Identifying and Extinguishing Dysfunctional and Deadly Organizational Practices

It is possible to define an organization's culture in terms of its dominant behavioral practices and their molar consequences, from the shop floor to the executive suite (Redmon & Mason, 2001 Redmon, W. K. and Mason, M. A. 2001. “Organizational culture and behavior systems analysis”. In Handbook of organizational performance: Behavior analysis and management, Edited by: Johnson, C. M., Redmon, W. K. and Mawhinney, T. C. 437–456. New York: Haworth. [Google Scholar]). Dysfunctional and potentially deadly practices (for the organization as a whole) can be “latent.” They often go undetected until their dramatic consequences are overtly manifest. For example, leadership of Alaska Airlines appeared to have had no idea how dangerous their aircraft maintenance practices were prior to the notorious crash of Alaska Airlines' Flight 261 (Mawhinney, 2007 Mawhinney, T. C. September 2007. Error sequence and the loss of 88 souls on Alaska Airlines' Flight 261, September, Kansas City, MO: Paper presented at meeting of Behavior Safety Now. [Google Scholar], National Transportation Safety Board, 2002 National Transportation Safety Board. 2002. Aircraft accident report: Loss of control and impact with Pacific Ocean Alaska Airlines Flight 261 McDonnell Douglas MD-83, N963AS about 2.7 Miles North of Anacapa Island, California January 31, 2000, Washington, DC: Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-02/01. [Google Scholar]) in which 88 people perished. Similarly, the leadership of Barings Bank either had no idea that their high performing trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson, was about to kill the company until the deed was done (Leeson, 1996 Leeson, N. 1996. Rogue trader: How I brought down Barings Bank and shook the financial world, Boston: Little, Brown and Company. [Google Scholar]). This was in spite of the fact that some of the managers above Leeson were believed to have poorly fulfilled their responsibilities to limit the bank's financial risks (Lesson, 1996). The concepts of latent dysfunctional and latent deadly practices are developed in ways that can guide behavior systems analysts interested in identifying and replacing such practices with functional practices.