Orlando — Do you know who Todd Conklin is? At the annual conference of the American Society of Safety Professionals he might just be the most quoted safety authority. ISHN attended numerous sessions that included a slide with a Conklin quote.

Along with Sydney Dekker, Conklin is probably the most popular proponent of “Safety Differently” or Safety 2.0. He’s the author of numerous books, including “Workers are the solution, not the problem,” co-written by Jennifer Long.

A principle that Conklin has pounded home for years is “mistakes are normal” and “blame poor conditions, not human error.” In fact, this is the first principle of Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) — errors are an inherent part of human behavior and even the most skilled individuals can make mistakes.

Conklin fiercely opposes placing blame on individuals. Instead, he advocates organizations recognize and accept that errors are inevitable and build systems that account for human fallibility.

Blame fixes nothing, he asserts. Blame after an incident does not address the underlying causes and prevents learning and improvement. Organizations need to understand the full context and systemic factors that contribute to incidents to prevent future occurrences.

As one speaker at the conference said, blame treats the symptoms, not the causes. Error is real and normal. Build work systems with the understanding that complex work, environmental and situational factors contribute to errors and those systems will be error-tolerant and allow workers to fail safely.

The blame game has permeated safety for 100 years, especially in small workplaces without full-time safety staff or resources. Large companies have been adopting HOP principles for years now. The challenge is reach the vast breadth of workplaces where Todd Conklin, Safety Differently and HOP are complete unknowns.