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I've been working this week with a architecture company on redesigning office space. Hand in hand with the physical refurbishment of the building we are aiming to change the way people work and interact with each other. (I hesitate to use the words 'we are aiming to change the culture' but that is how others are describing it).

So I'm learning the new, to me, vocabulary of architecture, construction, engineering, and space planning. And working out, with that team how to use the physical space to shape the patterns of organizational life

Doing this work I've been recommended to read A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series), by Christopher Alexander.

I've taken a look at this and read some sample pages. The authors suggest reading it hand in hand with their other book The Timeless Way of Building.

I haven't read either yet, but the person who recommended the Pattern Language one had some lovely phrases to describe it. He said that the book would help understand how people "sift themselves into work patterns", and "understand what lends itself to a social dynamic". In both cases he was talking in relation to the physical layout of the space.

What I have done is take a look at some other comments about the book, A Pattern Language. NPR's interview with him opens with the comment on the book

"In it, he argued for injecting personal, emotional and spiritual qualities into manmade structures, streets and cities. Alexander's book challenged the architectural establishment and derided much that's been built over the past century as "deadly."

Now, Alexander has issued the final volume of his four-volume tome, The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, which expands on his basic question: how do we build places and structures that are filled with life? Theorizing that order is inherent in both nature and manmade spaces, Alexander attempts to define and understand the essence of a "living" structure.

Another reviewer of the book notes that

"The scope of the book is incredible. It sets out, in plain terms, to empower people to design, build and shape their own surroundings. It does this by creating a "pattern language", a kind of generative grammar with 253 patterns that can be used to make things. The patterns move from big town scale patterns (e.g. The Distribution of Towns, Magic of the City, Web of Shopping, Nine per Cent Parking), via medium building scale patterns (e.g. Wings of Light, Intimacy Gradient, Staircase as a Stage) to small construction scale patterns (e.g. Structure follows Social Spaces, Low Sill, Filtered Light, Different Chairs)."

So that book is now ordered -it's not available on Kindle.

Also this week I've been recommended The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization and have no need to actually buy this as the recommender lent me her copy. I just have to read it. On first glance it's got an interesting structure as each chapter is related to a role or persona e.g.The Hurdler, The Collaborator, the Cross-Pollinator who act as a perspective from which to view concepts of innovation. The fact that it is written by Thomas Kelley from IDEO, may make it more recommendable than if it had been authored by less of an industry celebrity, but I'll reserve judgment on that till I've actually read it.

Someone else recommended The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers by Keith R. McFarland. I looked at this one on Amazon and was put off by the extraordinary bouncy meaningless language that tries to hook you in by being 'clever'. One chapter, for example, is titled "Enlisting Insultants", and another "Navigating the Business Bermuda Triangle". It will take some discipline on my part to actually take a look at the contents and not dismiss the book out of hand.

For me patterns of written language are strikingly important, I guess in a similar way that patterns of architectural language are important to Christopher Alexander.

What's the difference between an employee and a contractor employed by an organization to do work in that organization that no-one else is available or qualified to do?

In most organizations I have worked in the 'contractor' is a second class citizen, denied the rights and privileges of the 'employee' for example access to training programs, attendance at certain meetings, space to voice opinions, feedback on performance, and so on.

Why this is I am not sure, particularly since the contractor is, for the most part as committed to doing a good job for the organization as the employee (in many instance more committed than an employee because a contractor's status is that much more tenuous).

It seems to smack of a caste system that is not healthy for the organization. If it were a question of racial or gender 'second class' treatment of an employee it would not be tolerated. But the status of a contractor seems to foster an organizational attitude that such a person doesn't matter. This in spite of an organizational value set that typically includes words like 'respect' 'fairness', and 'valuing differences'.

Contractors are different from consultants who are afforded a certain respect (maybe because high fees seem to equate to organizational value). Contractors, on the other hand, do not get this respect but again I don't know why. What is the difference between a contractor and a consultant that gives rise to a different organizational treatment?

