In many organizations, like those discussed in this chapter, countless small problems routinely occur, presenting early warning signs that the company's strategy may be falling short and needs to be revisited. Yet these signals are often squandered. Preventing avoidable failure thus starts with encouraging people throughout a company to push back, share data, and actively report on what is really happening in the lab or in the market so as to create a continuous loop of learning and agile execution.

When strategy is seen as a hypothesis to be continually tested, encounters with customers provide valuable data of ongoing interest to senior executives.

To help overcome this ubiquitous tendency, best practices for RRTs included a list of early warning signals nurses could consult to legitimize their calls. This list helped nurses build on their vague hunch—because they’d simply be following the protocol. When the RRT showed up, it brought more trained eyes to the bedside to assess whether the patient was failing.

This is more than vigilance. When people are given permission to amplify and assess weak signals (such as with an Andon Cord or a rapid response team), they are invited to engage wholeheartedly in the work—to embrace its inherently uncertain nature, to believe that their own eyes and ears and brains matter.

Beyond risk aversion, there's another psychological pull toward option B. It's simply human nature to want to avoid weakness or to use your weaknesses as a guide for where to improve. Indeed, most gap analyses are built on this idea and then color-coded to reinforce the point: hunt down your biggest flaws (the red ones), and improve them; now move quickly on to the yellow ones. But this approach can be a disaster. When your weaknesses are enabling your strengths, reducing the gaps between you and your competitors can actually undermine performance, turning a well-intentioned improvement effort into a strategically dangerous paint-by-number exercise

Beyond risk aversion, there's another psychological pull toward option B. It's simply human nature to want to avoid weakness or to use your weaknesses as a guide for where to improve. Indeed, most gap analyses are built on this idea and then color-coded to reinforce the point: hunt down your biggest flaws (the red ones), and improve them; now move quickly on to the yellow ones. But this approach can be a disaster. When your weaknesses are enabling your strengths, reducing the gaps between you and your competitors can actually undermine performance, turning a well-intentioned improvement effort into a strategically dangerous paint-by-number exercise