Les décisions absurdes II
Which HRO practices can be transposed to improve safety management?
Author(s): Christian Morel
Publisher: Gallimard
Date of publication: 2012
Manageris opinion
[Absurd decisions II]
Ten years after the first volume, Christian Morel goes even further in his analysis of “dramatic and persistent errors.” He relies primarily on examples drawn from high-reliability organizations, a term which refers to organizations, such as nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers or surgical units, which have very few accidents, despite the high level of risk inherent to their activities. The organizations often learned from dramatic accidents to adopt principles which transformed them into extremely reliable systems.
From the analysis of HRO practices, the author identifies key points that can be transposed to organizations hoping to improve their safety management. These recommendations are particularly useful for systems which have reached the technical limits of risk prevention and which must progress henceforth on the human dimension. Indeed, major strides can be made by addressing avoidable human error, such as pilots forgetting to drop the landing gear, or surgeons confusing right and left on the operating table.
An enthralling book, which sensitive people should not read on a plane!
See also
Human error, the greatest safety challenge
Human errors are the source of most accidents. And they are often due to staff who were neither incompetent nor careless. How can we make our actions more reliable by developing a safety culture?
How to take safety to the next level?
As atypical as they may be, the high-reliability organizations—aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, space travel installations, etc.—are characterized by a remarkably low number of incidents. How to learn from their methods to raise the bar on safety?