Everyone wangs on about ‘systems thinking’ and ‘systemic change’. And to track progress of the transformation plan they want an omnipotent dashboard powered by agentic software.
But one of the world’s best examples of risk reduction is, frankly, a bit boring.
Kansai International Airport in Japan lays claim that since opening in 1994, they have not lost a single bag through their handling operation. Not one.
That record feels absurd for an industry where missing baggage is treated as an annoying inevitability - it was a desk clerk who suggested I always photograph my bag with its barcode before it shoots off into a world of conveyors. And yet Kansai has been recognised repeatedly for baggage delivery.
You might assume this comes down to superior technology. It doesn’t; they use the same tracking systems and tech as everyone else.
What makes the difference is one human habit: baggage staff are taught to look out routinely for bags that have fallen or gone astray. In other words, they do not trust the system enough to stop paying attention.
This is the bit that most organisations miss.
We keep looking for a silver bullet, or a complex set of principles, when what really saves us is often a tiny ritual, repeated without fail.
At Kansai, baggage handlers also turn suitcase handles outward on the carousel. That sounds polite. It is polite. But it is also operationally smart:
A handle facing the passenger is easier to grab. Easier to grab means less dragging, less yanking, less strain, less clattering one case over another, less damage, less delay, less chance of someone hurting themselves in the scrum, less chance of the airport getting sued.
A small gesture saves on painful consequences. You see the same principle elsewhere in Japan.
Watch drivers, conductors or hospitality staff closely and you’ll often spot them using a finger to point as they check. Left. Right. Signal. Door. Item. List. It can look theatrical, even unnecessary. But research suggests otherwise. Pointing and calling improve attention and support cognitive control. One study found it helped people perform better when switching tasks. Another body of reporting on “the railway method” says confirmation errors can drop dramatically when this routine is used.
It is not theatre. It is attention made visible.
Not every risk in a school is dramatic. Most aren’t. Most school risk goes unnoticed by the people who see it every day:
the untidy entrance that says nobody is really in charge;
the visitor left standing too long at reception;
the corridor greeting that’s not returned;
the litter that the Head doesn’t pick up (“someone else can deal with that”);
the child whose name is almost learned but not quite;
the paving stone that everyone trips over but is never reset;
the safeguarding detail that was always assumed rather than checked.
The culture of a school is not built in the professional development day PowerPoint. It is built in the repeated micro-actions that tell everyone what matters.
The Head who stoops to pick up rubbish is not really picking up rubbish. They are teaching that standards are shared.
The teacher who says good morning to a stranger in the staff room is not merely being pleasant. They are signalling that hospitality is everyone’s job.
The receptionist who smiles when you approach, instead of looking like you’re about to perform minor surgery on them, is lowering anxiety, creating trust, and changing the temperature of the whole organisation.
These are not soft extras; they’re risk reduction.
In schools, as in airports, the failures that hurt most are often the preventable ones. The bag that falls off the conveyor. The visitor who feels unwelcome. The parent who leaves irritated. The student who hides in the middle. The colleague who assumes someone else has seen what they have seen.
I worry that we’re seduced by scale and system-change.
I think we’d create more change by getting reliable in our routines.
Schools do not become safer, warmer or better organised because of values on a wall. They become safer, warmer and better organised when values turn into visible routines.
What are your handle-facing-out habits? What are the tiny acts of attention that make failure less likely in your school?
And which ones have you been dismissing as “just politeness”, “just tidiness”, or “just common sense”? Common sense is only common once it becomes common practice.