Don't go anywhere with "scary," "spooky," "haunted," or "forbidden" in the title...

Today is October 31st - that means it is Halloween!  One of the many great things about working in a children's hospital is that you get to wear your Halloween costume to work - and it's completely acceptable!  In the spirit of Halloween, I want to talk about one of my all-time favorite television shows growing up - the cartoon series, "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!", which was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1969 to 1970 (surprisingly, this now iconic series aired for only two seasons before going into syndication and generating a number of spin-offs).  The show featured the adventures of Scooby Doo and Mystery, Inc., a group of four teenagers who solved mysteries which frequently involved ghosts, monsters, and the supernatural.  Shaggy Rogers (I bet you didn't know his last name was Rogers!) and his best pal, Scooby Doo, once gave some really great advice:


Hold on, man.  We don't go anywhere with 'scary,' 'spooky', 'haunted,' or 'forbidden' in the title.

It seems fairly intuitive and simple, but the advice is really great.  Unfortunately, most of the mysteries that Scooby Doo and his friends were trying to solve involved going to places with the words 'scary,' 'spooky,' 'haunted,' and 'forbidden' in the title!  That happens a lot of times in the real world too.   Despite our best intentions, the world can be a dangerous place.  And no matter how hard we try, there are times when we are going to have to choose to take risks.


I like to read and write a lot about so-called High Reliability Organizations.  High Reliability Organizations (HROs) are usually defined as organizations that have succeeded in avoiding serious accidents or catastrophes in dangerous environments - the kind of environments where accidents are not only likely to occur, they are expected to occur.  The important point to realize, however, is that these same HROs don't seek to avoid risk - indeed, they could not exist if they did.  Rather, these organizations manage that risk in such a way that when (because it's always a matter of "when" and not "if") accidents occur, the adverse impact on the organization is significantly attenuated. 


Shaggy and Scooby Doo tried hard every episode to avoid taking a risk.  However, the whole purpose of Mystery, Inc. was to solve the mystery, and solving the mystery required taking a risk.  Scooby and his friends usually did a good job of managing risk - I wouldn't say that Mystery, Inc. was a great example of a High Reliability Organization, but they usually did pretty well in the end.  There was always the line from the villain in the end, "I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids."


So, in the spirit of Halloween, take a leadership cue from the gang at Mystery, Inc.  Manage your risks.  Solve the mystery.  And have fun.