Humans work best when we work together.
Fifteen years ago, on May 22, 2011, an EF5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri. It remains among the deadliest and costliest tornadoes in the nation’s history: 158 fatalities, more than 1,100 injured, over 4,000 homes destroyed.
Utter devastation. From that day, Joplin rose again. That story is told in Joplin Pays It Forward, a compendium of lessons shared with other communities, and I recently had the chance to share some of what I’ve observed with communities at the Building Resilience conference hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
Joplin’s resilience was as much systemic as it was dependent on individual heroism. Before the tornado, a diverse group of people across the city had already begun working together to reduce the high school dropout rate, essential to the city’s youth and its economic future. That effort brought together divergent voices, challenged assumptions, and found ways for everyone to contribute. After the tornado, those same relationships and mechanisms were leveraged to help the city recover.
A few lessons for leaders, organizers, and facilitators:
- Resilience is a group phenomenon. Humans are a social species. Working together and helping each other is how we stay resilient.
- People are motivated to solve problems they see and feel. Much of disaster preparedness is abstract, so find the challenge people already care about and start there.
- Recruit unlikely allies. Innovation often comes from novel combinations of existing capability. Build an expansive “in” group.
- Let the community help build the plan, don’t stuff them into it. Empowering people surfaces blind spots and makes everyone smarter.
- Commit to action. Too many convenings end with a plan and stop there. Keep going. Tangible results are motivating and attract others.
This anniversary was a day for fond remembrance and, for many, tears. The people of Joplin, past and present, deserve a solemn commemoration of a day they wish they’d never seen. Each day forward is a day for the rest of us to honor them by carrying those lessons forward. Some are painful. They’re also useful. Let none of them be wasted.
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