Wisdom & Common Sense

I read a story recently whereby in a very large international airport, a mature aged lady proceeded through security scanning with what appeared to be a potentially dangerous weapon…it seems that our heroine was carrying something like a gun! Imagine that, someone brazen enough to try to smuggle a gun on board an aircraft.

Not surprisingly, the ever vigilant security staff stopped our weary traveller to further inspect the article… the ‘weapon’ was in the woman’s handbag, it was six centimetres long and sat in the hands of a plastic soldier. The gun was made of resin and had no moving parts, there was no hole in the barrel nor was there a trigger…notwithstanding, security considered this to be a ‘firearm’ and so stopped the passenger from taking the item onboard!!!

Even after further and emphatic discussions, security maintained their stance, despite agreeing there appeared to be no threat, stated that “rules are rules and they must be obeyed.”

This story is not uncommon and ostensibly not a dramatic result, however there are stories where a person has died as a result of service providers diligently following the rules! The service provider knew the protocols, understood the systems and stuck to the rules, irrespective of whether they made sense or not…

From time to time we will come across similar situations and in the real world we know that problems are never as cut and dried as we would like. Yes it would make life simple if there was a procedure for every imaginable situation that may arise.  However you and I know it is impossible to do this, so how do we deal with such variances? Apparently wisdom is something that would have been beneficial in the above situation.

However Wisdom is not something that you can obtain from a book or a training session; it takes experience, reflection and knowledge. But, where inflexible rules are enforced (by the organization), even the most astute of workers will be rendered helpless!

Given Australia is experiencing a skills shortage at present; we need workers that can differentiate between rules and initiative. As well we need organisations that empower its employees to use their initiative to make a judgement call when unusual (or exceptional) circumstances arise.

So, regardless of the amount of money and time spent on training individuals, we need to remember that wisdom is the most important skill of all!!