Black Box Thinking
We have a culture of shying away from mistakes. We minimise them, explain and justify them away, but by no means are we encouraged or motivated to own them proudly and wholeheartedly, to sit with them and analyse them as a tool to show us where and how we can improve and grow.
Black Box Thinking, by Matthew Syed, argues that learning from failure is crucial for progress and innovation. It emphasises that by analysing mistakes, like those recorded by an airplane’s black box, individuals and organisations can identify weaknesses and make necessary improvements. Human errors often emerge from poorly designed systems, and uncovering them takes careful thought and a willingness to pierce through assumptions. Often, it means looking beyond the obvious data to glimpse the underlying lessons. In order to learn from failure, you have to take into account the data you have and the data you don’t.
The book contrasts the aviation industry’s approach to learning from errors with the healthcare industry’s tendency to cover up mistakes, highlighting how embracing failure leads to greater success. We have an almost allergic attitude toward failure: we try to avoid it, cover it up, airbrush it from our lives. Black Box Thinking shows that changing attitudes toward errors and encouraging staff to report them—and celebrating when they do—creates a culture of learning and improvement.
In our business, we work towards a culture of owning our mistakes and putting them to a process improvement. At a practical level, we’ve implemented the ‘Fuck Up Files’ – printed A4 pages in a folder that sit easily accessible – they are titled: “Congratulations on making an entry into the Achtung Camper Fuck Up Files!” 🙂 and prompt reporting of the details of the error. We then catch up monthly for a team meeting to go through the entries together and bring each to a process improvement. In the atmosphere of celebrating and rewarding entries as opposed to shying away from a mistake, we award the employee with the most entries for that month a $50 voucher. It’s a small token to motivate us to add entries.
Some additional practical lessons from the book that inform our approach:
- When trying to fix a problem, set a timer, and after 30 minutes take a step back, have a break, or chat with another staff member about the problem and the bigger picture.
- To find out if something is working, isolate its effect. Test assumptions regularly—our intuitions about what works are often wrong, and we tend to underestimate the complexity around us.
- Break goals into smaller, marginal improvements. Improving each part can lead to a huge overall impact.
- Encourage staff to make a report whenever they spot an error, and praise and celebrate errors being found!
By embedding these principles into our culture, we hope to create a workplace where mistakes are not feared, but embraced as opportunities for learning, innovation, and continuous improvement.
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