Strategic Thinking or the Lack of It - Hurricane Katrina and the Levee System

New Orleans is surrounded by water—Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. The city rests an average of six feet below sea level and the city's safety has long depended on one of the world's most extensive levee systems.

On August 29, 2005 at 11:00 a.m., the eye of Hurricane Katrina came ashore near the Louisiana-Mississippi border. The storm's strongest winds were about 125 miles an hour. Katrina's front-right quadrant, which contained its strongest winds and peak storm surge, slammed the coast line causing a major levee in New Orleans to fail and water poured through the 17th Street Canal and the city began to flood.

During interviews after Katrina hit New Orleans, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the Army Corps said, "It was fully recognized by officials that we had Category Three [hurricane] level of protection. As projections of Category Four and Five were made (for Katrina), officials began plans to evacuate the city. We were just caught by a storm whose intensity exceeded the protection that we had in place."

Was there an opportunity for the City of New Orleans, the State of Louisiana, and for the federal government to have avoided this situation? Had anyone of these groups taken the time to strategically consider the possibilities if a hurricane greater than a category three made landfall and what might happen with the current levee system? If none of these groups were thinking about it, strategic thinker Joel Bourne was. In October 2004, National Geographic published an article titled Gone with the Water by Joel K. Bourne, Jr. This article was published almost a year before Katrina hit, which brought reality to Bourne’s insightful doomsday hurricane scenario for New Orleans. This is a textbook example of being ahead of the curve.

During the interviews after Katrina about the state of Louisiana’s efforts to maintain the levee system, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock dismissed suggestions that recent federal funding decreases or delayed contracts for levee improvement had any impact on levee performance in the face of Katrina's overwhelming force. Instead he pointed to a danger that many public officials had warned about many years earlier, which was that the levee system was never designed to withstand a storm of Katrina's strength.

Had any of these groups truly thought strategically and used their strategic intelligence sources about the levee system, then they would have spent more time preparing for what CMOE calls "the worst probable scenario." This means as a strategic thinker, you consider both the positive and negative outcomes that may come as you develop your strategic ideas. We caution people to not spend time thinking about the "worst possible scenario" because this opens up the process to anything, because "anything" is possible. We instead teach people to focus on what is most probable. Probability means that there is a likelihood that it will happen and therefore it should be included in your strategic preparation.

Through in-depth research and analysis of Strategic Thinking, CMOE has found a way to go beyond the normal broad organizational, government or corporate strategy and bring Strategic Thinking to the individual level. Strategic Thinking involves the capability to develop scenarios that paint a picture of the future. It involves constant attention and observation to the trends, patterns, and cycles that are going on around us continually and allow us to gather intelligence. Being vigilant, a person is able to make educated and reasonable predictions about the future. With this understanding the individual can be ahead of the curve and chart a course to advance, improve, prepare or protect the individual or organization for future events. Once you have outlined a course, the key then is to mobilize and sustain an effort to reach your target objective. Hurricane Katrina taught us all a powerful lesson of how important it is to become more strategic and pro-active.

Being a strategic thinker means having to take smart risks. It might mean having to go against the tide sometimes. It means that we might not have an immediate payoff in order to reap the rewards of a future event. Had anyone been willing and courageous enough to call for improved levees and to take more measures to prepare against the worst probable scenario, then thousands of people would not be destitute and homeless. Billions of dollars would have been saved.

While many fingers’ can be pointed at different people or agencies or organizations for the failure of the levee system, the key now is to take a more pro-active and strategic approach to other obvious problems that exist.

When it comes to the future of Hurricanes, we are all ready seeing many projections. Forecasters predict the Atlantic seaboard could be in for decades of relentless pounding and that this last year was only the beginning. So, while many organization, agencies, and governments should be taking action, so should any individual who could be involved in this process.

In our mind, Strategic Thinking is something everyone can and should be doing. Strategic Thinking is not reserved for a CEO, Corporate Executive Team, or high-level political leaders. Applied Strategic Thinking is about each person taking a more creative, pro-active, and intelligent approach to the future. An approach that will help the individual arrive to a strategic position that will bring success against the changing times and situations that they will face in the future.

So you need to ask yourself some questions.

• What are the forecasters in your individual world telling you?
  
• Are you being warned of future storms, or does the future look bright and promising?
  
• What data have you been able to collect during the course of this year that has given you intelligence for how to improve the next year? Two years, or even further out?
  
• Are you taking into account what are the most probable scenarios for your personal strategic initiatives?

As you are contemplating your future in work, life, family, and other areas, you can be more forward thinking and do things today that will provide advantages in the future; things that will put you Ahead of the Curve.

Matt Fankhauser is the Midwest Regional Manager for CMOE. Matt has been assisting teams and organizations in the area of Strategic Thinking, Coaching, Leadership Development, and Teambuilding. His clients include Cargill, Johnson Controls, Wells Fargo Financial and many others.