ICL

The situation

Due to increasing formalism in child care practices the leadership team of Rauhe Haus wanted to introduce concepts and practices of mindful organizing. More than 240 child care professionels work for Rauhe Haus.

Our approach

High reliability is not only achieved by rules and regulations, as well it is created by a specific quality of communication and collaboration within teams. Therefore, our interventions focus on the daily practices. We wanted to encourage professionals to critically self-observe and rethink their daily practices. To provide guidance in this ongoing dialogue and also to engage people in an ongoing discussion we created the tool „MindSet Mindful Organizing“.

Participatory process

We gathered experiences and knowledge of all relevant subject matter experts to develop this tool. At the same time we added new insights from theory and our own broad practice experiences. We cooperated with the University Hildesheim and conducted several expert workshops with leaders and employees. In addition we ran user tests to evaluate the tool and change process itself.

Engagement of 240 employees

Altogether, we engaged the whole workforce of the organization. Everyone should feel familiar with the tool and the change process. The message was: Mindful organizing is part of our professional identity.

Three competence areas for mindful organizing

Mindful organizing connects the assumptions of collective mindfulness with self-reflecting working practices in order to reliably care and protect children and adults (also persons in need). Based on a professional identity, mindful organizing aims on early anticipate risks as well as on skilled reacting on unforeseen developments. Furthermore, cooperative learning processes are initiated. They are meant to be an investment in the professionalization to optimize the capabilities of anticipation and resilience.

Training of facilitators and multipliers & development of the leadership team

The training of facilitators and multipliers is necessary to create a sustainable change process. The theory of mindful organizing and usage of the MindSet as well as the cooperative consulting build the agenda of workshops held systematically. Their task is to enable a continuous and goal-oriented working processes with the MindSet in different teams.

The leadership-team has an important impact on the organizational culture, thus their continuous development is important for the change process. They have to act mindfully by themselves being a role model, they have to provide time to work with the MindSet and transfer new practices into structures. In periodic workshops they are trained in mindful leadership, they share their experiences and do collegial advice.

Evaluation of results

In 2015, after 2 years of working with the MindSet in the 30 teams, an evaluation of the results has shown positive benefits regarding the learning culture, the collaboration, information processes, interface work, risk sensitivity and resilience skills.

Award received

In 2016 the MindSet received the “practice award” of the Systemic Society in Germany. Currently an updated version of the MindSet is created and used in different organizations in the social work sector.

Mindset Mindful Organizing