In an attempt to find out more on this I dug around the internet a bit. Some intriguing nuggets emerged. For example:

They are individuals from outside of the organization that perform services for the organization and are not subject to the various state and federal payroll withholding tax laws. Contractors and Consultants are more likely to be paid without a withholding and issued a federal tax form 1099 for any monies received. There are some 20 or so factors used by state and federal agencies, including the IRS, to determine which category, contractor — consultant — employee) an individual falls into.

There is some interesting guidance from UCSF Campus Procurement and Contracting "In a nutshell, Consultants provide advice, while Contractors "do" things." This website gives a useful table that further explains the distinctions between Contractor and Consultant:

OK so back to the question what's the difference between an employee and a contractor? Again it is an IRS distinction when considering independent contractors. However, the term 'contractor' is applied to people who are, in fact, employees but not of the organizations in which they are doing the work in. In this instance they are effectively 'leased out' by their actual employers for a period of time that may be defined or may be on a rolling contract. They may never visit their actual employer's site, and are effectively managed on a day to day basis by the leasing organization. This is not a comfortable spot to be in when trying to 'do' things in an organization that operates a caste system in which 'contractors' have a lower perceived status partly because they are thought to be taking jobs that should 'by right' go to an employee.

In my experience the finances of organizations are so muddled that it is quicker and easier to employ an ultimately more expensive contractor to do work than it is to hire an employee. This is mainly because the line items on the budget are different. Employees count as the dreaded 'headcount', while contractor spend comes out of some other pot of money and doesn't appear as headcount. Trying to get headcount is a virtually impossible task so why bother if you can get a contractor?

Rather than scapegoat contractors a different (better?) tack would be to change the organizational accounting system to make it easier to employ people on flexible contracts and thus avoid the need for contractors. An alternative approach would be to value everyone for the skills and expertise they bring to the organization and behave in a respectful, fair, and equal way toward them without making distinctions on their employment status.

The UK's Sunday Times, September 5, published an extract from my new book, Organisation Culture: Getting it Right. Here's what they printed (from Chapter 8):

Book Extract: Keep up with your company
Can culture be learnt? Naomi Stanford asks this question in an edited extract from her book, Organisation Culture

More than 40 years ago Edgar Schein of MIT Sloan School of Management made the point that the process of learning about an organisation "is so ubiquitous and we go through it so often during our total career, that it is all too easy to overlook it".

He continued with the observation that "there are constant resocialisation pressures" and these have an impact on the whole workforce. The pressures relate partly to the changes in society, partly to the flow of people into and out of an organisation, and partly to organisational decisions and choices.
This means that to function effectively within an organisation, all those who belong to it have to learn the culture and adapt as it changes. This is not surprising as culture develops through the interaction of people making sense of their world. To learn the culture well enough to fit in and get on, individuals have to demonstrate certain attributes. The most important are:

• A commitment to develop links with others through the establishment of networks, coalitions and friendships;

• Strong motivation and the skills to learn what is needed;
• Astute situational awareness and responsiveness, which require insight, subtlety, intuition and an informed perspective;
• The possession of values that match those of the organisation;
• An ability to align personal knowledge, experience, values and sense of importance with the organisation's values, goals and plans.

Organisation Culture (Profile Books) is available post-free for £10.99 from The Sunday Times Bookshop on 0845 271 2134 or thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop

Received wisdom suggests that today's workforce includes workers from four generations. A wave of generational research has classified these as Veterans (sometimes referred to as Traditionals, Matures or the silent generation), Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y (also known as Millennial), and generalized the characteristics of each generation. While the range of years used to define each group varies slightly depending on the source, a 2008 Conference Board report Shifting the focus: Updating your work-life approach to integrate employee engagement and talent management, May 2008 summarizes each generation as follows:

Veterans: born 1933-1945: Comprise 6% of US workforce: Characteristics: Work, work, work-and I'll work even more if you ask me.

