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Risk Compensation

3 January, 2023 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Using "shared space" to avoid risk compensation.

Understanding Risk Compensation — Because Error Proofing Isn’t Enough Road safety is an excellent example of a system where many have tried to change the public’s behaviour and stop things from going wrong. Error proofing is a common approach, making things easy to get right and difficult to get wrong, but it isn’t without its […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accident prevention, continuous improvement, error proofing, human nature, perceived risk, process control, risk assessment, risk compensation

Mental Models and the Long Way to Liverpool

12 June, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Mental Models We all rely on mental models to guide us through life. They are our maps of reality and we use them to get the best outcomes possible. But where do those models come from and who is to say they are right? A family wedding A few years ago I went to a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: assumptions, beliefs, communication, human nature, ignorance, learning, mental models

The Management Conundrum

16 March, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Trust or control? Imagine a scenario where your employees keep on changing things.  All in the name of improvement and innovation.  Everybody is spending time making your organisation run that little bit better.  It sounds great, a management nirvana,  until you realise that they are tinkering with processes, messing with procedures and running roughshod over […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: command and control, compliance, Dilbert, human nature, management style, trust

The Blind Men and the Elephant

3 March, 2020 by James Lawther 2 Comments

The art of listening There is a tale that originated somewhere in the Indian subcontinent about six blind men and an elephant.  My favourite version of the story is a poem written in the mid 19th Century The blind men and the elephant It was six men of IndostanTo learning much inclined,Who went to see […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: communication, human nature, listening

Stopping the Suicidal

23 November, 2019 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Preventing bad behaviour From the start of the industrial revolution to the mid 20th century, we British have used town gas. It lit our streets, fired our boilers and cooked our roast dinners.  Town gas was a by-product of the coke manufacturing industry.  Heating coal in the absence of oxygen removes the impurities and produces […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, culture, error proofing, human nature, reinforcing behaviour

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