In memory of James Reason, I thought it would be fitting to share, in my professional opinion, one of the greatest safety models of my career. If businesses could just embrace this model when it comes to how they investigate events, we could move workplace safety forward a couple of decades. The model is quite simple and has proven to make sense of people’s errors, mistakes, and violations. I am NOT saying it is perfect, but it is about as close to making sense of our failures as any model available today. We should recognize the fact this model was formulated by Reason 25 years ago and has stood the test of time. And yes there are plenty of naysayers from the academic world, but I doubt that many practicing safety professionals who have used this model would find much to disagree with.
Here is Mr. Reason in his own words explaining: Active and Latent Failures, Errors, Mistakes, and Violations from his book “Organizational Accidents Revisited” (2016).