Baby Boomers: born 1946-1964: Comprise 39% of US workforce. Characteristics: Place heavy emphasis on work and climbing the corporate ladder. Work is an anchor in their lives.

Generation X: born 1965-1976: Comprise 23% of US workforce: Characteristics:Work hard, but concerned about having a life outside of work.

Generation Y (Millennials): born 1977-1991: Comprise 28% of US workforce: Characteristics: Think they can work any time and any place. Believe they should be evaluated on the work produced, not on how, when, or where it got done. Want frequent and candid performance feedback.

In the workplace meeting the employment expectations of the generations often translates into:

a) Flexible working, with appropriate compensation, roles, and benefits, to accommodate the needs of different lifestyles, responsibilities, and age groups. For example, ASDA (a UK supermarket group) in a move to find a permanent solution to the perennial problem of recruiting and losing seasonal workers, ASDA created 10,000 new permanent positions for people looking to work as little as ten weeks of the year. The "Seasonal Squad" recruits are permanent ASDA employees but with a contract to work an annual, rather than weekly, number of hours. The jobs are designed to cover the busy times of the year like Christmas, Easter and the summer school holidays.

b) Education on working with generational differences. For example, Deloitte's Next Generation Initiatives is a case in point. In early 2006, the first in a series of in-house educational brochures about generational changes in the workplace, filled with think-tank research was circulated. In 2008 came the distribution of "Decoding Generational Differences: Fact, fiction … or should we just get back to work?" This specifically addresses working with Millennials.

c) Exploiting technologies to meet different working patterns and expectations e.g. virtual team working, working across time zones, working at home, technology know-how, and so on. New technologies are revolutionizing the way work can be done and is driving the 'consumerisation of IT' – that is the convergence of corporate and consumer technology Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of IT at Wharton, notes "that employees often perform personal tasks – like watching the latest popular video on YouTube or shopping at Amazon.com – at work and they frequently complete corporate tasks at home on their own time. Because those work-home lines have blurred, employees have an increasing say over what technologies they use. "

Whether or not you believe the generational differences arguments, and I am skeptical on these, it seems evident that work patterns are changing at least in the more mature markets. I wonder if there's a similar generational distinction in emerging markets – and if changing work patterns are attributed to this.

My weekly email from Science Daily arrived a few days ago. (Science Daily is daily but I get a weekly roll-up of the research posted). I always find it fascinating and this week's was no exception. What caught my eye was a piece titled "Long Term Use of Oral Bisphosphonates May Double Risk of Esophageal Cancer, Study Finds". It caught my eye because only six lines further down was another piece, this one titled "Drugs Used to Treat Osteoporosis [oral bisphosphonates] Not Linked With Higher Risk of Esophageal Cancer". I looked at both carefully in case they were different cuts on the same piece of research. The answer to that is no they weren't – at least as far as I could tell.

What this reinforced for me was that research presented as fact must always be carefully scrutinized. These two pieces of research seemed to reach very different conclusions. Note that I'm guessing here because I don't know how the research was conducted in either case. I'm just going by the headlines and the synopsis given in the two reports. What if both pieces were run in mainstream media – what are readers supposed to think? A likely question would be "Should I stop taking oral bisphosphonates?" The answer could be yes or no depending on which research report you were reading.

I felt a similar uneasiness when I was invited to complete a McKinsey survey on women in business. On completion I received one of their articles on the topic: "A business case for women" . The survey asked me for my views on a number of issues, for example this question:

Over the past five years, which specific measures, if any, has your company undertaken to recruit, retain, promote, and develop women?
(Select all that apply)


Programs to encourage female networking and role models

Visible monitoring by the CEO and the executive team of the progress in gender diversity programs

Support programs and facilities to help reconcile work and family life (e.g., childcare, spouse relocation)

Inclusion of gender diversity indicators in executives' performance reviews
Assessing indicators of the company's performance in hiring, retaining, promoting, and developing women

Systematic requirement that at least one female candidate be in each promotion pool

