Self-Organised Criticality (SOC) During my ecology degree, whilst studying ecosystem and habitat change, I learned about Self-Organised Criticality (SOC), and I was fascinated by how it explained the precursors to seemingly dramatic changes. We first discussed Self-Organised Criticality in this
The Challenger Disaster: AKA The Normalisation of Risk In previous articles we’ve differentiated error into three types: slips and lapses, mistakes, and violations. This time, we’re exploring a certain type of violation called the “normalisation of deviance”, a term coined
Reason’s theory holds that most accidents can be traced to one or more of four levels of failure:
Organisational influences,
Unsafe supervision,
Preconditions for unsafe acts, and
The unsafe acts themselves.
Executive Summary This pilot study explored the relationship between employment protections—in law and organisational policy—and psychological safety at work. Drawing on 84 responses from participants across multiple countries, the research sought to understand whether stronger employment rights correlate with greater
Normal Accidents Charles Perrow is regarded as a pivotal figure in the theory of why and how things fail. He served as a sociology professor at Yale and Stanford and was primarily focused on the influence of large organisations on
What is “Safe to Fail”? Recently, I failed a motorbike test. This might sound like a mistake, but I fully expected to fail. In the UK, you must pass multiple tests before you’re allowed out on the roads on a
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are amazing. This week discusses failure archetypes, human factors, more Elon Musk, stinky fish and more. Human Factors & Categorising Failure In the past couple of issues, we’ve spoken about failure – how
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are amazing. This week discusses dealing with learning from incidents, plus Elon Musk, share of voice, and Extreme Negative Feedback. We have some new stickers too! These glow in the dark,
Safety Guardrails, Mechanisms and Culture. In working with psychological safety, we often touch on “real” or physical safety and how the two are related. By “real” safety, I mean not only safety from the risk of injurious accidents but also all
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are awesome. This week is all about psychological safety at work and in the workplace, with content about Ron Westrum and Grace Hopper, inclusion, succession planning, whistleblowing, management practices, silence,
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You rock. This week is a bumper edition, and all about actually doing the work to create psychological safety, not just saying it. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please share it via your social
Thanks for subscribing to the psychological safety newsletter! This week we’ve changed the structure a bit – it’s now split into three sections: “In the workplace“, “Theory, Research and Opinion“, and “Things to Do and Try“. Let me know what you
