Error culture
The term error culture comes from the social and economic sciences and describes the way in which societies, cultures and social systems deal with errors , the risk of errors and the consequences of errors.
Dealing with mistakes
Wherever people come together and cooperate, a certain way of dealing with errors emerges. As a result, a certain error culture is established in all societies, cultures and social systems, a way of viewing, evaluating and dealing with errors. Although the discussions about how to deal with errors have so far concentrated on schools, companies and non-profit organizations, other social systems such as families or groups of friends also have a certain error culture. Nevertheless, considerations have so far primarily taken place in education and economics .
The researchers on the subject of error culture are concerned with dealing constructively: in schools, learning from errors , in companies and non-profit organizations, dealing productively with errors and innovative learning. The spectrum of optimal behavior ranges from the avoidance of errors and the acceptance of instructions to error-friendliness.
The error culture is important both in connection with quality management , error management , risk management , idea management and innovation management as well as in discussions about the learning organization .
Error culture and error management
The terms error culture and error management are often used synonymously. A correct distinction must be made, however: While error management is understood to mean the targeted control of activities in dealing with errors and thus error management refers to the introduction and implementation of certain methods, error culture describes the way an organization deals with errors, the risk of errors and the consequences of errors.
The error culture is located close to the organizational culture . Although it is one of the soft factors, it has a significant and direct influence on hard factors such as quality standards, innovation potential, productivity and the competitiveness of an organization. Because the way in which errors are viewed and evaluated and how they are dealt with in everyday life has a central effect on the company's performance.
Beginnings
Since the beginning of human history, people have been confronted with mistakes: They make mistakes, they recognize mistakes and they learn from mistakes. Philosophical quotes from earlier millennia provide an insight into the rational preoccupation with errors and the exchange of information about how to deal with them correctly: The 3,000-year-old I Ching provides information about true and wrong actions, and Confucius states: commits a second. ”“ To err is human ”states Seneca , Horace warns:“ In mistakes we flee from mistakes ”, and Cicero states:“ Everyone can make mistakes , but only fools persist in error. ”
The analytical preoccupation with errors also has a long tradition. The considerations of Aristotle have been handed down , who differentiates between misfortune, error and bad doing: A misfortune or accident (Greek atuchêma ) happens unpredictably and without bad intent. In contrast, a mistake ( hamartêma ) is predictable, but is in no way based on bad intent. An evil deed ( adikêma ), on the other hand, is both predictable in its negative consequences and an expression of bad intentions.
Error culture in science
At the beginning of the 20th century, the scientific discourses on errors and how to deal with errors intensified: the pedagogues Hermann Weimer and Arthur Kießling began to fathom the psychology of the error, the analyst Sigmund Freud the errors of the unconscious, technicians dealt with material errors and measurement errors and the work and organizational psychologists with mistakes and avoidance of mistakes on the subject of occupational safety. Also, the Gestalt psychology and the communication theory , and the Linguistics (z. B. Benjamin Whorf ) dealing with the failure cause.
However, it was not until the second half of the last century that the concept of culture was introduced as an analytical category in the academic study of errors, especially through the publications of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky , which described different cultural styles in dealing with errors and risks. Different approaches to error occurrences also emerged between different scientific disciplines, due to socialization and tradition. The expert cultures develop mental models and linguistic codes for dealing with errors and the norm of freedom from errors. National cultures also prove to be differently tolerant of mistakes and risks - right down to their “worldviews” and patterns of action. Finally, political movements - e.g. B. the ecology movement of the 1980s - in this regard its own assessments and norms.
This strand of research proved to be significant in view of the nuclear reactor accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl . He found increasing hearing. Martin Weingardt names the near disaster as the beginning of interdisciplinary research: “With regard to scientific error research, such a 'birth' was probably July 7, 1980. On this day, an international group of 18 scientists gathered in Columbia Falls in the US state of Maine from areas of engineering, neurology, social sciences and especially psychology. The reason for this conference was the reactor accident that occurred on March 28 of the same year in Block 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg. "
Business importance
In the 1970s, productive handling of mistakes and innovative learning took on a new meaning not only in pedagogical discourses, but also in business life: learning is increasingly changing away from adaptively adapting to current requirements to coping with new and unknown challenges.
In the 1990s, dealing with innovative learning and the learning organization became a management issue. In particular, the outstanding success of East Asian companies and the error culture practiced in Japan force a critical review of the error strategies practiced in Western companies. While since the beginning of industrialization the focus in western countries has been on avoiding errors, terms such as error openness, error tolerance and error friendliness are now gaining relevance. For the first time, productive error strategies are perceived as a central competitive factor; Peer pressure and conformity, on the other hand, are discovered as critical error-promoting factors (e.g. in the case of Three Mile Island ).
In the course of the financial crisis of 2008/2009, the topic of error culture gained new meaning through the realization that not only with technical problems, but also with financial decisions, training or incentive-related collective blind spots, beliefs, self-deception and delusion processes lead to an accumulation and concatenation of mistakes being able to lead.
research results
Although a large number of research papers deal with the topic of learning from mistakes , only a few scientists devote themselves to the analysis of error cultures. In the German-speaking area these are u. a. the pedagogues Fritz Oser , Maria Spychiger et al. at the University of Friborg (worlds of mistakes. On making mistakes and learning from mistakes) and Martin Weingardt , educational scientist at the Ludwigsburg University of Education (mistakes are what set us apart).
