Tuesday 22 May 2018

"It's Normal"

Have you ever been in a new situation where you had to do something which seemed really dangerous or risky to you, but those around you accepted as “normal”?  I heard an interesting anecdote from the Manging Director of an oil company who had recently been out to see one of the offshore rigs that the company operated and had been nervous over the process of transferring from the ship carrying the rig crew to the rig itself.

Although the MD was nervous, and asked others transferring to the rig whether they felt the same, they all told the MD not to worry and that everything would be “Alright”.  To them, this was “normal”, but to the first-timer for this experience, it was a scary prospect.

It got the MD thinking: the other workers had “normalised” the risk, even though a few months before, someone had fallen between the rig and the crew transfer vessel.  That person survived, but it proved that things could go wrong, despite everyone thinking it was “normal”.

The MD’s question was this: how many risks in our lives have we “normalised” because we carry out that activity every day?  Think of driving a car: when you get behind the wheel for your first lesson, it all seems so complicated with the steering wheel, pedals, mirrors, gear shift, indicators and so on to remember.  And yet a year after passing our driving test, we get into our card and everything seems to come automatically.  What happened to all that complexity?

On the flip side, we may forget to look for risks because everything seems “normal” now.  The best time to spot risks is to have a new set of eyes look at them.  A typical example might be that new recruit looking at how we do something and asking, “Isn’t that dangerous/illegal/etc?”  When they ask this, we should be stopping and asking, “Do they have a point?  How doesthis look in the real world?” as opposed to resorting to our rose-tinted view of our world.  Again, the MD related how colleagues from a refinery in another country had come to the local one and asked all kinds of questions about safety and risk issues which they had spotted – and they were working for the same company!

It’s never too late to stop and ask, “Have we normalised this?” to the extent that we don't see risk where it might actually be hiding in plain sight.


I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world  running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

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