Extra credit blog 1

I read a paper titled Operational Failures and Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of Incident Reporting and the topic of this paper is intriguing and impressive. In our daily life, operational failures occur within organizations across all industries, with consequences ranging from minor inconveniences to major catastrophes. We cannot ignore small operational failures, because it may evolve into serious problems. When a problem arises in a company or an organization, managers need to ascertain the root of this problem first and adopt effective methods to solve the problem. By reading this paper, managers are able to learn some practical approaches to help them solve operational failures.

 

In this paper, the authors used data on “nearly 7500 reported incidents from a single hospital”, and had some findings. First, they found the frontline worker are associated more with financial and liability risks. Second finding is line managers can stimulate increased problem solving among frontline workers. Thirdly, communication can promote more problem solving. Finally, adjusting managers’ approach would stimulate workers’ participation in problem solving. These findings enable organizations to increase the contribution of incident reporting systems to operational performance improvement. The authors concluded that problem-solving in response to operational failures is influenced by both the risk posed by the incident, and the extent to which management demonstrates a commitment to problem-solving.

 

Operational failures associate not only workers, but also management approach, managers’ regular engagement, and communications among managers and workers. This paper taught managers how to encourage frontline workers to solve problems in response to operational failures. By explaining some of the variation in responsiveness to operational failures, frontline workers could feel serious consequences operational failures bring. In this way, workers are able to recognize their responsibilities. In addition, worker’s participation in problem solving is motivated by their inherent characteristics of problems as well as by particular management practices. Both managers and workers should involve into the operational failures and problem solving processes.

 

Reference:

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/10-017.pdf