2010 Dr Eric Wigglesworth Memorial Lecture
Rethinking Safety - it's not rocket science, it's much harder
Presented by: Professor Patrick Hudson (image below)
The prospect of hearing the latest thinking on OHS from Professor Patrick Hudson drew large numbers to Dr Eric Wigglesworth AM, Memorial Lecture on the eve of the Safety In Action Conference. It was clear however, that many were there to honour the memory of Eric Wigglesworth, having known him as a lecturer, colleague, friend, or in many case all three. The fondness of memory drew people from as far as New England and Adelaide. Many, including overseas visitors, added an extra day to the Conference to join their colleagues at the event.
The unique timber and glass features of the BMW Edge theatre at Federation Square, the busy hub of Melbourne city life, added atmosphere to this prodigious event. Beginning with refreshments and an opportunity to catch up with old friends and colleagues, 311 people settled down to an introduction from Dr Geoff Dell, the Dean of the College of Fellows. Geoff reminded us of the contribution that Eric Wigglesworth made to the science of safety in Australia and the extent to which he influenced injury prevention and the development of the OHS profession.
Professor Patrick Hudson then honoured the memory of Eric with a thought provoking and challenging presentation drawing together contemporary thinking from leading researchers and Professionals around the world. Patrick took the audience on a journey through the historical models of Heinrich and his misleading and overly simplistic domino theory to the fallacy of the iceberg model of incident, injury and fatality ratios. He described the evolution of Hudson & Reason’s Swiss cheese model, discussing how even that model is being dumbed down to a linear model (along the way, correcting at least some of us on the actual variety of European cheese used in the model). Patrick also described the genesis of the Hudson organisational maturity model.
Hudson illustrated the application of theory to the investigation of major events and shared with us the insights he has gained through his work with major oil companies, in particular, touching on the leading edge thinking around rules and behaviour and resilience engineering.
The journey culminated in an exploration of physical principles and he drew analogies with Newtonian physics, thereby unequivocally supporting the lecture title, “OHS is not rocket science, its harder!”
The event concluded with a number of probing questions from the audience which led to a huddle around Patrick after Geoff Dell called time to the formal proceedings.
There is no doubt that the Eric Wigglesworth memorial Lecture will become and important feature on the annual Safety calendar and in this case it provided an ideal entree to the SIA conference that began the next day.
2011 Dr Eric Wigglesworth Memorial Lecture
Safety, Ethics and Organisational Justice - are we victims of our own success?
Presented by: Professor Sidney Dekker
Professor Dekker's animated delivery, and varied references and examples, captured the interest of the audience and set the bar high for future successful practise in safety.?Over the course of his lecture, Professor Dekker took us on a journey. He questioned our decision making,the basis of our ethics, and how we develop our view of the world. How is our perspective on responsibility and justice formed?What constitutes success in safety practise?
And why should we be asking these questions? In his words, "never stop questioning" and "don't believe a word of what I just said."
Click here to view the write up from the evening.
Society is increasingly unforgiving of lapses in governance that can lead to safety problems or accidents. This could be due in part to our success at improving safety, and thereby peoples expectations, in many safety-critical worlds. Failure is often accompanied by calls to hold front-line staff or managers accountable, and even organisations themselves can respond to workplace incidents in ways that are seen as anything but just.
Sidney Dekker is the newly appointed Professor and Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University in Brisbane. He has written multiple books on safety, accountability and error, and was previously Professor at Lund University Sweden. In addition, he has published over 100 articles in peer reviewed journals.