Of each particular thing, ask: “What is it in itself, in its own construction.”s…

-Marcus Aurelius

Transcript

In this episode we are talking about drift. It is drift, and the processes of mitigating it as a business hazard, that all the things we will discuss in the podcast, past and future, ultimately deal with. You could call mitigating Drift a first principle when it comes to successful business. The effects of drift are massive, stealthy, and killers of businesses.

Drift was originally defined by Diane Vaughn in 1994 as being the normalization of deviance. Since Vaughn’s introduction of the idea, significant research and written word have been produced on the topic. But this has been aimed at drift’s presence and effects on whole organizations. Notable examples of organizational drift are NASA with both the Challenger and Columbia catastrophes (Did you catch that? NASA failed twice, some people never learn), Enron’s epic deterioration, the Three Mile Island Accident, and numerous infrastructure fails, plane crashes, and the gross inabilities for government entities to see a massive terrorist act in the making. But researchers have spent little effort studying the areas where drift is first recognizable. The frontline worker.

Drift has predominantly been researched, examined, and scrutinized as it pertains to disasters of high consequence like those listed above. That is because they are well researched, and oodles of data are available. The most prominent text and research on drift is led by Sidney Dekker. In his book The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’ he details drift as it pertains to safety. He writes:

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Turner in his book Man-made Disasters, details his belief that there is an incubation period of failure that occurs. A period where multiple things degrade and lead to an eventual disaster. Turner shows that the root cause of all “disasters” are social and cultural. Charles Perrow, the leading scholar of disaster and organizational failure, stated: With Turner’s published work, “technical explanations (of failures) have become metaphors.”

When organizations and workers drift, it happens slowly. On Day 1 of a new hire’s entry into the field, they follow all the required processes to the letter, meeting the 100% organizational target. As time goes by, that same worker has drifted off the required organizational target. This happens prolifically across business and industry. It is in the oil field, your local big box retailer, where you bank, and among the workers at your favorite restaurant.

None of these workers or their leaders recognize it. Liken this to the toad and the pot. Put the Mr. Toad in a pot of boiling water and he jumps out faster than his wild ride. But if you put Mr. Toad in a pot of cold water and ever so slowly turn up the heat. Dead Mr. Toad.

The idea of these initial episodes is to define the key terms and ideas that we will continue to discuss, drill into, and learn about in future episodes. Drift has significant impact on business and the individual.

Join me next Tuesday as we continue to travel the path of what is difficult, perilous, and uncertain as we explore introducing A New Order of Things.

I am your host, Eddie Killian. And this concludes Episode Three.

For exclusive content, notifications of each episode release and sign up for my newsletter head over to my website, eddiekillian.com. Click the link in the show notes and join the conversation. Or contact me directly at interesting@eddiekillian.com

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References

Dekker, S. (2011). Drift Into Failure. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Dekker, S. (2014). The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Perrow, C. (1999). Normal Accidents; Living with High-Risk Technologies (2nd ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Perrow, C. (2011). The Next Catastrophe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Turner, B. A. (1997). Man-made Disasters. New York: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Vaughn, D. (1997). The Challenger Launch Decision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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