Gender-specific hiring goals and programs

Options for flexible working conditions (e.g., part-time programs) and/or locations (e.g., telecommuting)

Encouragement or mandates for senior executives to mentor junior women

Gender quotas in hiring, retaining, promoting, or developing women

Skill-building programs aimed specifically at women

Programs to smooth transitions before, during, and after parental leaves

Performance evaluation systems that neutralize the impact of parental leaves and/or flexible work arrangements

Other, please specify:

No specific measures

Now, I answered this in good faith but suppose I hadn't and had just randomly checked boxes? Who would be to know? What difference would it make to the solemn research report that is compiled from the completed surveys? Do the researchers build in a certain amount of flex for rogue answerers? What proportion of rogue answerers would be needed to make any research report invalid? Does a write up of a survey like this have any believability whatsoever?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions. But it does make me skeptical about the process. I'd like, at the very least, to see a note that a certain proportion of respondents will be contacted to get some qualitative input to the quantitative survey. The survey doesn't require respondents, or even invite them to, give contact information. But I'm guessing that some tracking mechanism enables McKinsey to see who in their database has responded.

Like the oral bisphosphonates reports research can find, or be interpreted to find, very different results. Making readers aware of the potential lack of validity, or limitations, of the claims would be helpful. These usually appear in academic research reports but often fail to make their way into popular write-ups of them.

I've been working with a business unit on redesigning their space. What is harder to get across is the notion that space redesign impacts other elements of the organizational system. In looking for ideas on how to guide the leaders into thinking about their unit as a system I dug out these five rules of thumb from my book on organization design:

1 Design when there is a compelling reason

Without a compelling reason to design it will be very difficult to get people behind any initiative and engaged in it. Business jargon talks about 'the burning platform' needed to drive major change. Part of a decision to design rests on making a very strong, strategic, widely accepted business case for it – based on the operating context. If there is no business case for design or redesign it is not going to work.

2 Develop options to before deciding on design
Scenarios or simulations can help to develop options. Mapping the workflow and identifying the impact the context and circumstances have on it give clues on whether design is necessary or whether some other interventions will be effective. Storytelling is another powerful technique to develop thinking on whether a new design is really necessary: ask people to tell stories about the work itself, about the nature of the work how to do it better, and whether to do it at all.

Using a range of methods helps decide at a tactical level whether organisation design work makes sense or whether the issues can be addressed by other approaches (for example technical skills training).

3 Choose the right time to design
Design work is undertaken in a dynamic environment in which the organization, like a gyroscope, needs to be kept both stable and moving. Choosing the right time to intentionally design is a matter of judgment. However, for organisational change to be successful it is necessary to:

• establish a sense of urgency (the 'burning platform' previously mentioned)
• form what John Kotter calls a powerful 'guiding coalition': that is a group of people with enough power and influence to lead the organisation through the design
• create a picture of the redesigned organisation in vivid terms that people will recognise and want to be part of (or can decide not to be part of – in this case plan to help them exit gracefully).

4 Look for clues that things are out of alignment
Assuming that there are frequent and regular measures of business results look for clues that things are out of alignment. In Gore's case they already know that when unit size gets to more than 150 people issues arise, innovation is lost, and associates stop seeing the whole picture. Organisation blog sites are a good source of clues about organizational misalignment, as are the types of rumors or gossip flows that circulate as people talk with each other.

Lack of current alignment is a good signal for design work. On the other hand if things are aligned then there is usually no reason to initiate design work. (It is resource intensive and disruptive even when going well).

5 Stay alert to the future
That said, identifying that things are currently aligned is not a cause for complacency. The context is constantly shifting and this requires an alert, continuous, and well executed environmental scanning. Organisations must live with the possibility that they will have to do design work at any point, so should take steps to build a culture where change, innovation, and forward thinking are welcomed. Gore's current situation speaks to this point

But a $1.6 billion company can't run on hope. Gore's next big challenge is to keep up its double-digit growth rate even as it gets bigger. As Gore grows from nearly 7,000 employees to 14,000 and then 21,000, it must continue to invent ways to protect its people from the harsh outside elements, even as it lets their big and creative ideas breathe — and prosper. That means venturing into the hazards of the greater world, where Gore might find it difficult to safeguard its unusual [innovative] culture. It means teaming up with giants like GM, the quintessential hierarchical organisation. It means expanding overseas to tap new markets and new sources of talent.

