The first newsletter from the community was just distributed. If you have any information that you would like distributed or are curious about the community, please email info@organizingextremecontexts.org. A copy of the newsletter is found below.
Here is the link: https://mailchi.mp/8a19a9f706f5/organizingextremecontexts?e=ce27d00106
Recently Knowledge Forum Region North was founded. The aim of the knowledge forum is to share and reflect upon experiences, knowledge, and science, to increase society´s capability to cope with extreme events. Today the Knowledge forum consists of TripleEd, the Police, the Security Police, the military, and the county administrative board of Västerbotten. As we go along other organizations and researchers will be added.
If you´d like to know more or are interested in joining, please contact Markus Hällgren.
There have been some developments that have not been written about… A major thing has been a workshop that TripleEd organized together with the Police, Security Police, the County administrative board of Västerbotten, and the defense forces – all representing the Northern Region of Sweden.
For half a day we discussed and reflected on our different experiences of extreme events, and how they differed and was similar across the organizations. The day was organized with panel presentations, reflective team seminars, and joint discussions. Based on the feedback from the participants it was appreciated, and we all hope that we will see more of these activities and collaborations across organizations.
The Academy of Management is the largest organization for management and organization scholars. The annual conference has about 12000 participants. During the last conference in Boston Markus, Linda and Mark´s article on Extreme contexts (published in Academy of Management Annals) received the Best paper Award!
(From the left: Daniel Van Knippenberg (editor), Mark De Rond (author), Linda Rouleau (author), Markus Hällgren (author) and Kimberly Elsbach (editor).
Markus had the opportunity of being a guest professor in Nice for a week. The purpose was to explore future opportunities, give a talk on research related to extreme contexts, and work on shared projects with professor Yvonne Giordano. The position will continue during 2019.
In April Markus was invited to give a talk at the naval base in Brest, France. Markus spoke of extreme contexts and the role of routines in battling boredom. Professor John Carrol at MIT spoke of how to achieve resilient organizations. Altogether
a very interesting workshop including very senior military and civilian staff.
Today we had the pleasure of listening to Professor Amy Fraher. It was a very big and diverse crowd with people from the Swedish Police, the police education, the department of pedagogy and Department of Business Administration, having the opportunity to learn more about how US Navy SEALs achieve reliability seeking mentality through “Mindfulness in Action”. One of the major takeaways of the paper is the finding that “The SEALs” are not “preoccupied with failure” but rather a “positive orientation towards failure”. As a comment to the paper the editor, Peter Bamberger “…beyond exposing new avenues for theorizing on mindfulness and high-reliability organizations, this paper serves as an important landmark in management research, being the first video ethnography to be published in the Academy of Management’s portfolio of journals.” The presentation can be downloaded here; the link to the paper can be found here.
TripleEd has the great pleasure and privilege of having two guests next week; Professor Amy Fraher from Southampton University, UK and Doctor Mika Mård at Åbo Akademi, Finland. We are really looking forward to the conversations! Please find their bios below.
Amy will give a presentation, more info here
Amy Fraher bio
Amy Fraher is Professor and Head of Department in Organisational Behavior (OB) and Human Resource Management (HRM) in the Southampton Business School in the UK and lectures at the University of California Davis in the USA. A retired U.S. Navy Commander and Naval Aviator, and former United Airlines pilot, Professor Fraher has over 6,000 mishap-free flight hours in four jet airliners, five military aircraft, and several types of civilian airplanes. A crisis management expert with over thirty years of leadership experience in high-risk fields, she has published widely including the multiple-award winning The Next Crash: How Short-Term Profit Seeking Trumps Airline Safety(2014, Cornell University Press), forthcoming Leading Contemporary Organizations: New Perspectives on Crisis and Change(Cambridge University Press) and best-selling ‘Thinking Through Crisis’: Improving Teamwork and Leadership in High Risk Fields(2011, Cambridge University Press). In addition, Fraher’s papers appear in top academic journals such as Academy of Management Discoveries, Human Relations,Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Leadership, Economic and Industrial Democracy, andNew Technology, Work and Employment, and she has been quoted in media outlets such asThe Conversation, Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times.
Mika Mård bio
Mika Mård is a university teacher and postdoctoral researcher in Organization and Management at Åbo Akademi University, at the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences. His main research interests include affect theory, emotions in organizations, identity work, and subcultures. In 2018 he defended his PhD thesis where he did an affect-based study on the material economy of boardsports (snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing) in Finland, and is now currently conducting research on experiences of childlessness at work.
Welcome both of you!!!
It is the absolute pleasure of TripleEd to welcome Professor Amy Fraher from Southampton University to us! As part of the visit Professor Fraher will, among other things, give a presentation on “Mindfulness in Action”. The presentation is based on a recently published article in Academy of Management Discoveries. The paper not only use interviews with Navy seals – which is interesting in and by itself, but also publically available videos as sources of data. The interesting methodology notwithstanding, the focus of the presentation is the findings for how to build resilient teams. Please find the abstract below.
WHERE: Samvetet (S507)
WHEN: 4th of April
TIME: 10.15-11.30
If you are interested in attending please let Markus (markus.hallgren (at) umu.se ) know since we might need a larger room.
You find the article here (or email Markus – see above)
ABSTRACT
This study of US Navy Sea Air and Land (SEAL) commandos contributes to research investigating mindfulness in high-reliability organizations (HROs) by identifying the individual and collective influences that allow SEALs to build capacity for mindful behaviors despite the complexity of their missions, the unpredictability of their operating environments, and the danger inherent in their work. Although the HRO literature identifies a number of hallmarks of reliability, less attention is paid to how mindfulness is operationally achieved in situ by individuals on the frontline working in HROs. This study addresses this gap using a multiphase, multimethod investigation of US Navy SEALs, identifying new links between individual mindfulness attributes (comfort with uncertainty and chaos) and collective mindfulness influences (a positive orientation towards failure) that combine to co-create a phenomenon we call “mindfulness in action.” Mindfulness in action occurs when HROs achieve an attentive yet flexible focus capable of incorporating multiple—sometimes competing—realities to assess alternative solutions and take action in dynamic situations. By providing a more nuanced conceptualization of the links between individual mindfulness attributes and collective mindfulness influences, this paper opens up new avenues of discovery for a wide range of reliability-seeking organizations. For supporting media please see https://vimeo.com/153223681.
Yesterday we had the great pleasure to listen to associate professor Andrea Mannberg and her presentation on social aspirations and risk taking in off-pist skiing. Andrea is an economist that have worked on different variations of risk behaviors. With a quantitive approach she provided a very refreshing perspective on the actions of people involved in what can easily become an extreme context.