Over-commitment to process leads to death in DC
At a training course many years ago, I was introduced to the idea that people could be roughly divided into four basic types: action, idea, process, and people. The quintessential example of a process person was one of my work colleagues. He made a copy of every document he dealt with, stapled a typed cover sheet describing the content to the document, and then filed it away in a neatly labeled folder. He was always behind in his filing and once did a time-motion study that showed his job really needed 1.25 people. Some months later I took over his job, stopped keeping unneeded copies of documents, eliminated cover sheets and used batch processing. Within a few weeks I reported to my boss that I was ready to take on more work as I estimated that I had 20% of my time free.
This example may be a bit over the top, but we see this type of slavish devotion to process every day and it can have tragic consequences. Last January a 77-year old man collapsed with a heart attack across the street from DC fire station. When onlookers rushed to the station for help, they were told that they needed to call 911 before anyone could help them. There were a number of other complicating factors (the responding ambulance was sent to the wrong location, for example) but the bottom line is the man died only feet away from the help that might have saved him.
The rule against self-dispatching was implemented for very good reasons and violating it can and should have serious consequences. But it shouldn’t trump common sense. While the fire department is investigating and has remained largely silent about the incident, it is significant that the lieutenant in charge of the station was relieved and is taking retirement.
Don’t get me wrong. We need process people or else idea people like me would never get anything done. We need form and structure, we need planning, and we need organization. But when process gets in the way of doing the right thing, there’s something wrong with our thinking.