Supporting Military Personnel To Speak Up In Ad Hoc Teams During National Crisis Support Operations: Aspects Learned During The COVID-19 Crisis In The Netherlands

Sammanfattning: In their work, military personnel will face risks and threats: during deployments in ambiguous high risk mission contexts abroad, but also in peacetime in the Netherlands during training programs and exercises or national support operations. In all these contexts, it is crucial that team members speak up: sharing concerns, asking questions and providing ideas supports effective team decision making for coping with risks and threats and in extremis can make the difference between life and death. The situation with military personnel deployed in ad hoc teams in national crisis support operations is the context for this thesis research. This study investigates aspects that supported speaking up by military medical personnel deployed in hospitals and care homes during the COVID-19 crisis support operation in the Netherlands between March and July 2020. With a short ‘notice to move’, military medical personnel were deployed in unfamiliar civil structures and ad hoc teams, and faced the threat of the infectious COVID-19 virus. The goal of this research is to provide insight into aspects that support military team members to speak up in unfamiliar, ad hoc composed teams in peacetime (non-hostile) national crisis support operations. These insights may not only be useful for the military organisation to facilitate speaking up in other military disciplines and in military deployments in other national crisis support operations. They may even translate to other industries that are characterised by formal hierarchies and operate in crisis situations. Results showed that speaking up is supported by (1) leadership invitation to speak up and (2) leadership and others’ receptiveness to speaking up. Hierarchy (3) supports team members to speak up in a crisis context, relying upon familiar hierarchical structures and functional roles, empowering military medical personnel to speak up. Finally, (4) team membership stability and (5) individual perceptions of a potential health or safety threat to others (e.g. patients and/or care home residents, civil and/or military colleagues), or to themselves supported speaking up. Practical implications are discussed.