Is the Hudson Model still relevant for (Safety) culture change?

How ladders and staircases can help in improving (safety) culture: a zoom conversation

Notice the two staircases in the pictures.

The first staircase repetitively reads:

Watch your steps
Mobile phone not in the stairs

What this means:
➡️ Mantras: How mindless and excessive repetition of simplistic language leads to brainwashing;
➡️ Propaganda: How meaningless slogans distract us from the real problems;
➡️ Obedience and conformity: How (blind) adherence to rules and expert advice undermines safety culture;
➡️ Human error: and if you still fall from those stairs, that is your own problem. Safety is a choice you make.

By contrast, the second staircase reads:

Take the first step in faith.
You don’t have to look at the whole staircase.
Just take the first step.
– Martin Luther King Jr.

What this means:
➡️ the future is unknowable so it is pointless to think that we can control all the risks;
➡️ beware of your limitations. we are all creatures of bias, presumptions, and institutional logics confined to our own culture;
➡️ change is difficult but if we don’t move, we will become stagnated.

When we realise we are biased and constrained by our own logic, we learn to develop unique human qualities like questioning the data, seeing the world from another person’s perspective, and listening to what others have to say.

There is a handrail provided but there are no signs that you must ‘hold the handrails (very strange for Aberdeen). In Faith, we chose when to hold on and when to let go. We learn to develop a sense of balancing the competing tensions in life and work. That’s High Reliability Organising.

I often hear people criticising ladders and staircases when it comes to understanding and improving Safety Culture (for example, the Hudson culture ladder). The two pictures reveal that steps and ladders on their own are not a problem. Steps and ladders can indeed be very helpful if we know our purpose, and how our models can be used, when they need to be questioned and even discarded in achieving our purpose.