An Introduction to Emerging Safety Sciences
On the 12th January 2012, the passenger ship Costa Concordia collided with rocks and capsized off the Island of Giglio, in Italy, resulting in the loss of 32 lives. To the media of the day it became a tale of fate, intrigue, heroes and villains. To our workshop participants it will be the backdrop to a Masterclass in emerging safety sciences.
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Each day we are being confronted with new ideas, theories and frameworks. A growing body of knowledge is pulling us in different directions:
- the new view of safety;
- safety 2;
- high reliability organisation;
- safety differently;
- human and organisational performance;
With these emerging concepts comes a new vocabulary that is not always easy to understand or put into practice.
The Costa Concordia workshops are organised as a comprehensive human story of an accident.
The five sessions will immerse you in the emerging concepts in safety sciences and, by the end, you will have accomplished a course in contemporary safety covering a broad syllabus. Throughout the workshops there will be ample opportunity to reflect on your experience and relate with the case.
Nippin Anand
Nippin Anand is a licensed Master Mariner and an internationally recognised specialist in human factors and safety management.
On the 12th January 2012, the passenger ship Costa Concordia collided with rocks and capsized off the Island of Giglio, in Italy, resulting in the loss of 32 lives. To the media of the day it became a tale of fate, intrigue, heroes and villains. To our workshop participants it will be the backdrop to a Masterclass in emerging safety sciences.
Workshop
In this online 5-part workshop series,
Nippin takes us on a deep dive of the
Costa Concordia disaster. He uses a documentary-style narrative that pulls from many sources, including first-hand video interviews with the Concordia’s vilified captain, Franceso Schettino. For the first time, Schettino gets to narrate his version of the accident. It is an engaging story.
Why the story matters
What we learn will be relevant to all of us working across safety critical industries, who are becoming increasingly aware of the need to understand human factors when aligning safety and well-being with business objectives.
Content
Workshop 1
Introducing the case
In the first workshop, Nippin will set the scene, introduce Costa Concordia and explain what motivated him to embark on this journey. We will spend time understanding why accident investigations do not translate into meaningful learning. How can we overcome our own biases and preconceived notions as practitioners undertaking investigations? How can we as safety professionals present a balanced view of the problem? Nippin will share some techniques and insights to show how his approach is different from usual accident investigations? Answering these questions will provide a deeper understanding about being an investigator.
Workshop 2
Human and organisational factors in safety critical operations
This session focuses on the events leading up to the accident and how the human and organisational factors relate to us working across safety critical industries. The session provides a deeper understanding of teamwork, leadership, and more generally team dynamics in safety critical operations. The participants will begin to appreciate the obscurity of concepts such as technical and nontechnical skills, crew resource management and error detection and management. We will also examine the organisational factors and enquire why systemic issues come to surface only once an accident occurs. What can this tell us about the state of risk and safety management (safety audits, risk assessments etc.) within our organisations?
Workshop 3
Managing the unexpected
When it comes to managing unexpected situations (emergencies) what can we learn from the case of Costa Concordia? We will examine the events during and post-accident to understand the role of plans and procedures. The participants will begin to appreciate the role of procedures and plans. The issues discussed in this third workshop are becoming increasingly relevant to businesses and society at large in a post- COVID work environment.
Workshop 4
Discussions and reflections
The purpose of the fourth workshop is to bring together the key learning outcomes and create space for discussions and debriefing for the whole Costa Concordia workshop series. The participants will be offered the opportunity to engage with Nippin on specific topics of interest. For those especially curious, Nippin will also offer one-to-one Skype calls, coaching opportunities and provide reference material for further reading.
Workshop 5
Towards a learning culture
In recent years, many organisations have adopted the idea of a just culture, where frontline individuals are not blamed for honest mistakes but are held accountable for wilful violations and gross negligence. But how helpful is this framework?
Our final workshop highlights some common misconceptions about just culture and provides a framework for leadership to embrace a culture of learning and continuous improvement. The framework can be applied not only to accidents but also to make sense of how things go well on an everyday basis.