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Conclusion
The combination of a top-down and a bottom-up approach in this paper demonstrates the value of both an overarching strategy for success, and a focus on the individuals who must carry out the strategy. Certainly, nothing significant can be accomplished by a collective without contributions from the constituent individuals. While the focus is on individuals, it is important to maintain the overall top-down view with due consideration to the interactions among the constituent parts. As a result, individual attributes that can be synergistically combined were derived. As an adjunct attribute, the approach provides an appropriate structure for quantitative analysis of the degree of success that individual and collective performance offers.
Acknowledgment
The work documented in this paper was supported by the NNSA/SNL LDRD (Laboratory Directed Research and Development) program. Bob Roginski provided software development and support. Sandia is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
About the Authors
Arlin Cooper, a Senior Member Emeritus of the System Safety Society, recently retired from Sandia National Laboratories, where his areas of specialization included electronic component design, safety and security systems development and analysis, and mathematical algorithm development. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. The author and co-author of numerous journal articles and books, he also holds four patents.
Rush Robinett is presently the Deputy Director of the Energy, Infrastructure and Knowledge Systems Center at Sandia National Laboratories. He has a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University, has authored approximately 100 journal and conference articles as well as two books, and holds six patents. He is presently performing research in nonlinear control, optimization and information theory with respect to distributed decentralized systems including teams of people.
References
1. Cooper, J. A., Rush Robinett III, Ron Pedersen, and Susan Camp. "A Strategic Technology for Risk Management," Journal of System Safety, Vol. 41, No. 5, Sept-Oct. 2005 .
2. Cooper, J. A. and Rush Robinett III. "Structured Communication and Collective Cohesion Measured by Entropy," Journal of System Safety, Vol. 41, No. 4, July-August 2005.
3. Cooper, J. A. and Rush Robinett III. "Analyzing and Overcoming Fear in Personnel Performance and Interpersonal Interactions", Journal of System Safety, Vol. 42, No. 2, March-April 2006.
4. Cooper, J. A., Rush Robinett III, et. al., "Final Report: Mathematical Method for Quantifying the Effectiveness of Management", Sandia National Laboratories Report SAND2005-6032, Albuquerque, NM, Oct. 2005.
5. D'Antonio, P., J. Cooper, and R. Hartman. "A Risk-Based Systemic Approach to Reducing Air Transportation Accidents," Proceedings of the International System Safety Conference, September 2001.
6. Covan, John and Arlin Cooper. "Maintaining Surety for High Consequence Systems," Proceedings of the International System Safety Conference, September 2001.
7. Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality, 2nd edition, Harper and Row, 1970.
8. Cooper, J. A., A. J. Johnson and P. Werner. "Hybrid Safety Analysis Using Functional and Risk Decompositions," Proceedings of the 2000 International System Safety Conference, September 2000.
Glossary
Collectives: A group of individuals that work together to produce a collective behavior that is greater than the sum of its parts. This synergism is achieved by using multiple perspectives.
Democracy: A strategy for combining humans into a voter-driven, participant-managed system that is intended to contribute to the overall benefit of the collective.
Dialectic Synthesis: Synthesis that productively utilizes conflicting inputs. This form of synthesis is sometimes called "transcendence of dichotomies."
Entropy: A metric that relates to dispersion or disorder in thermodynamics and information theory.
Exergy: That portion of energy available to do work.
Fear: Emotions to a perceived threat that produce mental or physical pain, and can prevent logical response.
Humanity: The collection of humans now living on earth and expected to live on earth in the future.
Individuals: Humans who are the most basic constituents of the humanity system.
Interactive Games: Initiation of a "contest" with a well-defined objective through interchanges with another person or persons.
Interferences: The unintended effects of system constituents on each other, usually detrimental.
Interpersonal Communication: Information (verbal and non-verbal) interchanges intended to contribute to an objective.
Latent Effects: Past occurrences that may not have immediate effect, but can influence outcomes at later times.
Managed: Guided through strategies, rewards and resource management.
Order: The organization of entities such as information and energy, which can be measured by decreasing entropy.
Self-Actualization: The achievement of perceived competence (material, cognitive and subjective—"been there, done that"—abilities) and to satisfy basic needs (physiological, safety, love and esteem needs) in due time.
System: A collection of constituents or subsystems combined to achieve an overall function or mission.
Surety: The state of optimal and sustainable safety, security and reliability.
Sustainability: Continuous (foreseeable future, e.g., 200 years) availability of exergy and other consumptive resources, where the modes of use are matched to the developed sources.
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