Responsible Party
Recently there has been some news coming out of Florida. Okay, well, there's always news coming out of Florida, but this wasn't another tale of the #FloridaMan or some weird story about alligators and sharks, this was a story about how an employee for the state of Florida failed to run FBI background checks on hundreds, if not thousands, of conceal-carry applications.
Apparently, per the employee, she forgot her FBI log on credentials to the national database for a year.
This resulted in the state of Florida having to revoke nearly 300 permits that were issued during the year this employee couldn't log in. (Seriously, how could she go a year without logging in and no one - her boss, for example - caught her?)
The headlines for this story are all the same, though: Florida this and Florida that:
I pointed out on social media, where one person had posted one of these articles (from PBS, if I remember correctly), that I wish the headlines were a little more accurate. Florida did not change it's policy; no one from the Executive branch created a new operating procedure; the Legislature did not pass a new law; the state's judicial branch did not decide background checks were illegal. This lapse in the conceal-carry permitting process was perpetrated by a single individual.
My point being: the state did not change it's operating procedures. No one at the state level, who had the power or authority to make such a decision, did so. This was not Florida so much as it was a single employee (which is it's own discussion).
Naturally, the person who posted the article we were discussing felt Florida was indeed culpable.
Two: No one with that authority made a decision (that we know of) to ignore or otherwise skip the step where names are checked against the FBI's database.
A single employee - a civil service employee - failed to do her job adequately. She failed to remember her log in information, failed to report the loss of said to her supervisor, failed to ask the FBI for a new one, failed to inform her boss of her inability to keep operating until she had new log in credentials. Or, maybe she did and we just haven't heard about it yet. Regardless, this wasn't a paradigm shift in how the state of Florida operates, but a single employee who failed at her job. Florida did not fail.
And yet the headlines would have us believe Florida, or the decision-makers therein, actively put this new plan into place. It's misleading.
In another place we might call it a logical fallacy as non-cognizant entities, such as a state or a car, cannot make decisions. Now, Florida as a whole will probably bear the burden of such a disclosure and the state will most certainly have to take responsibility after the fact, but did the state, or the authorities within, change their policy or procedures to actively skip background check step?
And the answer is a resounding, no.
I took this discussion offline to my friend and asked her, "If an employee of the state fails to do her job, is it the employee's fault or the state's?"
You have to understand, my friend is always trying to out-think everyone around her. She came back with answers such as, "Well, the state bears responsibility ... " and "Whoever put that employee in that job ..."
I had to cut her off, "Did the state of Florida, or the single employee, fail to do her job?"
"Well, the state should have had checks and balances," she said. Well, yes, and it did, but it took them a year to discover the failure. As I explained, the larger an organization gets, the slower it moves. Everyone understands this, especially my friend as she works for a Fortune 100 company and keeps complaining about how long single tasks take.
"So," I had to ask her, "who failed? The state or the employee?"
"Well, the employee, but... "
"No, there is no 'but.'" The employee failed. And, we can also say her immediate boss failed, but "Florida" did not change the manner in which they operate. Florida did nothing wrong in this circumstance.
And then my friend tried to go back to previous arguments, "Well, her boss should have ... " and "As an agent of the state, Florida bears the reponsibility ..."
Yes, her boss should have and yes, the state will bear the burden of her actions, but who made the decision? What part of the process here was the point-of-failure?
That one single employee. And maybe her boss.
"Let's put it into perspective," I said. "You work for a large SaaS company. One of your IT people takes down a large customer. Who's responsible?"
She replied with, "Well, the company would be."
I agreed, the company would be responsible after the fact, "but who took the customer down? Did the CEO give the order? Maybe the Director of IT? The CIO, COO, CFO?"
No. The company did not take their customer down, because the decision-makers within the organization did not change their operating procedures or give a direct command to do so. The single employee took the customer down.
Will the company take the blame? Sure. But did the company's policies or procedures change that resulted in the customer being taken down? No. Therefore the company did not take the customer down, the employee did.
