The №1 Reason Why Errors Happen at Work
The knowledge and complexity we face today surpass our individual abilities. But there is a solution.
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On 29 September 2015, former Googler Sanmay Ved was checking out Google Domains.
He saw that Google.com was for sale!
Surprised, Ved tossed Google.com into his cart to see if he really could buy it. He could. Google sold him google.com for 12 bucks!
Ved’s ownership didn’t last long, though. Google Domains canceled the order literally a minute later — which it could do only because it controlled both the domain and the registry service.
If Ved had bought google.com through another registrar, he probably could have kept it, at least until lawyers got involved.
(As recounted by Casey Kelly-Barton on the HostGator website.)
This issue isn’t unique to Google.
Microsoft’s Hotmail, Foursquare, Dallas Cowboys … are just some of the companies that forgot to renew their domain name on time.
The above are visible instances of errors.
But something similar, in many multiples of the above, happens internally in every company and every department.
What contributes to these errors at work?
The number of things that a manager has to take care of nowadays is brutal and exhausting.
It is a combination of –
Audit Reports + Regulatory Directives + New Processes + Process Improvement + System Workarounds + Company Guidelines + Manager’s Essentials
In short, a manager — especially a manager in an Operations / Services / IT / HR / Accounts / Admin department — is keeping track of too many things.
Sooner or later, something is going to fall through the cracks.
An Example
I recall my work as Ops head in a bank.
In a relatively stable world of Savings and Loan accounts, I received 40+ Process notes (I counted them one day) from the Central team, in a span of 6 months.
These Process notes related to big and small items:
· A new ID document to be taken from customers going forward
· Launch of ‘Loan against Gold’ product
· Details of loan delinquency cases to be updated in a new Credit portal
· A new method to calculate incentives for Sales staff who source Savings Accounts.
Then there were items arising from:
- Regulatory Directive: To pay the newly introduced ‘Service Tax’ by the 5th of the month to the Government.
- Audit Observation: The ‘Suspicious Transaction’ list was not sent to the financial regulator every Friday. To be ensured going forward.
- System Work-Around: To reverse the incentive paid to the Sales staff, if the loan is prepaid by the customer within 6 months.
- Company Guidelines: Staff to complete 5 days of mandatory training every 6 months.
- Manager’s Essentials: To recommend team members for the newly instituted ‘Employee of The Month’ Award.·
Yes, it just keeps on coming.
The higher you go, the faster it comes.
Can the above be managed better? Made simple, yet scalable?
Yes. Consider the following representation:
An (All-Inclusive) Checklist = [ Audit Reports + Regulatory Directives + New Processes + Process Improvement + System Workarounds + Company Guidelines + Manager’s Essentials ]
Yes, just 1 document (per person) — an all-inclusive checklist — to include everything!
It might seem unwieldy, but it really is simple. I have put an image below that shows the workflow.
Once you implement checklists like this in your department, the things to track at work will become simple, scalable, and yet effective.
A sample checklist would be as under:
Just 1 page (per person) and it captures all — what to do ‘Daily’, and what to do ‘Once a Year’!
In practice, though there will be many items on the checklist, yet come in one page per person.
A couple of do’s and don’ts based on my experience
- Easy Access: The reason we don’t take our checklists seriously is — because it isn’t up-to-date. And the reason we don’t update our checklists is that we don’t know where the soft copy of the checklist is! So have a sub-directory where all the checklists are maintained. Then it will be easy to access and update.
- Avoid Generics. In your checklist avoid generics. Instead, make it specific. Specific in terms of Account Numbers, specific Audit observations to follow, etc. Avoid the word “Ensure All … ”
- Regular Update: To ensure a team member is updating their respective checklists, ask them to include a column “Date Added” in the checklist. If in a month, you don’t find five or six items added or updated in someone’s checklist, dig deep and question.
- Scalable: Audit observation can be carried point-wise in a checklist, with a row like, “Ensure compliance with previous Audit observations, as detailed in Sheet 2.” You can then forget the 10-page audit report. Your checklist is complete, a standalone document in itself.
- Activity Checklists: Apart from the manager, team leader, and team member, the need arises for one more type of checklist: Activity Checklists. Some activities –say account opening, income computation, Begin of Day, End of Day system process, etc. — a) are critical, b) have frequent updates, c) attract exceptions — and so should have detailed checklists of their own.
How did a Checklist earn me the admiration of a boss?
An incident that I recall with affection every time I think of checklists.
It was mid-2008.
We had migrated a 40-member operation from the bank to a group company. I too moved to the new city where the group company was based.
In the first meeting called by my new boss, I said,
“Sir, our SEBI (regulatory) license is up for renewal. It has to be renewed every 5 years. The application for renewal needs to be sent 3 months before the expiry date which is 30 September 2008.”
The boss asked, “How did you know it is to be renewed now?”
I said, “Sir, It’s there on my checklist.”
The boss seemed surprised, “Something to be done once in 5 years?”
I said, “Yes sir, it has everything.”
The boss remarked, “Great. Here (referring to a lapse that was discussed earlier in the meeting) we have people forgetting things that are to be done on a daily basis.”
A common misconception
When we say checklists, we have an image of rigidity. A list of things to do that don’t change.
But the checklist I suggest is dynamic.
It will require an update — every 2 days or so, at times — to stay relevant.
The updates would be because of the things mentioned above — a new Process note, a Regulatory directive, an Audit observation, a System workaround, etc.
Only then the checklist will be effective and help to reduce the errors.
The big picture
In the book, The Checklist Manifesto, Dr. Atul Gawande reflecting on the complex nature of work today, writes
Know-how and sophistication have increased across all our realms of endeavor, and as a result, so has our struggle to deliver on them. … You see it in flawed software design, in foreign intelligence failures, in our tottering banks — in fact, in almost any endeavor requiring mastery of complexity and of large amounts of knowledge.
Making the case for the checklist, Gawande writes,
That means we need a different strategy for overcoming failure, one that builds on experience and takes advantage of the knowledge people have but somehow also makes up for our inevitable human inadequacies.
And there is such a strategy — though it will seem almost ridiculous in its simplicity, maybe even crazy to those of us who have spent years carefully developing even more advanced skills and technologies.
It is a checklist.
In the book, Gawande details how checklists have helped to reduce errors and solve complex problems in different industries.
Example
In an example from the healthcare industry, Gawande writes how the implementation of a checklist helped Johns Hopkins Hospital to reduce the central line infection rate that “prevented forty-three infections and eight deaths and saved two million dollars in costs.”
This success led to the incorporation of checklists in other areas.
Conclusion
Emails, diary, minutes of meetings, 10-pager process notes, bulky audit reports, root cause analysis — all will wither away with time — first from sight, then from the mind.
You will go away, but the Company will remain.
Only a checklist made as above — a light one-pager, diligently updated — of every manager, team leader, and team member — will be flexible enough to carry forward the learning, your very day-to-day experience, so to speak.
Left un-transferred, a recruit will make his share of mistakes before he gains back the same experience.
As I close this article, I am reminded of an appreciative remark that the COO of the bank once made to me, “I know you run a tight ship.”
The credit goes to Checklist.
As you go up the ranks, a review of checklists remains your best bet — and the most time-efficient one — to reduce the potential for errors in the department.
If you are in an Individual Contributor role, or a new Manager, I have created an eBook, ‘How to Get a 5 (Excellent) in Year-end Appraisal’. Download your copy.
