Are rule followers, breakers or rule benders better leaders? This explored how people perceive the dominance and prestige of people who follow, break and bend rules, and particularly their suitability for leadership. PS. Check out my YouTube: https://youtube.com/@safe_as_pod?si=V2dbdmW–WbnhzA9 Shout a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/benhutchinson Background: • This article argues that those who “bend rules—that is, find a… Continue reading Better to Bend Than to Break? Effects of Rule Behavior on Dominance, Prestige, and Leadership Granting

Do we routinely mistake good luck with systemic resilience…until something blows up? Today I speak with Professor Robin Dillon-Merrill (Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business), who breaks down her 20+ years of research on decision-making under risk, outcome bias, and how organizations misinterpret near misses. We discuss: • The differences between resilient vs vulnerable near… Continue reading Prof Robin Dillon-Merrill P1: Near Misses & Confusing Luck with Resilience

How ‘sticky’ are #HOP (Human & Organizational Performance) initiatives when support is pulled from the business? In this Safe As Quickisode on YouTube, I unpack a 5-year Master’s research project tracking a major biopharmaceutical company’s HOP implementation, and what happened after the dedicated HOP team was dissolved. Based on this project– data showed a bit… Continue reading Do HOP initiatives survive without organisational support? YouTube vid

Does a Human & Organizational Performance (HOP) initiative improve learning and the quality of actions? And what happens when the initiative stops? This quickisode unpacks Christopher Mastrangelo’s 2026 Master’s thesis examining a multi-year HOP implementation at a large biopharmaceutical company. His project tracked operational data from 2020 through July 2025 across key metrics: a. deviation… Continue reading Does HOP ‘work’? Results from a 5-year intervention (YouTube Quickisode)

Are safety documents helping to navigate risks, or can they also create a hazardous illusion of control? Happy to announce that my penultimate PhD study has been accepted for publication. It analyses seven major industrial disasters, and many thousands of pages of reports, inquiries and testimonies, arguing that organizations’ are susceptible to what we call… Continue reading ‘Safety Alchemy’ and paperwork: my new research study accepted for publication

Is resilience and success masking the problems you need to fix? This article explores how human adaptability to poorly functioning systems introduces a brittleness, which they call the Brittle Threshold. Shared under an open access licence. PS. Check out my YouTube: https://youtube.com/@safe_as_pod?si=V2dbdmW–WbnhzA9 Shout a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/benhutchinson Extracts: • “What happens when a system keeps working—not… Continue reading Brittle threshold: When adaptive success is the warning sign

In a 5-year petrochemical study examining over 1,400 work steps, 1/3 were performed differently from what was written in the procedure, but every task was completed successfully. Is this non-compliance or a display of worker aptitude and resilient skill? In Part 2 of our series on procedures, we look beyond the “100% compliance” rhetoric and… Continue reading Writing better procedures Part 2 (YouTube): Rules vs Reality, WAI/WAD, Safety-II / HOP