The normalisation of deviance

Have you heard of 'the normalisation of deviance' before?

I confess I had to be reminded of it by my brilliant photographer friend Nick Rawle, via a particularly astute Instagram reel, last week.

The phrase was coined by sociologist Diane Vaughan in her analysis of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Vaughan defines 'the normalisation of deviance' as "the gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behaviour is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm."

In NASA's case, that meant flying a shuttle with known structural flaws. Every time it successfully returned from a mission, those flaws were subtly reclassified until the risk was no longer seen as 'a risk'.

"No fundamental decision was made to do evil," Vaughan wrote. "Rather, a series of seemingly harmless decisions were made that incrementally moved the space agency toward a catastrophic outcome."

Those minute deviances (over time) shifted 'normal'. They lowered the bar of 'acceptable'. 

It is a powerful story of negligence, but you may be thinking what this has to do with you (you don't work for NASA I assume).

That very much depends on the stories you are telling yourself in terms of what 'normal' and 'acceptable' look like in your own business.

The gap between your stories and the facts

The gap between acceptable then and acceptable now doesn't start as a conscious compromise.

It starts as a seemingly reasonable adjustment. A pragmatic response to a specific situation:

• Pricing tweaked downward for one client because the timing felt sensitive

• A boundary softened just this once because the relationship felt fragile

• Your creative ambition shifted to the back burner (for now) because the safer, more predictable work was paying the bills

Each decision sounds reasonable in isolation. But then they are repeated – each repetition making the next one slightly easier to accept.

Vaughan describes "a long incubation period before a final disaster, with early warning signs that were either misinterpreted, ignored or missed completely."

In your business, the early warning signs are almost so subtle as to be unnoticeable. A sense of vague unease, perhaps. That something has drifted without being able to name exactly what or when.

The feeling that the business you're running looks a little less like the one you meant to build.

Your mindset is playing tricks on you (of course)

The Four Fears® play a part in this of course:

• "I'm not ready" pushes the difficult conversation onto tomorrow's to-do list

• "I'm not good enough" makes the price rise feel like an argument you're unlikely to win

• "I don't have time" fills the diary with everything except the work that actually matters

• "What if I get it wrong?" turns the creative risk into something to revisit later, when conditions are better, when you feel more certain

  
  

None of these feels like deviance. They feel like prudent caution. Wisdom, even. And because they produce no immediate catastrophe, they get filed under (and accepted as) 'normal'.

The limiting beliefs we carry, the ones seeded long before we started our businesses, are particularly good at this. They set the original exchange benchmark for what we consider acceptable. Our baseline rate.

And then, quietly, they keep adjusting it downward:

• A little less brave

• A little more willing to settle

• A little further from the standard we once considered non-negotiable

You stop noticing the glacial shift because you're at the front driving it.

Raising your hand

In NASA's culture, raising your hand meant going against the momentum of an institution under enormous pressure to perform. The engineers who flagged the risk were overruled. The system had already decided what 'normal' looked like.

In your business, you are the system. Which means you are also the only person with the authority to decide what 'normal' looks like and overrule when it's being ignored.

The normalisation of deviance, in any context, relies on one thing above all others: nobody raising their hand. In your case, that hand is yours.

If you're willing to do so, the questions you might want to ask include:

• What have I quietly stopped challenging?

• What am I choosing to accept as 'normal'?

• Is that true to the values, standards... the magic that makes me who I am and drives me to do what I do?

We can't always be our best selves. We can't always give 110% (stupid phrase). We can't always shine at our brightest. But the less we try, the more we stray from our unique and much-prized brilliance. PS I am not suggesting the exhaustive pursuit of perfectionism – that is a different kind of toxicity.

Raise your own hand. Question what has gradually become acceptable. Don't let yourself off that hook.

The shuttle kept returning. Until it didn't.

Mark Franklin is The Four Fears® Guy: a transformational mindset coach, speaker and author working with creative professionals and small business owners who are ready to close the gap between the business they have and the one they actually deserve.

Where has deviance crept into your normal? The question is worth sitting with. Drop your thoughts in the comments if you're willing.