Mindfulness in an Organization
... survey score, demonstrating that it is most committed to analyzing details outside of current expectations and refusing simplifications. The lowest average score was among the group with High School diplomas and Associate’s degrees suggesting that employees within Company X that have obtained higher levels of education are less likely to make assumptions, or overlook potential problem areas. Employees who have been with the company 5 years or more have a higher average score than those who have been with the company less than 5 years. This suggests that commitment to reluctance to simplification grows with working experience within the company. Even though there were differences between groups within Company X, the average of each group fell between the range of 4.1 and 4.8, revealing that Company X is moderately mindful in the area of reluctance to simplify, but can use some improvement. To improve their degree of mindfulness, the organization should establish a more mindful culture which encourages and expects divergence of ideas between organizational groups, and influences all employees to provide input on issues they have knowledge about. Each employee should feel that their ideas and concerns matter and it is acceptable for their views to be in disagreement with the views of others within the company. “Skeptics, curmudgeons, iconoclasts are all welcome in the mindful system, though their presence is a little painful”. If Company X simplifies less and sees more, they will be better equipped to manage the unexpected. Sensitivity to Operations A portion of the survey assesses the firm’s Sensitivity to Operations, that is, does the firm have a corporate culture that empowers operations personnel? Sensitivity to Operations allows organizations to spot and to deal with problems while they are manageable and before they become major disruptions. In a firm that incorporates sensitivity to operations, operations personnel maintain an overall awareness of the functionality of the system at all times and react quickly to potential problems before they reach unmanageable status. The interpretation of the data reveals that employees are essentially neutral about sensitivity to operations within Company X. The 240 responses received had a mode of 3, a mean of 3.933 and a median of 4, as illustrated in Figure 1 of Appendix B. The mode of the data sample may indicate a minute bias towards more sensitivity to operations. The possible bias towards more sensitivity is inferred from the fact that 101 of the 240 response points were less than the neutral value of 4. In contrast there were only 83 responses numerically greater than 4. A mean value of 3.93 supports this conclusion. The participant’s numerical responses for each questions were averaged and the difference from the neutral response calculated. This calculated difference was plotted as either a positive or negative value in Figure 2 of Appendix B. The last two data points are the average values of all individuals’ responses. A negative deviation from the neutral response, that is, the average is less than 4, indicated that the respondent agreed with the survey statement and is therefore more sensitive towards operations. A positive deviation indicated that the respondent disagreed with the survey statement and is therefore less sensitive towards operations. This plot supported the conclusion that the respondents are essentially neutral about sensitivity to operations. Of the thirty respondents, 16 had negative deviations, or are more sensitive to operations. There were 14 respondents who had a positive deviation, or are less sensitive to operations. The average value of the response of more sensitive individuals was a -.78, while the average value of the response of the less sensitive individuals was a +.75; the two values essentially mirroring one another. Various indicators seem to confirm that the firm’s sensitivity to operations is essentially neutral. The variation in responses is virtually symmetrical around a neutral value. The maximum deviations demonstrate this symmetry; the largest positive variation was +1.8. The largest negative value was a -1.8 deviation. The neutrality of the firm’s personnel suggests that training which would increase the sensitivity towards operation would be productive, insofar as neither pre-existing negative bias nor pre-existing resistance to the concept of sensitivity to operations exists within the organization. Conclusions In the area of anticipating and becoming aware of the unexpected, the survey results indicate that overall, Company X is currently neither totally efficient, nor totally inefficient. Some qualities of preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify and sensitivity to operations, are incorporated into Company X, but not enough to make the company a mindful organization. Company X’s degree of mindfulness can be increased through, encouraging reporting and thorough analysis, changing the culture so that all employees feel that their input is valuable, and training. Containing the Unexpected A mindful organization can contain the unexpected if it integrates a strong commitment to resilience and deference to expertise. In the following paragraphs, we discuss these two dimensions of mindfulness, and assess how well Company X includes these qualities in its operations. We conclude this section with an overall assessment of Company X’s current ability to contain the unexpected if it does occur. Commitment to resilience The ability of an organization to bounce back from errors and cope with surprises coincides with the organization’s level of commitment to resilience. How well does the company use its’ expertise, and improvisation skills? This portion of our survey provided some interesting insight into Company X. Our overall survey results indicate that Company X has a culture that leans toward commitment to resilience, and can be classified as moderately committed to resilience. The lowest average scores for commitment to resilience were among the group with education levels of Bachelor’s degree and above and Managers. Their average scores were 3.6 and 3.7 respectively. The highest average score, 4.8, came from the group with education levels of High School or Associate’s degree. Since all surveyed managers within the company also fall within the group with an education level of Bachelor’s degree and above, it concludes that managers within the company show the least commitment to resilience. This result has a lot of implications. This could mean that if the