Verified by 
Regardless of what you may think about Fox News, it is hard to argue with their commercial success. Nonetheless, at least based on a leaked memo published over at Gawker, it appears that senior management is concerned about a rash of mistakes. They are apparently responding by instituting a fear-based system.
I say "apparently" because I have no idea if this is actually written by Fox executives. Real or fake, it provides a good illustration of the kind of thing that seems reasonable, but that -- at least if you believe the basic underpinnings of the quality movement (quality guru W. Edwards Deming's mantra was "Drive Out Fear") and related research by Amy Edmondson and others on psychological safety, mistakes, and learning -- these are practices that aren't likely to eliminate mistakes, but they will amplify CYA behavior, brainstorming, and tendency to make the same mistakes over and over again. I would add that perhaps they may increase personnel costs as people are fired for their mistakes, blamed and shown the door, and then new people come in and keep making the same mistakes because the system stifles learning.
Here is the alleged memo from the Fox executives. Let me know what you think about it -- would this work in your organization?
"Subject: Quality Control We had a mistake on Newsroom today when a wrong book cover went on screen during a guest segment, the kind of thing that can fall through the cracks on any day with any story given the large amount of elements and editorial we run through our broadcasts. Unfortunately, it is the latest in a series of mistakes on FNC in recent months. We have to all improve our performance in terms of ensuring error-free broadcasts. To that end, there was a meeting this afternoon between senior managers and the folks who run the daytime shows in which expectations were reviewed, and the following results were announced: Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the "mistake chain," and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews.
So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to "zero base" our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today's meeting: "It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on." We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough. I will review again during our Monday editorial meeting, and in the days and weeks ahead. This experience should make us stronger editorially, and I encourage everyone to invest themselves one hundred and ten percent in this effort."
P.S. See this post on "The best diagnostic question" for a much different approach to learning from failure. Although I should note that there is another interesting element here: The memo implies that getting it right rather than getting done as quickly as possible will be rewarded more now --which is a step away from from fear and toward quality.
