“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” most likely writer and philosopher George Santayana who originally wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

If an organisation does not have a system for managing improvement items (non-conformities, incidents, customer complaints etc) then it is only a matter of time before the same situation recurs.

Continual Improvement – the key to not making the same mistake twice

One of the founding principles of Quality Management Systems is continual improvement. This ensures mistakes (complaints, non-conformities, etc) aren’t just corrected, but the action is taken to prevent recurrence of the situation. This system of continual improvement provides a framework to ensure:

• The situation is corrected and the consequences dealt with
• Root Cause Analysis is undertaken to determine the root cause/s of the situation
• An assessment of the root cause/s is undertaken for previous or potential future recurrence
• Action is taken to prevent recurrence – lessons are learned to ensure the same mistake doesn’t happen twice.

In an alternative context, uneducated and unaware world leaders who do not understand the lessons of history will certainly repeat the mistakes of the past, at the expense of their people. Just saying…