If you have a compliance breach, your response to the breach and how you fix it can be just as important as how the breach occurred.

In a recent commencement (ie graduation) speech well-known doctor and author Atul Gawande made this point in the context of health care:

“I thought that the best places [ie hospitals] simply did a better job at controlling and minimizing risks—that they did a better job of preventing things from going wrong. But to my surprise, they didn’t. Their complication rates after surgery were almost the same as others. Instead, what they proved to be really great at was rescuing people when they had a complication, preventing failures from becoming a catastrophe.

Scientists have given a new name to the deaths that occur in surgery after something goes wrong—whether it is an infection or some bizarre twist of the stomach. They call them a “Failure to Rescue.” More than anything, this is what distinguished the great from the mediocre. They didn’t fail less. They rescued more.

This in fact may be the real story of human and societal improvement. Risk is necessary. Things can and will go wrong. But some have better capacity to prepare for the possibility, to limit the damage, and to sometimes even retrieve success from failure.”

He also gives the example of the response to the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico:

“There was … every type of error. But the key one was the delay in accepting that something serious was wrong. …when you refuse to even acknowledge that things aren’t going as expected, failure can become a humanitarian disaster. The sooner you’re able to see clearly that your best hopes and intentions have gone awry, the better. You have more room to pivot and adjust. You have more of a chance to rescue….But recognizing that your expectations are proving wrong—accepting that you need a new plan—is commonly the hardest thing to do.”

Do you have a rescue plan if something goes wrong?