Making Sense of Ambiguity through Dialogue and Collaborative Action

ABSTRACT

This paper outlines the importance of ambiguity in organizations that manage hazardous operations in a rapidly changing environment. Three kinds of ambiguity are described: fundamental ambiguity in categories and labels for understanding what is happening; causal ambiguity for understanding cause–effect relationships that enable explanation, prediction, and intervention; and role ambiguity of agreeing on responsibilities. Examples of successful and unsuccessful ways that organizations deal with ambiguity are drawn from several industries. Although the most typical response is to avoid ambiguity or to seek a false clarity from confident leaders, more successful strategies engage diverse participants from inside and outside the organization to provide multiple perspectives and innovative suggestions that contribute to learning-by-doing.

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From the full-text paper:

Many organizations receive ‘weak signals’ that their practices are unsafe, or that their intended improvements are not working, yet these signals are typically ambiguous and easy to ignore. Managers … have been successful in the past; they are reluctant to admit … that their success is transitory, their status provisional, and their ways of thinking limited to one perspective among many. Bad news does not travel easily upward in organizations and fundamental ambiguity allows the news to be reframed in ways that are less threatening” (pg. 3);
Probabilities may be calculated for accident pathways/failure modes, such as in a chemical plant, but those probabilities “hold only when the plant is operated within its design envelope … which is essentially a collection of assumptions positing that the plant is designed, built, and operated as intended” (p2)
Variability in the plant design and construction, such as defects, combine with a trigger event to become an accident. There is uncertainty not just in the risk calculations “but also ambiguity in that some unknown number and type of things will be left out of the calculations. Inserting a generic ‘fudge factor’ or ‘engineering margin’ helps protect against ambiguity but no one really knows whether the margin is adequate or not” (p2)
An example of learning, after the fact, of what was missing from the original calculations was evident following the height of the tidal waves breaching sea walls at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant
Three types of organisational ambiguities are discussed: (p2)
- Fundamental ambiguity: where we lack categories for understanding reality, or come to appreciate/fear that our current categories are lacking (what Weick referred to as equivocality). Without labels or categories, it’s said we can’t formulate useful questions
- Causal ambiguity: where we have some understanding of categories but struggle to sort them into causal relationships. It’s said in hindsight after an accident we can easily assign (construct) causality to accidents but having a list of root causes and contributing factors “causes rarely provides a satisfactory understanding or an effective plan for improvement. We are far from having a complete understanding of the causes of accidents and therefore face considerable ambiguity in managing operational safety” (p2)
- Role ambiguity: Related to goal ambiguity, where different stakeholders advocate different organisational goals and these tensions are rarely resolved through logical arguments
Confusions around safety climate vs safety culture are briefly discussed. It’s said because safety climate is built around relatively clear concepts amenable to surveys, it provides a competitive advantage in the eyes of managers looking for visible action opportunities and measurable results, e.g. “a clear story to tell bosses, regulators, the press” (p4). In contrast, understanding cultures “is hard to specify, and probably involves lengthy qualitative data collection and subjective analysis by consultants or (gasp!) academics, with results that may be too late or too confusing to be useful” (p4)
A survey by itself, “does not reduce ambiguity” (p5). Indeed, this can result in surrogation where people “use the readily measurable scores as a substitute for inquiry …based on the simplifying assumption that there are additive cause–effect relationships” (p5)
Ambiguities are present during incident investigations. The author notes that Root Cause Analysis (RCA) itself suggests that a single root cause can be identified, and that a condition of “root cause seduction” is possible whereby people search for a single “root cause” because of human nature to find something that can be fixed; this may divert them from digging deeper into the investigation;
“Most people, including managers, shy away from ambiguity and uncertainty. The prospect of losses loom larger than equivalent gains, and ambiguity is experienced as a loss of control (Slovic, 1987)” (pg. 5), such that “people are willing to take 1,000 times the risk for activities that they perceive as being within their control (e.g., driving a car, skiing) in comparison with those they perceive they cannot control (e.g., flying in a commercial airplane).” (pg. 5);
“The typical response to ambiguity … is avoidance. People look for ready answers, including at-hand fixes such as training, blaming the individual at the sharp end, or writing more detailed procedures. Managers look to experts and consultants to provide a recipe for improvement” (pg. 6);
The author argues that ambiguity is not avoided solely as individuals but together in organisations through constructed socially accepted shared meanings. Thus, these explanations provide comfort but may not be correct.
With cultural efforts, “the desire to monitor and manage by the survey scores is the most visible and
least important part of culture change. Instead, the driving force is the conversations and engagement of broad participation in acknowledging ambiguity, striving to understand the organization, and generating innovative ways forward, with continual discussion to learn from these efforts” (p6)
“In RCA, the misleading search for the ‘root cause’ can inhibit progress” (p6)
Driving diversity of thought is a fruitful way forward. Weick preferred equivocality over ambiguity, since it suggests “‘equal voices’ or multiple participants conversing with mutual interest and respect for diverse viewpoints” (p6).
Further, the ability to hold conflicting ideas in a conversation or in one’s mind is important for managing ambiguity and this includes taking action without assuming that the action is correct [I wonder if this is similar to the Cynefin view with probe, sense and respond?]
This approach requires “cognitive flexibility, faith in the process over time, and willingness to work with others who bring diverse viewpoints” (p6).