Ownership Fails Before Systems Do

Systems break where problems are seen—but not owned.

Most systems don’t fail because of one big mistake.

They fail because of a series of small problems that no one owns.

When investigators studied the Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash, they didn’t find a single failure.

They found a chain of issues that were known but never fully resolved.

Organizations work the same way.

If no one owns the problem, the problem owns the system.

Seen. Discussed. Revisited.
But never owned.