I once worked in a gas turbine test laboratory in Switzerland. I was responsible for running a test bed. When I arrived there we were failing, and having to repeat, every second test. It was a shambles. I thought it was shameful but everyone else seemed to shrug their shoulders.

I began to record the reasons for each failure. The majority of them turned out to be operator errors - forgetting to turn on equipment, forgetting to set the correct parameters, leaving parts out, running the test bed to failure. Each time something went wrong, I asked myself one of the most powerful questions that you can ever, ever ask yourself, “What can I do to make sure that this never, ever happens again?”

This question ensures that you go beyond responding to the symptoms of a problem and get to the root cause. If you can’t eliminate the root cause, then you must see what you can do to control the causes so that you don’t end up with results that you don’t want.

In the case of the lab, I revised many functions so that repetitive problems were totally eliminated. For those that could not be eliminated, I created a check list for each operator to go through and sign before, during and after a test. Each time that a new cause of failure occurred, I asked my powerful question and dealt with it - often by adding a new feature on the checklist.

The net result was that test failures due to avoidable operator errors fell to zero (apart from one time when an operator felt that he knew better and didn’t follow the checklist). At least that was the case on my watch. I left that company and returned on a visit a year or two later. No one used the checklists anymore and tests were frequently repeated.

Every time that you get a result that you don’t want then I recommend that you ask yourself, “What can I do to make sure that this never, ever happens again?” If you carry out a lot of relatively routine functions but keep having snarl ups then I recommend that you create a checklist and follow it diligently. It will save you a great deal of fuss and bother and it will boost your productivity tremendously.

I give one warning: it can make life easy to the point of boring. If you are someone who takes pride in being a hard worker then this tactic is not for you. In my experience hard workers, when left to their own devices, insist on making work hard. The guy who ran the lab when I arrived prided himself on being a hard worker (Man, we had so much conflict! He was the guy who didn’t follow the checklist and ruined my near zero record).

With him in charge, it was no wonder that we were working our asses off and getting abominable results. I doubled the productivity of the lab and got it to run so smoothly that it was boring. We’d set the tests up, let them run, sit back and then me and my buddy would while away the hours voting on ‘Hot or Not’. I had so little to do that I was even able to set up a secret bed in the basement for a little R&R after lunch.

So let’s do a little morality poll here. Was my behavior (after doubling the productivity of the lab and making it run so smoothly that I effectively made myself redundant) lazy, feckless and irresponsible, or was it the well-deserved fruit of a job done thoroughly and excellently? How about another question - would you respect and wish to be the hard worker (busy, busy, busy but grossly ineffective) or the Paganist worker (highly effective on a fundamental level first and then deservedly slothful)?