A Short History Lesson: 216 BC

On the 2nd of August, 216 BC, the two largest armies in the civilized world stood face to face on an open plain near the mouth of what is now the Ofanto River on Italy’s east coast – and the fate of the civilized world hung in the balance.
The Romans held the better ground and had nearly double the troop strength of their adversary. Nearly 80,000 armed men – over 55,000 in the heavily-armed and legendary Roman Legions were arrayed in three bristling lines of attack. Opposing the Roman juggernaut was a far weaker adversary in an inferior tactical position. With the river on one side and the ocean to the rear, an estimated 49,000 Carthaginian forces – mostly mercenaries who did not even speak a common language - prepared for what appeared to be a certain crushing defeat from the Roman sledgehammer.
Less than four hours later - in spite of superior troop strength and advantage of favorable terrain - nearly 60,000 Roman soldiers lay dead or dying on the ground near the village of Cannae – victims of poor decisions born of the common human errors of ego and anger. Perhaps even more important than the errors committed – was the fact that the Carthaginian commander – Hannibal Barca – predicted, induced and leveraged these errors to defeat a far superior force on unfavorable terrain. Therein lies the lessons for us today.
In 216 BC, Hannibal was one of the few commanders in the world that understood the intricacies of human error and how to leverage them to his advantage. Today, that information is available to all who desire it. Over the past two decades, human error research has expanded exponentially. Error causes and effects have been studied and codified to the point of being actionable for behavioral change for all of us – both as individuals and as organizational team players and leaders. Human error is no longer the shadowy, ill-defined foe it once was, yet few have utilized the new discoveries to attack error as a system – an oversight we intend to change.
In the next few months and years, we will undertake a fundamental and aggressive approach to combating the life-taking and resource-draining enemy we lump into the category of “human error.” Like Hannibal in his day, the enemy we face is formidable and the terrain not advantageous, but we also understand our enemy, have a sound strategy and a solid plan of attack. No matter what role you play in your organization, or even if you are not a part of any organization - you are a foot soldier in this war. Error stalks us all.

Jefe

What is the Global War on Error?

The Global War on Error (G-WOE) is a program designed to dramatically reduce human error in high risk endeavors. Based upon a strategic military science approach, the initiative has two distinct components – one strategic and one tactical in nature. The first is an over arching system of systems approach, designed to take existing resources and realign them against key centers of gravity for greater synergy and impact. The second half of the G-WOE program is an education and training curriculum designed to create comprehension and personal mastery of error reduction principles at an individual level.
The G-WOE approach describes the fight against error as a war, utilizing the proven concepts of military science to simultaneously attack multiple centers of gravity. Fortunately most of the tools for accomplishing these objectives already exist. But what is painfully clear is that safety and error prevention tools have never been effectively coordinated to the level that they could be for maximum impact. In fact, in most cases, differing approaches to safety compete with -- rather than complement -- each other for attention, credibility and resources. To date, most organizations have searched in vain for a magic bullet for error reduction, shopping a variety of approaches with varied results. Things don’t work, or they only work for a while and then initial gains begin to fade as new error patterns manifest themselves. A gap analysis of the current safety efforts also reveals a startling omission in the efforts to reduce human error – the lack of a strategy for personal error awareness and prevention. To remedy this omission, the G-WOE is also a curriculum designed to assist professionals in understanding why they – as unique individuals -- make errors and how to prevent them.