K. Scott Griffith is the founder and managing partner of SG Collaborative Solutions, LLC and author of the world's first Collaborative High Reliability improvement programs, recalls averting catastrophe for the airline industry, working for NASA, and tackling risk A.S.A.P., and explains the sequence of reliability, the essential attributes of a highly reliable organization, socio-technical improvement, unlinking staff from systems, normalization of deviancy, doing risk assessment on white rice, and mistaking "The Big Bang Theory" for a documentary.

K. Scott Griffith: Hi Stephanie, how are you?

Hey, doing great, Scott.

K. Scott Griffith: My pleasure.

So I'm going to dive right in.

K. Scott Griffith: Let's dive in. And we'll we'll swim in deep

water.

So in your background, you built this

reputation for world class reliability in high consequence

industries across the globe. So can you put some legs under that

table for me?

K. Scott Griffith: Absolutely. So the term high consequence

industry, it's a little bit of a misnomer. It originally was used

in those industries where catastrophic failures could

result in the blink of an eye. So think about a plane crash. on

a on a more human level. Think about a police officer and the

blink of an eye things could go catastrophically wrong, a

surgeon on an operating table, a nurse administering a medic

medication. So those are industries where the

consequences of failure are, are sometimes immediate and

catastrophic. So my reputation started in aviation, where I was

the Chief Safety Officer at the world's largest airline. And I

developed a program known as ASAP which led to a 95%

reduction in the industry fatal accident rate. From there, I was

invited by the Surgeon General David Satcher, years ago and 19,

actually, in 2000, to come to Washington and meet with a group

of healthcare professionals under the Health and Human

Services Department, and explore the potential for the aviation

success to be migrated into the healthcare industry. So for

about the last two decades, I've worked in multiple industries,

including healthcare, aviation, law enforcement, emergency

medical services, and nuclear power. I wanted to take the

lessons that I've learned and the strategies I've developed to

any business, because at some level, any business or

organization is high consequence to the people involved, the

owners, the employees, that the shareholders. So what has worked

in those high consequence industries can absolutely work

in any business.

You said you have a 95% improvement that is

SIG nificant. So tell me about what are some of these

principles that you found really translated, regardless of the industry?

K. Scott Griffith: That's right, so so so it was it was

astonishing, in the sense that a group of industry professionals

came together with a common goal to keep the public safe to keep

planes from crashing. And so what we were successful doing is

bringing in a regulator that had previously been very rules based

enforcement posture, to become a more risk based oversight

agency. So the Federal Aviation Administration, we helped move

them from a position of it's all about the rules, to it's all

about how we manage the risk. The other part of that

collaboration was clearly the airline executives and leaders,

and then the Labor Association. So we worked with different

unions across the country, from Pilot unions to flight

attendants, and mechanics and air traffic controllers. And I

created a program that combined each of those entities into a

collaborative endeavor, known as the Aviation Safety Action

Program. And one of the central images are metaphors of our

success was that of the iceberg. So what we typically see when a

plane crashes, or a rule gets violated is yet just the tip of

the iceberg. It's a cliche, but it turned out to be a very

powerful metaphor in convincing the regulator that a crime and

punishment style of enforcement was was not giving them a full

picture of the risk in the National Aerospace system. So

what we did was we created this safe haven, this reporting

program where employees could report into a program that was

collaboratively managed regulator, airline and labor and

from that we changed the culture virtually overnight. And we

started getting reports not just of events and violations, but we

started to see risk below the waterline in the every day

successful outcomes that posed significant risks. And that's

one of the central messages for any business that most

businesses measure results. Not At the risk involved in those

results, if all we're doing is measuring outcomes, we're

restricting our visibility to what we see above the waterline.

And the real risk. And the real opportunity lies in the everyday

systems and the everyday activities of our people that

are sometimes risky. But when we get positive results, we we turn

a blind eye to the risk taking behaviors and the risky systems.

