Creating high-reliability organizations in the Department of Defense

High-reliability organizations are an example of a topic that I believe has not received attention in military history. Sociologist Charles Perrow’s Normal Accidents was published in 1984. The book examined major systems failures and system damage that resulted from cascading “normal accidents”—small and random errors in organizations and processes designed to operate interdependently. Organizational processes that operate in a fixed and pre-determined sequence offer few opportunities to recover once an unexpected or unplanned sequence is initiated—errors cascade in time-dependent, interdependent, differentiated (low redundancy) systems and failures emerge elsewhere.

 

These studies emphasized that (1) reliable organizations feature redundant communications pathways, search processes, and means to review and oversee performance; (2) they operate in political and social environments intolerant of error; (3) the technologies individually and collectively are subject to potentially catastrophic error; and (4) the scale of possible consequences—such as nuclear war—precludes incremental learning through trial-and-error experimentation.

 

A review of “high reliability organizations” case studies identified properties that contribute to extraordinary performance in the use of complex technologies in difficult task environments,including: (1) demanding technical and interpersonal selection criteria for positions; (2) continual training and continuous improvement efforts; (3) the attitude of “mindfulness” of the importance and necessity of identifying potential errors before they occur; (4) development of latent networks of expertise that are activated at identification of an unanticipated event; and (5) alignment in organization structure of expertise and authority. Rear Admiral Dave Oliver describes the operation of these properties in his description of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover’s creation of the U.S. nuclear Navy.

That was the excellent Mark Mandeles, “Historiography of Technology Since 1950 with a Focus on the Navy.” You can find more from Mark on high reliability organizations in my two part podcast with him. (Part 1 and Part 2.)