Achieve Excellence, Don't Just Avoid Errors
Shift organizational focus from the absence of failure to the pursuit of greatness
In many organizations, particularly those with strong safety cultures, avoiding errors becomes the primary objective rather than a byproduct of pursuing excellence. This creates a debilitating cycle: people become gun-shy about making decisions because the best way not to make a mistake is to not do anything. Success becomes a negative -- an absence of failure rather than the presence of achievement. When error avoidance is the goal, people report for duty hoping not to screw up rather than eager to accomplish something great. Marquet resolved to flip this: the goal would be excellence, with error reduction as an important side benefit. Understanding errors remains essential, but it becomes a means to achieving excellence rather than the objective itself. This shift from defensive to aspirational thinking reconnects daily work to purpose and meaning, breaking the self-reinforcing downward spiral of poor practices leading to mistakes, mistakes leading to poor morale, and poor morale leading to passive survival mode.
- Focusing on avoiding mistakes takes focus away from becoming truly exceptional
- Error-free operation is an impossible goal on complex systems -- you will always have errors, so you always feel like a failure
- Success defined as the absence of failure provides no motivation to strive further
- Excellence includes understanding errors as a means, not an end
- The downward spiral of error-avoidance culture: poor practices cause mistakes, mistakes cause poor morale, poor morale kills initiative
- Connect daily activities to a noble purpose rather than to fear of failure
- Efforts to improve the process make organizations more efficient; efforts to monitor the process make them less efficient
- Diagnose the error-avoidance trapAssess whether your organization is spending more energy trying to avoid errors than achieving excellence. Look for signs: action aversion, people doing the minimum to avoid getting in trouble, success defined as the absence of problems, lack of initiative, and the joke that the reward for good work is no punishment.Pro tipAsk yourself: do people come to work hoping not to screw up, or eager to accomplish something great? The answer reveals which mindset dominates.
- Redefine success as excellence, not error-free operationExplicitly articulate that the organizational goal is exceptional performance, not mistake avoidance. Understanding and reducing errors remains important, but as a means to achieving excellence rather than as the objective itself. Make this more than a philosophy statement -- embed it in how the organization lives, works, and makes decisions daily.Pro tipError reduction becomes a natural byproduct of pursuing excellence. People striving for greatness incidentally make fewer mistakes than people focused on not making mistakes.WarningDo not abandon error analysis. An intimate understanding of what causes errors and how to eliminate them remains essential -- it just should not be the thing people think about as they report for duty.
- Connect daily work to purposeReplace fear-based motivation with purpose-based motivation. Help people see the connection between their daily tasks and the organization's meaningful mission. This connection may already exist but has been buried under layers of checklists, inspections, and error reports.Pro tipMarquet connected the crew's work to the legacy of submarine service and the defense of constitutional freedoms. The purpose was already there; it just needed to be made visible again.WarningAvoid cynical purpose-washing. The purpose must be genuine and resonate with the actual work people do.
- Eliminate overseers that monitor without contributingExamine your oversight and inspection layers. Overseers who only identify process failures after the fact -- without actually helping achieve the objective -- make the organization less efficient and reinforce the error-avoidance mentality. Replace monitoring with mechanisms that improve the process itself.Pro tipDeming's insight applies: improving the process makes you more efficient, while monitoring the process makes you less efficient. Ask whether each oversight mechanism improves the work or just watches for failures.WarningThis does not mean eliminating all quality checks. Distinguish between quality improvement mechanisms and quality monitoring bureaucracy.
Before Marquet took command, Santa Fe's crew was in a self-reinforcing cycle. Poor practices caused errors, errors caused poor morale, and poor morale killed initiative -- leaving everyone in survival mode doing only what was absolutely necessary. The common joke was 'Your reward is no punishment.' People came to work motivated by fear of making mistakes rather than desire to achieve anything.
Marquet observed that when errors occurred on Santa Fe, the default response was to add more overseers and inspectors. Drawing on Deming's insights, he recognized that these layers did not help achieve the objective -- they only identified process failures after the fact. The message of constant monitoring -- 'we are checking up on you' -- had a pernicious effect on initiative, vitality, and passion.
When Marquet took command of Santa Fe, he encountered a crew trapped in a downward spiral. Poor practices caused mistakes, mistakes destroyed morale, and crushed morale killed initiative, leaving people in survival mode doing only the absolute minimum. The common joke aboard was 'Your reward is no punishment.' He recognized that the nuclear submarine Navy's powerful culture of tracking, reporting, and discussing errors -- while valuable for understanding mechanics and detecting major problems -- became debilitating when adopted as the organization's objective. You are destined to fail at error avoidance: on something as complex as a submarine, there will never be zero errors. The crew always felt bad about themselves. Marquet resolved on the day he took command that their goal would be excellence rather than error reduction.