Review
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"Sidney Dekker has established himself as the foremost thought
leader on accident causation and human error. He points out that
we continue to follow linear thinking about accidents and look at
the person and the choices they make as the problem. Thus, we
develop ineffective interventions intended to "fix" workers
through motivation, training, and discipline. … Through this
book, Dekker calls on safety professionals to stop and think
critically about the path forward. He calls for us to engage in a
conversation about how we look at human error. The time has come
for a new era that better understands human error in the context
of work, and the overriding importance of improved work design;
design that is tolerant of human error and allows humans who make
mistakes or become confused to fail safely."
―Richard A. Pollock, President, CLMI Safety Training and American
Society of Safety Engineers
"As expected Sidney Dekker compels the next level of productive
thinking. It is a challenge to think broader and react less. He
tells the how and why of "old view" sociotechnical embeddedness
and reveals why its usefulness has diminished … Sidney writes in
such a way that the whole book becomes an example of applied
"local rationality". … He provides strong motivation to embrace
the hard work of developing a holistic perspective mindset and
break free of dualistic deconstructionist approaches and
language."
―Paul Nelson, MSc, Nelson HF Safety Consulting, LLC
"… an exciting exposé of the current system of safety management
and how it came to be. … Professor Dekker asks us to look beyond
the purely technical, and to reflect on our feelings about safety
processes. Then he presents a clear story about why these
feelings might be preventing us from producing the very changes
that are needed to move to the next level of safe operations. He
probes us to explore what fundamentally makes safety such an
elusive challenge and what makes it different from other
sciences. … provides the framework that will move us to a new
level of practice and thinking that could be to this generation
of safety practitioners, what technical "fixes" were to the
safety managers of the 1970s."
―Ivan Pupulidy, US Forest Service
"… After reading Sidney’s work you feel inspired to change the
‘way we’ve always done business’ and to look at safety management
in a very different way. This book is very timely against the
strengthening tide of criminalization of failure ― it counters by
providing a sound perspective on system complexity and
foreseeability ― it recognizes that ethics have taken a back seat
to safety over the bureaucratic control it so often has become.
This book is indeed a ‘stop and think’ ― its content provides
concepts for critical thinking and invites, challenges and
persuades all those who care about safety to think and act
differently."
―Jenny Colman – Human Factor Spet, al and Serious Injury
Investigation Dept. WorkSafeBC
"… Sidney has so thoroughly exposed the philosophical derailment
caused by a modernist-only agenda that to continue to go down
that track would be logically pathetic. … turns most of the
popular literature on Human Factors and Crew Resource Management
upside down and sideways, but doesn’t leave the reader perplexed
and lost. He cleverly explains why all future thinking about
human error must shift from a discourse on the complicated to a
discourse on the complex. In coming years, Sidney’s views will
have created the answer to the question "What do we do after
modernism?" Just as Einstein displaced some of Newton’s thoughts
about the universe and the physics of gravity and light, Sidney
Dekker has displaced some of Newton’s and Detes’ thoughts
about how we are to analyze the known world. This book is a must
read for every student in collegiate aviation programs around the
world."
―Todd P. Hubbard, Ed.D., University of Oklahoma
"I believe this book will become a foundational reference for all
students and practitioners and promoters of system safety
initiatives and interventions in complex social organizations and
work situations. The comprehensive nature of the approach adopted
in this book is based on both a strong historical understanding
of the topic as well as an impressive appreciation of the
important philosophical underpinnings of system safety efforts.
Dekker has laid a strong historical and philosophical foundation
on which he builds operationally relevant guidance about
sense-making in complex adaptive systems."
―Dr. Robert Robson, care System Safety and Accountability
"… Here in one volume is an authoritative account that is rich
in Prof Dekker’s unique experience of safety, science and his
experience of safety in vastly different domains. The result is
challenging and surprising, And at last there is one book that
brings the various strands of these influences into what we call
today safety science."
―Anthony Smoker, Manager Operational Safety Strategy NERL/NATS
"… easily accessible for practitioners and really inspiring and
provocative for scientists. Dekker's reasoning is amazingly easy
to follow, especially when he is challenging various folk models,
which are often strongly incorporated in our thinking. The
history of safety science and of role of human in systems is
pictured masterfully. But the main strength is that it offers
smooth intellectual ride from "stone-age" safety thinking to
resilience engineering. Of course, smooth and comfortable for
readers, for the world of safety is a struggle. But at least
there is a inspiration."
―Hubert K. Adamczyk, Polish Air Traffic Controllers Union
(Executive Vice President); Human Factors Spet and Safety
Investigator
"… easy to read and to understand. … written in such a way that
also interested people from outside the safety field can
understand … the first book that I ‘m aware of, that challenges
the dominating view/beliefs on the role of the human factor
(based on modernist assumptions) within the safety domain. …
Brilliantly written … a very interesting view on the way modern
safety is shaped by the past and how it could be of influence on
the future. … has the potential to unlock a more human approach
of safety."
―Ruud Plomp, ManageNet/Thin Green Line, The Netherlands