The Causes of Safety System Failure and How You Can Prevent It
Jun 6, 2022
auto_awesome
Chris Clearfield, co-author of “Meltdown: Why our systems fail and what we can do about it”, discusses how understanding system complexity and coupling can prevent accidents. He emphasizes the importance of improving system feedback and shares practical advice on implementing HSE change and creating inclusive safety cultures. The podcast also explores strategies to reduce risk and improve system design, as well as techniques like premortem and collaborative learning for preventing failure.
Understanding system complexity and coupling helps HSE professionals prevent accidents in safety systems.
Creating a culture of learning, transparency, and resilience is crucial for effective safety leadership in complex systems.
Deep dives
The Importance of Soft Skills in Safety Leadership
The podcast emphasizes the significance of soft skills, such as empathy, influence, trust, and rapport, in safety leadership. It highlights the role of these skills in supporting safety professionals and addressing the human side of safety. The guest, Chris Clearfield, shares his expertise in guiding leaders to navigate complex and uncertain environments. He discusses the importance of incorporating social and technical aspects in work to solve unique challenges. Clearfield also emphasizes the need to focus on the core skills of safety leadership to effectively prevent system failures and ensure workplace safety.
Understanding Systems: Coupling, Complexity, and the Danger Zone
Clearfield explains the concept of coupling, referring to the level of interdependence and slack in a system. He provides an example of a tightly coupled system, where disruptions can easily lead to failures. He also defines complexity as the interconnections within a system and highlights how complex systems require multiple components to be in sync for successful outcomes. Clearfield emphasizes that systems that are both complex and tightly coupled enter the danger zone, where small disruptions can have significant unpredictable effects. He relates these concepts to real-life examples, such as aviation accidents and oil spills, to illustrate the importance of understanding system dynamics.
Wicked Environments and Building Resilient Systems
The podcast addresses the challenges of operating in wicked environments, where intuition and decision-making can be difficult due to a lack of feedback and high uncertainty. Clearfield shares insights on how leaders can learn to operate more effectively in such complex systems. He emphasizes the need to create a culture of learning and transparency, where mistakes are openly discussed and near misses are analyzed. He highlights the importance of building resilient systems that can tolerate uncertainties, reduce tight coupling, and introduce buffers to mitigate risks. Clearfield also suggests adopting techniques such as the premortem and spies estimation to better identify vulnerabilities and make more accurate risk predictions.
Driving Change and Encouraging Collaboration
The podcast discusses strategies for driving change in organizations and improving safety systems. Clearfield encourages leaders to create an environment where people feel safe to speak up and share their insights and doubts. He emphasizes the importance of listening and being open to critical input rather than seeking buy-in or forcing solutions. Clearfield recommends collaborative approaches, such as co-creation and building diverse teams, to tap into different perspectives and challenge existing assumptions. He also suggests coaching as a vital skill for safety professionals, enabling them to support and empower their teams to achieve optimal outcomes.
In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Chris Clearfield, a coaching consultant, speaker, and co-author of “Meltdown: Why our systems fail and what we can do about it”.
Chris studies disasters, and his research into systems failure provides many valuable lessons for EHS professionals who rely on systems every day to maintain safety.
He explains how understanding system complexity and coupling (the amount of slack) can help HSE professionals keep their safety systems out of “the danger zone” and prevent accidents.
Also, he highlights how improving systems - so they provide more feedback - is key to making better safety decisions.
Using real-life disasters such as Deepwater Horizon, Chris provides lots of practical advice on implementing HSE change and creating more curious, experiential and inclusive safety cultures.