Reliable

There’s a term in several industries referring to a ‘high reliability organisation’. The obvious industries are aviation, and the chemical process industry.  As the label implies, these are businesses that are striving to be highly reliable.

Formally, the characteristics of HROs could be summarised as: 

• preoccupation with failure;

• reluctance to simplify explanations;

• sensitivity to operations;

• deference to frontline expertise; and 

• commitment to resilience.

I look at that list and think, they’re all pretty good themes for any business to strive for.  Considering failure helps prevent it. Simplifying makes sense.  Knowing your operations, check.  Expertise and resilience.  They’re good strategies overall.