As we get towards the end of Module 3, I want to give you an unusual case study to dig into and learn from, but it's actually one that I think it's going to give us lots of insight into things we've been talking about both in this module and actually in Module 2 as well. The story's about Hurricane Katrina, which was, of course, this disastrous hurricane that struck Louisiana and New Orleans in particular, and a lot of people died and were displaced and it was really terrible. Let's start with showing you one of the principal players in the story. This is General Broderick. General Broderick, you could see, was part of the Department of Homeland Security and his role was really is a gatekeeper. His job was to evaluate all the information that was coming in from all kinds of different sources and see what the federal government should do and how proactive the federal government should do. One of the most important metrics that he was looking at were the levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans but did not, were the levees that were going to keep seawater away. If they were breaching, that would be a signal that there could be serious flooding within New Orleans, and that's one of the things he was watching for. Now, who was General Broderick? Well, three-star marine general, unbelievably accomplished and dedicated. He was in Darfur. He was in Bosnia. He had been in some very, very difficult, challenging places in his career, and he had been a tremendous success and a tremendous leader. It's important for me to say right up front, even though his role as the most senior US government official responsible for Hurricane Katrina and the mistakes that were made by him and his team should not at all take away from what truly was an accomplished career and tremendous dedication. But I like to look at it and say if somebody this good falls into these decision-making traps, then what about the rest of us? That's why it's a really good example to look at. Here's the hurricane. The satellite imagery is amazing. Still, so precise and you see the eye of the hurricane so carefully done, and the timeline. Friday evening before the hurricane hits, FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they highlight a concern to General Broderick and his team that New Orleans is below sea level. Now I have to point out that New Orleans did not become below sea level on Friday night, but they still felt compelled to share that because they were concerned that the recognition and the significance of that fact might not be recognized by Broderick and his team. Obviously, if you're below sea level, the risk of flooding in a hurricane or a storm are gigantic. We go to Monday morning and the first reports of Katrina hitting come in, and there was some early reports of a levee breaching at 8:30 in the morning. There's a lot of confusion and things are happening by the minute and there's more data coming in during the day. But by the end of the day, General Broderick issues a report to the White House, to the Secretary of Homeland Security who was Chertoff, and he says the levees have not breached and he goes home. To be fair, while that first report of a levee breaching at 8:30 happen, that's a fact, it doesn't mean that the levees had breached. It was a report of a levee breached and there's a lot of other data coming in. Of course, those of us who are watching any of this on TV have a wider recollection of some of the things that were happening. The fact that General Broderick goes home in this crisis situation speaks, I think, to the nature of how serious he was considering the threat and maybe the relationship he had with his team. But nonetheless, he does that. Overnight, things get a lot worse. 6:00 in the morning, Broderick staff sends a report to the White House, multiple breaches. The downtown is flooded and they never woke up, General Broderick. They didn't wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him that it was getting worse, that he really need to come back in, which says something about the team and maybe about the relationship between the leader of the team, General Broderick, and everybody else in that team , but they didn't. So General Broderick is driving in on the beltway in Washington, DC and he hears on the radio something about multiple breaches and downtime flooding, and then this report coming in and he shows up at the office pretty quickly after that and he's very upset. They can't understand what's going on, and he doesn't even know why he wasn't alerted to this in the middle of the night. But he sends a quick note to the White House saying, "That report may have been exaggerated. Give us some more time. We're still collecting data. We're still trying to figure it out." More time goes by, and then finally by 2:30 in the afternoon, Broderick confirms that the levees have breached, and how is it that he confirmed that? Because a colonel in the Army had commandeered a helicopter, was flying right over a levee, multiple levees really, and was on his cell phone directly to General Broderick telling him the levees have breached, and he was his trusted source that he really believed in. That's the timeline in the case study and obviously, the case study elaborates on a lot of the details that happened during this time, but I wanted to at least set it up primarily with this timeline and a little bit of background about general Broderick and the core facts in the case. When you read and think about this case study in the case assignment that's coming next, I'd like you to take two different approaches. First, what went wrong and why, of course, but think about this for yourself. Imagine that you are in the position that General Broderick was in. What would you have done? Would you have done the same thing? Would you have done something differently? Why would that be? Think about the federal government as a whole as well with FEMA and the new Department of Homeland Security, which was new at that time, and as well as the White House. The way to get a lot out of learning from case studies like this one is to really imagine you were there, you were the principal, you were there in the decision-making team trying to minimize damage and disaster. Of course, it didn't turn out that way at all, and your job is to consider why it happened the way it did and what those lessons might be that could be helpful for you in your own job and your own career as well. Second, take this case as a perfect opportunity to apply what you've learned in this entire course, and certainly for the first three modules, where we've talked about the role of expertise, experience, emotional tags, one plan at a time, and in this module, especially self-interests, attachments, and prejudgments. In this module, I'll introduce you to these three big watch-outs. They're tendencies we all have that make us believe we're right, when in fact we're actually really wrong. The Katrina case will be a good practice for you to see if you can see this all in action and to decipher and analyze the case to try to identify were there examples of self-interest, of attachments, of prejudgments on the part of General Broderick, and in what way did that affect his actions during this time. Also, don't forget the data fallacy video lesson that I just did before because very relevant here, and it actually does help to explain what went wrong. After you've had a chance to do this work for yourselves, and as always, I really encourage you to do so because there are lots of learning to be had, and that learning only happens when you practice, when you do it yourself, like working out in the gym. You can't watch an exercise video and not do it. You want to do it. Then you'll be in a position to apply it to your own lives, and that's what we all care about. That's the name of the game. That's my entire philosophy really in this course, in all of my Coursera courses in this specialization. Give you the practical tools, relevant skills, opportunities to apply that meaningful mindsets that will help you be really the best person you can be on the job and in your personal lives. On to Hurricane Katrina.
