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Searching for Safety CultureEuropean Rail Human and Organisational Factors Seminar 2018

Dr. Frank Guldenmund, Safety & Security Science Group,

Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

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Menu

• Introduction: searching for safety culture

• Four (plus one) safety culture metaphors

• Safety culture as a football game

• Remarks, questions?

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Introduction: searching for safety culture

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Nobody really ‘owns’ or has the ultimate ‘key’

to safety culture. Really! Nobody.

(Well, at least as far as I know).

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First of all, does it make sense to look at culture at all?

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First of all, does it make sense to look at culture at all?

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Safety culture…

Safety culture… Safety

culture…

Safety culture…

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Safety culture…

• As something you have or you haven’t

• As something that is good or bad

• As something you can put a number on

• As something you can benchmark or compare

• As something managers can control and improve

• As something that is the cause of incidents or accidents (or various other issues)

• As something that is obvious from the outside

• As something that can be derived directly from behaviors, or translates into behaviors

• And on and on

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‘We are convinced that

regulations alone cannot assure

safety. Indeed, once regulations

become as voluminous and

complex as those regulations

now in place, they can serve as

a negative factor in nuclear

safety. This Commission

believes that it is an absorbing

concern with safety that will

bring about safety – not just the

meeting of narrowly prescribed

and complex regulations’

(Kemeny, 1979)

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Furthermore, safety culture…

• Started out as an explanation for large-

scale disasters (‘external safety’)

• But became a tool for influencing

occupational safety (‘internal safety’)

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Searching for safety culture

1. Measuring (or assessing) safety culture

2. Understanding safety culture

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4 + 1 safety culture metaphors

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Safety culture metaphors

• Safety culture as a convenient truth

• Safety culture as a grading system

• Safety culture as a liaison

• Safety culture as a mirror

• Safety culture as a football game

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Safety culture as football game

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The development of culture

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

TRANSMITTING

REINFORCINGINTERNAL

EXTERNAL, NEWCOMERS

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Surprise! > sensemaking

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

REINFORCING

Surprise: what is happening here?

SENSEMAKING

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Exchanging

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

REINFORCING

What do wethink is happening here?

EXCHANGING

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Naive realism

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Formalizing (SOP’s for the group)

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

REINFORCING

This is the way we should understand and/or do things

FORMALIZING

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Reinforcing ( by behaving the way we always do)

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

REINFORCING

We reinforce ourshared under-standing by repe-tition

REINFORCING

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The development of culture

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

TRANSMITTING

REINFORCINGINTERNAL

EXTERNAL, NEWCOMERS

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Business as usual, so no surprises

SENSEMAKING

REINFORCINGINTERNAL

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New members have to learn the culture first

SENSEMAKING

TRANSMITTING

REINFORCING

EXTERNAL, NEWCOMERS

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Culture formation is a two-way process

SENSEMAKING EXCHANGING FORMALIZING

TRANSMITTING

REINFORCINGINTERNAL

EXTERNAL, NEWCOMERS

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Safety culture as football game

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Rules of the game

• We play football, so various rules are therefore given (>this is the playing field on which we work)

• We score (as much as possible) (>we’re here to produce, to deliver, etc.)

• We avoid goals by the opponent (>we avoid incidents or accidents)

• We need to adapt our game to the circumstances (opponent, weather, field) (>we’re free to choose our way of working, as long as we’re safe)

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Frank Guldenmund: f.w.guldenmund@tudelft.nl

Searching for Safety CultureEuropean Rail Human and Organisational Factors Seminar 2018

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reports

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Safety culture as a convenient truth

• Purpose: not pointing the finger to somebody in particular > might be for political or diplomatic reasons

• Typical quote: “This disaster is the result of a bad safety culture”

• Holistic view: everything and everybody is to blame (hence, nobody is to blame)

• Used with disasters and (subsequent) inquiries, inspections

• The meaning of ‘safety culture’ might differ between and within inquiries, though

• Although a concept with substantial depth and meaning (= sensitizing concept), it often defaults to shallow fuzziness (= convenient truth)

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Safety culture as a grading system

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Safety culture as a grading system

• Purpose: (measuring and) improving

• Pragmatic point of view

• Typical quote: “How are we doing compared to x?”

• Safety culture as something an organization ‘has’, and which should be ‘improved’

• ‘Hearts and Minds’, ‘Safety culture maturity’, ‘How to improve your safety culture in x steps’

• Grades represent ranks or levels but are often also used as benchmarks

• Actual proof? Whose grade? Grade relates to what?

• Popular with bureaucrats and technocrats

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Safety culture as a liaison (a construct of constructs)

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Safety culture as a liaison (a construct

of constructs)• Purpose: measuring and modelling

• Research point of view > primarily an academic exercise

• Typical quote: “Safety motivation mediates the relationship between safety climate and safety performance”.

• ‘The measurable (objective?) aspect of safety culture’ (Zohar): safety climate (= workforce’s perceived priority of safety)

• Espoused values? Context?

• Many journal papers abound, but what does it all mean?

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Safety culture as a mirror

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Safety culture as a mirror

• Purpose: understanding, reflecting

• Value free point of view (well…)

• DIY: safety culture self-assessment

• Typical quote: “Let’s try to figure out why we do the things the way we do”

• Gradually understand your own culture (shared symbols and meanings)

• IAEA-approach (SCSA, ISCA)

• Watch out! People often express dissatisfaction, or state the obvious