In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Andrea Baker, a human and organizational performance (HOP) expert and consultant, and former safety professional who has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Andrea advocates a paradigm shift in our approach to HSE. She recognizes safety as an emergent property of the larger industrial system and explains that good performance is not the absence of inevitable human errors - but the presence of appropriate prevention and mitigation.

Combining psychology, sociology, and system design, Andrea explores why humans make mistakes and errors, and why safety systems are not predictable and will never be perfect. She emphasizes the importance of EHS professionals engaging with co-workers and provides practical advice on influencing their adoption of new safety procedures.

Andrea encourages HSE professionals to stop looking for faults in people or safety systems and become more interested in learning about how you want to be working in safety error reduction.

You can find out more about Andrea’s work by visiting:

https://www.thehopmentor.com/

To help with your HOP journey, a group of experts, including Andrea, have pooled their resources in the HOP hub:

https://www.hophub.org/

Andrea has co-written a book called Bob's Guide to Operational Learning: How to Think Like a Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) Coach:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bobs-Guide-Operational-Learning-Organizational/dp/B08QRYT5QN

Andrea Baker on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-baker-448832148/

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Episode 383: Rob Biederman - Managing Partner, Asymmetric Capital Partners