1. High Reliability Organizations (HROs) and Leadership
Karlene H. Roberts
Haas School of Business
Center for Catastrophic Risk Management
University of California, Berkeley
(fax) 1

2. Agenda The unexpected happens
Defining a High Reliability Organization (HRO)
Importance of resiliency and adaptation
The leader’s role in a HRO
In reality almost all of us deal with interdependent departments or interdependent systems of organizations
Different system components
What kind of leadership works best for teams?

3. Agenda, cont. How does transformational leadership work?
Challenges in team leadership
Common responsibilities of team leaders
Four roles for team leaders
E-leadership
What makes E-leadership work?

4. You see, I am not very good material for a story.
When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful.
Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience, I have never been in any accident of any sort worth speaking about.
I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.
You see, I am not very good material for a story. 
Edward J. Smith, Captain, RMS Titanic
© 2005 Christie's Images

5. Swiss Cheese Model
Person
Organization
Person
Accident trajectory

6. What is a High Reliability Organization (HRO) ?
An organization
conducting relatively error free operations
over a long period of time
making consistently good decisions resulting in
high quality and reliability operations
What is a high reliability organization (or HRO)?

7. Resiliency
Adaptation

8. The Leader’s Role: Cultivating Resilience and Adaptation
Anticipate trouble spots.
Develop employee capability to improvise.
Improve organizational capacity and resources to:
Do quick studies
Develop swift trust
Engage in just-in-time learning

9. The Leader’s Role: Reluctance to Simplify Interpretations
All organizations must ignore many things.
Doing so may force them to ignore key sources of problems.
Help employees restrain temptations to simplify.
To do this establish checks and balances, adversarial reviews, and multiple perspectives.

10. The Leader’s Role: Preoccupation with Failure
Worry chronically and help employees worry chronically about errors.
Assume each day is a bad day and help employees assume each day is a bad day.
Realize that what you’re doing is difficult to do.
Help develop collective bonds among suspicious people.

11. The Leader’s Role: Sensitivity to Operations
Pay close attention to operations but don’t micromanage.
Make sure everyone values organizing to maintain situational awareness.
Use resources so people can see and comprehend what is happening.

12. The Leader’s Role: Organize Around Expertise
Let decisions “migrate” to those with expertise to make them.
Avoid rigid hierarchies.

13. Recap – The Leader’s Role
Cultivate resilience and adaptation by:
Helping people avoid simplifying interpretations
Helping people to be preoccupied with failure
Helping people to be sensitive to operations
Organizing around expertise

15. Components of a ‘System’
Interfaces
Operators
Procedures
Hardware
Structure
Organizations
Environments

16. Components of a ‘System’
Interfaces
Department 1
Department 3
Department 5
Department 2
Department N
Department 4

17. Components of a ‘System’
Interfaces
Org 1
Org 3
Org 5
Org 2
Org N
Org 4

18. Components of a ‘System’
Interfaces
Org 1
Regulation
Legality
Supplier
Org N
Org 2

19. What Kind of Leadership is Best?
Transactional?
Transformational?
Contracts exchange of reward for effort
Promises rewards
Recognizes accomplishments
Watches and searches for deviations from rules
Intervenes only if standards not met
Provides vision and sense of mission
Instills pride, gains respect and trust
Inspires motivation
Promotes intelligence and careful problem solving
Gives personal attention,coaches

20. How Does Transformational Leadership Work?
Be creative
Encourage employees to be creative
Be familiar with and agree with the organization’s strategic goals
Encourage followers to pursue ambitious goals
Believe organizational goals are personally important
Have vision

21. Providing Team Leadership: Challenges
Learn to share information
Learn to trust others
Learn to give up authority
Understand when to intervene

22. Common Responsibilities of Team Leaders
Coaching
Facilitating
Handling disciplinary problems
Reviewing team/individual performance
Training
Communication

23. Four Roles for Team Leaders

24. Liaisons with External Constituencies
Upper management, other internal teams, etc.
Represents the team to other teams
Secures resources
Clarifies others expectations
Gathers information from outside
Shares information with the team

25. Troubleshooter
When team has problems team leader sits in meetings and asks for assistance
Help team talk through problems

26. Conflict Manager What’s the source of conflict Who is involved?
What are the issues?
What resolution options are available?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

27. Coaches Clarify expectations and roles Teach Offer support Cheerlead
Do whatever is needed to help team improve performance

28. Today’s Leadership Often Means E-Leadership
This is very important in industries like the energy industry
We have obvious examples
Almost all leadership research examines face-to-face interactions

29. How to Make E-Leadership Work
Carefully choose words. In e-leadership harsh words can’t be softened by non verbal communication – a smile, a gesture, etc.
Structure appropriately – phrases are likely to be received as curt
Make sure message tone reflects the emotion you want to send
Choose a comfortable style – emoticons? abbreviations? etc.

30. Wrap up: What we Talked About
The unexpected happens
Defining a High Reliability Organization (HRO)
The leader’s role in a HRO
Interdependent departments or systems of organizations
Different system components
Transformational leadership
Responsibilities of team leaders
E-leadership