Gore has been a successful business since 1958. Even so, would it be safe to bet that the company is consciously considering how it should be designed for continuing and future success?

"Emerging" is a word that's I'm hearing a lot right now (emerging leaders, emerging change, emerging strategy, emerging markets, etc) and one that I'm not sure about – this uncertaining is has been highlighted by having just come from a conversation centered on "emerging technologies". It left me wondering – What is 'emerging'? What are these technologies? What, if any are the connections between the various emergings – for example, do more emerging technologies come from emerging markets than from mature markets?

Going back to basics, 'emerging' means "to come forth into view or notice, as from concealment or obscurity" so when yesterday, I was discussing "emerging markets" I meant markets that were coming into view i.e. people were beginning to take notice of them for various reasons. And like the 'emerging markets' there are 'emerging technologies' i.e. those ones that are beginning to hit the mainstream and become noticed.

MIT's Technology Review lists 10 for 2010 and links to the ones showcased in previous years. The ones listed for 2010 are:

1. Real time search
2. Social TV
3. Mobile 3-D
4. Green concrete
5. Engineered stem cells
6. Implantable electronics
7. Solar fuel
8. Dual action antibodies
9. Cloud programming
10. Light-trapping photovoltaics

Out of curiosity I looked at the ones listed for 2001:

Brain-Machine Interface | Flexible Transitors | Data Mining | Digital Rights Management | Biometrics | Natural Language Processing | Microphotonics | Untangling Code | Robot Design | Microfluidics

Unfortunately I wasn't expert enough to gauge how many of these 2001 ten have 'emerged', how many are still 'emerging' and how many have sunk without trace. Also it begs the question of how long can something be judged as 'emerging' – robot design, for example, must be something that is continually emerging at least at this stage in the robot game. And if this is the case why doesn't it remain on the list? Or is there a scale of emergence – something can only be on the emerging list if it is at a certain point on an undefined maturity curve?

A further part of the discussion on emerging technologies was the question of government policies related to these. Hmm – if it's an emerging technology does it require a fully fledged policy or an emerging policy? At what stage in emergence does a technology require a policy, and more importantly why does it? There may not be much point in developing a highly engineered policy for a technology that doesn't go anywhere. How easy is it to judge which technology is going to require a government policy or is it possible to have a kind of blanket emerging technologies policy? If so what would it cover?

I looked at the Technology Policy Institute website this seems to deal in discrete technology areas that have recognizably emerged e.g. broadband, internet governance rather than a blanket policy. This makes it easier to formulate a policy around them because they're more understood. However, the danger of thinking this way is that in setting a policy it potentially stymies the continuing emergence of that particular technology. Policies tend to hamper innovation.

So where this whole discussion got me was to a point of thinking about tests of emerging technologies, when they pass reach a certain test score then a policy might be worth considering. Tests could be on the lines of questions:

Is this technology potentially damaging or harmful from what we can see now e.g. engineered stem cells
Is this technology likely to cause conflict between nations e.g. digital rights management
Is this technology likely to result in interoperability issues e.g. mobile 3D
Etc.

Where the technology had a 'yes' score of x then a policy should be considered (but only if there is a compelling and well understood/accepted rationale for the policy).

So no concluding thought beyond look for clues about when and why considering a technology policy for a particular technology might or might not be prudent whether a blanket 'emerging technologies' policy might be worth further thought.

Someone just asked me about organization development in emerging markets. Is it the same as in more mature markets? What are the differences? Are new models of organization development emerging from the emerging markets? I thought these were a bunch of interesting questions – particularly since I am facilitating some organization development programs in China. The person asking me wanted me to write a technical report on this topic specifically as it related to retail banking (in emerging markets).

