Closing the Gap: How High Reliability Organizations are Redefining Safety as a Performance Driver

In the world’s most dangerous industries, from offshore oil rigs to nuclear power plants, where even minor failures can have catastrophic consequences, companies have long struggled to connect the dots between early warning signs and the outcomes that matter most—serious injuries and fatalities. Traditional safety approaches, centered on leading indicators (those metrics believed to predict future performance), have often failed to align with lagging indicators (the measurable outcomes of accidents and injuries). The problem is simple: what organizations believe will prevent accidents often fails to do so. The deeper issue, however, is far more complex and involves a disconnect between the data collected and the realities of the workplace.

High Reliability Organizations (HROs) have cracked the code. They have found ways to link leading indicators with the lagging indicators of serious injury and fatalities, where traditional safety models have faltered. Culture and Risk Evaluation (CARE), an advanced framework that goes beyond compliance, integrates safety into the very core of performance management, offering organizations the chance to transform safety into a strategic driver of success.

This investigative dive explores how HROs, supported by the principles of CARE, are closing the dangerous gap between what safety systems predict and the reality of what happens on the ground. We’ll explore the failures of traditional safety models, the role of organizational culture, and how CARE is allowing the most forward-thinking organizations to truly master safety.

The Disconnect Between Leading and Lagging Indicators

For decades, companies have depended on leading indicators like safety inspections, employee training completions, and near-miss reports to predict their safety performance. The theory was that if you could control these metrics, serious accidents would be avoided. However, as many organizations have painfully learned, this is not always the case.

Take, for example, the case of a major oil company that rigorously tracked its leading indicators. The organization believed it was at the forefront of safety management. Safety inspections were regularly completed, near misses were reported in great detail, and employees underwent frequent training sessions. But when a major accident occurred, it became evident that none of these indicators had captured the full scope of the risks present in their operations.

An internal review at the company revealed a disturbing truth: while their safety metrics had been extensive, they had missed the mark. Many of their leading indicators were compliance-based, and there was little to no correlation between these indicators and the serious risks that led to the accident. The disconnect between the data they were tracking and the actual risks their employees faced resulted in a failure to prevent the serious incident.

High Reliability Organizations: A Model for Safety Excellence

In stark contrast to the traditional model, High Reliability Organizations (HROs) have long understood that safety is not simply a matter of tracking leading indicators—it’s about understanding the full landscape of risk, from the front lines to the boardroom. These organizations operate in environments where failure is unacceptable—where the stakes are so high that a single misstep could lead to disaster.

HROs operate under a unique set of principles that make them exceptional at preventing failure:

1. Preoccupation with Failure: HROs never assume that safety has been achieved. They constantly search for early signs of failure, even when everything seems to be going well. This hyper-vigilance helps them catch small issues before they become catastrophic.

2. Reluctance to Simplify: HROs resist the urge to oversimplify the causes of accidents and near misses. They understand that safety is complex and multifaceted, and they are willing to dig deep to uncover the real causes of failure.

3. Commitment to Resilience: HROs build their systems to be adaptable, ensuring they can bounce back from disruptions and continue operating safely even when unexpected challenges arise.

4. Deference to Expertise: HROs push decision-making authority to the people with the most expertise, regardless of their rank in the organization. This ensures that the individuals who understand the risks best are the ones making the most critical safety decisions.

By operating under these principles, HROs have succeeded in bridging the gap between leading and lagging indicators in a way that most traditional organizations have failed to do.

The Impact of Culture on Safety

One of the key reasons that traditional safety methods have failed to connect leading indicators with real-world outcomes is that they often neglect the role of culture in safety performance. Culture, as it turns out, is one of the most critical components of safety management.

Safety culture is more than just the formal policies and procedures that an organization puts in place—it is the set of shared values, norms, and behaviors that shape how employees perceive and respond to risk. In a strong safety culture, employees at every level of the organization are actively engaged in identifying and mitigating risks, and they feel empowered to speak up when they see something wrong.

Research on safety culture has shown time and again that when organizations fail to cultivate a strong safety culture, their formal safety systems are likely to fail as well. A 2017 study of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSAS 1800; replaced by ISO45001) revealed that even in certified companies, poor safety culture led to significant shortcomings in actual safety performance. These companies had all the right systems on paper, but without a robust safety culture to support them, they remained vulnerable to serious incidents.

Leadership Engagement: Bridging the Cultural Divide

One of the critical elements of a strong safety culture is leadership engagement. HROs understand that safety starts at the top, and leaders must be actively involved in the day-to-day realities of risk management. In too many organizations, safety is treated as the responsibility of middle management or safety officers, while senior leadership remains detached from the operational risks.

