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Todd ConklinPreAccident Podcast

HumanPerformance

Highly Reliable Organizations

Todd Conklin PhDHuman Performance Improvement/ HROToddconklin@gmail.com

Never take a sleeping pillAnd a laxative at the same time.

In any order…

Conklin

The Safety Journey So Far…

Time

Acc

iden

tsCompliance• Behaviors• Policy/Rules• Enforcement

Design• Human Factors• Process Safety• Standardized

Systems Human Performance• New View• Not Individual• Organizational

issues Identified

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FatalitySerious Event• Not like others• NO near misses• Exist in success• Understand work

TraditionalSafety

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1. Workers are the problem to be fixed. We fix safety by making workers better.

2. We must tell workers what to do and, perhaps more importantly, not to do.

3. Safety is the absence of accidents.

SafetyDifferently

1. Workers are not the problem – They are the problem solvers.

2. We don’t tell our organizations what to do – ask them what they need.

3. Safety is not the absence of accidents – it is the presence of capacity.

Safety is not the absence of Accidents.

Safety is the presence of

Defenses.Conklin

Capacity.

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Workers are as safe as they need to be,

Without being too safe,

in order to be

productive.

Until They’re NOT..

Sharp End

Blunt End

Workers

Managers

Front-lineSupervisors

Leaders

CustomersRegulators

Company

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HighestInfluence

OverSystem

HighestInjury

Potential

Our work is

notinherently safe.

People create safety in practice.

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Parts of an EventConklin

Pre-Accident Investigations, Conklin 2013

3

Worker’s Don’t CauseFailures.

Worker’s Trigger Latent Conditions That Lie Dormant In OrganizationsWaiting for This Specific Moment In Time.

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Shift your thinking from “Who Failed” to “What Failed”

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We must stop seeing

workers as problems to be fixed.

But, as Solutionsto be harnessed.

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WorkersAre Masters ofComplex AdaptiveBehavior…

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HOTDOG

*

Clearly Safeto do Work

Clearly Not Safeto do Work

The Gray Area:Uncertain

interpretationof Safe work

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20

*

Clearly Safeto do Work

Clearly Not Safeto do WorkEvent

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StartOf

Job

Hazard

Safety Understood:Drift and Accumulation

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Work ExecutionImprovement

Area

System Safety:Fatality Prevention

Area

Is the juiceworth the squeeze?

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Capacity

The Power of EarlyHazardID

Identifiedor Discovered

Problem

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CapacityThe Power of EarlyHazardID

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Its pretty simple…You can

Blame & PunishOr

Learn & Improve.

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Safety is not the absence of Accidents.

Safety is the presence of

Capacity.Conklin

Todd ConklinPreAccident Podcast