Now and then one of your team members makes a great save. They catch something that could have caused a defect, an accident, or done harm in some way.
Often we celebrate these saves, sometimes informally, sometimes formally. And that is well and appropriate.
But let’s make sure we are celebrating for the right reasons.
The save isn’t what should be celebrated.
Rather, the celebration should be a big THANK YOU for finding a gap in your process.
Somehow the process is capable of producing a defect, resulting in an accident, or doing harm. Your team member noticed that.
We usually just celebrate correcting the immediate problem.
But What is preventing exactly the same thing from happening tomorrow?*
That front-line customer-facing team member is your last line of defense.
They only get an opportunity to make a “save” when every other point in the process has failed to detect the problem.
Given enough “shots” at this front line team-member, sooner or later, one is going to get through.
What happens then? Is the inverse logic applied? “You should have caught that.”
Perhaps, but where in the process was the problem actually created?
Somewhere, long before this diving catch, there is an instant when the process went from operating safely and defect free to creating an opportunity, an opening, for a problem to pass undetected.
Where and when was that moment?
Or is that how the process normally operates, and we are just lucky most of the time?
Dig in, think about it.
And thank that team member for saving you, but don’t count on it every time.
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*Thanks to Craig for this great way to sum up the question.