So there's a challenge. First of all I only had a hazy idea of what constituted an 'emerging market'. A bit of digging around suggested that there are different numbers depending on who you're asking. The listings of the World Bank, The FTSE Group, Dow Jones, and Economist all have some countries in common and some different and the numbers of countries on each range from 21 – 35. So that makes it difficult to begin with. Beyond that the World Bank and The FTSE Group strata their listings. The FTSE Group, for example "distinguishes between Advanced and Secondary Emerging markets on the basis of their national income and the development of their market infrastructure. The Advanced Emerging markets are classified as such because they are Upper Middle Income GNI countries with advanced market infrastructures or High Income GNI countries with lesser developed market infrastructures."

Second there's the whole question of what OD is. I've just submitted an article for publication called 'What's the Matter with OD?' I suggest three things are the matter with it – there's no standard, accepted definition. There is no unifying, underpinning theory. And there is no way of consistently and reliably evaluating any OD 'intervention'. So from taking these three together one gets the impression that OD is a phantom – it's not something that lends itself to easy comparison in different markets (or even the same market).

So how would I tackle a piece about OD in emerging markets? Well there are several possibilities. What I'm interested in knowing before I make any commitment to writing a piece of this complexity is who is the target audience, and why would they want to read such a report. So I'm looking through my contacts lists to find people I have met in that precise sector. (Retail banks in emerging markets) to find out if they would be interested in learning more on the topic.

Meanwhile, in a timely way, I also received this week an invitation to speak at a conference in South Africa (one of the emerging markets on all lists but an "advanced emerging market" on the FTSE Group list.) It's from Amabhubesi Conferencing who is holding an Organization Design and Development Summit in November 2010. The Summit is scheduled to take place on 24 & 25 November and will be held at Sothern Sun Grayston Hotel, Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. The organizers are expecting delegates from the public and private sectors from a range of countries including South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. And they note that "Sometimes we do get delegates from as far as Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria."

So, it looks to me as if I might be persuaded to write this report. I'm reminding myself of the phrase I like. "When I see what I do, I'll know what I want", or the variation of it "When I hear what I say, I'll know what I think".

I was amused to read Lucy Kellaway's column in the Financial Times on Monday. It's all about the blurring of the lines between home and office. She wants to know why it is that people eat cereal at their desks. What prevents them from the 90 sec exercise of eating it at home? She suggests that:

"Over the past decade there has been a steady onward march of objects, activities and emotions from hearth to cubicle, so there is now almost nothing left that belongs entirely at home.
Modern office workers can conduct all their most intimate morning rituals at work. They turn up in sweat pants, take a shower, clean their teeth and apply make-up. Offices double as wardrobes and laundry rooms with damp towels, spare clothes and shoes strewn carelessly around the place."

What she doesn't discuss is whether she is talking about people who have their own private offices or people working in open plan areas in close proximity to co-workers. Maybe she's talking about both. There doesn't seem to be much difference – at least in the place where I work – except that private office 'owners' have more stuff that indicates home from home. Open plan or cubicle workers have to be content with a more contained form of showing domestic bliss.

Regardless, it is a subject close to my heart right now as I am engaged on a project to move people from one office building to another. In the new building there is much less space. So the challenge is to encourage people to rethink the idea – in Lucy Kellaway's words that:

Grooming complete, workers [can] present themselves at their desks, where they are greeted by stuffed toys, rugs, bunches of flowers and, of course, photographs of children and pets.

The new office space requires people to share space, work from home, hotel i.e. not have an assigned space but a bookable space on an as needed basis, etc. And the idea that some people will have a personal office is being rather frowned on. So what will encourage people to give up on the notion that they have personal 'real estate' that they own at the office? It's playing out in different ways.

1. We have compiled a list of "Can take/Can't take" and that remains a work in progress as people ring up with questions about a specific item they want to take with them.