So you just talked on this for a second. And

I want to come back to that from a leadership perspective. You

mentioned creating a culture where people were willing to

come forward with concerns around risk per se. So I love to

hear, how do you culturally, from a leadership perspective,

help your people embrace that

K. Scott Griffith: You must build a trusted program, I had

one leader it I won't mention the name of an organization, we

were talking about the issue of employee burnout. And it's a

significant challenge, particularly coming out of the

pandemic, we see a high degree of burnout in a number of areas,

but I had one when senior leaders say to me, Oh, my

employees come tell me when something's wrong. Every year, I

have a holiday Christmas party, and they come up and they tell

me and I challenged him to say, well, they may not be coming

forward every day, they may not be coming forward with their

real concerns. So what we did, which was unique was we built

that trusted system into a program. And that program was

actually described with a set of rules and conditions, if you

will, that described how the program would be managed. And it

offered employees a guarantee that if they came forward in

good faith, rather than being punished, that we would work

proactively to address the risk, whether that risk was in the the

behavior of the employee, or whether that risk was in how

that employee was trained, or whether that risk will lay in

the system and the environment around the employee. And from

that we started to, I guess another metaphor is we pulled

back the curtain on risk that was taking place every day that

we weren't, hadn't previously been able to see. So I developed

something. And I mentioned this in the book called The sequence

of reliability. And the first step in that sequence of

reliability is to see and understand risk. In most places,

when things go wrong. The first place organizations look is the

behavior of the individuals involved. And that's really too

late in the process. The risk has been there for a while, but

we haven't seen it because we haven't seen bad outcomes. Think

about driving our car, just give us an example we can all relate

to. Let's play a little game. Do you have a car? Do you have car

insurance for the car? You drive? 70? Idea? Yes. Okay, so

I'm gonna pretend like I'm your insurance agent. Would you agree

that if we could find out how you drive every day, day in day

out, that would give us a better profile of the risk of you

driving a car than if we just look to your recent accident

rate? Or record? Check. So the game I want to play is would you

do me a favor? Would you call me anytime you go over the speed

limit? Or would you tell me when you're talking on the phone? Or

you get distracted? And maybe you even text while you're at a

red light? Would you just call? Let me know. So I can build a

profile on you to understand how risky you are? I'm going to say

no, you're gonna say no, most people aren't going to come to

their boss at the end of the day and say, let me give you a list

of all the risky things I did. Because the way you're going to

measure me is on outcomes. If I get the job done, and I get I

get rewarded, sometimes for risk taking behavior, because my boss

can see what I do day in day out, they only see the results I

produce. So I'm incentivized, most people are incentivized to

get results. Now, we're not saying results don't matter.

Absolutely, results do matter. But we have to be careful that

we're not building excess risk into our system by rewarding

people for their outcomes.

Very interesting. I think from a

human perspective, we all want to be that way. But when push

comes to shove, and something goes wrong, those are usually

the first couple things. They go out the window, especially

compassion. So talk to me about that.

K. Scott Griffith: Yeah, so So compassion I mentioned in the

book as a as one of the attributes, particularly in

fields like health care, but any any service industry, if if, in

the work that I do, Stephanie really is under I guess the

category of I help organizations become highly reliable. And if

you say to me, Well, what does high reliability mean? I can

define that as consistent high performance over an extended

period of time, in a small number of attributes, and by

attributes, I mean, the field that I started my career was as

a Chief Safety Officer. Sir, is a very important attribute for

any service industry, whether you're Disneyland or an airline

or a hospital, being safe is is essential to being reliable.

That that's not simply enough, because if you're a patient in a

hospital, and they are highly reliable at keeping you safe,

but they treat you with disrespect, or they don't treat

you with the compassion that you deserve, you won't consider that

to be a reliable organization. So there's a really small subset

or set of what we call attributes of high reliability,

that are universal, you have to be safe, you have to care about

people's privacy, you have to pay attention to infrastructure.

So if you're a hospital, a safe hospital, but you get shut down

by a cyber attack, everything you do is going to be affected.

