Mindful Members: Developing a Mindset for Reliable Performance in Extreme Contexts
研究组织成员如何在极端情境下发展出兼顾凝聚力和多样性的正念心态，通过纵向追踪荷兰危机管理组织中的军官，揭示了功能性距离与社会整合的结合过程。
This paper aims to describe how organizational members develop a mindset that enables mindful operations in extreme contexts. Scholars have been divided over how collective mindfulness can be achieved. The literature on High Reliability Organizations (HROs) argues for heterogeneity through promoting skepticism, diversity, and dissent. Yet, studies on organizing in extreme contexts emphasize cohesion as a precondition for collective action under extreme circumstances. Thus, organizational members face competing needs for cohesion (integration) and heterogeneity (diversity). This longitudinal study of military officers joining Dutch crisis management organizations shows how they resolve this tension. Mindful members combine functional distance with social integration, mediated by a considerate approach based on sensitivity, tact, and trust. This mindset is gradually developed after a process that is initially characterized by fragmentation and inner struggles. When successful, organizational members cultivate a mindful mindset and contribute to reliable performance in extreme contexts.