In this episode, Joe Estey emphasizes the importance of learning from everyday successful work rather than just focusing on mistakes, noting that real learning happens through crew conversations and training integration rather than formal databases that nobody reads. He also advocates for combating "safety clutter" by actively looking for things to subtract from procedures, rather than constantly adding new corrective actions. Finally, he points out that sometimes the best corrective action for a minor mistake is to simply do nothing, treating it like a systemic "undo button" rather than launching a formal investigation.
Get to know Joe Estey, Sr:
Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-estey-9905515a/
Email: jestey@lucasinc.com See an older, but still pertinent webinar with Joe: Fooled by Counting—Why the Scale is Not Your Friend
Website: www.CHOLearning.org (Joe serves on the Board of Directors, Community of Human and Organizational Learning)
Joe Estey provides several powerful strategies for reshaping organizational learning, reducing bureaucracy, and improving human performance.
Here are the key lessons we learn from his approach:
Learning from Everyday Successes
Estey stresses the importance of learning from normal, everyday activities rather than waiting to learn exclusively from mistakes. He notes that if an organization only attempts to learn from failures, they will simply get more opportunities to make them. Instead, leaders should proactively study teams that are successfully meeting their expectations and successfully managing everyday challenges.
Rethinking the "Vehicles" for Learning
Many companies invest heavily in formal "lessons learned" databases or required reading programs that workers never actually read; often, these systems exist simply to meet a bureaucratic deadline. Estey suggests that true operational learning happens through informal crew meetings and ongoing conversations, where workers naturally discuss what happened yesterday to prepare for today.
To institutionalize this knowledge for future or newly hired workers, he recommends:
Combating "Safety Clutter" Through Subtraction
Drawing on the concept of the "Scarcity Brain," Estey explains that humans have an innate drive to constantly add things to solve problems. In the workplace, this results in a dangerous "cumulative effect" of endlessly adding new rules, corrective actions, and procedural steps (often referred to as "safety clutter").
Estey challenges teams to overcome this instinct by routinely asking, "What do we need to take away in order to help make this more productive and safe?". By treating subtraction as a form of addition, organizations can simplify overly complex processes—such as avoiding situations where a single lock-out/tag-out tag requires 14 different people to touch it.
The Systemic "Undo Button"
Finally, Estey highlights that in some situations, the best corrective action is to do absolutely nothing. Every job carries an expected baseline error rate, and when minor mistakes happen that do not lead to severe consequences, organizations shouldn't force formal investigations or reports. Instead, businesses need to build a systemic "undo button"—much like in a word processor—where workers can simply recognize a minor mistake, correct it, learn, and move on without treating it like a catastrophe.
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