A model of the phenomenon of error culture in organizations comes from the Austrian management consultant Elke M. Schüttelkopf (Error culture. On the concept, meaning and evaluation of the organizational error culture). Your concept of the three pillars not only contributes to the understanding of the phenomenon of error culture, but also provides information about the productive quality of the error culture lived in organizations.
The three pillars of the error culture
According to Elke M. Schüttelkopf, the error culture of an organization is based on three pillars: 1. Norms and values , 2. Competencies, 3. Instruments.
The norms and values of the organization members determine the level of aspiration and the way in which errors, the risk of errors and the consequences of errors are dealt with.
In addition, specific skills are required in dealing with errors. This includes the mental and emotional skills of the organization members as well as social and methodological skills.
The instruments that an organization provides for dealing with mistakes and innovative learning form the third supporting element. High motivation and skills remain ineffective if there is a lack of professional "tools". The number and nature of the available methods, techniques and instruments regulate the possibilities of the organization members to deal professionally with errors.
In order to evaluate the quality of an error culture, it is important to consider all three pillars. Simply “wanting” is not enough, it also depends on “being able” and “being allowed”: Expressions of will remain ineffective if you are unable to implement the desired error culture due to insufficient skills or a lack of instruments. Conversely, the best instruments make no sense if there is a lack of approval or the ability to implement them. Effective error management therefore requires a productive error culture: “Establishing a good system yourself can be a mistake if there is no corresponding error culture. Well meant, but the wrong way. ”(Hochreither).
Different error strategies
All researchers and practitioners agree that a productive error culture forms the basis for better success. But there are extremely controversial views about how to deal with errors ideally and which error strategies should be implemented:
- With a constructive error culture, educators describe on the one hand a positive climate in which the fear of making mistakes is reduced and on the other hand learning from mistakes takes place.
- Quality managers understand an optimal error culture above all to avoid errors - up to and including zero-error programs. You want to guarantee the highest possible quality and minimize the cost of defects (scrap, rework, complaint processing , reparation costs, damage to your image).
- Innovation managers strive for innovations and see errors not only as an unavoidable side effect in development processes, but as an opportunity. That is why they advocate a high level of error-friendliness and appreciate the productive potential of the error.
- Representatives of the learning organization speak of openness to errors and innovative learning. You strive for a general improvement of the organizational knowledge base as well as a strengthening of collective problem-solving and action skills.
A productive error culture integrates the apparently controversial error strategies error friendliness and error avoidance. The error competence of the organization members ensures that the appropriate error strategy is used depending on the situation.
Weingardt also emphasizes this: “Sustainable companies are characterized by corporate cultures as well as employees with a professionally implemented 'error competence'. This error competence consists in the fact that a bundle of error strategies is available, which is specifically used function- and context-specifically, and in which the focus is on the ability to release the 'added value' of the positive error potential. "
The productivity potential of the error culture
With such different approaches, the question arises which error culture is constructive and positive and which is destructive or negative. Elke M. Schüttelkopf emphasizes that there is no such thing as a “right” or “wrong” error culture per se. “The value of the error culture is measured by the requirements placed on the error culture. The degree of conformity with the requirements placed on the error culture at a certain point in time provides information about its productivity. The stronger the correspondence between the specific form of the error culture and the requirements placed on the error culture, the more productive the respective error culture is for this organization. "
See also
literature
- Wolfgang Althof (Ed.): Worlds of Errors. About making mistakes and learning from mistakes . Opladen 1999.
- Peter O. Chott: Approaches to developing a 'culture of mistakes' . In: learning opportunities 39 . Pages 53–56 (7th year) 2004.
- Mary Douglas, Aaron Wildavsky: Risk and Culture. An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. University of California Press, Berkeley 1982.
- Bernd Guggenberger: The human right to error. Guide to imperfection . Munich 1987.
- Peter Hochreither: Failure as a success factor! Personal success through mistakes! Göttingen 2004.
- SD Jellinek: On The Inevitability Of Being Wrong. In: Annals of the New York Academy of Science 363, 1981, 43-47.
- Nils Löber: Errors and error culture in the hospital . Wiesbaden 2011.
- Fritz Oser, Maria Spychiger: Learning is painful. On the theory of negative knowledge and on the practice of error culture . Weinheim 1995.
- Manfred Osten: The art of making mistakes . Frankfurt (Main) 2006.
- Elke M. Schüttelkopf: Success strategy error culture. How organizations optimize their performance by dealing professionally with errors . In: Gabriele Ebner, Peter Heimerl, Elke M. Schüttelkopf: Mistakes · Learning · Business. How you perceive and shape the error culture and learning maturity of your organization . Frankfurt (Main) 2008, 151-314.
- Elke M. Schüttelkopf: Learning from mistakes: How to learn from damage. Freiburg 2013.
- Martin Weingardt: Mistakes set us apart . Transdisciplinary basics of the theory and productivity of error in school and the world of work. Bad Heilbrunn 2004.
- Hans-Jürgen Weißbach among other things: technology risks and cultural deficits . Sigma, Berlin 1994, p. 80 ff.
- Eveline Wuttke, Jürgen Seifried (Eds.): Learning from Errors at School and at Work. Research in Vocational Education, vol. 1. Opladen 2012.
- dradio.de, Deutschlandfunk, Pisaplus, October 23, 2010, moderation: Kate Maleike: Main topic: Attempts make "smart" - On the culture of mistakes in schools and companies in Germany (October 24, 2010)
Web links
- dradio.de, Deutschlandfunk, Pisaplus, October 23, 2010, Katrin Sanders: The Glass Wiki in Rheinbach - students write their own textbook (October 24, 2010)