In HROs, this is never the case. Leaders are not passive overseers—they are active participants in the safety process. They engage directly with safety data, scrutinize performance metrics, and ensure that safety is integrated into every aspect of the organization’s operations. This level of engagement is crucial because it ensures that leaders are not misled by flawed leading indicators that fail to capture the real risks on the ground.

Take the example of another major transportation company, which prided itself on its strong safety culture, with regular audits and solid compliance metrics. Yet a serious near miss forced a rethinking of the company’s approach. It wasn’t until leadership engaged directly with the operational risks and reevaluated the existing safety culture that the organization was able to make the necessary changes. The wake-up call forced the company to adopt a more proactive and engaged leadership model, one that put real safety concerns at the forefront of their performance management.

Data Integrity: The Foundation of Reliable Metrics

One of the most pervasive challenges in traditional safety management is the issue of data integrity. Companies often rely on a large volume of data, but the quality and relevance of that data are frequently overlooked. Leading indicators, while useful, often paint an incomplete picture of the actual risks present in the workplace.

A critical finding from the anonymous oil company review was that their leading indicators, while extensive, were not risk-based. They were compliance-driven and focused on outcomes that did not accurately reflect the potential for serious injury or fatality. In other words, the company had plenty of data, but it wasn’t the right data.

HROs, by contrast, prioritize data integrity above all else. They understand that the metrics they track must be relevant to the actual risks their employees face. CARE goes a step further by ensuring that data systems are not just about gathering information—they are about using that information to actively identify and mitigate risks. This means real-time data tracking, continuous monitoring of safety events, and rigorous analysis of both leading and lagging indicators.

In high-risk environments like offshore wind, where conditions change rapidly and the risk of injury is high, having reliable, real-time data is essential. HROs ensure that the data they collect is always directly linked to the risks that matter most, allowing them to catch weak signals of potential failure before they escalate into major incidents.

Continuous Learning: The Path to Resilience

Another key principle of HROs is their commitment to continuous learning. In traditional organizations, safety incidents are often treated as isolated events, and once the immediate issue is resolved, there is little follow-up. But this approach misses a crucial opportunity for improvement.

HROs, by contrast, see every failure—no matter how small—as a learning opportunity. They analyze accidents, near misses, and even minor safety violations to understand what went wrong and how they can prevent similar issues in the future. This commitment to resilience ensures that HROs are always improving and adapting their systems.

CARE reinforces this principle by encouraging organizations to adopt a learning culture. Employees at all levels are empowered to report safety issues without fear of retribution, creating a feedback loop that allows organizations to continuously improve their safety systems.

The transportation company we mentioned earlier made this shift after their near miss. They realized that their focus on compliance and leading indicators had blinded them to the real risks their employees were facing. By embracing a culture of continuous learning, they were able to address the root causes of their safety issues and improve their overall performance.

Proactive Risk Management: Adapting to Evolving Challenges

One of the biggest failings of traditional safety management is its reactive nature. Many organizations operate under the assumption that controlling minor incidents will prevent major accidents. But as many companies have learned, this assumption is flawed.

HROs, by contrast, understand that risk is not linear. Just because small incidents are under control doesn’t mean the system is safe. Risk management must be proactive, constantly adapting to new challenges and evolving conditions.

A case in point: at the oil company, a disconnect between leading and lagging indicators had created a blind spot in their safety management. Despite meeting their leading indicator targets

The Path Forward for Safety Excellence

The failures of traditional safety management have made one thing clear: controlling minor incidents does not guarantee safety from catastrophic risks. As we've seen, risk is not linear, and relying solely on outdated metrics can leave organizations blindsided when serious accidents occur. High Reliability Organizations (HROs) have demonstrated that proactive, adaptive risk management is the key to closing the gap between what we track and the reality of workplace safety.

The disconnect between leading and lagging indicators, as seen in the case of the anonymous oil company, is a wake-up call for all industries. Safety cannot be reduced to checking boxes and meeting compliance metrics. It requires real-time data, continuous learning, and leadership engagement that goes beyond surface-level oversight.

There is hope, however, if we are willing to step up and embrace a new way of thinking. By adopting the principles of Culture and Risk Evaluation (CARE) and learning from HROs, we can shift from reactive to proactive safety management. This means using meaningful, risk-based metrics, fostering a culture of transparency, and empowering teams at every level to take responsibility for safety.

The path to safety excellence is clear. It’s time to evolve beyond outdated metrics and embrace a future where safety is not just about avoiding harm but about driving performance and resilience. If we change how we think about safety today, we can build a safer, more reliable tomorrow.