Many years ago I attended a precinct meeting in Texas for one of the political parties. The primary (pun?) purpose of the meeting was to elect delegates to the state convention. About 80% of the attendees were supporters of a certain favorite presidential candidate.
The precinct chairman, who looked to be just out of college, pulled out his list of delegates and said, “Let’s elect this list by acclamation.” Most seemed were in agreement.
Just then a grizzled old fart gentleman with overalls and a 5-day beard yelled from the back, “Let’s just do it right!”
That’s all he said. The chairman stopped, looked surprised, and said, “Ok. The floor is open for nominations.” He then proceeded with the proper process. Yes, he got his list elected, but several others were also elected, including myself, who were not on the list.
The next day we found that nearly a third of the precincts in that county did not follow the proper procedure and were forced to meet again after the results were invalidated.
“Let’s just do it right!” has stayed with me all my life.
During the period 1983 to 1993, there were about 279 aircraft accidents where the checklist procedures were not followed. Here is an example from 1996.
The Ocean Ranger Oil Platform sank because a lot of people took shortcuts and did not follow the procedure.
And of course, the BP Deepwater Horizon Blowout.
“Analysis of the available evidence indicates that when given the opportunity to save time and money – and make money – tradeoffs were made for the certain thing – production – because there were perceived to be no downsides associated with the uncertain thing – failure caused by the lack of sufficient protection. Thus, as a result of a cascade of deeply flawed failure and signal analysis, decision-making, communication, and organizational – managerial processes, safety was compromised to the point that the blowout occurred with catastrophic effects.”
Taking shortcuts and not “doing it right” can have unwelcome effects on a smaller scale.
There is a recent small business that must relocate because they thought they could renegotiate a lease verbally. They neglected to make the required written notification of intent to exercise their renewal option by a certain date and then the building was sold. The new owner wanted use of the whole building.
There is also a small nonprofit that neglected to actually sign their lease agreement; a very favorable agreement. Their building was also sold out from under them and they were forced to use all their financial resources to relocate. Their very existence was endangered.
Bad events are not normally distributed. They seem to have a fat tail distribution. That means the outer limits, where the real bad stuff lives, is more probable than you think. By not “doing it right”, you are making the fat tail fatter.