Reflective Paranoia: Why Bad Systems Are Slowly Killing The High Street

Steven N. Adjei - #1 International Best-Selling Author, Entrepreneur & Business Consultant
 
In November 2022, I nearly killed someone.
I was then a senior pharmacist in a top-performing High Street pharmacy in my adopted city of Plymouth.
And no, it wasn’t due to recklessness or incompetence, although I took full responsibility for my actions.
I failed to realise when a pharmacy assistant mistakenly dispensed a powerful blood thinner instead of anxiety medication for a patient with severe mental health issues. The consequences could have been catastrophic.
That day didn’t just shake my professional confidence—it transformed my understanding of systems. The mistake wasn’t mine alone. It was the product of a system breakdown: under pressure, poor oversight, and unchecked assumptions. That moment became the seed of my new book Chasing Permanence, and the basis of my argument in its final chapter—perhaps the most vital of the entire book.
We celebrate systems for creating consist...