Organisational resilience with mindfulness

Abstract

An increasing demand for resilience within sociotechnical organisations has led to several managerial concepts preparing organisations for unexpected events. Thorough management is crucial in resilient organisations (check ref, Geraldi et al, 2009) and mindfulness encompass the risk of the human mind. Mindful project managers are aware of cognitive biases and irrationalities. They inspire workers to be rational and fact-based.

Mindfulness is about keeping a high level of alertness and awareness of context and using awareness in our decision and actions (Oehmen et al, 2015). This article will address how mindfulness is used as an managerial instrument to obtain resilience in an organisation. The article will define the mindfulness theory with description of the 5 principles. Furthermore complex organisations and unexpected events related to unknown/unknowns is defined. There will be a focus on “commitment to resilience” and “deference to expertise” which focusing on reacting to unexpected events hence improving the resilience in the organisation.

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Big idea

Mindfulness involves the ability to detect important aspects of the context and take timely, appropriate action. Nevertheless, usually with individuals in organisations, what is being perceived does not correspond to the actual action/message. There are cognitive biases and the mindful project manager is aware of that. Weick and Sutcliffe(2001) describe mindfulness as “a rich awareness of discrimatory detail. By that we mean that when people act, they are aware of context, of ways in which details differ (in other words, they discriminate among details), and of deviations from their expectations.” Oehmen et al (2015) outlines “mindfulness is about keeping a high level of alertness and awareness of context and using awareness in our decision and actions”. Mindful project managers are aware of cognitive biases and irrationalities. They inspire workers to be rational and fact-based.

5 principles

Weick and Sutcliffe have developed five principles in mindfulness.

Principle	Description	Example
Reluctance to simplicity	Simplify mindfully and reluctantly. Have in mind that simplification can become too simple resulting in useless, unprecise simplifications e.g. explanations and categories. Problems faced in complex projects typically offer several options.	Insert
Preoccupation with failure	A preoccupation with failure focuses the organization to convert small errors and failures into organizational learnings and improvements. “Pay close attention to weak signals of failure that may be symptoms of larger problems within the system” (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) Read also “Early warning signals in project management”	The airline industry encourage their personnel to report all failures and near misses and a big effort is expended in reviewing all reports.
Sensitivity to operations	Someone in an organization must have an integrated overall picture of operation. Furthermore, it is important to be responsive to the changing reality of projects. This can be obtained first by controlling the progress, monitor deviations and implication on projects, and second being mindful to potential unexpected events.	Studies of nuclear weapons suggest that many problems arise not from a single failure, but when small deviations in different operational areas combine to create conditions that were never imagined in the plans and designs (Sagan, 1993)
Commitment to resilience	Accommodate unexpected events and react to them quickly as they arise. Resilience involves (a) the ability to absorb strain and preserve the functioning of the project; (b) ability to recover quickly; (c) ability to learn from the unexpected event and how it impacted the project. (Oehmen et al, 2015)	Insert
Deference to expertise (Collective mindfulness)	Deference to expertise is about involving experts in the decision-making. The experts are actively involved in the projects and therefore more capable to give articulate solutions to problems. Collective mindfulness is associated with cultures and structures that promote open discussions of errors, mistakes and awareness.	Insert (eventually Carlsberg case)

Application

An increasing demand for resilience within sociotechnical organisations has led to several managerial concepts preparing organisations and their project, program and portfolio managers for unexpected events. The awareness of resilience and antifragility [insert link to Lasse] is crucial for High Reliability Organisations (HRO), like aircraft carriers and nuclear plants where unexpected events can have critical consequences.

Project, Program and Portfolio managers are familiar with many project management tools and they are able to define project time, costs, risks, stakeholders etc. by PMI standards. However, when projects become more complex e.g. in order of technical and organisational complexity, social intricacy of human behaviour or uncertainty of long lifecycles, standard tools becomes inadequate. We tend to think of ourselves as rational beings, but in fact subconscious processes often drive human behaviour [EXAMPLE]. Not being aware of these subconscious thought processes can adversely affect projects. Mindful project managers know that they do not know everything. They know that their thoughts and impressions are affected by cognitive biases. Thus, they must be aware of their irrationalities to act in a mindful manner and become rational and fact-based. Mindfulness is instrumental in managing the intersection between human behaviour and uncertainties thus generating more projects, programs and portfolios that are more reliable. [ADD MORE INTRODUCTORY CONTENT]

Studies of human systems reveal two strategies for achieving reliable performance (Butler & Gray, 2006):

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* Routine-based reliability * Mindfulness-based reliability

Organizationally, routine-based reliability involves the creation and execution of standard operating and decision-making procedures, which may be unique to the organization or widely accepted across an industry (Spender, 1989). The routine-based reliability strategy rely on predefined procedures, routines and training designed to decrease cognitive human problem solving, to reduce errors, unwanted variation and waste. Defining procedures etc. is a frontloaded process where unknown/unknowns[link] may oppose a major risk because unexpected events cannot be implemented into the procedures. While routine-based approaches focus on reducing or eliminating situated human cognition as the cause of errors, mindfulness-based approaches focus on promoting highly situated human cognition as the solution to individual and organisational reliability problems (Weick and Sutcliffe, 2001). Weick and Sutcliffe argue that human cognition in the mindfulness theory is the solution to reliability problems, but what does it take to become a successful, mindful project manager and how do we deal with our thinking biases?

Limitations

To be written

Cognitive limitations

Youtube clip with charlie Chaplin in the Great Dictator: [1]

Annotated bibliography

NOTE: Citations and bibliography still has to be converted to WIKI-standards

Butler, B. S., & Gray, P. H. 2006. Reliability, mindfulness, and information systems. Mis Quarterly, 30(2), pp.211–224. March, J. G. and Simon, H. A. 1985. Organizations. New York: Wiley. Oehmen, J. et al. 2015. Complexity Management for Projects, Programmes, and Portfolios: An Engineering Systems Perspective. Copenhagen: PMI Sagan S.D. 1993. The limits of safety: Organizations Accidents and Nuclear Weapons. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University. Spender, J. C. 1989. Industry recipes: An Enquiry into the Nature and Sources of Managerial Judgement. Oxorfd, UK: Basil Blackwell. Weick, K. and Sutcliffe, K. 2001. Managing the unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Keywords: Complex organisations Unexpected events/ (unknown/unknowns) Resilience