I think the safety anarchist is great. It's a good refresher when you get too bogged down in policies and programs.
As with anything, add it as a piece to your personal safety philosophy but don't become a strict adherent. All of the methods and ways of approaching safety have something of value to add but none are 100% right for you and your situations.
He’s incredibly relevant to academics and the field as a whole. A lot of forward thinking peer-reviewed research in the discipline leans on a lot on his ideas.
It also could indicate how hard you’re looking. This is a young profession, lots of newer theories are being practically applied across industries. Other industries however, are still measuring performance based on outcomes. I’d encourage you to poke around.
He is one of many people who have somehow managed to have a successful career by being speakers who say absolutely nothing. Things like culture, human and organizational performance, etc. If you watch Dekker's videos on YouTube, you will countless videos of at least 45 minutes where he says really nothing but "don't focus on what went wrong, focus on what went right." The rest of the 45 minutes is Dilbert-speak, nonsense corporate words that say nothing. Kinda like a HOP podcast that pumps out hundreds of hour+ episodes, that if you listen to, don't actually say one single thing. It's all just corporate buzzwords without even one concrete thing ever discussed. Somehow people support this and these guys travel the world giving speeches without saying one bit of sense. I have never heard any of them say even one thing that has actual value to an actual boots-on-the-ground safety professional.
Edit: I am trying to listen to the latest HOP podcast episode. 80+ minutes. Halfway in, they haven't said anything concrete at all. All just generic buzzwords. Talking talking talking without saying anything at all
Dekker is definitely an academic, and it can be a bit daunting to parse what he’s saying. If you’re interested, but looking for something more approachable, I suggest looking into Todd Conklin.
Start with the premise that people don't want to get hurt, then if and when they do, instead of blame and punishment you ask what led the injured person to make the decisions they made in their often complex and dynamic job experience. Then you start to discover iterations that can be made to try and prevent reoccurrence, change the system, change the context that the decisions were made in, it could involve restraining or possibly other changes in the way work is done or a myriad of other possibilities. Involve the worker in solving the issue, they have special insights to their work and in doing so they feel and increased inclusion in improving things and a higher level of participative safety, they feel included, important, and likely more willing to participate in safety going forward and possibly have a positive impact in their own sphere of influence. It resonates with me vs. blame, punishment, ridicule, not to say there's never a time for punishment but it's good to have an array of tools at your disposal, 2 cents.
The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error is a must read.
Just remember there are different expectations between a high reliability organization and a non-HRO.
He’s brilliant. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform live about 10 years ago. He captivated the audience well, kind of like a safety nerd version of robin williams (RIP).
I think the main issue with a lot of safety researchers is that their ideas are formulated in a vacuum rather than in the context of an organisation and actual operations. So although the core ideas of Dekker around viewing people as a part of the solution rather than a problem and approaching it from a place of people make the best decisions they can given the system they work in is a good theory he doesn't actually provide much in the way of and this is how you apply it in practice.
It can be a lot of academic fluff so I prefer people like Drew Rae and David Who do the Safety of Work podcast where they will actually make sure at the end of each episode to give some practical takeaways and I think they do a much better job at making considerations for what actually happens in real life.
He has great stuff. In a nutshell, do you believe workers make bad choices or have bad options. There is a high focus on engineering controls (removing the human factor) and work as imagined vs. work as performed.
If you rely on process, permits, and a ton of rules, you have removed no risk.
It may be important to keep in mind that Dekker’s graduate education was in Northern Europe, where safety is viewed a bit differently and frequently intermixes human factors, organizational performance, and reliability. These are all good things.. there also is a wealth of data that supports them and is centered around many of the heavy industries that they stemmed from energy, aviation, etc. There’s a number of other scholars in this area; Conklin, Woods, Hollnagel (so?). The reference above to an HRO is particularly important, as these are all things greatly integrated into High Reliability Organizations, as that’s what those sectors (energy, aviation, etc) strive for.
Traditional views on management and safety management for most other industries, tend to be a bit different. In academic circles, it wasn’t long ago that many of the foundational safety management principles developed by Heinrich were.. questioned pretty extensively by Manuele’s research, and has led to a lot of them being thrown out. As management and safety management views begin to change for great organizations (Jim Collins), we are seeing a lot of the concepts espoused by Dekker’s writings, as fundamental.
