Recently there was an article in the 'Press' about the positive aspects of making mistakes. How it is how we really learn or learn from the mistakes of others.
Now this fits in with the 'Cone of Learning' where we learn most by doing then by simulating & least by reading or sitting in a classroom.
Yet our modern world is shaped by the need to have academic qualifications with little or no practical experience. This follows the Prussian system to allow them to create good soldiers & workers. In 1903 I believe it was in the US a Rockerfeller as the minister of education implimented a similar system. It was said to be the replacement for the Slavery system which ended in 1889. Only about 30% of the population were expected to succeed in this system, therefore providing cheap labour.
Carl Sagan once commented about Ionian society where the likes of Pythagoras grew & flourished as builders & plumbers sons. He points out that at that time all parts that made up society were equals but when 200 years later the academics forgetting the roots of their predecessors & thinking themsleves better it all fell apart. A lesson & mistake from history that people today would do well to take heed of!
The article talks about Thomas Edison & the amount of mistakes he made in inventing the light bulb. Though the article maybe wrong when it says he tried 700 experiments where as someone who knew Edison has said it was 10,000 & Edisons comment was always "I didn't fail, I just found 10,000 ways it wouldn't work".
In New Zealand today we have become so risk adverse that if you make mistakes you are seen as a leper. But it has extended to all areas. In the army I used to claim I learnt more than anyone else as I made more mistakes & it never harmed me, but with the mistakes I have made in business I know have the knowledge to use but no one wants to know you when you acknowledge you have made mistakes.
For example in the US it is accepted that a business person maybe bankrupted several times & in fact they have put in chapter 11 bankruptcy which allows then the chance to trade their way out. To be a bankrupt(though I haven't been as would not be able to work in my chosen line of business) in New Zealand is frowned upon.
The Essentials of Risk Management
Sometime after leaving the Army I applied for a security job with a government department. In the application was a question "what is the best thing to have ever happened to you?" I put down failing a commander's course on the first attempt.
Now in the army saying that would not of harmed you for future promotion. In fact a statement like that would be looked on as a positive. From adveristy, I had looked at myself & where I had to do better or change. But in civvy street I was told I was very brave for putting a failure as a good thing.
The Lucky Boots: A Tale about Learning from Mistakes (Famous Fables)
I also come across this when first working in the security industry. Where as those of us from a military background were always asking ourselves how we could do it better, even after a good outcome, our civvy counterparts would say "don't worry it worked out OK". That attitude on both sides has never changed.
The area of risk assessment also shows this attitude throughout New Zealand society in that we are now so risk adverse we either do nothing or just don't contemplate those possibilities.
It is something that I often get told in security that I look too high in my risk assessments. Actually no. For one under the Health & Safety requirements you must take into account all possibilities you can even if it hasn't happened to you. Though the act then lets people off by saying if you have never experienced it then along the lines you don't have to plan for it or so I understand & that is the line taken in New Zealand.
Watching the Disciples: Learning from Their Mistakes: A Lenten Study for Adults
But it is a catch 22 because if an incident occurs & it is found you should of taken it into account then you could be prosecuted. Which to me is counterproductive where a proper risk assessment culture would actually cut accidents & make people more aware.
Two having either experienced or trained to those levels I now have to have them as part of my assessment as legally required.
The fear is two fold. One that nothing will ever get done as the risk is too hig. Two that someone will get the blame when something goes wrong.
It has resulted in the opposite with a very dangerous work place such as in security where a proper risk assessment today would show all security require body armour, minimum of two people at any task & in many cases to be armed. Instead we have almost all security tasks undermanned usually with one person(so no immediate back up) very few wearing body armour & no one armed.
If I Only Knew Then...: Learning from Our Mistakes
You see the same in the Pike River Mine disaster. I feel for the Police in this as everything is just dumped on their lap & everything they do they get/have had so much criticism these days that they just take the attitude, well slow & methodical.
But as I have been hearing from Whaunaunga(relatives) with whanau(family) in the mine someone needed to get inside straight away. History shows that yes there might be secondary explosions though less likely shortly after the first, but if anyone is alive then it is only in the first few hours.
Those entering the mine would know this but again Risk assessment. They don't have Canaries these days but do have personal monitors, so as in the past you go as far or as long as you can until the indications are things are dangerous.
Learning from Our Mistakes: A Reinterpretation of Twentieth-Century Educational Theory (Contributions to the Study of Education)
Could not others die? Yes! But that has never stopped people doing what they have too. Soldiers, Police, Firefighters, Miners, some people in the last few days in the Queensland floods.
In my clippings I keep as reference is one from 2005/06 from Stars & Stripes where a mine rescue was in progress. The Mine manager was saying he thought it was time to stop going the safe route & just go for it. Like Pike River Mine they were having fluctuating gas levels but they had got 10,000 feet into the mine 12,000 feet deep.
So based on Pike River they could of got into say as far as the oxygen area with blast mat, set up a base then gone again.
The Security Risk Assessment Handbook: A Complete Guide for Performing Security Risk Assessments
Risk assessment is not about not doing dangerous things. It is about doing them & mitigating the risks. If you didn't do that soldiers would never go to war & we would not of left our villa in Baghdad.
It was known as soon as the first explosion happened in the Pike River mine that any chance they had to not only save the miners but at least retrieve their bodies was in the first few hours. But New Zealand is now so risk adverse(or as an Australian setting up business here said Apathetic) that was never going to be an option.
That is the real reason we no longer are able to foot it with Australia or lure our people home. We don't allow mistakes therefore we don't learn therefore we are no longer the dynamic leaders we once were.
Finally thanks to S. O'Neill for his comments. I agree. I have no issue with helping our mates or neighbours but we always seem reluctant in these countries to give our own people the best help we can give.
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