High Reliability Organization Sociocultural Norms

Let's explore the Socio-cultural Norms of high reliability organizations.

In the previous video we talked about

the Socio- cultural Norms of respectful interactions and heedful interrelations.

There are also, a set of

cultural norms that are embedded in these organizations kind of subcultures;

one around reporting, just culture,

flexible culture and learning culture.

The reporting culture is about what gets

reported when errors or near misses occur and how the organization responds.

This quote is significant,

"Facts don't cease to exist because we ignore them."

And that is true in these high reliability organizations.

They don't ignore when they get small signals that something may be wrong.

The just culture.

The just culture is about how people are blamed or not blamed when things go wrong.

Dr. Lucian Leape tells us,

"the single greatest impediment to error prevention

in the medical industry is that we punish people for making mistakes."

A flexible culture, is how ready is the organization to

adapt when there is sudden and radical changes in

the pace and the pressure and the intensity of the work.

This Charles Darwin, quote "It is not the strongest of species that survives,

It's not the most intelligent that survives.

Rather it's the one that is most adaptable to change",

and that's what this subculture is about.

It's about how how flexible is the organization to adapt.

And the learning culture,

how adequately can we convert the lessons that are learned

into reconfigured assumptions, frameworks and actions.

Weick and Sutcliffe tell us,

"If timely and candid information

generated by knowledgeable people is available and disseminated,

an informed culture can become a learning culture.".

Why is learning from failure so difficult? Why is it hard?

These High Reliability Organizations recognize that and

they understand that learning moments are very short-lived,

and that it's very difficult to spot failing in the moment,

much easier to spot it, after the fact.

They know that, the earlier that you catch a problem,

the more options you have to resolve it.

But the earlier you catch them,

the harder it is to spot.

And that the learning cycle isn't stagnant,

rather it's a continuous cycle of learning and the organization is constantly learning.

High Reliability Organization Sociocultural Norms