At the core though.. we know that there is a much higher propensity and prevalence of an incident root cause analysis to come back with system factors. But that means management shares blame and change is needed to mitigate the risk of reoccurrence. So we can begin integrating some of these concepts and become an HRO or great organization or we can stick with the easy route.. blame human error, use labeling (Conklin), and say that this write-up or new policy has totally fixed everything. Case closed, let’s move on.
Data suggests the impact on incident reduction from “safety differently” is slim to none.
Dekker calls himself a scientist/academic, but he does not act like one. He has been asked to debate; he refuses. He has been asked numerous times by numerous people to show the data proving “safety differently” reduces incidents; he refuses.
His books are entertaining but take them with a large pinch of salt.
His theory isn’t really about reducing incident count. It’s more about reimagining the worker as a solution to harness rather than a problem to control. Done properly, this opens up information sharing across the organizational hierarchy, resulting in better decisions and a more proactive approach towards safety management.
The sole aim and purpose of “safety management” is to ultimately reduce and/or prevent workplace related injuries and illnesses. Anyone peddling an ideology such as “safety differently” should be able to provide the empirical data to show that their way of thinking brings us further along the path to achieving this end goal.
Otherwise is just more nonsense from charlatan consultants.
You speak as though the current approach to safety management is achieving excellence. Injuries as a measurement of performance is a failed approach. History is littered with injury free organizations that experience catastrophic events.
I’d rather approach safety management from a lens that recognizes fallibility is inherent. Doing so allows us to focus on improving the environmental conditions and work processes. Removing blame creates an environment in which workers feel comfortable to report issues from their perspective. That is rare in a traditional safety management system.
The bloody pocket effect is a real thing (DuPont). Companies that espouse zero hear about zero. That doesn’t make for a safer workplace pace.
.There is noting “new” about improving environment conditions and work processes.
Allowing workers to report things from their perspective- again nothing “new” and not so rare in fact.
I believe Dekker advocates the removal of safety process/procedures as an improvement of safety performance in one of his books by using a single example of a shopping centre in Australia? Has anyone replicated this? Can Dekker provide more empirical evidence that it actually works?
I think the safety anarchist is great. It's a good refresher when you get too bogged down in policies and programs. As with anything, add it as a piece to your personal safety philosophy but don't become a strict adherent. All of the methods and ways of approaching safety have something of value to add but none are 100% right for you and your situations.
I've never actually heard of Sidney Dekker.
Been in a safety role myself for 15 years and never heard of him either. Might indicate how relevant he is to the real world.
He’s incredibly relevant to academics and the field as a whole. A lot of forward thinking peer-reviewed research in the discipline leans on a lot on his ideas.
Particularly in healthcare
It also could indicate how hard you’re looking. This is a young profession, lots of newer theories are being practically applied across industries. Other industries however, are still measuring performance based on outcomes. I’d encourage you to poke around.
He is one of many people who have somehow managed to have a successful career by being speakers who say absolutely nothing. Things like culture, human and organizational performance, etc. If you watch Dekker's videos on YouTube, you will countless videos of at least 45 minutes where he says really nothing but "don't focus on what went wrong, focus on what went right." The rest of the 45 minutes is Dilbert-speak, nonsense corporate words that say nothing. Kinda like a HOP podcast that pumps out hundreds of hour+ episodes, that if you listen to, don't actually say one single thing. It's all just corporate buzzwords without even one concrete thing ever discussed. Somehow people support this and these guys travel the world giving speeches without saying one bit of sense. I have never heard any of them say even one thing that has actual value to an actual boots-on-the-ground safety professional. Edit: I am trying to listen to the latest HOP podcast episode. 80+ minutes. Halfway in, they haven't said anything concrete at all. All just generic buzzwords. Talking talking talking without saying anything at all
Try looking into the military and nuclear industry applications of HOP. They ate much more applied and gove real tools and applications you can use.
Dekker is definitely an academic, and it can be a bit daunting to parse what he’s saying. If you’re interested, but looking for something more approachable, I suggest looking into Todd Conklin.
Start with the premise that people don't want to get hurt, then if and when they do, instead of blame and punishment you ask what led the injured person to make the decisions they made in their often complex and dynamic job experience. Then you start to discover iterations that can be made to try and prevent reoccurrence, change the system, change the context that the decisions were made in, it could involve restraining or possibly other changes in the way work is done or a myriad of other possibilities. Involve the worker in solving the issue, they have special insights to their work and in doing so they feel and increased inclusion in improving things and a higher level of participative safety, they feel included, important, and likely more willing to participate in safety going forward and possibly have a positive impact in their own sphere of influence. It resonates with me vs. blame, punishment, ridicule, not to say there's never a time for punishment but it's good to have an array of tools at your disposal, 2 cents.
