Using organizational messages to improve the recognition of near-miss events on projects

Although organizations may extract valuable lessons from visible failures, they too often neglect near-miss events-those that occur before a catastrophe-for the early learning opportunities these events can provide. Near-misses are situations where a failure could have occurred except for the intervention of good fortune and are often harbingers of future failure. Prior research has demonstrated a natural propensity for individuals and organizations to ignore these warning signals because they perceive the near-misses as successes. We show that people can be made more cognizant of near-misses by using organizational messages to help people recognize the difference between a near-miss and a success. In three studies, subtle primes that promoted a sense of accountability, project significance and risk aversion made both MBA students and NASA managers and contractors examine near-miss events more critically.