So infrastructure is important. Equity, Diversity, belonging,

it's not enough just to be reliable with one segment of

society, we were open to the public, so we have to be

equitably reliable. So there's a small set of attributes that we

define. And so compassion plays into that, when we start to work

with organizations, where they typically typically look for

results like safety, we say, let's broaden that perspective

to look at what are the attributes that you have to be

good at, in order to be considered reliable, and

therefore to be a sustainable business?

So is that this term, which I'd never heard

before, socio technical improvement?

K. Scott Griffith: So I have to tell you, I'm a geek by nature.

So that's a term that, that comes natural to natural to me.

But when I looked at the first time, I didn't understand but a

socio means people from the Latin and technical, we would

say, applies to systems and the the environment that people work

in. And in today's technologically advanced world,

whatever business you're in, you have people working inside in

with systems. Now, when things go wrong, where do we typically

turn the human, even though that human is working with

technology, or working in an environment, in a culture, what

organizations find challenging is how to unlink or separate the

system contributors from the human contributors. And we often

do that in the wrong way, we often just strike at the

behavior. And instead of looking at the system that we put in

place to manage the risk and the opportunity. So sociotechnical

is a geeky word for people working inside systems. And you

have to be good at both. If you put outstanding people in a poor

system, you won't get great results, you could take a great

actor and give them a lousy script, or a pro quarterback and

put them in a system that's not very well developed, you won't

get great results than the contrast, if you take an average

individual and put them in a very well designed system,

you'll get better results than others will get. And so the

second step in what I have called the sequence of

reliability, after we look to seeing and understanding risk is

to build reliable systems. And we do that because now once we

have seen and understood stood the risk, built a reliable

system. Now we can focus our attention on making the human

reliable that the employees reliable. And we do that through

something called performance management, where we train them

and we help develop their knowledge, skills, abilities,

and proficiencies. And then we focus on those factors that

influence their performance, the system, personnel factors, the

environment and the culture. And then finally, we then focus our

attention on their behaviors and behaviors come in two

categories, errors and choices. And guess which one poses the

greatest risk in our daily lives, the errors we make, or

the choices we make? Which would you think is most consequential

to the outcomes?

Well, I've got two teenagers right now. So I'm

going with choices.

K. Scott Griffith: Absolutely. Choices, absolutely choices.

Now, people tend to think that it's the errors we make, think

about how many risky choices we make every day, specially

teenagers, and most of the time, our risk taking choices turn out

to be good results. So What lessons do we learn when we

drive over the speed limit? What lesson do we learn when we talk

on the phone? Mom, I don't have to wear a helmet when I ride a

skateboard because I've been doing this for two years, and

I've never fallen? Yep. Oh, by the way, here's an interesting

statistic that we should all pay attention to the way our society

manages the risk of drunk driving is through the legal

system, the legal system, as privileged as we are to work in

a nation of laws. Our legal system is not designed to manage

risk, because in order to enter our legal system, either as a

plaintiff or defendant, there has to be evidence of harm.

That's a terrible way to manage your teenager waiting for harm

to have And therefore you step in. So the way we manage drunk

driving is a police officer will pull you over if they suspect

that you're driving intoxicated, or there's a car crash where we

take your blood alcohol level. Well, on average, the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration told me that on

average for every drunk driver arrested, they have driven drunk

ADA times previously without having been caught. So most of

the time in our society, that risk is out there interacting in

the socio technical world, and we don't see it, man. That's a

stunning statistic, isn't it? One thing we all have in common

is that we all make mistakes, and we all make risky choices.

The funny thing about the human brain and this gets into

neuroscience is that we learn most from our most recent

experiences. So when we do something, no matter how we were

trained, when we get by ourselves, and no one's watching

in, we cut a corner, and nothing bad happens. Oftentimes, we

learn the wrong lesson from that successful outcome. We do these

things repeatedly, because we don't see and understand the

risks. And we learn the wrong lessons from our successful

outcomes. And so we end up surprised when catastrophe

occurs.

So where did your passion for all of this

come in?

