Learning from case studies: Why Didn’t The Titanic Have More Lifeboats

From Paul Fiorelli’s 2024 book “Establishing Workplace Integrity: Six Lessons in Values-Based Leadership”

STRICT CONSTRUCTIONIST – “One who favors a narrow conservative construction of a given document or instrument.” 

Picture a corporate contest to see which supervisor can spend the least amount of money on rule following, but still be in technical observance with laws, regulations, and policies.   This race to the bottom might tick the legality box, but it doesn’t leave any room for error.  Using laser-like precision to just squeak over the protected precipice (“nano-compliance”?), doesn’t answer the hypothesis – “How to calculate this risk when something unplanned occurs?”  The formula seems to be:

A “Spartan” approach to rule following + an unforeseen event = laws being broken/harm to others. 

Imagine trying to explain this logic, and the rules of the contest, to the Department of Justice as to why the company shouldn’t be fined or indicted.  It wouldn’t go well.

So, is strictly following the laws enough?  Let’s go back in the Time Machine over 100 years ago and see an example of something that was “lawful” but “awful.”

Case Study 3.2 – Why Didn’t The Titanic Have More Lifeboats?

In 1912, the Titanic was designed to be “practically unsinkable.”  Its hull had 16 separate compartments that could be individually closed.  Even if four or fewer consecutive compartments were breached, the ship could still stay afloat.  Unfortunately, the glancing blow to an iceberg damaged five compartments, and over 1,600 souls lost their lives due to an insufficient number of seats in their lifeboats.

So why wasn’t there a place for each passenger and crew member on these secondary safety devices?  The answer was that up until that time, the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 required ships weighing more than 10,000 tons to only have 16 lifeboats.   The Titanic weighed four times that and could have carried up to 64 lifeboats.  Instead, it chose to be in technical compliance with this law of the sea by having 20 total boats.  Fourteen of the boats could carry up to 65 people each, but the first few launched after the iceberg strike carried far less than the maximum number allowed. Most lifeboats carried only women, children, and some wealthy men.   The 20 boats could have accommodated 1,178 people, approximately one-third of the people aboard.  There were several reasons for this strategy:

• It was almost unthinkable that the ship was sinkable. In case of an accident, designers thought the safest place would be on the ship.
• Ships had a new technology of Marconi wireless telegraphs that could communicate with the many other ships in the area. If a disaster occurred, the 20 lifeboats could make several trips to ferry the passengers and crew to ships coming to their aid.
• More than 20 lifeboats seemed to “clutter” the upper decks and obscure the view of high paying first class passengers.

Doing more than the minimal legal requirements and focusing on safety could have saved so many additional lives.  Two years after the Titanic tragedy, the International Convention of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) required ships to have one lifeboat seat for every person on the ship. 

RECOMMENDATION:  

Dancing this close to the line (“line dancing”?), is a dangerous practice, which can come with severe consequences.  Values-based leaders should do more than “nano-compliance” by building in an ethical buffer which protects both the individual and the company.  Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart stated, “Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”  In Jurassic Park, Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), made a similar point by saying “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”