There are safety documentaries that show people who are afraid or hesitate to confront a superior leads to things like air crashes. For example:
Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell in his new book.
Individuals can do this as well but it's a bit different situation, maybe off topic. But I can give you a first hand example because I have never been one afraid to speak up or afraid to take an action when no one else is moving.
When my son was young we had a party at Zones, kind of like a Chucky Cheeses but with more games, some that kids sit inside a booth to drive cars in a video game. The fire alarm went off. There was an alarm plus a strobe light. None of the staff reacted, they just kind of looked around.
Well I sure didn't! I told them that was the fire alarm and myself and the other parents started getting the kids out. It was a big place. I went to the different game booths to make sure anyone that couldn't hear the alarm got out.
When the fire department arrived they went to the upper level (street level on one side) because that was a furniture store. Street level on the lower level was Zones (building built on a hill). The alarm didn't tell the fire department which level the alarm was on. It was a minor delay but it could have mattered if we hadn't acted to get the kids out and the fire was worse. Turned out there was a ball stuck in the pitching machine in the batting cages and it was heating up from the friction, enough to start smoking.
You've got to speak up when you see something wrong even if that means speaking up to one's boss, or speaking up when your colleagues don't.
I have a slide I end some of my classes with. It's a comic of a bunch of lemmings headed for the water. (I know it's a myth.) One of them has an inner tube. I tell the class, don't let peer pressure stop you from speaking up. Don't know if it's an effective ending, I hope it is.
You have to speak up when you can see it is wrong.
Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell in his new book.
G: Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.
But Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S., where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power distance, it's very difficult.
I use the case study of a very famous plane crash in Guam of Korean Air. They're flying along, and they run into a little bit of trouble, the weather's bad. The pilot makes an error, and the co-pilot doesn't correct him. But once Korean Air figured out that their problem was cultural, they fixed it.
Individuals can do this as well but it's a bit different situation, maybe off topic. But I can give you a first hand example because I have never been one afraid to speak up or afraid to take an action when no one else is moving.
When my son was young we had a party at Zones, kind of like a Chucky Cheeses but with more games, some that kids sit inside a booth to drive cars in a video game. The fire alarm went off. There was an alarm plus a strobe light. None of the staff reacted, they just kind of looked around.
Well I sure didn't! I told them that was the fire alarm and myself and the other parents started getting the kids out. It was a big place. I went to the different game booths to make sure anyone that couldn't hear the alarm got out.
When the fire department arrived they went to the upper level (street level on one side) because that was a furniture store. Street level on the lower level was Zones (building built on a hill). The alarm didn't tell the fire department which level the alarm was on. It was a minor delay but it could have mattered if we hadn't acted to get the kids out and the fire was worse. Turned out there was a ball stuck in the pitching machine in the batting cages and it was heating up from the friction, enough to start smoking.
You've got to speak up when you see something wrong even if that means speaking up to one's boss, or speaking up when your colleagues don't.
I have a slide I end some of my classes with. It's a comic of a bunch of lemmings headed for the water. (I know it's a myth.) One of them has an inner tube. I tell the class, don't let peer pressure stop you from speaking up. Don't know if it's an effective ending, I hope it is.
You have to speak up when you can see it is wrong.