C.Y.A., Challenge Your Assumptions

I was fast-tracked through the Government through a special program when I was fresh out of college. As a result of reaching a certain pay grade, I was required to attend a lot of training in a short amount of time.

One memorable training class I attended had a very enthusiastic instructor who wanted to hammer a point home.

“Challenge your assumptions,” he said, pointedly.

He began to explain a story about helicopter airbags for pilots.

“The goal was to save pilots. We all assumed pilots died of impact injuries.”

He explained that it was a multi-million-dollar program, with things moving towards the testing phase.

“I had to give the bad news,” the instructor explained. “You see, we learned that pilots dying of external injuries was secondary to the main cause of death.”

“What’s that?” a student asked.

The instructor answered, “When a helicopter crashes, airbag or not, those internal organs keep going.”

The class was silent.

The instructor continued, “You should’ve seen the look on the commander’s face when I explained how his airbag program was ultimately useless.”

As a fresh face in the Government, the instructor’s words weighed heavily on me.

“Challenge your assumptions,” the instructor repeated. “If you wait too long to challenge, you risk wasting many hours and many millions of dollars on what ultimately is just a bad idea.”