The Future of Behavior-Based Safety
In February, Tom Krause presented “The Future of Behavior Based Safety” at the ASSE SeminarFest event in Las Vegas. This is a short interview he gave immediately before speaking.
Beyond Finger Pointing – Safety Culture and the Deepwater Horizon Incident
Deepwater Horizon began showing in United States theaters on September 30. As with most historical films, the post-release flurry of critique and dialogue about the film’s accuracy has ensued, and BP’s blunders have become a conversation topic around most dinner tables. While we all love a great villain, and the portrayal of BP fits so…
Two Common Misconceptions About Safety Behavior
In order to be an effective safety leader, it is essential that you have a developed understanding of the role that behavior plays in organizational safety. But this can be difficult, because “behavior” means different things to different people. In this video, Dr. Tom Krause explores several different, often-conflicting views on the subject in order…
Don’t Let Your Safety Scorecard be the Tail that Wags the Dog
“If this happened at home, would you go to the hospital?” This was the third question that occurred to David when his warehouse manager stepped off a platform onto a loose rock and rolled his ankle. For the sake of his numbers, David was hoping the answer was “No.” David had attended incident response training…
3 Characteristics of Strong Safety Leadership
Suppose you want to accelerate the safety performance of your organization, but you have limited resources to get started. You can only invest in one of the following strategies to improve safety: You could build a stronger safety culture, improve your safety management systems, build an inherently safer facility, reduce at-risk behavior, or strengthen safety…
VIDEO: Cognitive Bias in Safety
This is the third in a series of 3 videos in which I explore the role of cognitive bias in decision-making (Watch Part 1 here and Part 2 here). In this final video, I provide an example of how our understanding of cognitive bias relates to safety. Part Three: Learn more about our approach to…
VIDEO: How Safety-Related Decision Making is Influenced by Cognitive Bias
There is a growing body of knowledge which shows that human thinking tends to be flawed, in predictable ways. Cognitive bias can cause even good leaders to make poor safety decisions. This is the second part of a 2-part video. Watch Part 1 here Learn more about our approach to behavior based safety
Cognitive Bias in Terminal Two
I was on the way home from Houston, after several days of meetings with clients about decision making, cognitive bias and the prevention of serious and fatal injuries. I was in the terminal walking toward the gate. First I saw the kid, wild eyed, head jerking back and forth, looking down toward the gate and…
The Power of Context: How Leaders Create Context and How Context Influences Behavior
A shocking situation In a small California town, 1,000 gallons of unknown chemicals exploded and sent 3 firefighters and several workers to a hospital. The investigation after the incident discovered that text messages were sent to managers of the wastewater treatment facility where the chemicals had been stored. The text messages warned managers of upcoming…
Time to Rethink Behavior-Based Safety
Behavior-based safety is one of the most important and controversial approaches to safety improvement in the last 35 years. Some companies swear by it and some think it is time to move on. Labor organizations have never accepted behavior-based safety, especially at the national level. There are good people on both sides and good reasons…
What is “Organizational Safety”?
The field of “organizational safety” has emerged over the past 20 years or so, mainly from the work of James Reason. The name “organizational safety” recognizes a central insight of relevance to those who want to understand and accelerate safety performance improvement. The insight is that getting safety right means getting the organization right. Safety…
Krause Bell Group Formed to Provide Innovative Performance Improvements
PRESS RELEASE Dr. Tom Krause and Kristen Bell have joined forces to form the Krause Bell Group. Dr. Krause is a pioneer in organizational safety and thought leader in the development of new methods for organizational performance improvement. Kristen Bell is an expert in human and organizational performance with a background in research, innovation, and…
