Anyone who has attended one of my talks or training courses will know that courageous leadership is something I feel very passionate about. I learned a very valuable lesson many years ago about the influence I have as a Leader and how, with very little effort (and absolutely no intention or...
How to help correct the biases which lead to poor decision making
Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for...
When the holes line up...but the model has holes in it too!
Many of our readers will have heard about Professor James Reason's Swiss Cheese Model and how it can be used to show how incidents are developed because of holes in the barriers and defences which are put in place to maximise safety.
Professor Reason's research showed that at different levels...
Human Error – does it exist?
Recently at a course, there was a very interesting debate, which challenged the basic premise of human performance and whether there was any such thing as “Human Error”. The traditional view is of course, that we can predict failure rates of technical systems, if we know the component...
"To err is human, but to be human is not necessarily to err”
Human Error… Often talked about, written about, and used to close out accident and incident investigations. What is meant by human error? I have learned over the past few days that my perception contrasts to that used by others working in the safety field, and I wanted to...
What is Human and Organisational Performance Improvement About?
Human Performance is a well-established performance improvement method which has been used in high hazard industries such as Aviation, Nuclear Power Generation and Space Exploration for many years to try to manage the issue of 'Human Error'. The theory and original concept were developed in...
HOP - Return on Investment
As you might expect, one of the first questions we are asked by a new client is "What will the Return On Investment (ROI) be for my Human and Organisational Performance Improvement Programme?"
Unlike buying a new piece of equipment, adding a new line of stock for resale, or tendering a...
Moving from Known Known to Unknown Unknown in the Software World
Eight weeks ago I was asked to present at the 5th annual Experience Agile conference in Lisbon, Portugal on 1 October because the organisers had seen what I had been posting on LinkedIn about non-technical skills, specifically teamwork and decision-making, and how this could also apply to Agile...
The Map is not the Territory!
I had planned the route the night before using the Ordnance Survey website and 1:50k maps. I knew roughly where I was going - through the forests west of Lochgilphead, on the West coast of Scotland. The problem with mountain biking through forests is that it is difficult, almost impossible in...
CRJ Series 5 - Introducing the WITH model
Welcome to the fifth blog in our Human Performance series for Crisis Response Journal and thank you for the feedback to the 4th blog in this series (if you have missed my previous blogs, you can catch up here: https://www.crisis-response.com/comment/blog.php). In this blog I am going to...
