Every team member must feel compelled to disclose every imperfect aspect of our work, so it can be dealt with positively to improve the project outcomes. Everyone is imperfect, having incomplete knowledge and skills. The team and its leadership must be able to identify all of these so that appropriate support or training can be applied. It is better to have people limited in skills than limited in the ability to disclose deficiencies.

There’s a safety analogy here… we have come to expect our colleagues to take their own and OUR safety very seriously indeed. We expect full disclosure of injuries, non-injurious events and unsafe acts. Why? So we can make it safer next time. It should be the same with performance.

This isn’t about blame; it’s about finding out what doesn’t work, so we can make it better next time.

As one crew member on the Magnus platform put it, “errors need to be disclosed but not dwelled on”. This is different to keeping “quiet”, though it is important not to make an issue of errors on anyone’s part.

Next: Everyone committed to project goals