Here's another one, I asked: "Chelsea Manning released thousands of Top Secret documents a few years ago. She was a US Soldier. Who released the documents, Chelsea Manning or the Commander of the Army?"
"Well, the Army would have to re-evaluate their policies and change their procedures ..." she tried to explain.
"And that may very well be," I said. "But who released the documents? Was it the Army commander's decision? Did the Army make a shift in policy to now release the documents? Or did Pvt. Manning do this of her own accord?"
And the answer is, of course, Chelsea Manning took this approach on her own accord. The "Army" did not direct her to release the documents; the Commander-in-Chief did not change policy; the generals at the Pentagon didn't shift their operating procedure. Manning acted on her own.
Every decision made by every single one of use every dingle day is what I call, a Point-of-Failure. It is a chance for the sequence of events to move towards the goal or a chance for everything to go haywire. Who was the decision-maker? Did they have the authority to make such a decision? Who does this decision affect? Does it affect the entire organization or does it affect one specific team or individual? What is the decision-maker's role? For example, a team manager might make a decision that affects the department, but does s/he have such authority? A department manager might make a decision that affects all the teams under her or his domain. Does s/he have the power to make such a decision? Are they making the proper decision or are they merely making a decision? To know the answer to that question we need to know the desired outcome.
So, when the state employee in Florida made the decision to stop performing her job function, under who's authority did she make such as decision? Hers? Her boss'? Or the State of Florida?
Now, there were many points-of-failure in the path leading up to the decision being made. She lost her log in credentials. She failed to get new ones. She didn't, as we know, report the loss to her supervisor. By all accounts, she wasn't qualified for the role she was given. And, no one else at the state level or the FBI, took notice until almost a year later.
So, did the State of Florida fail or did this employee (and possibly her manager)?
I want to point out, of all the headlines I looked at for the screenshots above, only CNN got it close:
An authority in the state of Florida then had to make a decision to revoke nearly 300 permits "after and employee stopped reviewing background checks."
Apparently, per the employee, she forgot her FBI log on credentials to the national database for a year.
This resulted in the state of Florida having to revoke nearly 300 permits that were issued during the year this employee couldn't log in. (Seriously, how could she go a year without logging in and no one - her boss, for example - caught her?)
The headlines for this story are all the same, though: Florida this and Florida that:
I pointed out on social media, where one person had posted one of these articles (from PBS, if I remember correctly), that I wish the headlines were a little more accurate. Florida did not change it's policy; no one from the Executive branch created a new operating procedure; the Legislature did not pass a new law; the state's judicial branch did not decide background checks were illegal. This lapse in the conceal-carry permitting process was perpetrated by a single individual.
My point being: the state did not change it's operating procedures. No one at the state level, who had the power or authority to make such a decision, did so. This was not Florida so much as it was a single employee (which is it's own discussion).
Naturally, the person who posted the article we were discussing felt Florida was indeed culpable.
Two things:One: Florida is a state, not an entity. Florida, like New York, Illinois, New Mexico or British Columbia, cannot make decisions - only the people with the proper authority can.
Two: No one with that authority made a decision (that we know of) to ignore or otherwise skip the step where names are checked against the FBI's database.
A single employee - a civil service employee - failed to do her job adequately. She failed to remember her log in information, failed to report the loss of said to her supervisor, failed to ask the FBI for a new one, failed to inform her boss of her inability to keep operating until she had new log in credentials. Or, maybe she did and we just haven't heard about it yet. Regardless, this wasn't a paradigm shift in how the state of Florida operates, but a single employee who failed at her job. Florida did not fail.
And yet the headlines would have us believe Florida, or the decision-makers therein, actively put this new plan into place. It's misleading.
In another place we might call it a logical fallacy as non-cognizant entities, such as a state or a car, cannot make decisions. Now, Florida as a whole will probably bear the burden of such a disclosure and the state will most certainly have to take responsibility after the fact, but did the state, or the authorities within, change their policy or procedures to actively skip background check step?
