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Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty Hardcover – August 31, 2007
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Karl E. Weick
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There is a newer edition of this item:
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Print length208 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherJossey-Bass
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Publication dateAugust 31, 2007
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Dimensions6.3 x 0.8 x 9.3 inches
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ISBN-100787996491
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ISBN-13978-0787996499
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Of course there is 'nothing new under the sun'—but Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe come as close as is humanly imaginable in this latest version of Managing the Unexpected. No issue is more timely (alas), and there may be no approach that is more original and thoughtful and useful and data-rich than what you'll find between the covers of this book.”—Tom Peters, author, In Search of Excellence
“For those managing or studying organizations like nuclear power plants and aircraft carrier flight decks, Weick and Sutcliffe's original edition was a godsend, providing a new language and conceptual structure for understanding why some of these organizations perform so much better than others—and helping those who manage in less extreme environments gain to boost their own performance. This latest edition includes valuable new examples and an expanded treatment of the critical concepts of anticipation and containment—and it is filled with useful advice about how to achieve high performance in any setting.”
—Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard, George F. Baker, Jr., Professor of Public Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
From the Inside Flap
Since the first edition of Managing the Unexpected was published in 2001, the unexpected has become a growing part of our everyday lives. The unexpected is often dramatic, as with hurricanes or terrorist attacks. But the unexpected can also come in more subtle forms, such as a small organizational lapse that leads to a major blunder, or an unexamined assumption that costs lives in a crisis. Why are some organizations better able than others to maintain function and structure in the face of unanticipated change?
Authors Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe answer this question by pointing to high reliability organizations (HROs), such as emergency rooms in hospitals, flight operations of aircraft carriers, and firefighting units, as models to follow. These organizations have developed ways of acting and styles of learning that enable them to manage the unexpected better than other organizations. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the groundbreaking book Managing the Unexpected uses HROs as a template for any institution that wants to better organize for high reliability.
The authors reveal how HROs create a collective state of mindfulness that produces an enhanced ability to discover and correct errors before they escalate into a crisis. A mindful infrastructure continually
- Tracks small failures
- Resists oversimplification
- Is sensitive to operations
- Maintains capabilities for resilience
- Takes advantage of shifting locations of expertise
Through a discussion of the principle of mindfulness and the practices that can be used to apply it, the authors show how to anticipate and respond to threats with flexibility rather than rigidity. Their practical, solutions-oriented approach includes numerous case studies demonstrating mindful practices and enables readers to assess and implement mindfulness in their own organizations.
Managing the Unexpected is a guide for learning the hard-won lessons of high reliability organizations that are able to manage unexpected threats and bounce back in a stronger position to tackle future challenges.
From the Back Cover
Praise for the Second Edition of Managing the Unexpected
"Here is the essential book for managers who want to anticipate and adapt to surprises. Weick and Sutcliffe present a set of challenging ideas in a way that is clear and compelling, and then turn these critical insights into practical guidelines that have broad application and relevance."
Gary Klein, Applied Research Associates and author, Sources of Power
"Of course there is 'nothing new under the sun'but Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe come as close as is humanly imaginable in this latest version of Managing the Unexpected. No issue is more timely (alas), and there may be no approach that is more original and thoughtful and useful and data-rich than what you'll find between the covers of this book."
Tom Peters, author, In Search of Excellence
"For those managing or studying organizations like nuclear power plants and aircraft carrier flight decks, Weick and Sutcliffe's original edition was a godsend, providing a new language and conceptual structure for understanding why some of these organizations perform so much better than othersand helping those who manage in less extreme environments boost their own performance. This latest edition includes valuable new examples and an expanded treatment of the critical concepts of anticipation and containmentand it is filled with useful advice about how to achieve high performance in any setting."
Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard, George F. Baker Jr. Professor of Public Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
About the Author
The Authors
Karl E. Weick is the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. His book The Social Psychology of Organizing was designated by Jim Collins in Inc. magazine as one of the nine best business books ever written.
