As the group prepares for the workshops on Weick and HROing, we seek to understand the philosophy of Prof. Karl E. Weick and how his perspective on risk works. Most of what Weick espouses is in direct contradiction with the HOP myths of ‘learning from normal work’ and ‘blame fixes nothing’. Indeed, Weick’s ideas of ‘Organisational Sensemaking’ and ‘Collective Mindfulness’ are anchored into a ‘preoccupation with failure’. Weick states (Managing the Unexpected (2015) 3^rd Ed. P. 7)

The principle of a preoccupation with failure directs attention to ways in which your local activities can conceal or highlight such things as symptoms of system malfunction, small errors that could enlarge and spread, opportunities to speak up and be listened to, a gradual drift toward complacency, the need to pinpoint mistakes you don’t want to make, and respect for your own day-to-day experience with surprises.

Weick is not afraid of blame (individual or systemic) indeed, one of his essentials for managing the unexpected is learning from failure. This is because Weick understands that the myths of positivity create dangerous blind spots such are advocated by HOP.

When Weick refers to ‘Mindfulness’ there is no idea that this means ‘brain-fulness’. Indeed, any focus on the human brain in organising results in an ideology of rationalism. The best way to understand what Weick means by ‘Organisational Sensemaking’ and ‘Collective Mindfulness’ is to go back to the roots of his thinking in Social Psychology (1979).

One can only really attempt to manage the unexpected from a social foundation, this is why Mindfulness in Weick’s model is ‘collective’. Similarly, his idea of ‘sensemaking’ is not about rationalism, logic or ideas of ‘common sense’. His model of collective sensemaking is based on seven very clear activities, symbolised in the following semiotic used in SPoR: Figure 1. The Seven Properties of Collective Sensemaking ©

Figure 1. The Seven Properties of Collective Sensemaking

These seven ‘properties’ are characteristics of what comprises ‘senmsemaking’ and demonstrates how all seven properties form a lens for viewing the world.

The camera lens metaphor projects the idea that all seven properties act like a ‘shutter’ to capture an image of what is perceived. That is, your lens (worldview) determines how you see the world and what you ‘capture’.

If any one of the seven properties of the lens fail, then the shutter doesn’t work. They all inter-connected, inter-active, inter-affected and inter-dependent. In SPoR we know this as Inter-corporeality.

Sitting in the middle of the lens are the four essential SPoR semiotics of Workspace, Headspace, Groupspace and One Brain, Three Minds to represent our method of capture.

For example, if your lens on the world is Behaviourist, you will only see behaviourist things. If your lens is Deontological, you will only see the world through the lens of duty’.

If we use a SPoR lens, we see very different factors in the way people organise and make sense of their work.

Those who are studying in the Weick workshops will get the opportunity to unpack this metaphor and the seven properties espoused by Weick. Needless to say, all of this is far more sophisticated that throwing about a few slogans and calling them ‘revolutionary’.

For those participating in the free workshops, will see deeply into the brilliance of Weick’s work and what it can offer risk and safety in tackling risk. Indeed, the semiotic we use as shown above can become a method for tackling risk and investigating events in itself.

If you want to know more about how we use this method in SPoR you can write here: admin@spor.com.au