I had the great pleasure of attending a lecture by Martin Kalungu-Banda on Wednesday and I wanted to share one of the stories from his talk which I thought was fascinating. Malcolm Gladwell conducted some research into why planes crash and the findings were astonishing. The obvious causes that we all think of are things like bad weather, engine failure, pilot error, etc but they found something different when they listened to the black boxes. 90% of plane crashes happened due to what he refers to as 'High Distance Power' - quite simply, peoples inability to challenge the expert (in this case the pilot) - especially in cultures where hierarchy plays a bigger part than here in the West.One of the examples Martin shared related to a flight with a faulty altimeter. The co-pilot informed the captain of the fault and the captain responded that it was nothing to worry about as the co-pilot was used to this familiar route. The co-pilot acknowledged this but then explained that in his experience around about this time they should be approaching a high mountain range. Before any action could be taken the plane struck a hillside. The co-pilot didn't feel he had the right to instruct the captain that they must climb and quickly. A very brutal story but it really illustrates a deep rooted reluctance to step outside official roles even in the most desperate and critical cases.
I suspect this plays out in much lower risk scenarios too and in cultures with 'Low Distance Power' like ours in the West.
- There are cases when we must all break with protocol and inform superiors not just what we 'know' but we 'know the answer to be' before it's too late to recover the position. (the captain didn't want to fly into the hillside).
- It's vital that we always remain open to others being able to set direction when needed.
- When working with different cultures (esp. those with stronger social hierarchies) around the globe we should be more sensitive and open to information veiled as a course of action.
Sources and Credits
Thanks to Martin Kalungu-Banda
Malcolm Gladwell- best selling author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers
This is a very thought provoking post, and I can see real parallels with the project environment. I’m sure we’ve all worked on projects that get difficult and political, and it is difficult (and dangerous, and uncomfortable) to raise concerns. Whenever this happens, I think it is *even more important* to ensure that concerns are raised, however they must of course be raised in a practical and appropriate way.
ReplyDeleteSome projects seem to gain momentum, and the project team is so focussed on delivery and deadlines, that they miss warning signs. As BAs, I think it’s our professional duty to “break rank” and report any anomalies that we see… even if they might be a little inconvenient now and again!
Thanks again for the great post David.
Adrian.