Rope, Rigging, Reason.
Ideas that hold up under load
Hey Reader
Rory Sutherland was talking recently about why people resist electric cars and solar panels — and said something that stopped me.
The human brain defaults to two things: do what I've done before, and do what everyone else does.
So when something genuinely new shows up, you're asking people to override both defaults at once. That's why every new technology follows the same slow-then-fast curve. It's not about the evidence. It's about the wiring.
I've felt this for years in rescue.
I'd bring research, theory, logic — and watch people argue back with half-formed objections grounded in nothing except what they were already doing. Not because the conclusions were wrong. Because the conclusions were new.
Here's what I've learned: facts don't move people. Familiarity does.
Which brings me to something I've been quietly building for a while.
Rope Rescue Safety Checking System
For years, I've used the term "cross-check" — I rig something, someone else checks it. Simple. Hard to misapply. But it was only ever part of the process, not the whole thing. The brief before, the self-check during, the independent cross-check after — those three layers together are what actually close the gaps.
I've now put a name and a structure to it:
The BRC Framework (Brief, Rig, Check).
It's built on the same logic as the Swiss cheese model — no single layer catches everything, but with three layers each targeting a different failure mode, the holes stop lining up.
I've put it into a two-page document you can read in under five minutes.
DOWNLOAD the BRC Framework
Then I'd ask you this: how safe is your current checking process? And honestly — have things ever fallen through the cracks?
Hit reply. I'd like to know.
Grant
