Much is written and shared about accident investigations and how to learn from accidents. Yes, a lot of learning comes from understanding the behaviour of people and the context that shapes their behaviour. But a lot of learning can also come from how we create, share and understand the accident narratives. An accident narrative, like all stories we create, is not an ‘objective reality’ out there. It is a subjective view of an accident and the collective view of an entire culture. In other words, an accident investigation is a myth that gives meaning to human experiences and once we come to terms with the mythical nature of the accident narratives, we become less concerned about the mechanical reasoning (how and what) and start to focus on the hidden biases and assumptions in our understanding of those experiences.
When the same problems come back – time and again – would it not be an idea to slow down and ask may be our understanding of the problem is ill-founded? May be the way we are framing our questions is misleading us? May be our motivation and past experiences are distorting our stories? Maybe we have fallen victims to our our own biases and assumptions?
A great conversation with Greg Smith about accident investigations and what we mean when we say we are learning from accidents, non-events and everything in between.
For those in Perth (Australia), I’ll be in conducting a workshop on 27/28th May on how to conduct investigations with Greg. Details are in the link below:
https://lnkd.in/eQe7cyaA
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