Santa, Rudolph and SMS

Santa, Rudolph and SMS

Note: This is a Christmas post from one of our most prolific contributors.

Over the years Santa Claus has successfully delivered Christmas gifts all over the world and without major incidents. Every year Rudolph the reindeer takes the lead and ensures kids gets their present. It is an amazing result.

Of all places on earth, Santa Clause lives at the North Pole. A deserted place where no one else lives but Santa, his helpers and the reindeers. At the North Pole he gets just the minimum training in roof and chimney approaches, since there are no other homes at that place. Even though not known, he informally assists the Easter Bunny in an attempt to stay airborne-proficient for next Christmas delivery.

So far, Santa hasn't had any major incidents. He got stuck in a chimney now and then and the reindeers stumbled as they landed on the rooftops. But the gifts were still delivered before days end, year in and year out.

The deliveries did not always go as planned

However, with the increasingly Cyber competition Santa needed to find a niche to maintain his position as the Christmas favorite.

Since Rudolph is the leader of the reindeers, Santa gave him a task to implement as system to ensure more effective deliveries and less stumbling on the roofs.

Santa named the system "Streamlined Mission Service" or SMS. Santa had come to realize that many of those little mishaps delayed his deliveries and upset kids around the world when he came late. He needed a way of knowing where he lacked proficiency so he could target his knowledge and practice. Santa's delivery policy was "Zero tolerance to delayed deliveries"

Over the last year of making toys, Santa also came up with a policy that Rudolph could not blame the other reindeers when incidents happened. Santa named this the "No bucking antlers" policy. Santa demanded that Rudolph addressed the training, the organization and his own leadership methods after each incident. On top of it all, he expected reindeer-accountability and gave them roles and responsibilities, with Santa himself as the AE (Accountable Elf).

Rudolph accepted his responsibility and implement SMS. He also documented the plan and submitted to the AE a plan for toys deliveries. After AE approved the plan, he gave Rudolph the Monopoly Money as an ER finance resource (Elf & Reindeer) in preparation of training and Christmas delivery trip.

When the time come for delivery, the plan, training and accountability had given Santa and his team an edge to the cyber-gift deliveries overflowing the world, where he delivered every present on time to all the kids in the world, and without as much as one single incident. Santa saved so much Monopoly Money by implementing SMS and maintaining his position as the leader of world gift deliveries that he secured a delivery contract for the next 100 years.

With the contract secured, Santa is flying for another 100 years.

Yes, Santa and his helpers is an imaginary fantasy story where they are living in a perfect world.

Safety is much more than imaginary and fantasy stories.

Safety is to apply a Safety Management System as a tool to improve in an Imperfect World.

Merry Christmas and enjoy the Holidays!

BirdsEye59604