The important role of middle managers is highlighted in many studies (e.g. Floyd & Lane 2000, Balogun 2003, Beck & Plowman 2009) and the main reason is their unique position in the organization. As Wooldridge and colleagues (2008) summarize, middle managers´ position is intermediate, as they work as an important interface between the top and operating level. Besides, middle managers can connect different units and levels in geographically dispersed organisations which could not be done by single actors. Thirdly, middle managers play an important role in activities associated with capability development, even greater than top managers due to their location in the middle. (Woolridge et al. 2008.)
Formerly middle managers have been seen as a conduit for top managers orders but later it has been acknowledged that middle managers have a big strategic potential (Floyd & Lane 2000, Balogun 2003). As the top management may hold the main work of strategy formulation, middle management has an important role in implementing the strategy and taking it in to practice.
Middle managers have a good access to information in the lower levels of the organization, so they also play a significant role in the organizational performance. (Raes, Heijltjes, Glunk & Roe 2011.) Dutton and Ashford (1993, 398) highlight that the middle managers have been recognised to have a central role “in the successful generation and mobilization of resources around new ideas” in the studies of innovation and entrepreneurship. Balogun (2003, 79) describes that especially in the state of change and strategy implementing process, the middle manager´s key task is interpretation. In other words, this can be seen as sense making that includes four different
roles: “starting personal change, helping others through change, keeping the business running and implementing changes”. (Balogun 2003.)
Beck and Plowman´s (2009) study about rare and unusual events does not directly deal with mistakes or errors, but it offers good understanding about the middle manager´s role in organizational learning. They point out that in order to learn from this kind of events, the organization needs to experience rare and unusual events richly, not only from top management level and with their interpretations. According to Beck and Plowman, interpretations are a key component of organizational learning. Middle managers have a crucial role in interpreting information and creating meaning as they are at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical information flow. Because of this, middle managers have an ability to experience the rare and unusual events more deeply because they are more likely to know and see different dimensions than top level managers. (Beck & Plowman, 2009.)
All in all, middle managers are the ones who are in the heart of the organization´s actions and employees as seen in figure 2. Middle managers are also closer to the customers and other stakeholders than top level managers. Middle managers hear what happens in everyday life of the organization and they also have an important role seeing and detecting new ideas and communicating information to upper levels. This same idea works for learning from mistakes and tolerating mistakes as middle managers should be part of the everyday organizational procedures (Cannon & Edmondson 2005).
Figure 2. Middle manager´s role and tasks seen in this study.
Figure 2 presents how the role of middle managers is seen in this study based on previous studies.
Middle managers work in the heart of organizations and have an important role as they communicate both to top level and to the operating level. Besides their central role, middle managers have several pivotal tasks that are summarized in figure 2. Middle managers share information between different levels in an organization (Raes et al. 2011) and are key factors in implementing change (Balogun 2003). Also, middle managers implement strategy and take it into practise (Floyd & Lane 2000). This group is also the one who interprets and makes sense for different kind of situations in an organization (Beck & Plowman 2009).
As Weinzimmer and Esken (2017) summarize, mistake-tolerant organization has conditions that allows members to take risks, seek innovative answers and develop knowledge without fear of punishment. In a mistake-tolerant organization members are not encouraged to make mistakes, but there rather is rather “a culture of intelligent risk taking that leads to learning and improved knowledge”. The role of the leadership is crucial also in the way how leaders behave and act, because it shows what is expected and how things are to be done (Carmeli & Sheaffer 2008, 469).
As Edmondson (2004, 86) highlights, the way mistakes are handled and discussed in the previous times creates a climate of fear or openness. If something is not discussable, this topic is also
CENTRAL TASKS - Sharing information - Implementing change - Implementing strategy –
taking it into practice - Interpretation / sense
making
- New ideas -generation and mobilization
avoided in the future. Top management sets “the tone for an organization”, but daily policies and statements about visions can be advanced by middle managers whose behaviour shows to employees if talking about mistakes is supported or not. Middle managers have a possibility to reframe the mistake as something that is essential for learning (Cannon & Edmondson 2001, 167) and for improvement of organizational performance (Weinzimmer & Esken 2017).
Milliken et al. (2003) state that leaders have a crucial role to make sure that organizational hierarchies don´t impede the transfer of information from employees to higher levels. One way to ensure this is to get rid of the thoughts in employees’ minds that they will face negative consequences if they tell about mistakes. Those who speak up shouldn´t be labelled as troublemakers but rather as courageous. Most importantly if managers want to promote open discussion in their organization, first they need to gain comprehension of what employees are silent about and why they don´t like to speak up. (Milliken et al. 2003.)
Morrison and Milliken (2000) use the term organizational silence that can be a useful point of view also in terms of leadership and learning from mistakes. Organizational silence occurs when employees don´t speak up about their own opinions and concerns about organizational problems.
This can be a significant obstacle to organizational changes and development, because it stops the organization´s capacity to detect and correct mistakes. In order to dispose this kind of silent behaviour, managers first need to trace and understand the causes of organizational silence. After this it is possible to build comprehensive understanding of the obstacles to pluralism in the organization. Morrison and Milliken also highlight that it is the managers´ duty to create trust inside the organization and break down the silence or prevent it before it forms. (Morrison &
Milliken 2000.)
Maurer et al. (2017) found out that organizational culture that handles mistakes constructively also ensues in higher motivation to lead because of social-normative expectations and commitment. Further, this leads to the manager´s higher motivation to gain leadership capacity, develop leadership and higher career success. After all, as Cannon and Edmondson (2001) highlight, middle managers have a huge impact on how an organization can learn from mistakes.
As they point out, statements about vision and top-level manager´s actions are not enough.
Managers need to encourage their work groups to uncover mistakes as well as analyse mistakes in a way that creates a positive experience for employees. (Cannon & Edmondson, 2001.)
Figure 3. Elements of a mistake-tolerant organization.
Figure 3 gathers the four elements of a mistake-tolerant organization. Based on the literature, the way how an organization sees and comprehends mistakes has a big influence on overall organizational culture and how employees experiment and handle mistakes. In order to tolerate mistakes, the organization needs to have an open culture where everything is discussable (Edmondson 2004). As a mistake-tolerant organization takes a positive stand toward mistakes, the literature also highlights the importance of intelligent risk-taking (e.g. Weinzimmer & Esken 2017). This means that mistake-tolerance doesn´t mean indifference which is an important notion because manager´s fear of neglecting and so what -attitude does not advance mistake-tolerance.
Figure 3 also summarizes that one characteristic for mistake-tolerant organizations is the climate of trust (Morrison & Milliken 2000), where even risks can be taken without the fear of punishment (Weinzimmer & Esken 2017). Trust can also be seen between members of tolerant organization as they are able to openly speak up about their mistakes. Finally,
mistake-tolerant organizations do not have the kind of organizational hierarchy that delays the information flow from employees to managers. In other words, employees feel that they can talk about mistakes or other problems openly to managers without facing negative consequences (Milliken et al. 2003).