B for Boom

1-minute read

I was watching the Netflix documentary about the Boeing 737 MAX disaster, and it reminded me of an old episode of M*A*S*H.

A kid has wandered into a minefield and needs to be rescued. Hawkeye urgently asks Radar where the map is kept in the filing cabinet. Radar tells him that the map isn’t under ‘M’

“Why isn’t it under ‘M’?”
“Because it’s under ‘B’ for ‘Boom’.”

Watching the Boeing documentary, I saw a different kind of minefield. You listen to the interviews and realise the disaster wasn’t just mechanical. It was human.

Part of the failure was that people who understood the risks were losing the authority to stop them. Engineers raised concerns, but they were told to make it work. The people who understood the danger were increasingly treated as obstacles instead of experts.

Which brings us back to Radar and the minefield map.

Radar knows exactly where it is. Companies like to believe their knowledge lives in procedures, manuals and shared drives. But often, it lives inside the people who know why the rule exists, when it does not apply, what looks wrong, and which small concern should not be ignored.

The institution owns the manuals. The people carry the judgement.

That is the trouble with institutional knowledge. Companies speak about it as though it belongs to the institution.

Very often, it belongs to the people.

For the curious: M*A*S*H, “Kim”, Season 2, Episode 6.