And the answer is a resounding, no.
I took this discussion offline to my friend and asked her, "If an employee of the state fails to do her job, is it the employee's fault or the state's?"
You have to understand, my friend is always trying to out-think everyone around her. She came back with answers such as, "Well, the state bears responsibility ... " and "Whoever put that employee in that job ..."
I had to cut her off, "Did the state of Florida, or the single employee, fail to do her job?"
"Well, the state should have had checks and balances," she said. Well, yes, and it did, but it took them a year to discover the failure. As I explained, the larger an organization gets, the slower it moves. Everyone understands this, especially my friend as she works for a Fortune 100 company and keeps complaining about how long single tasks take.
"So," I had to ask her, "who failed? The state or the employee?"
"Well, the employee, but... "
"No, there is no 'but.'" The employee failed. And, we can also say her immediate boss failed, but "Florida" did not change the manner in which they operate. Florida did nothing wrong in this circumstance.
And then my friend tried to go back to previous arguments, "Well, her boss should have ... " and "As an agent of the state, Florida bears the reponsibility ..."
Yes, her boss should have and yes, the state will bear the burden of her actions, but who made the decision? What part of the process here was the point-of-failure?
That one single employee. And maybe her boss.
"Let's put it into perspective," I said. "You work for a large SaaS company. One of your IT people takes down a large customer. Who's responsible?"
She replied with, "Well, the company would be."
I agreed, the company would be responsible after the fact, "but who took the customer down? Did the CEO give the order? Maybe the Director of IT? The CIO, COO, CFO?"
No. The company did not take their customer down, because the decision-makers within the organization did not change their operating procedures or give a direct command to do so. The single employee took the customer down.
Will the company take the blame? Sure. But did the company's policies or procedures change that resulted in the customer being taken down? No. Therefore the company did not take the customer down, the employee did.
Here's another one, I asked: "Chelsea Manning released thousands of Top Secret documents a few years ago. She was a US Soldier. Who released the documents, Chelsea Manning or the Commander of the Army?"
"Well, the Army would have to re-evaluate their policies and change their procedures ..." she tried to explain.
"And that may very well be," I said. "But who released the documents? Was it the Army commander's decision? Did the Army make a shift in policy to now release the documents? Or did Pvt. Manning do this of her own accord?"
And the answer is, of course, Chelsea Manning took this approach on her own accord. The "Army" did not direct her to release the documents; the Commander-in-Chief did not change policy; the generals at the Pentagon didn't shift their operating procedure. Manning acted on her own.
Every decision made by every single one of use every dingle day is what I call, a Point-of-Failure. It is a chance for the sequence of events to move towards the goal or a chance for everything to go haywire. Who was the decision-maker? Did they have the authority to make such a decision? Who does this decision affect? Does it affect the entire organization or does it affect one specific team or individual? What is the decision-maker's role? For example, a team manager might make a decision that affects the department, but does s/he have such authority? A department manager might make a decision that affects all the teams under her or his domain. Does s/he have the power to make such a decision? Are they making the proper decision or are they merely making a decision? To know the answer to that question we need to know the desired outcome.
So, when the state employee in Florida made the decision to stop performing her job function, under who's authority did she make such as decision? Hers? Her boss'? Or the State of Florida?
Now, there were many points-of-failure in the path leading up to the decision being made. She lost her log in credentials. She failed to get new ones. She didn't, as we know, report the loss to her supervisor. By all accounts, she wasn't qualified for the role she was given. And, no one else at the state level or the FBI, took notice until almost a year later.
So, did the State of Florida fail or did this employee (and possibly her manager)?
I want to point out, of all the headlines I looked at for the screenshots above, only CNN got it close:
 |
| https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/us/florida-revoked-weapons-permits-background-checks/index.html |
An authority in the state of Florida then had to make a decision to revoke nearly 300 permits "after and employee stopped reviewing background checks."
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