Recently OPG arranged a one day presentation by Todd Conklin for the organization’s Operations and Maintenance managers and safety professionals. The Business Council on Occupational Health and Safety thanks OPG for offering seats to fellow members of BCOHS.
As expressed by our Past President: ” It was refreshing to hear the presentation information and recognize how the principles outlined by Mr. Conklin are closely aligned to much of what is discussed around the BCOHS member table. I was encouraged that many of our members are well on the path to focus on “What failed vs. Who failed” which will undoubtedly lead to elevated continuous improvement within our workplaces and reduce significant injury incidents for our workplaces.
Some of the key points from the day:
- Safety is not the absence of accidents but rather the presence of capacity (Controls)
- Workers don’t cause failures – they trigger latent conditions that lie dormant in organizations
- Shift thinking from “who failed” to “what failed”
- Workers are not problems to be fixed – they are solutions to be harnessed
- Blame and Punish fixes nothing – we need to Learn and Improve
- Events aren’t predictable’ but causative conditions are
- Human error is not a cause of accidents; it’s a symptom of a deeper system problem
- Learn first, then act
- Leadership matters