When an Inspector Calls

Anthropologists tell us that a major reason for the success of the human race is our ability to communicate with and learn from each other. So what’s not to like about workplace inspections? It is hard to avoid them: process compliance; public service delivery; health and safety; fair trading; facilities; IT security; hygiene. We can surely learn from the experience and wisdom of others who look at the way we are doing things. And certainly some inspections do result in improvements or even transformations. But sadly in many others a shadow falls between the idea and the act – a shadow dark enough to produce climates of fear and deep foreboding.

Effective inspection requires a depth of knowledge and experience on the part of the inspector which includes the constraints and exigencies of the working environment as well as the direct organisational processes. Inspectors with such a breadth of skill can be difficult to find. Unawareness may mean that an inspection is shallow and confined to comparing work centres, devoid of more fundamental scrutiny. It can also lead to the absence of proposals about paths to improvement – a major missed opportunity.

The inspector-inspectee relationship often has a major power imbalance. Psychologists tell us that power diminishes a person’s capacity to take the perspective of others and perceive emotions accurately. It may also cause those possessing power to have stricter standards for others than for themselves and even to dehumanise those down-power to them. Inspectors require maturity: they face the considerable challenge of working with power compassionately and skilfully.

On some occasions, inspectors can be under external political pressures that favour negative outcomes – for example when leaders perceive a need to demonstrate to stakeholders a confrontational internal management approach or to respond to apparent reputational difficulties. This can seriously skew an inspector’s approach and can increase the likelihood that headlines of reports will be based on a small unrepresentative number of outcomes presented in a manner designed to create impact.

Here is a Real-World Management instrument for judging an inspection. The TT rating is a continuous scale, ranging from (i) transformative for highly beneficial to (ii) tragic for highly damaging.

Start on the basis that the inspection could be 100% transformative. Then consider each of the features below. They may or may not apply to your inspection. If a feature does apply, subtract a proportion of effectiveness from 100% that you judge to be appropriate. Possible ranges for these factors based on the experiences of Real-World Management are indicated.

Driven by higher political imperatives 20-100%

Inspector lacks knowledge or experience or exigence-awarness 20-80%

Inspector lacks capability to deal with inspector-inspectee power imbalance 20-80%

Headline outcome based on unrepresentative features 20-100%

No reference to means of improvement 20-100%

A positive final rating means the inspection has some degree of effectiveness; above 80% could be transformative. A negative rating indicates a tragic inspection. Ratings of different minus magnitude may be obtained – measures of the extent of the tragedy.

Disquiet about inspection is not new. The famous words of the American president Theodore Roosevelt in a 1910 speech are worth remembering:

‘It is not the critic who counts: not the person who points out how the strong person stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena….’