The concept of becoming a learning organization is critical to becoming a safe organization and building a culture that routinely delivers world-class safety performance and results.  There are three pieces to a “Safe Culture” and this model includes:  A Learning Culture, A Reporting Culture, and A Just Culture.   And it is the collective impact of all three of these pieces that when working well together delivers the desired results.  But it is this learning piece that without learning we don’t have a hope in achieving the results we desire.  There is a famous quote that summarizes this well, “Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  And this concept is absolutely applicable to safety.

The Plan-Do-Check-Act model of continuous improvement is one learning model and is something we many use regularly to ensure that we are learning as an organization.  And doing good incident investigations, reviews and sharing lessons learned is part of this process.  I heard a slightly cheeky comment several years ago that noted that we haven’t created any new ways of getting people hurt in several decades.  Although said wryly, there is some truth to the quote.  Most, if not all, of the incidents we have are not unique.  They are same type of incidents that have occurred in the past either at a given site or the industry in general.  What is different are typically the people involved and often the inability of an organization to effectively pass along the knowledge and learning from previous incidents to prevent new ones from occurring.  This is why becoming a learning organization and students of safety is critical for each one of us.  For when we spend the time studying safety and applying lessons learned effectively as part of our everyday work processes, the likelihood of an incident occurring diminishes dramatically. Remember, design codes, standards, and procedures are often the result of previous incidents and are often written in the blood of those who have gone before us.

So as I reflect on the ways that I can become a better learner, I come up with this initial list:

• Spend more time reviewing incidents for lessons learned and ensure that these are being shared.
• Ensure that quality incident investigations occur.  Make sure that we are digging deep to understand fully what went wrong.
• Spend more time talking about the importance of safety and be present at the work faces more often.
• Say the things that often go unsaid with respect to safety.  Reinforce through language and action that safety is more important than production.
• Review incidents that have not occurred at my site, but at others, so I can check to make sure I don’t have the same pre-conditions for a similar incident.
• Actively promote health and safety.
• Be wary of the watermelon effect with KPI’s and dig beneath the “green” skin to see if there are “red” concerns underneath that need my attention and action.

Through learning we can become a safer organization whether through the processes that we apply, the work that we do or the incidents that we have.  And learning from incidents is just one part of the complete learning journey.