2. We are encouraging work groups to establish protocols about working together. We don't want to put a blanket one on the whole office, rather they decide locally. So far the list of possible areas for protocols reads

• Handling sensitive information in the open areas
• Storage space usage
• Supplies (provision of )
• Common use areas
• Use of wall spaces
• Use of empty offices
• Scents and perfumes
• Food – smells, cooking, spills
• Radios, headphones
• Phone rings and tones
• Indicating 'please do not disturb'
• Conversations (pitch and proximity of)

3. We are considering introducing policies on some things. This aspect is also in a state of flux as new requests hit the decks. It's a whole range of stuff that makes working at a non-office location seem like the best bet. At least it would allow worker choice and avoid us having to rule on how to help someone who doesn't want to work on one of the higher floors of the building, or how to handle the person who wants to put paper across the glass walls.

It's all learning by trying out at the moment. What I find interesting is that if people were applying for a job in an office that was already clean desk, teleworking, hoteling, and so on they wouldn't be asking or expecting to have their own domestic/personal items to hand. They would just 'go with the flow'. Where we are all being asked to do something different from what we think we signed up for the going is much tougher. Here's where change management takes the accountability rap to make it work in the new world.

A fascinating interview in Slate magazine (sent to my by my brother) quotes James Bagian – once a NASA astronaut among other careers – as saying:

You can't change the culture by saying, 'Let's change the culture.' It's not like we're telling people, "Oh, think in a systems way." That doesn't mean anything to them. You change the culture by giving people new tools that actually work. The old culture has tools, too, but they're foolish: "Be more careful," "Be more diligent," "Do a double-check," "Read all the medical literature." Those kinds of tools don't really work.

So here's a man after my own heart. (He's also against scorecards – another plus in my view). In fact, I wondered if he'd read my book, but no it seems he had these ideas without any help from me.

In the interview Bagian talks about how people in organizations deal with errors, except that he doesn't like that term. He is of the opinion (he is talking of healthcare, but in my experience it could be any organization) that a common response to failure is to look for someone to demonize when things go wrong, "Let's figure out who screwed up and blame them and punish them and explain to them why they're stupid." Shades of the treatment of BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, spring to mind. His view of the word "error" is that "it distracts people from the real goal, which isn't reducing error but reducing harm. And it also feeds into precisely the cultural problem we're discussing. It has a punitive feel, and it suggests that the right answer was available at the time, which isn't always the case."

The same day I read this interview I read a report of an article on learning from failure in Science Daily. This notes that "While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School." Peter M. Madsen, Vinit M. Desai. Failing to Learn? The Effects of Failure and Success on Organizational Learning in the Global Orbital Launch Vehicle Industry. Academy of Management Journal, 2010.

Desai doesn't recommend seeking out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advised organizations to analyze small failures and near misses to glean useful information rather than wait for major failures. "The most significant implication of this study…is that organizational leaders should neither ignore failures nor stigmatize those involved with them," he concluded in the June edition of the Academy of Management Journal, "rather leaders should treat failures as invaluable learning opportunities, encouraging the open sharing of information about them."

What's interesting is that both Bagian and this article have roots in the 'orbital launch vehicle industry'. I wonder whether this industry is particularly open to learning from failure and whether other industries are not (and would they be more successful if they were?) But looking at another of Kathryn Schulz's interviews, this time with Victor Niederhoffer he takes a similar line to both Bagian and Desai people who make errors and mistakes "should think about the principles that led to their mistakes". Summing up the three pieces they all make the same three points: to learn from errors

1 Ask why mistakes occur and look at close calls – where mistakes nearly occur but are headed off (as in near mid-air collisions).
2 Encourage people to report errors and close calls – which they tend not to for fear of humiliation, punishment and retaliation. Bagian encourages reporting in a very specific way by framing what an error or close call is and why he is interested in it.
3 Be open about things that go wrong and be willing to discuss them, analyze the situation in which they occurred, and provide people with the information and tools to do things differently in the future.