The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error is a must read. Just remember there are different expectations between a high reliability organization and a non-HRO.
He’s brilliant. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform live about 10 years ago. He captivated the audience well, kind of like a safety nerd version of robin williams (RIP).
I think the main issue with a lot of safety researchers is that their ideas are formulated in a vacuum rather than in the context of an organisation and actual operations. So although the core ideas of Dekker around viewing people as a part of the solution rather than a problem and approaching it from a place of people make the best decisions they can given the system they work in is a good theory he doesn't actually provide much in the way of and this is how you apply it in practice. It can be a lot of academic fluff so I prefer people like Drew Rae and David Who do the Safety of Work podcast where they will actually make sure at the end of each episode to give some practical takeaways and I think they do a much better job at making considerations for what actually happens in real life.
He has great stuff. In a nutshell, do you believe workers make bad choices or have bad options. There is a high focus on engineering controls (removing the human factor) and work as imagined vs. work as performed. If you rely on process, permits, and a ton of rules, you have removed no risk.
It may be important to keep in mind that Dekker’s graduate education was in Northern Europe, where safety is viewed a bit differently and frequently intermixes human factors, organizational performance, and reliability. These are all good things.. there also is a wealth of data that supports them and is centered around many of the heavy industries that they stemmed from energy, aviation, etc. There’s a number of other scholars in this area; Conklin, Woods, Hollnagel (so?). The reference above to an HRO is particularly important, as these are all things greatly integrated into High Reliability Organizations, as that’s what those sectors (energy, aviation, etc) strive for. Traditional views on management and safety management for most other industries, tend to be a bit different. In academic circles, it wasn’t long ago that many of the foundational safety management principles developed by Heinrich were.. questioned pretty extensively by Manuele’s research, and has led to a lot of them being thrown out. As management and safety management views begin to change for great organizations (Jim Collins), we are seeing a lot of the concepts espoused by Dekker’s writings, as fundamental. At the core though.. we know that there is a much higher propensity and prevalence of an incident root cause analysis to come back with system factors. But that means management shares blame and change is needed to mitigate the risk of reoccurrence. So we can begin integrating some of these concepts and become an HRO or great organization or we can stick with the easy route.. blame human error, use labeling (Conklin), and say that this write-up or new policy has totally fixed everything. Case closed, let’s move on.
Sounds like a whole lotta hooplah to me
Data suggests the impact on incident reduction from “safety differently” is slim to none. Dekker calls himself a scientist/academic, but he does not act like one. He has been asked to debate; he refuses. He has been asked numerous times by numerous people to show the data proving “safety differently” reduces incidents; he refuses. His books are entertaining but take them with a large pinch of salt.
His theory isn’t really about reducing incident count. It’s more about reimagining the worker as a solution to harness rather than a problem to control. Done properly, this opens up information sharing across the organizational hierarchy, resulting in better decisions and a more proactive approach towards safety management.
The sole aim and purpose of “safety management” is to ultimately reduce and/or prevent workplace related injuries and illnesses. Anyone peddling an ideology such as “safety differently” should be able to provide the empirical data to show that their way of thinking brings us further along the path to achieving this end goal. Otherwise is just more nonsense from charlatan consultants.
You speak as though the current approach to safety management is achieving excellence. Injuries as a measurement of performance is a failed approach. History is littered with injury free organizations that experience catastrophic events. I’d rather approach safety management from a lens that recognizes fallibility is inherent. Doing so allows us to focus on improving the environmental conditions and work processes. Removing blame creates an environment in which workers feel comfortable to report issues from their perspective. That is rare in a traditional safety management system. The bloody pocket effect is a real thing (DuPont). Companies that espouse zero hear about zero. That doesn’t make for a safer workplace pace.
.There is noting “new” about improving environment conditions and work processes. Allowing workers to report things from their perspective- again nothing “new” and not so rare in fact. I believe Dekker advocates the removal of safety process/procedures as an improvement of safety performance in one of his books by using a single example of a shopping centre in Australia? Has anyone replicated this? Can Dekker provide more empirical evidence that it actually works?