It’s 2015. Our planet has passed around the sun again and
all around the world people are getting ready to start a new year. This process
often involves a lot of reflection for most. We look back on the previous year,
the good and the bad, cherishing the good memories and mourning the bad,
especially if we’ve lost anyone during the year.
One of the most common outcomes of this process is the
infamous “New Year’s Resolution”. After reflecting on the previous year, many
people identify things that they want to do better in the coming year. Some of
the more common resolutions include things like getting healthy via some
combination of eating right or exercising, or spending more time with family
and friends. Some resolve to do some form of self-improvement involving school
or work. Maybe resolving to getting that big promotion or getting that graduate
degree you’ve been looking towards.
Whatever the resolution one chooses, these resolutions have
a common thread – they stem from a focus on learning from some version of
failure or deficit. People who believe they are very healthy usually don’t have
a New Year’s resolution to get healthier. Instead, it’s those who believe that
they didn’t do as well as they’d like and are looking to improve. This is fine,
but if you only focus on improving what you don’t do well you miss a large part
of your life – i.e. those things you do well.
Think about it, there’s probably a lot of things you’re
really good at, and our primary evidence of this is that we’re successful (by
some measure). Most just take it for granted that they were successful and stop
there. But what if instead, at this time of reflection, you look back on not
only areas you didn’t achieve your goals, but those areas where you were
successful? Research suggests that those who take the time to learn not only
from their failures, but their successes are…well, more successful.
This line of thinking is consistent with a new approach to
safety management, called Safety-II where, instead of defining safety as
the absence of negatives, we focus on the ability to achieve success. A key
principle in Safety-II, and in many similar theories of safety management, such
as Resilience Engineering, is that learning should not be a discrete event,
like it is in most organizations. What we mean by this is that, in most
organizations they only learn when something bad happens (i.e. an accident).
Instead, learning should be continuous. And, instead of only minimizing the
bad, safety should look at why things go right and find ways to enhance the
possibility that the organization will achieve success.
Back to you, what this means for you, this New Year, is that
perhaps you should take some time and think about what worked. Why did it work?
What did you do that contributed to that success and how can you do more of
that? How can you expand that into other areas of your life? And what successes
last year, after you take some time to think about them, were maybe more a
result of luck than you’d like to admit. What can you learn from those so
you’re not relying on luck as much? What resolutions can you develop to enhance
your ability to achieve even more success in 2015?
And think about it – how often does your New Year’s
resolution work? If you’re like most people, probably not that often. The
reasons for this are complex, but the short story is that if changing behavior
from something that led to failure before to something that led to success is
not simple (regardless of how simple some would like us to believe it is). At a
very basic level, these are things that at least a part of us doesn’t want to
do. But people like doing things that they are good at, so if you change the
focus from doing better at those things you failed at, to doing more of what
you’re good at you’re much more likely to be even more successful next
year.
Happy New Year from SCM Safety! Here’s a more success next
year!
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