong personal ties, lateral self-organization, and nonhierarchical relations in the recovery process. As a response to uncertainty, organizational factors that explain recovery are similar to those that generate innovation. DOI:10.1068/a35176 What we did in those first two weeks was absolutely outstanding. I just wish we could repeat it going forward. study of the trading room of a major financial firm in the World Financial Centre (adjacent to the WTC). After the attack, we saw how the management team coped with the crisis. When they regrouped in New Jersey on the night of September 11, the consensus was that it would take between three weeks and three months to be ready to trade again. Six days later, when the equities markets opened on September 17, they were trading. This kind of `̀ crisis achievement'', in the words of an executive of another major financial firm, was characteristic of firms that were able to get back on their feet quickly while suffering from the worst forms of duress imaginable. How did this happen? And not just for international securities firms, but for so many others who suffered major loss, whose places of work were destroyed, and whose employees were displaced and often dispersed? As researchers at Columbia University, we've studied many groups in downtown New York City, including some in the WTC. The attack gave somber urgency to seemingly academic issues, and we began speaking with people from firms in or near Ground Zero. That anyone in the center of the maelstrom could possibly find time to talk to us in the days and months after 9/11 was remarkable. The fact that many really wanted to speak, and did so in a spirit of openness, candor, and contribution to the general good, was stunning. We cannot overstate our admiration for them. We talked with people in numerous firms, individually and in groups. We talked with people in large companies, as well as small and medium-sized firms. We made extra efforts to speak with people responsible for technology and people responsible for contingency planning, preparedness, and continuity management. And what did they tell us? No one said, `̀ Our technology saved us'', or, `̀ Our plan really worked.'' To a person, they said, ``It was people.'' On December 5, 2001, we held a roundtable discussion with senior IT and communications executives from key WTC firms, as well as major consulting and technology firms. The companies included Merrill Lynch, Cantor Fitzgerald, Deutsche Bank, Sun Microsystems, SunGard, Fred Alger Associates, and other medium and small-size firms. We include here quotations from that conversation (anonymously, as per the agreement with our participants). Among the most memorable stories we heard was the following, from one WTC executive: `̀We had 47 hours to get [ready for] September 13th, when the bond markets reopened and there was one situation that our technology department had that they spent more time on than anything else ... . It was getting into the systems, [figuring out] the IDs of the systems because so many people had died and the people that knew how to get into those systems and who knew the backup ... and the second emergency guy were all gone. The way that they got into those systems? They sat around the group, they talked about where they went on vacation, what their kids' names were, what their wives' names were, what their dogs' names were, you know, every imaginable thing about their personal life. And the fact that we knew things about their personal life to break into those IDs and into the systems to be able to get the technology up and running before the bond market opened, I think [that] is probably the number one connection between technology, communication, and sociology.'' In the months after September 11, we saw a lot of attention paid to the key infrastructure issues of communications and information security. Lower Manhattan is an important center for American telecommunications as well as the global financial system, and the terrorist attack revealed the vulnerabilities of both. Financial giants and small firms alike faced the loss of critical information and communications systems. These are the nervous system of the contemporary organization. 1524 J Kelly, D Stark