K. Scott Griffith: I mentioned that I was a geek and I is an

example of that. Have you ever heard of a TV show called The

Big Bang Theory? Absolutely. I watched it for two years. And I

thought it was a documentary. I didn't know. Those were my

people. So in addition to being a pilot, I had been in graduate

school as a physicist, and in 1985, I was doing a walk around

inspection on a boat, a walk around inspection is a preflight

activity that pilots take on before they get in a plane to go

fly. So they literally walk around it to make sure that

there's structural integrity on the airplane. I'm walking around

this airplane, and I look up in the sky, and I see another plane

adult, a wide body jet coming into land, and it's in distress,

and it gets so low that it hits on top of a car on on highway

140. It bounced, and as it's coming into land, and next thing

I see the wingtip strikes at above ground water tower and the

plane cartwheels and it just explodes. You know, I was

stunned by that. A few moments later, I was knocked down by a

gust of wind. Several seconds after that there was a torrent

of rain, and I ran back up on the airplane, and the plane is

rocking, and people are starting to panic. And so what happened

was, that plane encountered a deadly microburst, which is a

downdraft of wind, that the pilots couldn't see, because it

was separate from the clouds and separate from the rain. It was a

clear threat. So I took a leave from the airline Long story

short, spent about a year working on a contract for NASA,

as a physicist to build the first airborne prediction laser

system known as LIDAR to scan in clear air what the Winfield was

doing. So the reason that plane crashed was because the pilots

couldn't see. And they didn't understand the risk, we could

only manage what was in front of us that we could see. And all we

could see was the tip of the iceberg.

What a crazy intense thing to experience.

K. Scott Griffith: It was crazy. And in most businesses, most

organizations, particularly those that are regulated, we

hide our risk from the regulator, because we don't want

to be sanctioned. We don't want to be fat. It's like when we're

driving down the road, Stephanie, what do we do

instinctively, when we see the police car, instinctively, we

slow down. By the way, on any given day, studies have shown

that only 90% of us are driving the speed limit the rest of us

are driving over. That's our norm normalization of deviancy.

It's normal to deviate in our society. But I have found that

to be generally true in every industry, in every business I've

worked in. It's not that we're bad people. It's that we're

living with competing priorities.

So what would you say to encourage leaders

that, you know, look, some of us quite frankly, ignorance is

bliss. What I don't know, is it going to hurt? And I'll deal

with whatever happens when it happens. What do you say to

leaders who want to stay ignorance is bliss?

