Dr Marcin Nazaruk - Psychology Applied

I've just finished the alpha draft of my book on Learning from Normal Work. All books in this space are either conceptual with occasional examples, or academic, and thus disconnected from organisational dynamics. I wanted to write a book that will show the operational reality of the practical implementation of proactive learning and all the challenges that come with it, as well as how to overcome them. Based on our experience from implementing proactive learning across industries, it will be the first of its kind engaging novel, telling a story of a divisional HSE manager discovering and implementing proactive learning in the wake of a repeat accident trying to get ahead of failure. John makes many mistakes on his journey, faces rejection, organisational politics, and implementation failures as he tries to operationalise and integrate proactive learning to improve safety, quality and operational efficiency. It's time to start thinking about the title and I was wondering if you could help me. Please comment, which of the options below you would prefer? 1. "The Wisdom of the Workforce: Leveraging the Lessons of Normal Work to Enhance Safety and Business Performance" 2. "The Invisible Teacher: Discovering the Power of Normal Work and Learning from the Workers" 3. "The Power of Normal Work: Leveraging the Lessons From the Front-Line" 4. "The Learning Leader's Handbook: Turning Learning from Normal Work into Business Results" EDIT AFTER 24H: I went through all the comments and titles 1-3 have almost equal preference. I created two more variations based on the suggestions from the comments: 5. "The Wisdom of the Workforce: Harnessing the Power of Learning from Normal Work to Get Ahead of Failure and Enhance Safety and Business Performance" 6. "Lessons from the Front-Line: How To Use Insights From Normal Work To Learn Without Accidents, and Improve Safety, Quality and Business Performance.” Big thanks to Piotr Cichowicz for the support in developing the content and story line.

One senior HSE leader told me they are already learning from normal work because they do regular verifications of controls. When I asked how it's actually done, I learned that the leaders are given a checklist with items to verify. The checklist included things like: - The LOTO is implemented correctly, - Cranes have up-to-date certification, - People use fall protection when working at height. It was a combination of equipment checks and behavioural observations. When I asked what happens when they find non-conformance, the answer was that they report to the local managers to be corrected but without focusing attention on what constraints in place contributed to the problem. Telling people to wear fall protection without understanding and exploring the challenges that make wearing it difficult may lead to major omissions in risk management. I've seen situations where workers could not physically clip themselves to the scaffold or support structure because the connection systems were not compatible or the connection points were simply not there. Furthermore, the checklist will not cover all the potential variability of work and will focus only on some items and, by default, not on others. So here is what to do after observing a non-conformance during a control verification visit: 1. Explore the context and learn about the task first, e.g. "Tell me more about this task" 2. Use TEDS: Tell, Explain, Describe and Show to frame your questions. TEDS is a proven technique that gets people talking. 3. Focus on what makes conformance difficult rather than on non-conformance itself, e.g. "What makes wearing the fall harness difficult?" 4. Explore variability, i.e. conditions that are not present at the time of the conversation, e.g. "Tell me about a time when it was difficult or impossible to use the fall protection." 5. Explore dependencies, i.e. how other people contribute to the situation and risk, e.g. "What do you need from whom to make it easy to fully conform with XYZ" 6. Ask about things which are not covered by the checklist, e.g. "What else worries you about the job that you do?" If you conduct control verifications, can you share your experience? Do you integrate learning from performance variability into the verification process?

There are many ways to learn from normal work. The picture shows the spectrum of tools progressing from 5-10 min-long conversations (on the left) to multi-hour or even multi-day, cross-functional workshops (on the right) that require upfront planning and preparation. All these tools, however, require three things to add genuine value and make a noticeable difference: 1. new leadership mindset, 2. skills of asking questions about error traps and the purpose of adaptations (+ facilitation skills for learning teams), 3. willingness to resource and address the identified issues when there is no failure. How do you help leadership teams to start learning from normal work?

Are you able to join us at the HSE Excellence Europe conference next week in Amsterdam? https://lnkd.in/e7_6PvTX   I'll be running a workshop on how to integrate Learning from Normal Work with: 1. Leadership Engagements 2. Risk Assessment 3. Incident Investigations 4. Behavioural Observations   If you are coming, please DM me so we can connect at the event, or see me at my booth.

Safety is changing. HoP, Safety 2, or Learning from Normal Work offer fresh perspectives on managing safety. Our existing safety processes need to evolve too. If you can, please share the rationale behind your choice.

After 18 months of working with over 30 world's leading organisations across high-risk industries, the time has come to share our progress. Building on: - 2 decades of hands-on experience, - 8 industry awards for safety innovation, - writing multiple industry guides and practitioner toolkits, - chairing 4 industry groups, and - implementing HoP globally and locally in a number of organisations, I've developed a suite of solutions that enable companies to implement HoP and Safety 2 in practice through building capability and deep integration with the existing processes. Exciting times ahead.