Kathleen M. Sutcliffe is associate dean and the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
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Product details
- Publisher : Jossey-Bass; 2nd edition (August 31, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0787996491
- ISBN-13 : 978-0787996499
- Item Weight : 14.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.3 x 0.8 x 9.3 inches
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Best Sellers Rank:
#289,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,140 in Business Decision Making
- #1,206 in Decision-Making & Problem Solving
- #3,416 in Business Management (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I would draw attention of potential readers to two matters that are discussed and will benefit close reading and thought. The issue of the need of organizations to be "sensitive to operations", the need to be at the front line of operations where the action happens, and not back at headquarters observing and surmising from afar, is so important , for all organizations whether they be fire fighting units or schools, nuclear warships or pharmacies. The managers lose sight of daily and minute to minute operations at their peril. Coupled with this is the matter of the need to'defer to expertise". For any organization, the abilities to identify the expert for the problem, not merely a matter of finding the "most experienced", and to ensure that issues are referred to that person at that time in that place, are what optimize the evocation of the responses that enable the survival of the operation.
These issues seem so obvious when set out clearly, as they are in this book, but they cannot be so, given how poorly so many firms and organizations deal with change. The authors also draw out the means whereby the right kind of culture can be developed to ensure that the resilience and responsiveness of the organization can be strengthened and preserved.
I wondered if there was reason why allusion was not made to another popular issue in the social science/management literature, namely the notion of response to "tame versus wicked" problems (cf Grint, Leadership, Management and Command: Rethinking D-Day . That makes for an interesting combination of thoughts and analyses. The interested reader can also benefit from considering the matter of expertise in the resilient organization to the increasing attention being paid to the topic in many venues (e.g. Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success what defines expertise (cf Collins & Evans, Rethinking Expertise , how it can be recognized, trained and valued, are crucial to how any organization or society handles change and stress.
These latter matters are, however, not criticisms of the book under review. Quite the contrary; they are direct associations created by the challenge of the contents of the book and they add to the total experience.
A book to be savoured, re-read and re-enacted.
I'm interested in questions about new product development. Resilience is an important asset in product development work. Everything in the environment around you changes while you work, plus the designers are constantly learning and discovering things as well. As a project manager, you discover your plan is not working the way you expected. How do you deal with this pace of change?
The 2nd edition of the book reaches further past the safety conscious concerns of the first so it is easier for readers to see how the work applies to resilience and product assurance questions in other work.
I was pleased to see the changes and would strongly recommend the 2nd edition over the 1st.
A great book, easy to read and spot on accurate
John Gregory Vincent
CEO
The Genesis Group LLC
[...]
It is worth the read.
Top reviews from other countries
In the book Weick describes practices and attitudes necessary for organizational resilience, such as mindfulness, the practice of not simplifying too quickly and of interpreting weak signals correctly and pairing them with appropriate (i.e. not too weak) responses, so as to prevent escalation.
It makes for refreshing reading and many of the case examples are quite enlightening - i.e. they are easy to communicate to management and should be graphic and salient enough to ensure at least a preliminary buy in. The book is also an easy and engaging read and can be easily devoured on a transcontinental flight.
What Weick does not manage to do, however, is to show a complete roadmap of how to deal with the standard obstacles on the way - i.e. it is a description of practices and attitudes of an organization, which has already achieved a high reliability / resilience status but as often, the trick lies in building one up from scratch.
In essence, a manager wishing to modify their organization according to Weick's principles will have a blueprint of a final result and its benefits (again, Weick could in principle make it easier by showing more numeric examples of the real benefit of using the approach, in spite of the initially higher costs associated with it) but will still need to blaze the trail towards it somewhat unsupported.
This comment is not to detract from the rating of the book, however - in essence, if one is not ready to invest the time and effort in analysing how to go about the task, it is unlikely that an attitude of 'mindfulness' has any lasting chance of spreading in that organization.



