Let’s Make It Happen: A Culture of Margins
20/01/25
Companies often "close the barn door after the horse has bolted," responding to crises only after they have occurred. To prevent this, organizations must build systemic resilience. This means enhancing their ability to identify risk areas, create robust and flexible processes, and capitalize on daily minor mistakes before they escalate into major incidents.
Aviation experts know that accidents are often the result of unpredictable combinations of factors, which, on their own, might never have caused a crisis. This principle applies to various types of business risk. No company is truly safe. Organizational systems require people who follow operational programs aligned with corporate values. It is individuals who make a company secure by understanding the context they navigate daily. By acknowledging human fallibility, we can focus on the dynamics leading to crises, gaining deeper insight into the structural conditions behind adverse events. A proactive attitude helps highlight systemic weaknesses and identify latent causes before they trigger a crisis.
This requires a systemic approach, leadership commitment, an effective reporting system, and a credible high-level organizational framework.
A company's reliability is built on a culture of margins: every activity needs redundancies to prevent operations from pushing human, technological, and financial resources to their structural limits. If management views safety margins as waste, the organization enters a danger zone. Investments in cultural change, risk prevention, workforce expansion during operational growth, or maintenance team reviews should never be seen as waste—they are critical safety measures. A lack of significant crises should never lead companies to cut back on prevention efforts.
The company can develop effective human interaction and enhance situational awareness: communication, listening, and an open organizational culture foster collaboration essential for detecting risks.
