Most of us see the organizations we operate in--our schools or companies, for instance--as monolithic and predictable, subjecting us to deadening routines and demanding from us dehumanizing conformity. But companies are more unpredictable and more alive than we imagine, according to Karl Weick, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan and an expert on organizational behavior. Weick says executives can learn a lot about managing the unexpected from organizations that can't afford any surprises in the workplace--nuclear power plants, firefighting units, or hospital emergency rooms, for instance. In this edited conversation with HBR Senior Editor Diane Coutu, Weick examines the characteristics of these high-reliability organizations (HROs) and suggests ways that other organizations can implement their work practices and philosophies. The key difference between HROs and other companies is the mindfulness with which people in most HROs react to even very weak signs that some kind of change or danger is approaching. Weick contrasts this kind of watchful updating at HROs with Ford's inability to pick up on weak signs in the 1970s that there were potentially lethal problems with the design of the Pinto gas tank.

High performance is often attributed to an organization's culture. However, culture can just as easily undermine performance when it blinds decision makers to important performance issues and entraps them in unfortunate courses of action from which they cannot disengage. The dynamics of cultural entrapment are explored in the case of the Bristol Royal Infirmary, in which pediatric cardiac surgeries continued for over a 14-year period despite evidence of poor-quality care and performance that was far below that of other comparable pediatric surgical centers. A single organizational process of behavioral commitment explains how the cultural mindset originated and why it persisted. The sequence of small, public, volitional, and irrevocable action; socially acceptable justification for that action; and the potential for subsequent activities to validate or threaten the justification created a causal loop that stabilized subsequent action patterns.

Increasingly, work in today's corporations unfolds in small, temporary groups where the stakes are high, turnover is chronic, foul-ups can spread, and the unexpected is common. Karl E. Weick finds lessons for senior managers watching over such groups in an unusual source: Norman Maclean's 1992 book, Young Men and Fire, which reconstructs the circumstances of a deadly fire in Montana's Mann Gulch that claimed the lives of 13 young men. The author believes that corporate leaders can learn from this example by developing groups capable of improvisation, wise behavior, respectful interaction, and communication.