unexpected does occur, management would be totally caught off guard and it could take the company a long time to recover. It could also mean that when an unexpected event does occur, operations personnel handle the situation so adeptly that management doesn’t have to get deeply involved. The question that had the lowest average score of 2.9 dealt with the company continually devoting resources to training and retraining people on the properties of the technical system. In contrast the question that had the highest average score of 5.5 asked if people are able to rely on others. This difference indicates that Company X doesn’t provide employees with adequate training, however employees are resourceful and cooperative enough to combine their expertise in a manner that bridges the gap caused by inadequate training. Company X does encompass some aspects of being committed to resilience, but needs to improve in this area in order to become a more mindful organization. Management needs to receive more training in their jobs and in analyzing problems so that lessons learned can be incorporated into the organization as a whole. Employees need to be continuously trained on the system, so that interdependence between organizations within the company runs as smoothly as possible without becoming a burden. Deference to Expertise The ability of the organization’s flexible decision process is gauged by the deference to expertise. Do employees with the most expertise on a subject have authority to make decisions regardless of their position within the company? The results of our survey indicate a tendency toward deference to expertise in Company X. Question 6, asking if the most highly qualified people make the decisions, had the lowest average of 3.9. Disagreement was measured by standard deviation, with the highest standard deviation of 1.6. The largest discrepancy on this question was between the education subgroups. Assuming the responses reflect the company profile, the organization consists mainly of highly educated employees with 84% of their respondents possessing a college or graduate degree. This group had an average of 3.8 on this question and a standard deviation of 1.8. Alternatively, the remaining 16% of the respondents had a high school or associates degree. They had an average of 4.4 and a standard deviation of 1.5. This large discrepancy and disagreement in the education subgroups indicates that employees with a high school or Associate’s degree in the company feel comfortable that decisions are made by the most qualified people, which would generally be their more educated managers. Not so surprisingly, employees with higher education do not share the same view and might think that during times of crisis, decisions are delegated according to rank and not qualifications. As an employee has more education, he or she might feel that they are more qualified to make a better decision but prevented from this either because of rank or experience. The highest average on the deference to expertise process was shown on the first question. This question asks if people are committed to doing their job well and had an average of 5.5 with less disagreement as evidenced by a standard deviation of 1. Among the subgroups, there was not much discrepancy on this answer with values ranging from an average of 5.4 with a corresponding deviation of 0.5 to an average of 5.6 and corresponding deviation of 1.0. The results of this question verify the overall commitment of employees to their jobs within mindful organizations. Throughout the questions in this category, there was not much disagreement between the subgroups. The most consistent disagreement was shown in the gender subgroup. Again, if the responses reflect the profile of the company, 66% of the respondents are male and reflect a company with male majority of employees. The males in the company consistently had higher averages on every question compared to the females with an average of 4.9 versus 4.4. The males had more disagreement though, with a standard deviation of 1.2 versus 0.5 for the females. The difference in averages is not very significant and doesn’t suggest that the organization is mindless in either group. However, the low disagreement among females might suggest that the organization has a cohesive group that might help the company in their future endeavors to increase mindfulness. This portion of the survey had the highest average of all the dimensions of mindfulness. The average was 4.7 and was consistently the highest average in 9 of 11 subgroups as indicated in the summary in Appendix C. In the three groups that scored the lower averages, the difference was only one tenth of a point, which is negligible. Overall averages ranged from 3.9 to 5.5 as shown in Appendix D, indicating that Company X is moderately mindful in the area of deference to expertise. The degree of mindfulness in this area can become greater if the organization commits to making employees fully aware of which personnel possesses what expertise, and restructuring of the decision making process is accomplished so that more authority is given according to levels of expertise. Conclusions Overall, Company X is currently moderately mindful in its’ ability to contain unexpected events when they do occur. The weaknesses they do have in this area could cause major problems for them. The company would probably experience extreme difficulty trying to recover from an unexpected event in which management would need to resolve. This is evident by their level of commitment to resilience. While Company X possesses some good characteristics in the area of deference to expertise, it still needs to improve on its’ flexibility in decision-making. This would allow Company X to become a more mindful organization and to be in a better position to cope with unexpected issues when they occur. Summary Overall Company X is a moderately mindful organization. It is moderately mindful in the areas of reluctance to simplify, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise. Company X is neutral in the areas of preoccupation with failure and sensitivity to operations. The survey results indicate that Company X is in better position to contain the unexpected when it does occur, than it is to anticipate and become aware of the unexpected before it occurs. By training employees and restructuring the company culture, Company X can become a fully mindful organization. REFERENCES Weicke, Karl E. & Sutcliffe, Kathleen M. (2001). Managing the Unexpected. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bas...