AUTOPSY WITHOUT BLAME.

Every organization will experience successes and failures. And most of the time, failures present the greatest opportunity for growth, because there is less of a presumption that things went well because we are "just that good." However, organizational autopsies are most effective when they are conducted - without blame. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the importance of conducting 'autopsies without blame.' Specifically, the goal of an 'autopsy without blame' is to figure out what happened, why it happened and how we ensure that it (whatever 'it' is) doesn't happen again. Typically, institutional failures are 'process failures' not 'people failures.' So, the goal of an effective autopsy is not to indict but to investigate, uncover and resolve. Sometimes failing processes are intradepartmental, sometimes they are interdepartmental, and, at other times, they are both intra and interdepartmental. An effective organizational autopsy means identifying the systems involved in the failure(s) and creatively working to ensure that our shared processes are updated to reflect our new learning. #AutopsyWithoutBlame