Why the old ways never worked!

Hi everyone! Thanks for taking a moment to dive into this. What you're about to read is a mash-up of my personal opinions, some solid safety theory, and a dose of hands-on experience. Now, I won’t pretend this is your typical safety cup-of-tea. In fact, you might find some of these ideas a breath of fresh air. Or, fair warning, some of you might feel a little provoked. And you know what? That’s perfectly fine.

We’re going to dig into some fundamental ideas about safety - yes, the kind that get people kicking and swearing because it challenges how we’ve been doing things for ages. Reactions are expected, maybe even encouraged!

Let me throw my hypothesis out there right away: The reasons people are getting injured today are the exact same reasons as they’ve always been. Despite all the risk assessments, procedures, reports, KPIs, toolbox talks, and flashy safety campaigns, nothing has fundamentally changed! Well, I'm not saying we haven't improved or that our committment isn't stronger. Employee onboarding certainly have become better. Ok, so some things have improved, but there is a key factor that is still pointing in the wrong direction; people are still getting hurt and killed in the workplace.

So why is that, you ask? I will tell you straight away. It's because you are trying to fix the same problems as we always had, with the same methods!

Hanging in there? Great, let's get started!

Predicting what can go wrong

After 14 years in the safety game, one thing stands out: we spend a lot of time trying to predict what could go wrong. It’s a core pillar of safety work, and it helps us prepare for potential scenarios and close gaps in our systems. I always thought about it as building a “safety net.” Every time we identify an action, measure, or mitigation (whatever you want to call it), we feel like we’re threading another line in that net, making it stronger and tighter.

The more effort we put into understanding what could go wrong - and why - the better we feel about preventing it, right? Once we’ve done our risk assessments, mapped out all the possible failures, we start defining lagging and leading indicators, tracking them, and trying to steer things back on course when they drift. The idea is simple: this process should lead to a safer work environment and fewer injuries. Makes sense, right? This should all sound familiar to my fellow HSE professionals - and for good reason.

But here's the kicker: there’s a crucial factor that makes predicting accidents really tough and reducing injury rates (not just LTIs) even harder. Ever find yourself thinking, “Whaaaat? How did that happen?” when someone gets injured? Yeah, me too. We’ve all been there, caught off guard, baffled that the incident was even possible.

And here’s the simple truth behind it - so simple it’s almost infuriating: You can’t predict what’s never happened before.

If we could predict everything, we’d have no accidents, no injuries, no failures, no environmental spills, no incidents at all! In a perfect world, where the map (our plan) matches the terrain (reality), nothing bad would ever happen. But here we are, limited by our own memory, company history, and past events.

After the accident

Even at the best companies - those with spotless safety records and zero accidents - sooner or later, something happens. An accident. Someone gets injured and when the accident happen, and it will,, all eyes turn to the leaders. It’s the leaders job to react, take action, and steer the ship back to safety. The organization, also known as a system, is in shock and every fiber of it wants to restore back to it's normal condition. Also, the stakeholders in the system demand understanding, improvement and sometimes consequences. Why it could happen? How could we fail to prevent it from happening? How will we mitigate in the future so it won't happen again?

But here’s the tricky part: when it comes to preventing an accident from ever happening again, things can get... a little confusing and frustrating. Managers are left scratching their heads, wondering how they can guarantee this incident will never repeat itself. The truth is, no matter how much we plan, it’s hard to promise absolute prevention. And why is that? Despite our efforts, predicting is hard and it requires a significant effort to try to close all the weaknesses in the system. Also, it's because it's impossible.

That doesn’t mean we just sit back, though. Improvement is key. Once something has gone wrong, we know something new - we have more information to work with. We’ve got to react to what’s happened and take steps to address it.

I’ve got another concept I want to throw at you. What if I told you the accident didn’t happen because you failed to prevent it? Now, hold on - obviously, if you had prevented it, the accident wouldn’t have occurred. No doubt about that. But the reality is, it did happen, and it wasn’t prevented.

