Swiss cheese I went skiing during half term. It is the thing to do. The only (and I mean only) time you will ever prise the British middle classes out of their Volvos and BMWs and onto a bus is during the spring half term break. Then, miraculously, you will find all the little Joshuas […]
Information Overload
A broken valve In the early hours of the morning on March 28th 1979, a valve broke on a water pipe. That pipe was at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The failure resulted in the most serious nuclear incident that the USA has ever seen. Chain reaction The broken valve led to […]
Danger of Death
Things gone wrong One of the simplest ways to improve performance is to stop things from going wrong. If you can change people’s behaviour and remove errors, defects or accidents, then performance will improve. It doesn’t matter if you work in a bank, a supermarket or collect bins for a living. Fewer errors equals better […]
Human Error
World War 2 During the second world war, over 60 million people were killed. That was roughly 3% of the worldwide population. It was a hazardous time. Amongst the hardest hit were the bomber crews. The Eighth Air Force suffered half of all the U.S. Air Force’s casualties. The British fared as badly. The chances of surviving the […]
Blame and Ignorance
I made a fool of myself yesterday I had a road rage incident. Well it wasn’t so much road rage as pedestrian rage. I was crossing the street on my way to the railway station and some clown in 4 by 4 damn near ran me over. It ended up in a slagging match between me and […]