Just Because

My husband and I have survived parenting one teenager and have one to go. Any of you who have traversed this territory know how treacherous it can be. So much learning occurs during those years and it isn’t easy learning. It’s hard, sometimes painful and wrought with emotion. It isn’t just the kids who are learning either. Growth comes for the parents as well.

One of many policies we instituted came from the blending of my husband’s experiences growing up and mine. We called it "unlimited chances." We wanted to give our kids the comfort to know that if they came to us with problems created by choices they made, we would help them, not crucify them for making a mistake.

"If you have worked in an environment where fear drives the decisions being made by workers, then you understand how safety can suffer."

For example, when I came home after putting a dent in the car about a month after I got my driver’s license, I was worried about what my dad would say. I didn’t want to disappoint him. Here is what he said, "Are you OK?" Yes. "Was the other person involved OK?" Yes. "Was the other car damaged?" No. "Come with me." At this point he had given me no clue as to whether he was angry or not and I was really worried. He took me out to the garage and around to the front end of his car and pointed out a similar dent in the front fender of his car that I had not noticed. He told me that these things happen, even to very experienced drivers like himself. Instead of getting angry, grounding me or lecturing me, he taught me a big lesson that day in tolerance, love and humility. His response encouraged me to continue to come to him with other less than stellar choices that I had made and to seek his wise counsel.

That story exemplifies what my husband and I have come to call unlimited chances. We let our kids know that they have unlimited chances to make mistakes and learn from them. That is not to say that we encouraged them to do wrong or risky things. To the contrary, we have set clear rules and limits and let them know the consequences. But we also encourage them to let us know when and how we could help them navigate through those tricky choices. We also explained when a rule was broken, that even though they may not like the consequences (grounding, no cell phone, no car, whatever), it was not the end of the world and they would live to see another opportunity to have unlimited chances.

I was reading recently about the philosophy called "just culture." Just culture is being embraced in the medical community, and in some aviation communities, as a safety system that facilitates open communication within an organization, accountability, and making safe behavioral choices among workers.

People seem to have strong feelings about this philosophy. Some say it allows people to go ahead and make mistakes, just as long as they report them. Others think it is the wave of the future and are prophesying that it is the only way we will make progress in safety. Contrary to the nay-sayers, just culture is not a "blame-free" approach to safety. Obviously a blame-free approach that would allow someone to willfully and recklessly make unsafe choices can’t work in aviation.

But if you have worked in an environment where fear drives the decisions being made by workers, then you understand how safety can suffer. That kind of culture is known as a punitive culture. Negative outcomes are met with disciplinary action or with someone losing their job. This has the opposite effect of the one intended, safety. It simply encourages people to be less than honest for fear of embarrassment, retribution or worse, losing their livelihood.

According to David Marx, founder of the Just Culture Community (www.justculture.org), open communication about system errors, risks, and mistakes is key. He also emphasizes that a well-established system of accountability is needed to ensure the success of such a culture. Marx wrote in the inaugural issue of their newsletter: "It is an organization that recognizes that we as humans are fallible; however, it recognizes that in most circumstances, we do have control of our behavioral choices — whether we are an executive, a manager, or a staff member. It is an organization that understands shared accountability — that both good system design, and good behavioral choices of staff together produce good results. It has to be both." I encourage you to learn more about it and make your own judgment.