In a typical accident investigation, we’re laser-focused on figuring out what could’ve stopped the accident. We should have made a procedure, increase training frequency, toolbox talks, walked slower, jumped higher. That’s perfectly normal, and yes, it’s important. But here’s the catch: we’re focusing on the things that didn’t happen. We’re trying to fix what we think should have happened instead of improving what actually did.

I'm 100 % sure you haven’t read my article "make your work environment safe to fail ," but this is where I’m heading with this, also - while we are on the topic, please read the article. My main idea I want to pitch to you is that the accident didn’t occur because you failed to prevent it - it happened because you failed to control it.

Sound confusing? Think it’s just a matter of semantics - same thing, different name? I get it, but trust me, they’re different, and both are equally important. I’ll explain why in just a second.

What is SAFETY and should we change what we think it is?

Safety is often defined as the absence of harm, danger, or risk. In other words, safety is supposedly achieved when there are no threats or potential causes of injury, damage, or loss.

Now, let me do something I haven’t done in a long time - quote myself. This seemed like the perfect moment for it, and hey, maybe I’ll like it enough to make it a habit! In my article on failing safely, I said: “What if I told you that human error cannot be the root cause of any accident or incident, but should instead be considered a natural variation or a latent condition in our work environment?”

Let that sink in for a second. Now, let’s connect the dots. We’ve already talked about how prevention is tough. And when we fail to prevent something, we end up scrambling to fix the things we didn’t do. On top of that, I’ve said that accidents happen because we failed to control the situation - not necessarily because we failed to prevent it in the first place.

So what do I mean by all this, and why does it matter when it comes to how we approach safety? Well, let’s break it down from the beginning. First, you’ve got to understand that an organization is a system. And within that system, there’s a key player: the human element or maybe even more correct a small component. The human component is what makes the system complex, unpredictable, and let’s face it, sometimes downright messy. Why? Because humans, with all their skills, quirks, and different ways of seeing the world, are unpredictable. We get distracted. We make mistakes. And to be completely honest, failing is kind of our thing.

There’s even a trendy Silicon Valley phrase for it: “fail fast.” Sure, they’re talking about innovation, but the truth is, failure is part of human nature. It’s how we learn, how we grow, and in many cases, how we figure out what not to do next time. So yeah, failure is inevitable—and in some ways, it’s even essential.

But here’s the million-dollar question: can we really achieve the common definition of safety if we’re always failing? We build our system, KPIs and so much more of our efforts around this. Can we reach that absence of harm, danger, or risk if the human component is dominating the system, and that makes the system likely to fail? If failure is a part of how we operate, how do we keep people from getting hurt when it happens?

The answer is surprisingly simple: we need to make it safe to fail.

A new way to fix old problems

To make it safe to fail, we need to rethink how we approach safety altogether. The traditional zero-injury mindset has its merits, but it’s also a bit like chasing your own tail - it’s an ideal we may never reach, no matter how hard we try. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just not saying it's right. Ok, so maybe I'm saying it's wrong. Instead of focusing on eliminating every possible injury or incident (which is 100 % impossible), we need to focus on building the capacity to handle failure.

Safety isn’t just about preventing accidents; it’s about having the resilience to manage them when they happen. Think about it this way: accidents are inevitable, but injuries don’t have to be. Safety is not the absence of accidents - it’s the presence of capacity. Capacity to absorb shocks, capacity to adapt when things go sideways, and capacity to recover quickly and safely.

This shift means moving away from the unrealistic goal of “zero injuries” to a more sustainable and proactive mindset: one that prepares for failure rather than pretending it won’t happen. We need to build systems and processes that expect failure and are equipped to handle it in a way that keeps people safe.

Ultimately, safety isn't about avoiding every mistake; it's about being ready for when things do go wrong - and making sure those mistakes don’t lead to disaster.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for now! The kids are sleeping, and I really should be too. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you’re itching for more technical details like inherently safe designs, be sure to check out my article on the topic.

In the meantime, stay safe out there, everyone!