Chapter 12. Paradigm Shift

“You seem preoccupied,” Linda said. She was sitting at a small table across from Roger in his office during their weekly check-in meeting. Behind Roger, a large, square window that could not be opened, framed a dreary, darkening sky.

“I’m getting a lot of pressure from the E.C.,” he said. “They want assurance that we’re not going to have any more trading outages.”

“That’s not possible,” Linda said.

Roger shrugged.

“OK, well, do you have time for a few things related to this?” Linda said.

“All good things, surely,” Roger said.

“So, Bill and Ollie and I, we’ve all been speaking a lot about outages, and what we can do about them. We actually don’t know how risky our current situation is.”

“Oh, dear lord, what do you mean?”

“We’ve got a lot of interdependent, interconnected systems. Very complex. It’s hard to predict exactly how they might work or fail.”

“Don’t we have enough experts?”

“We have plenty of experts, but they’re not working together much. And they’re not focused on the whole system—only their own parts. Like, did you notice how Raj behaved when we talked about the last outage?”

“Nothing unusual. Raj was being Raj.”

“He was relieved to not be in the hot seat. We were all relieved to not be Bill that afternoon. We all thought that maybe our teams were different than Bill’s, that maybe such things couldn’t happen to us. But the problem is that we need Raj’s software to work, and Bill’s networks, and Ollie’s servers. If they don’t work, the firm can’t trade.”

“Yes, yes, I know, none of us succeeds unless we all succeed, and we all fail if one of us fails. But this wasn’t about that. I shouldn’t have to hold you accountable for a network malfunction. You had nothing to do with that.”

“Just to be clear,” Linda said, feeling a little tweaked, “When you say ‘hold accountable,’ do you mean ‘job on the line’?”

“All our fucking jobs are on the line!” Roger screamed. “Don’t you realize that?”

“I do, Roger,” Linda said. “And that’s part of the problem.”

“What is, exactly, the problem? Is the problem not that some engineer took down the network?”

“That engineer was Mike, and Mike was also the reason we were able to trade for months and even years before. He was part of the reason that we got our bonuses last year. He and people on his team kept the network running. It’s not that there weren’t issues—there are always issues. But Mike worked around them, or fixed them, before anyone would notice.”

“And we are eternally and sincerely grateful that he was doing his job.”

“Bill fired the guy who kept the network running for years. What did it take to successfully run a network as large as ours, or to bring it back up after the outage? We’ve just lost part of that knowledge. And not only that, but when people’s jobs are on the line the way they are now, they have an incentive to keep quiet about problems or potential issues instead of sharing what they know. They protect their turf, instead of collaborating. That limits our ability to learn from when things work and when they fail. We lose visibility into our big, complex systems. We could very well be veering into completely uncharted, dangerous territory that would make the previous outage feel tame by comparison. And we might not know it until it’s too late.”

“So you’re suggesting that the way to fix this problem is to get the people who take our networks down off the hook? Maybe even reward them for their good deeds with lifetime employment?”

“Not quite. But you should know that Bill and Ollie are planning to ask you at our staff meeting to no longer fire or punish anyone for causing outages, as long as they provide a full account of what happened.”

“You’re joking.”

“If they can’t guarantee this protection for their teams, they’re thinking of resigning.”

“Thinking?”

“They’ve almost convinced Raj to do the same.”

“And you? What about you?”

“I believe that what we’ll learn from people being fully accountable is much more valuable than what we gain by punishing them. It will also boost morale, and help with employee retention. It’ll improve the firm’s resilience, and ultimately our bottom line. We talk a lot about making the firm a ‘learning organization’—well, here’s a very concrete step we can take to maximize learning. We want our employees to innovate? Being able to fail in a safe way and learn from it will encourage more innovation. Or we can continue on our current path, and effectively encourage our employees to find innovative ways to limit their personal exposure and liability. Or find employment elsewhere.”

Roger stayed silent for a few moments. “You still haven’t told me if you’re going to resign if I don’t agree to support this.”

“You know what?” Linda replied. “I’ve been with the firm for a long time, and I like it here. I want to see the firm succeed. I believe that this can help all of us, including you. And I’m not afraid of leaving.”

Linda got up from the chair. “Roger, I wanted to tell you all of this so that you can think it over and be prepared for the staff meeting. It’s a paradigm shift, and it does require courage and leadership. But I don’t think you got to where you are by cowering in corners.”