Today’s Robservation is that, unfortunately, too many organizations leave understanding performance improvement, HOP, human performance, and error reduction concepts in the EDUCATION phase – in other words, we taught it – so you know it – so now we can hold you accountable for it… as opposed to taking the concepts and INTEGRATING them into the day-to-day workflow so that it is not always relying on the final barrier (the human) to ‘do’ HOP, but the organization effectively utilizing the concepts to create increased capacity and resilience, and create better sustainable outcomes.

The reason we at FIT spend so much time promoting the concept of internal advocates or champions is that no one knows your processes and systems better than the people that work there. About 10% of your population should be >3 questions deep in the concepts so that when it comes time to integrate, they understand WHAT to do, WHY to do it, and using your current processes, HOW to seamlessly integrate it. (explain 10% of your population should be >3 questions deep in the concepts)

One example is the discussion of performance modes, or mental models, and personality diversity during pre-task briefings. By including these attributes into the pre-task briefing standards, they get talked about every day, and the concepts are used every shift. They then show more value to the organization and, therefore, get used even more.

Another example is reviewing procedures and processes for the top 5 written guidance error traps before a task. Once the crew (or a subject matter expert) sees that a trap may exist, they can effectively minimize the impact. Then the trap can be removed from or dealt with in the written guidance.

A third example would be including the HOP concepts into how problems get talked about, analyzed, and solved. Incorporating or integrating the concepts into these processes ensures that the science, process, and application of HOP are effectively utilized each time we have a problem, instead of leaving it up to the problem solver to try to use the concepts.

There are numerous more examples of where to integrate the HOP concepts into the day to day work… but I want to leave you with the WHY.

Integrating the concepts introduces another layer of defense between the flawed human and the possibility of an incident. If safety really is the presence of defenses (as opposed to the absence of incidents), then integrating the concepts minimizes the probability of errors and mitigates the consequences of errors using organizational systems.

To learn more about the processes for education, integration, and sustainability, Contact us today! There is a link to our website in the description. And remember, Intentional leadership starts with YOU.