Years ago, a young engineer went to Australia on vacation. While there, he purchased a souvenir boomerang. It was carved from wood and painted with an Aboriginal design. He knew his colleagues who were mechanical engineers would appreciate the design, style, and function of the simple object.
When he returned to work, as expected, the unique object captured the curiosity of many of his coworkers. What was it about the object’s shape that made it fly as it did?
Over lunch, the engineers discussed the properties of the boomerang—the essential curves, the lift, the angles, the rotation, the balance points, the velocities, and more. They decided that the cheap souvenir contained many design flaws that would limit its effectiveness. Eventually, they decided to design the perfect boomerang.
As a side project, an office hobby of sorts, the team designed a flawless boomerang. They collaborated through computer-aided design (CAD) software. They calculated the perfect shape, the perfect dimensions, and the perfect mass. They even ran their design through a simulated wind tunnel to prove its effectiveness. In short order, they concluded that they had perfected their boomerang design. Even when it was thrown poorly, they believed their boomerang would return to its starting place.
Finally, the engineers decided it was time to prove their mechanical prowess. They retrieved a piece of plexiglass from the company’s shop and loaded it into a lathe. They sent their CAD design to the lathe that cut and polished the plastic into a shape they believed to be the perfect boomerang.
The team was proud of their product and anxious to test their work. The small group went to a nearby grassy field, followed by about thirty of their colleagues. Surrounded by his peers, the lead engineer took the boomerang, held it at the best angle, and launched it with full force out over the field.
Immediately the entire group of engineers and spectators discovered a major defect in the otherwise perfectly designed boomerang: It was created from completely clear plastic. Now flying in a circular path, the boomerang had vanished from sight. No one could see it at all! There was not even the slightest blur in the clear sky. In an instant, everyone let out a collective gasp. While the engineers did not know where the boomerang was, they did know exactly where it was headed. Within seconds, the spectators panicked and started running toward the building. Others crouched on the ground. Everyone anticipated that someone would be struck, and it was impossible to know who or when. Fortunately, the boomerang flew in a circular path and landed safely in the grass a few feet from where it was thrown.
The boomerang engineers are not alone in their blunder. The list of colossal failures like theirs is long and growing. There is no end to the massive public failures we’ve seen among SMEs. Airport security on 9/11 failed. The experts who designed and launched the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia failed. The engineers who designed the I-35 bridge in Minnesota that collapsed failed. The American and European national security agencies who declared that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction failed. Bankers and regulators who oversaw the mortgage industry in the mid-2000s failed. Enron executives failed. The designers of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon platform failed. The engineers who designed the levees in New Orleans failed. The list could go on and on.
As an expert, you will fail. It is inevitable. Consequently, great experts anticipate failure, face it head on, and do everything they can to mitigate the consequences of such failure in their work.
