The Winter of Experience

Recently, OceanGate's Titan submersible met a tragic fate. After a week of news coverage, the desire to chalk this up as an unfortunate accident is understandable. May the dead rest in peace. Still, there is an uncomfortable lesson in this loss, and we don't need to wait over a hundred years to learn it.

Innovation can be rewarding as well as risky. Invent too early and risk being a footnote. Invent too late and be Johnny-Come-Lately. Micro-manage risk and stifle innovation. Ignore risk and, well, history has a place for that too. These were brave souls who gave their lives to help build our modern world, advance science, and discover. Throughout their journeys they dealt with social influence and constrained worldviews, competing if not contentious working relationships, and putting themselves in harm's way. They challenged contemporary thinking, broke the rules, and at times seemed equal parts pirate and pioneer. Several became titans of the industries they helped create.

Inventors are egotistical and daring. They challenge the nature of reality. Where everyone else sees the impossible, they show the possible. Some are experimenters like Edison, others methodical with the scientific method like Tesla, or they are straight-up risk takers. Whether you're an innovation bystander or involved stakeholder, eventually you're asked to hold my beer. There's a macabre truth in Jeff Foxworthy's suggestion to go ahead and drink it; that moment of decision speaks volumes about the experience and character of the people involved.

Afterwards, there may be a bitter lesson to learn. With the Titan tragedy, novelty, hubris, and the perception of experience introduced risk.

Enter the Summer and Winter Experts

For those who consider themselves industry or field experts: Do you wait to act until circumstances are fair and in popular opinion, or do you act under adverse or disagreeable circumstances?

Once things went awry for the Titan, some experts were roused to opine on design flaws. It's easy to criticize an event in hindsight, but why did some experts silently harbor their concern? Others, including an employee, tried to raise awareness of safety issues and was fired and sued. Around the same time, over three dozen industry experts put their names to a letter of concern.

Recent history demonstrates an unsettling willingness to censor, ridicule, fire, imprison, lawfare, or bankrupt anyone taking a position that deviates from an edict. Were these detractors bitter rivals, serial complainers crying wolf, or experienced people voicing reasonable concern?

Consider the situation five years ago: When identifying or being confronted with a safety or ethical concern, how would you react?

• As an expert, risk your livelihood and bring your concern to your employer?
• As a leader, retaliate and sue?

This exchange is an example of the trend to ignore experience and aggressively shut down dissent.

In the Thomas Paine sense, experienced individuals taking personal and reputational risk for the well-being and safety of others may be considered winter experts, and experienced individuals taking a cautious approach could be considered summer experts.

History Matters

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

- George Santayana

What do parents, space engineers, and submarine engineers have in common? They have training and experience in identifying certain dangerous situations, such as a door that can't be opened from the inside. The Titan design included the same oversight as old refrigerator manufacturers and Apollo 1: The door only opened from the outside.

From the report expressing safety concerns, to articles describing successful testing, to post facto reviews, there is evidence safety was misrepresented or ignored, and lacked oversight by subject matter experts. The electrical system was designed and implemented by college interns while experienced submariners were excluded from the candidate pool because they were perceived as uninspiring to younger employees.

Whether or not other experienced submarine experts ultimately provide oversight, aspects of the Titan design include parts that didn't seem appropriate for missions the vessel would undertake. Those include wireless game controllers, carbon fiber past its expiration date, and a portal rated to thirteen hundred meters (1,300m) for a mission to four thousand meters (4000m). Furthermore, no certification was conducted. Multiple experts claimed the Titan was an experimental vessel with safety issues, not certified by established agencies, and operated in unregulated locations.

On the other hand, the Titan was experimental and everyone involved knew that. Were the risks and sacrifices different than those taken by test pilots or test drivers? Industry leaders and experts are stepping forward to express alarm or reveal prior concerns. This isn't the first or last experiment preceded by public promotion of safety, accompanied by a clear disclaimer, and whose construction and operation skirted safety ("safety is waste", the inventor said).

One way this situation differs from other test flights, drives, and dives is they had passengers on board. Even though the vessel was experimental and waivers were signed, was there an ethical obligation to communicate the specific safety risks others had been calling out for the prior five years?

Most companies have ethics and safety agreements. For the inventor, it's understandable risk may come with invention. As a leader or domain expert, when your decisions may have consequences on other people, where is the line in your commitment to ethics and safety versus acceptable risk? Would you approve a hatch that couldn't be opened from the inside? Or, is a disclaimer that it's experimental good enough ?

Which brings me back to the winter experts who called out safety concerns early on. Consider Burt Munro setting land speed records with his 1920 Indian at Bonneville Salt Flats. In the fictionalized version, race officials are the antagonists for raising safety concerns about his experimental vehicle and lack of proper safety gear. In the movie, he changes a few things and they compromise on a few things. Today, those officials may just be fired for bringing it up. If that's the case and someone asks to hold my beer, don't be surprised if the other person drinks it.

Causality denied makes fate a popular waypoint.

The Risk of Dissent

It is well documented that some industries ignore older workers, and do so at their own risk. Other companies actively ignore experienced workers, from mothers returning to work to retired military vets. Also at their own or their customers' risk. Ironically, contemporary young adults value gaining experience. Perhaps a straw man argument, but it seems some leaders and business owners don't want young and inexperienced employees interacting with experienced ones. Experienced workers are likely to be accustomed and comfortable to a particular style and skill set which may be at odds with prevailing leadership styles.

It seems like those able to nurture, those with experience, and those seeking and valuing experience would come together as a sum greater than its parts. Why do some organizations have such a hard time combining these three groups together?

Right or wrong, organizations subjectively determine the impact and value of experience. From the summer experts, who are more cautious and mindful in responding to calls to action, to the winter experts who sound the klaxon the moment concern manifests, maybe some find it less hassle not to hire either at all than go through the effort to silence dissent later on.

Perhaps I'm just stodgy thinking a company culture is more well rounded with all seasons of experience, and by not retaliating against the expertise they claim to value.

PS: By the way, we're hiring.

PPS: Thank you Nicole Cooper for the peer review.

Epilogue: Knowledge is Power

From Forbes, 1921, "Knowledge Is Power"; QuoteInvestigator

In a great factory one of the huge power machines suddenly balked. In spite of exhortation, language, oil and general tinkering it refused to budge. Production slowed down and the management tore its hair.

At last an expert was called in. He carefully examined the machine for a few minutes, then called for a hammer. Briskly tapping here and there for about ten minutes, he announced that the machine was ready to move. It did.

Two days later the management received a bill for $250—the expert’s fee. The accountant was a righteous man who objected to overcharge. He demanded a detailed statement of the account.

He received this:

To tapping machine with hammer…$1.00

Knowing where to tap ………………$249.00