What is New View Safety?

Traditional safety management approaches have focused on eliminating hazards and preventing errors. However, these approaches have reached a plateau (asymptote) in terms of their effectiveness. In recent years, there has been a growing movement towards a new view of safety which emphasises the importance of resilience and capacity.

The New View includes Safety II, Safety Differently, Human Organizational Performance (HOP), and High-Reliability Organisations (HRO). Each of these approaches contains features unique from others. On the other hand, there are many common concepts shared by all:

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• Humans are fallible. To make errors is part of being human, and trying to eradicate error completely is pointless! When looked at through different lens’ (psychology, ergonomics, organisational culture etc) errors become more predictable and therefore easier to manage.

• Deference to expertise. The people at the sharp pointy end of your business are the experts in dealing with your contextual hazards. Therefore, control of those hazards (identifying and managing) should be their responsibility, not the responsibility of people removed from the daily hazards.

• Safety is an emergent property of the system.  Safety, or the lack thereof, emerges from the complex interaction of many factors such as leadership, technology, processes, work practices, culture, and system deficiencies and strengths.  

• Safety is not about blame. “You can either blame and punish or learn and improve. You can’t do both!” – Todd Conklin. If an incident happens the price has already been paid - to get learnings from that incident is an obligation of the leaders. Punishment for genuine or foreseeable error is not a control measure! 

• Focus on what goes ‘right’. Focussing solely on what could go ‘wrong’ misses out on so much opportunity for improvement. Safety should also focus on making sure as many things as possible go ‘well’, and not just try to prevent incidents from happening. 

• Constant curiosity and learning. The world is getting more complex, not less. Safety, along with operational effectiveness, is not an 'end' to reach. But rather, a continuous journey of improvement. 

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