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"Managing the Unexpected"

This workshop will focus on a group of organizations that maintain reliable error-free performance even though they are thrown into demanding environments. These high reliability organizations don’t do anything different than what most organizations are capable of doing. But they have a different set of priorities. We will explore the idea that unexpected events can get you into trouble unless you create an infrastructure that is continually tracking small failures, capabilities for resilience, and shifting locations of expertise. Failure to move toward this infrastructure makes systems more vulnerable to large disruptions from unexpected events and impairs reliable performance. Moving toward a mindful infrastructure is harder than it looks since it means that people have to pay less attention to success, simplicities, strategy, planning, and superiors.

The purpose of this session is to take a closer look at the practices and principles that lead to effective work under trying conditions. We expose you to a language, a set of examples, and a framework that will help you identify capabilities that you can strengthen in your unit when you return home, broaden your options for dealing with situations that can surprise you, and develop a mindset that can help you catch the problem in a timely manner and take corrective action.

You will walk away with a set of ideas about how to create an organizational infrastructure that both can better anticipate and catch unexpected events before they grow into crises, and manage unexpected events after they become manifest.

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe’s research is devoted to understanding the fundamental mechanisms of organizational adaptation, reliability, and resilience. One stream of research focuses on how top executive team composition, cognition, and learning influence a firm’s adaptability and performance. A second stream of 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 members ability to successfully manage unexpected events.

Before studying for her doctoral degree, Dr. Sutcliffe lived and worked in a rural Alaskan community, worked for the State of Alaska, and was a senior executive for one of the thirteen regional Alaska Native Corporations. She is currently investigating high reliability and resilience practices in the wildland firefighting community and in a variety of healthcare organizations. Her research has appeared in numerous scholarly journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and Organization Science. Her most recent book is entitled Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty (co-authored with Karl E. Weick, Jossey-Bass, 2007). She was awarded the 2006 Ross School of Business Researcher of the Year.