High-reliability organizations are those whose leaders strive to create the safest and most effective hazard controls and then constantly re-assess these operations for any possibility of failure so that it can be resolved before an incident occurs. These high-reliability processes require the high-reliability principles: Preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, deference to expertise and commitment to resilience. These principles often come across to the uninitiated as abstract concepts while to others, they counter the very hierarchal structures they’ve known since entering the workforce, military, public service or other organization.
For example, while organizations are striving to meet customer satisfaction standards, regulatory compliance measurements and key performance indicators, how exactly does one display preoccupation with failure? What does that look like? Obviously, organizations are much attuned to operations and their outcomes, so how does an organization show sensitivity to operations? If an organization, especially military, fire protection and law enforcement units has had centuries of hardwired chains of command, how exactly do these teams learn to defer to expertise when that supposed expert is not the ranking person on the scene? (Christianson, Sutcliff et al., 2011). In short, how does high-reliability become operationalized?