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Feb 26, 2009:
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Karl E. Weick, PhD

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, PhD 

Managing the Unexpected through Mindfulness


Karl E. Weick, PhD Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, PhDWeick and Sutcliffe studied diverse organizations that must maintain structure and function in uncertainty where the potential for error and disaster can lead to catastrophe.  They found that not only do HROs have a unique structure but that HROs think and act differently from other organizations.  HROs use mindful organizing for the unexpected as well as the expected.

Expectations, as in repetition, can develop into blind spots where unexpected events can develop and become unmanageable.  Mindful organizing helps the organization maintain resilience during such events through anticipation and containment.

Anticipation is more than sensing early events as it also includes the efforts to stop the development of undesirable events.  Because we cannot anticipate all events we have containment practices for those unanticipated or unexpected events that occur. Containment directs activities toward events after an unexpected event has occurred while anticipation directs activities toward events before the unexpected event can occur.

Anticipation has three elements:

1.         Preoccupation with failure: To avoid failure we must look for it and be sensitive to early signs of failure.

2.         Reluctance to simplify: Labels and clichés can stop one from looking further into the events.

3.         Sensitivity to operations:  Systems are not static and linear but rather dynamic and nonlinear in nature.  As a result it becomes difficult to know how one area of the organization’s operations will act compared to another part. 


Containment has two elements:

4.         Commitment to resilience:  The organization must maintain function during high demand events.  Resilience has three components:


i. Absorb strain and preserve function despite adversity

ii. Maintain the ability to return to service from untoward events

iii. Learn and grow from previous episodes. 



5.         Deference to expertise:  This includes deference downward to lower ranking members of the organization.  Expertise defers from the expert from its relational knowledge with greater emphasis on an assembly of knowledge, experience, learning, and intuition.  Credibility, a necessary component of expertise, is the mutual recognition of skill levels and legitimacy.

 

The 5 principles of High Reliability Organizing that have been identified as responsible for the "mindfulness" that keeps them working well when facing unexpected situations.

 

Weick, Karl and Sutcliffe, Kathleen Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty. (revised edition) Wiley and Sons, 2007.

Karl E. Weick is the Renis Likert Collegiate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan Business School. Dr. Weick's research interests include collective sensemaking under pressure, medical errors, handoffs in extreme events, high-reliability performance, improvisation and continuous change.

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe is a Professor of Management Organizations at the University of Michigan Business School. Dr. Sutcliffe's research is devoted to understanding the fundamental mechanisms of organizational adaptation, reliability, and resilience. Her work focuses on processes associated with team and organizational resilience, high-reliability organizing, and investigation of the social and organizational underpinnings of medical mishaps, with the explicit goal of understanding how an organization's design contributes to its member's ability to successfully manage unexpected events.