Human Factors Leadership - Week 2/3 Normalization of Deviance
Detecting Drift Before It Becomes the Culture
Most organizations don’t wake up one morning and decide to cut corners. Instead, they drift there, one small deviation at a time. A shortcut justified as “just this once.” A workaround that becomes “the way we do things here.” A temporary exception that never got rolled back.
Over time, these small acts of convenience harden into routine. They start to feel normal until one day, something goes wrong, and everyone realizes that what used to be unthinkable has quietly become standard practice.
That’s the essence of Normalization of Deviance - when people stop noticing they’re operating outside the boundaries of safe, compliant, or effective performance because the abnormal has become the norm.
The Anatomy of Drift
In aviation, “drift” is rarely deliberate. It’s the cumulative effect of organizational pressures, resource constraints, and time-saving adaptations that slip through the cracks of oversight. Drift can start innocently. Maybe with a maintenance task that gets done slightly out of sequence to save time, or a checklist item signed off without physical verification “because we know it’s done.”
Each small drift feels harmless, even practical. But multiply that across teams, shifts, and years and soon, an entire organization can be operating under assumptions that were never formally approved, documented, or even noticed.
The challenge for leaders is that drift doesn’t announce itself. It hides inside the normal, shielded by routine and reinforced by repetition.
The Drift-Mapping Exercise
A powerful tool for leaders and auditors alike is Drift-Mapping - a method of tracing how practices evolve over time compared to their original design or intent.
Here’s how it works in simple terms:
Define the Ideal
Start with the approved version of a process, procedure, or checklist. What was supposed to happen? Who was responsible? What were the intended safeguards?Observe Reality
Walk the floor, ride along, or sit in on the process being done. What’s actually happening? Where are people improvising - and why?Identify Gaps
Note every variation between design and reality, without judgment. Ask: are these adaptations harmless, helpful, or potentially hazardous?Ask “Why” (Five Times if Needed)
Most drift isn’t laziness - it’s logic. People adapt because something about the system isn’t working for them. Understanding the “why” behind each deviation is where the learning happens.Act - Don’t Just Audit
Once drift is visible, leaders can decide: fix the system, retrain the behaviour, or redesign the process. The goal isn’t punishment; it’s prevention.
Drift-Mapping can be eye-opening. It often reveals unspoken assumptions, outdated procedures, or systemic friction that no report ever captured.
Leadership and Culture: The Quiet Influencers
Culture plays the starring role in whether drift survives or dies. A healthy safety culture encourages employees to speak up when the system doesn’t work as intended. A weak one quietly rewards getting the job done at any cost.
Leaders influence which of those two cultures thrives - not by slogans, but by reactions. Do you celebrate the person who found a safer way, or the one who got it done faster? Do you review “minor deviations” as opportunities to learn, or dismiss them as “not worth the paperwork”?
The tone you set as a leader - especially under pressure - determines how your organization handles drift. The best leaders are curious when others get creative. They see deviation not as disobedience, but as data.
Auditors: The Drift Detectors
As we approach our Internal Auditor Course (December 1–2), this topic couldn’t be more relevant. Effective auditors aren’t just checklist-tickers; they’re anthropologists of organizational behaviour.
A strong audit doesn’t just ask “are we compliant?” It asks “how did we get here?” and “what’s changing beneath the surface?”
Normalization of deviance often hides between the lines of documentation - it takes observational skill, open dialogue, and the courage to question the “usual way” to detect it.
Bottom Line for Executives
Drift is inevitable; danger is optional.
Systems change because people adapt. The question is whether leadership notices and learns from it.Culture eats compliance for breakfast.
If the culture normalizes shortcuts, no manual will save you.Auditors are your early warning system.
Equip them, listen to them, and empower them to map drift - not just measure paperwork.
Next Week
Next week we’ll wrap up the series with “From Findings to Fixes: How to Design Audits People Welcome.”
We’ll look at how to make audits less of a performance review and more of a learning event — where people want to find the gaps, because they trust what happens next.
Call to Action
If your organization hasn’t mapped its own drift lately, now’s the time.
Join us for the Internal Auditor Course, December 1–2, and learn how to detect normalization of deviance before it embeds itself in your culture.
You’ll leave equipped not just to find findings — but to see the invisible patterns behind them.