The “it” in question was a crash involving one of our apparatus on Interstate 5 during a heavy rainstorm. They were responding to a motor vehicle crash, and were entering the southbound lanes from an on-ramp when the apparatus operator let off the accelerator in order to slow for the stopped traffic. Because he had not disengaged the compression brake, the rig completed a perfect 180-degree spin on the wet pavement and then proceeded to slide backward in the emergency lane past all the stopped traffic. After about 60 meters, the wheels slid off the pavement into gravel and the entire rig rolled over, landing upside down alongside the freeway. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. The news helicopters had a great view of the upside down unit. Thankfully we don’t paint our name on the underside of the engines.
When something like this happens, it’s common for angry thoughts to rush in: “Why were these guys not following the rules? What about our memo? Someone’s going to lose their job over this.” The way our brains are wired, it’s almost impossible not to feel strong emotions when you hear that there was an unrecognized esophageal tube, Cindy was late again or the bottom side of your truck is on all of the news channels.
The trick is, once you are able to take a calm breath after the initial emotional hijack, to get curious. Curious about what’s going on with the incident that you don’t know about, curious about the external factors that may have influenced the actions/behavior of your team, or curious about what aspects of the process or system design contributed to what happened. What you’ll find is that your brain has room for anger or curiosity, not both at the same time.
Leaders that focus on or take action based on their anger are likely to do or say things that generate fear, decrease the chance that they will learn the truth during an investigation, fail to recognize the system and process contributors to the problem and fail to make lasting improvements. Curious leaders are more likely to build relationships, engage the team in problem solving, learn more about all of the contributors to the incident and collaboratively craft improvements that produce lasting positive results.
Usually leadership advice is not something you should ever implement at home. You might consider making an exception for this one. A curious spouse, parent or friend is a lot more fun to be around than an angry one.
This is the first in a series of short article inspired by the intersection of Just Culture and the Science of Improvement.
