Just Culture
by Sidney Dekker · first published 2007
6mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2018–2025first – last mentioned
60% recommend40% neutral
A just culture protects people's honest mistakes from being seen as culpable. But what is an honest mistake, or rather, when is a mistake no longer honest? It is too simple to assert that there should be consequences for those who 'cross the line'. Lines don't just exist out there, ready to be crossed or obeyed. We-people-construct those lines; and we draw them differently all the time, depending on the language we use to describe the mistake, on hindsight, history, tradition, and a host of other factors. What matters is not where the line goes-but who gets to draw it. If we leave that
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…Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products (Marty Cagan) * The Phoenix Project (Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford) General: * The Goal (Eliyahu Goldratt) * Turn the Ship Around! (L David Marquet) * Just Culture (Sidney Dekker) * Leadership on the Line (Ronald Heifetz, Marty Linsky) * Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman)
on “A reading list for new engineering managers” ↗…society is getting short-changed by the idiots trying to make a sacrificial goat out of her/him. Anybody who doesn't understand why s/he doesn't talk, should read Sydney Dekker's books (in particular, "Just Culture -- Restoring Trust and Accountability in your Organisation"). We need the NTSB to do the investigation, they are non-blaming and serious professionals concerned about the FUTURE not the PAST -- i.e. making…
on “Hawaii "button pusher" refusing to cooperate with FCC, internal investigators” ↗…who put them up, and doing safety theatre. Looks good, does nothing for safety. The same author, Sidney Dekker, has a very good book about how to deal with someone like this whistleblower. It's called "Just Culture". Well worth a read. Spolier: It's not to silence them, not this way. You can silence the person by, you know, actually doing something useful. But that requires actual change, and more importantly, a…
on “UK rail minister got engineer sacked for raising safety concerns” ↗…For those interested in this topic, and how other industries (e.g. Airline industry) deal with learning from or preventing failure: Sidney Dekker is the authority in this domain. Things like Restorative Just Culture, or Field guide to understanding human error could one day apply to our industry as well: https://sidneydekker.com/books.
on “A single line of code cost $8000” ↗"Just Culture" by Sidney Dekker is a book about balance between fairness/justice and learning how to prevent incidents in the future. He doesn't have a lot of good things to say about the court system. https://www.amazon.com/Just-Culture-Balancing-Safety-Account...
on “FIU had grand plans for 'signature' bridge. But the design had a key mistake” ↗The book I still have open is actually by Sidney Dekker - "Restorative Just Culture in Practice: Implementation and Evaluation". A quote: > In 1066, with the Norman invasion of England, William the Conqueror and his successors brought into existence a legal system that gradually replaced…
on “Accountability Sinks” ↗