K. Scott Griffith: Well, that's probably the best question I've

heard in all year. Stephanie. And here's my answer, talking to

a leader, particularly a CEO. And I understand CEOs have

people who handle risk management, what CEOs are all

about our opportunity and sustainable success. If you're a

CEO, you want to go out and capture the art you want to

build a business. And once you build it, and take advantage of

those operate market opportunities, you want to be

able to sustain it. The world is filled with successful

businesses. They crashed because they couldn't see the risk

ahead. Edyta, we've seen businesses not adapt. And we're

not saying be risk averse to the CEO. We're saying be risk

intelligent, go grasp the opportunities in an intelligent

way. And so to do that, you have to be good at some of the things

you're not known for, you're not good at as a business. So if

you're a company that depends on technology, and you're out there

providing some product or some service, and it is not your

specialty, you hire people to manage it. But if you don't

become reliable with that platform, everything you do is

in jeopardy. You have to be risk aware, which involves

situational awareness, positional awareness, cultural

awareness, so you have to see and understand the environment

you're in, then there's something called risk tolerance,

you have to assess where your tolerance level is for risk. I

mean, there's a financial analogy here when you're young,

and you can afford to take risks, because you have a

lifetime ahead of you to recoup it. When you get to be my age or

older, you may be more risk averse in that respect. But in

every business, there is risk that's in front of you that you

may not be able to see, one of the things that leaders face,

which is often and troubling is that they are surrounded by

people that often tell them what they want to hear they want to

be paused, right. So you want to empower employees and managers

who will see risk differently. A frontline manager has experience

and expertise, but only the frontline employee is the one

that seeing the risk on the assembly line, for example, it's

the frontline employee that is exposed to the risk, you want

them to be able to share it, and it filter its way up to the top

leadership. But to do that, you have to have a culture that

supports it. And most business books, stress the importance of

leadership and culture. Well, you can be a strong charismatic

leader and lead an organization in the wrong direction. And what

do most CEOs not all, but most CEOs, when they come in, they

want to set a new tone, there's a new path here, they want to

make their mark, which may be different than the previous

CEOs. But what we all want, and particularly shareholders is

sustainable success over the long term. And to get that you

have to go beyond leadership and culture into building systems

that become reliable. And that each manager each CEO, inherent,

reliable systems, again, you put great people in a system that

breaks down, you won't get great results. So there's a sequence

to it, let me just summarize it step one of the sequence of

reliability is see and understand risk. You can see a

risk and not necessarily understand it. Or like our drunk

driving example, we can understand it, but not

necessarily see it when it happens, you have to do both

seeing and understanding risk is step one, building reliable

systems is step two, helping people to work to reliability is

step three. And the fourth and final step is hardwire

organizational reliability. Most business books start with the

last step first.

It's so cool. It's almost almost like we're

seeing this evolution of leadership. And to your point in

the past, we've always seen leaders hailed for their

charisma, their ability to rally, but I bet if we went back

and really studied super successful leaders, this risk

intelligence, risk awareness, all these things, they were also

super successful, because they were able to manage that as

well. super interesting. Okay, in the spirit of time, I'm gonna

shift gears. So I'm gonna call you the risk guy. So you're this

risk guy? When does this side of you get on your nerves? Oh, have

I just shut my brain off for 10 minutes? Let me eat this two day

old sushi, but I can't because I know the risk.

K. Scott Griffith: Oh my gosh, well, I was talking to my son

last night. And we were talking about the foods we eat. That's

another example that I think anyone can understand. Right?

We, you know, we're trying to manage our health through our

diet, you know, and food is part of our well being right the

foods we eat have dramatic effect on our health and how we

feel and how we act. And and I tend to focus in, at my stage in

life at at trying to encourage those around me to make smart

choices. Now, that's hard because the science keeps

evolving and changing. Remember when red wine was thought to be

great for coronary artery disease. And I was really

rattling around that right now. The latest research is saying

yeah, there may not be a safe level of alcohol consumption

now. We were eating a dinner last night and the food that I

wear it came with rice and I looked down at the food and it

was white rice instead of brown rice was as you know, as a whole

grain. And my son said you're not gonna eat that. Are you

dead? And I said, Well, probably Nobody said, You gotta lighten

up. He said, You got to enjoy your life a little bit. And so,

okay, we see it that we understand it, and we're going

to do it anyway.

So it's the natural deviation, right?

K. Scott Griffith: That's right. Teenagers are a good for helping

you keep a perspective on on that.

I love it. Thank you so much for walking us

through this

K. Scott Griffith: Stephanie, I would just say thank you for the

opportunity to speak to you and your audience today, it's been a

pleasure, I would say the most important message I would take

away from our conversation is that risk is all around us in

our life, it's a part of life. And bad things don't just happen

randomly. The technical term for how bad things happened is

they're probabilistic, meaning there's probabilities associated

with the randomness in our lives. But with a little bit of

effort, your life can be so much better balanced, when you see

and understand. And again, you're not going to avoid eating

white rice. But you're going to understand the risk and

everything you do. And you'll build systems in your manage

people. And ultimately, the organizations you build and work

for, will become more successful. So with a little bit

of effort, it's almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs when

you understand that this sequence can transform your life

or your business in a positive way. And it applies to the the

big issues of our day, like climate change, and all the

other risks that we face. But if we if we work collaboratively,

those challenges can be overcome and we can live better lives.

Thank you so much.

K. Scott Griffith: Oh it was a pleasure. Stephanie, you're a

great interviewer too. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.