When 99.99% Is Not Good Enough

Back when I was a facilitator for a large cable company I would often get asked what my favorite subject was to teach.   Without hesitation I would always answer the same…it was a half- day course called “First Time Right” which as I am sure you can guess, focused on the principles of doing a task correctly the first time in order to avoid unnecessary repeat activities or escalations.   My reasoning for selecting this course as a favorite was simple…of the 20 or so programs I had facilitated the FTR course was by far both the easiest and hardest to train.  It was the easiest because in theory the objective is simple to understand…Follow a specific set of steps that if completed correctly, would result in a successful conclusion.  It was the hardest because the students often reacted to the principle in a strong way which in turn could lead to at times, passionate discussion.  The spark that lit the discussion was almost always the same…. can anyone really be expected to complete a task correctly every time?  To that I would usually answer with the following…

• If 99.99% was considered good enough, then more than 3500 planes would crash each year
• If 99.99% was considered good enough there would be 30 babies given to the wrong parents after birth every single day.
• If 99.99% was considered good enough there would be almost 50 spelling mistakes in the Websters Dictionary.
• If 99.99% was considered good enough Tim Hortons would give 550 people the wrong coffee every day.

OK…so those last two definitely do not have the same impact as planes crashing and babies going to the wrong parents but the point I was trying to make was this…sometimes being almost perfect is not as great as it sounds.

As you can imagine even after citing stats I would still be left with a few students who would argue that a FTR policy is not sustainable and that plane crashes aside, we are not machines and that nobody is perfect.  And that is where I would get them, because the truth is First Time Right is not about being perfect or a machine, it’s about always giving your best effort regardless of the task.  It’s about being a good team player…it’s about being detailed and thorough while ensuring you have done everything you were asked to do…it’s about truly believing that when you have completed a task, you have done so knowing there was nothing that could make it better.  Is it always easy to follow a FTR process?  Well I would imagine that depends on the task, but assuming one is qualified for the job they have been asked to do and given reasonable time and resources, then failure is usually triggered by other factors such as lack of attention to detail, laziness or a simple apathetic attitude towards one’s job.  For that, in my opinion anyway, there can be no excuse. 

A few years have passed since my days of engaging students in discussions around FTR and I am working for a new company now, however I still come across instances where I think we all need to be reminded that FTR is not an impossible dream and quite frankly, should be all of our realities.