Stuck on Stupid

Like others, I am interested in what is happening in the Gulf Coast areas after Hurricane Katrina. Lt. General Russel Honere was quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on September 14, 2005. He appears to be an excellent commander and he certainly provides good soundbites for the media. His spokesman said that Honore has a knack for putting himself at the decisive place at the decisive time.

When asked about why the initial response wasn’t better, he chided the media for second guessing and looking back. He is working toward a better future. He uses a football analogy to say the storm always wins the first quarter, but the game has four quarters.

If a team is behind 25-0 at the end of the first quarter, the coach doesn’t spend the rest of the game calling the quarterback and the rest of the team stupid. Honore is quoted, “He focuses on the other team. We can spend our time stuck on stupid in the first quarter or we can turn our energy” toward reconstruction and revival.

My work with operational excellence requires personal responsibility and accountability. It also involves analyzing the causes of incidents in order to develop corrective actions and share lessons learned with others. But it does not spend time stuck on stupid blaming people who generally blame themselves when they fail to do all they can to prevent bad outcomes. A mindful culture is a learning culture, not a fingerpointing culture.

Posted September 26th, 2005 in In the News

We Work for Money

A friend has two sons, who are now teenagers. When they were preschoolers, he was teaching them about serving others without reward. After a storm, Troy and his sons were picking up limbs in their yard. They also picked up limbs and other debris in the yard of their older neighbor. When the gentleman offered to pay the boys, Troy told the neighbor that they were glad to help, and it’s better to give than to receive, and that neighbors help one another, and all the nice homilies. The preschoolers could file this conversation in their minds for reminders as they matured.

Troy went inside, and the boys stayed outside with the neighbor, continuing to help him pick up small branches. After awhile, one of the boys remarked, “We know what Daddy said, Mr. Johnson, and it all sounds real nice. But we work for money!”

That story has stuck with me for years now, and I often wonder where they learned that lesson so early in life. What reward and recognition do we seek in order to perform at our best? What motivates us to work for others, to serve, to fulfill our life purpose? I doubt it is just one thing, but most appear to have a few things that drive us. Do I work just for money, or is there something more important?

Posted September 17th, 2005 in Learning from Children

Misdirected Power

The error that caused the power outage in California was “misdirected power” by employees. A Wall Street Journal article quotes Kim Hughes, spokeswoman of the L.A. Department of Water and Power. The article says “employees … ‘misdirected power’ down lines” that could not bear the load, and protective relays tripped as designed. I love it when the public relations folks give their reports about disruptions caused by the errors and mistakes that occur in complex systems. I enjoy seeing terms like “misdirected power” in relation to the power company. Why can’t people just say things with clarity?

It is much better to use plain language, like the company website contains tonight:
The incident occurred at 12:32 p.m., when technicians inadvertently cut into “control” wires, sending a signal to the transmission system to begin shutting down automatically to protect the system from further damage. This protects customer and system power equipment from further damage.

As a person whose work the past five years was to prevent human error by individuals, groups, and an entire organization, the most important thing I learned was that it was important to state clearly and plainly when an error was made. Attempts to mask incidents with clever phrases are an example of misdirected power, even if the phrase is accurate.

The people with whom I worked learned to acknowledge when mistakes were made so the organization could learn from them. Acknowledgment includes taking responsibility for the causes and bad effects of the errors. Organizations that move from excuse making and blaming to individual and corporate accountability are well on the journey to being a highly reliable organization. That is the right direction for a power company, or any other company.

Posted September 13th, 2005 in In the News, Operational Excellence