Looking for the Wrong Thing

There is a story we tell ourselves about trust: that if people stop telling us what is really happening, they must be afraid. Remove the fear and the truth comes back. It is half right, and the missing half is the expensive one.

This issue looks at what happens after the fear is gone. Removing blame does bring the problems into the open, on the railways and on the factory floor. What it does not bring you is the work itself, because people hide their improvements for reasons that have nothing to do with being frightened. The evidence points to an uncomfortably simple design principle, and to the boundary where it stops applying.

• Eight times as many damaged switches reported, and derailments down 20 to 41% (FRA/Volpe, 2019).
• The factory line that produced 7 to 10% more defect-free output once a curtain hid it from management (Bernstein, 2012).
• Where the line sits: when watching the method is the right call, and how to declare it before you need it.