Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability (Paperback)

by Sidney Dekker (Author) "Let me call her Mara..." (more)
Key Phrases: local solution, normative errors, medication log, Supreme Court, Cambridge University Press, The Importance (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A just culture protects people's honest mistakes from being seen as culpable. But what is an honest mistake, or rather, when is a mistake no longer honest? It is too simple to assert that there should be consequences for those who 'cross the line'. Lines don't just exist out there, ready to be crossed or obeyed. We-people-construct those lines; and we draw them differently all the time, depending on the language we use to describe the mistake, on hindsight, history, tradition, and a host of other factors.What matters is not where the line goes-but who gets to draw it. If we leave that to chance, or to prosecutors, or fail to tell operators honestly about who may end up drawing the line, then a just culture may be very difficult to achieve.The absence of a just culture in an organization, in a country, in an industry, hurts both justice and safety. Responses to incidents and accidents that are seen as unjust can impede safety investigations, promote fear rather than mindfulness in people who do safety-critical work, make organizations more bureaucratic rather than more careful, and cultivate professional secrecy, evasion, and self-protection. A just culture is critical for the creation of a safety culture. Without reporting of failures and problems, without openness and information sharing, a safety culture cannot flourish.Drawing on his experience with practitioners (in nursing, air traffic control and professional aviation) whose errors were turned into crimes, Dekker lays out a new view of just culture. This book will help you to create an environment where learning and accountability are fairly and constructively balanced.

About the Author
Sidney Dekker (Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1996) is Professor of Human Factors and System Safety and Director of Research at Lund University School of Aviation in Sweden. Author of Ten Questions About Human Error (Erlbaum, 2005) and the top-selling Field Guide to Understanding Human Error (Ashgate, 2006), he has been appointed as Scientific Advisor on Healthcare System Safety to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in Canada, and is visiting professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 166 pages
• Publisher: Ashgate (December 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754672670
• ISBN-13: 978-0754672678
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,865 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top 5 Operational Safety Reading for High Reliability Organizations, February 14, 2009

By	Clark "Clark" (US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability (Hardcover)

I got Sidney's book from Ashgate a couple of weeks back. Never thought to check it out from the Library as Captain Sullenberger did. Those Captains think in multiple dimensions! I just finished it and it will be an essential text to guide organizations through the establishment of a functional safety management system (SMS). SMS will not prosper if you do not have sound policy, robust reporting, comprehensive risk management and a quality assurance and audit program. The only way to optimize those programs is to have an open and honest organizational reporting culture.

The "just culture" philosophy asks thought provoking questions of how society treats failure with blame, when instead accountability should be used proactively and collaboratively to improve a system and prevent future mishaps. A "zero-defect" mentality is not reality, in any organization or society. In a just culture we can share information to educate an organization, and industry, a nation and prevent mistakes that cost lives and damage property.

Just Culture discusses the option of working together to make each others' lives better, to look out for one another. The last chapter is especially germane, as it offers a model approach to building a just culture at home, in your organization and in your country. Sidney's book will answer the many nagging questions that you have about how and why we hold people responsible for failures of a system.

Kent Lewis
Captain USMC (Retired)
www.signalcharlie.net

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't fix blame fix the problem, March 20, 2009

By	George A. Wamser - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A philosophical look at accitdents primarily in the aviation and medical fields. Our culture is to spend more effort fixing blame than fixing the problem so it will not happen again. Applicable to the culture in many fields not only aviation and medical. Worth reading.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Book Captain Sully Was Going to Read, February 9, 2009

By	California Son (Sonoma Valley) - See all my reviews

Title says it all. Captain Sullenberger intended to read this book on the famous flight. He left it on the plane ...