7 A rich awareness of discriminatory detail: Mindfulness and Small Things, Small Wins

To help you with these we now discuss mindfulness and small things. The idea of small things leads us to small wins.

5Karl Weick, a US psychologist, academic and consultant, has dedicated his life, along with his colleagues, to researching disasters and finding ways to help organisations like yours to avoid them, or at least mitigate the degree of damage caused.  He is a great advocate of awareness that leads to mindfulness.

This is Weick’s definition of mindfulness: “a rich awareness of discriminatory detail”.6

He writes that when people act they must be aware of context, differences among details, and things that are different from their expectations. He also builds a very strong visual image by saying that “mindful people have the ‘big picture’, but it is a big picture in the moment”.

You may have read about the nature of High Reliability Organisations, HROs. You work in an HRO. An HRO is an organisation that is built for and requires high levels of performance in settings where the potential for error and disaster can be extreme, and where lives are at stake. These organisations must function reliably and ‘on demand’. They often experience unexpected problems and the expectation of these organisations is high.[1]

When you read about HROs you would realise that you are working in one.

You would also be aware that for you in an HRO, your business is being able to identify noise, signals and the improbable.

The scene is set for you to spend some time learning about small things and small wins.

HROs treat any lapse in behaviour as a symptom of something being wrong with the system. They worry about a series of small things that might combine and have severe consequences. They encourage the reporting of small errors and they think about ‘near misses’. They worry about complacency.

We say that HROS are on the lookout for weak signals, of things that could escalate. Weak signals are those little things that catch our attention and make us feel that something might be going wrong, or might be causing some concern, but aren’t major at the time. It can be something tangible like a rattle, or something that is slightly out of place.

It can also be something that is a hint or clue. A preoccupation with failure isn’t saying that we should live in constant fear of the worst. It is saying that we need to mindful of those signals and make decisions about what to do.

Bus drivers are experts at picking up weak signals. They sense the road, they feel the overall mood of the passengers, they notice little things.7 They know an awful lot about their routes and their towns and cities. They are aware when things are not quite ‘right’. They also know that their actions and reactions need to be commensurate with the situation and they need to get their jobs done.

Small wins

 There is a philosophy in HROs that small wins can help teams build an awareness of the possibility of failure!

First, what is a ‘small win’? These are ‘small, cumulative, changes that build [team capability] to better manage the unexpected.[1]  Small wins are specific, complete and implemented outcomes that have moderate importance to a project outcome. They allow for change without being confrontational or challenging. They let teams test and experiment and they promote learning.

These are different to the idea of breaking a big project into smaller chunks. They are steps that help move the team in a new direction, or away from something that is not useful.

Small wins can be really important in situations where there is high risk and a danger of failure. And they work in situations where success leads to better outcomes.

A ‘small wins’ focus in such situations works like this. Individuals and teams look for ways to avoid failure, and they look for ways to find success. They look for things that need to go right, and they look for things that could go wrong but need to go right. They also look for things that have gone wrong and things that have gone right.

So this is a dual process that identifies small failures and small successes. The idea is that by identifying small failures, the team can work on correcting, early. At the same time, by identifying small successes the team can work on enabling and building, early.

 Small wins are about avoiding failure and finding success. The ‘small wins’ approach is a useful way especially in HROS to think about the steps and actions that could go wrong and require specific focus.

Activity

Small things and small wins thinking are fundamentally important to sound reasoning and critical thinking as they help to keep you aware of what is happening and what that might mean.

Make a habit of noticing what might be a small win in your environment.

Action: Create a Daily Check List (DCL) to track when you notice small things and when you have small wins! Share with a colleague and perhaps your team.

We would like you to try this for five consecutive days.

Make it visible and easy to access.

This is an achievement progress record. This is NOT a ‘to do’ list.

This is progress towards bigger goals and success.

If you have others involved, make sure they add to the Daily Check List and encourage each other to notice your peers’ small wins.

Action: Debrief and add to your Reflective Journal.

Here are some tips on how to debrief and reflect on this exercise.

Look for patterns. What did you notice overall?

How did you motivate yourself and encourage others?

How did you support each other?

How did you help each other?

Did you celebrate your small wins! And did you notice how these small wins turned into progress!

Action: 

Create a Daily Check List (DCL) to track when you notice small things and when you have small wins! Share with a colleague and perhaps your team.

We would like you to try this for five consecutive days.

Make it visible and easy to access.

This is an achievement progress record. This is NOT a ‘to do’ list.

This is progress towards bigger goals and success.

If you have others involved, make sure they add to the Daily Check List and encourage each other to notice your peers’ small wins.

Action: Debrief and add to your Reflective Journal.

Here are some tips on how to debrief and reflect on this exercise.

Look for patterns. What did you notice overall?

How did you motivate yourself and encourage others?

How did you support each other?

How did you help each other?

Did you celebrate your small wins! And did you notice how these small wins turned into progress!

Here is another thing for you to think about: Some teams set a target of ‘small wins’ progress goals. Some teams like to compete! Any and all of these processes and tips make a difference. Some teams have small tokens that they leave, secret buddy style, for ‘small wins champions’.

Now that you have finished this DCL exercise, think about how you might use it as an ongoing tool, if you don’t have something like this already.

[1] Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2011). Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty. Wiley. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=GU55MJOp1OcC

[1] Weick, K. E. (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing. McGraw-Hill. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0LO9QgAACAAJ

Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Penguin.