Pre-Accident Investigations ─ An Introduction to Organizational Safety

Conklin (human performance and safety integration, Los Alamos National Laboratory) outlines a road map for understanding how to manage safety in the workplace and solve problems before they become accidents. He presents practical guides, tips and tools, and suggestions for managing risks, hazards, and safety. He discusses the types and phases of failure; how to change the way an organization reacts to failure; the pre-accident investigation tool; how workers trigger failure; how to manage change, predict failure, and train workers; the first steps in leading change; and four key aspects of safety; and provides case studies of the Titanic, aviation accidents, and other situations from a safety perspective. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Todd Conklin is a Senior Advisor at Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the world's foremost research and development laboratories, in the human performance and safety integration program. Dr. Conklin has been working on the human performance program at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the last dozen years of his 25-year career. It is in the fortunate position where he enjoys the best of both the academic world and the world of safety in practice. Conklin holds a Ph.D. in organizational behaviour and communication from the University of New Mexico. He speaks all over the world to executives, groups and work teams who are interested in better understanding the relationships between the workers in the field and the organization's systems, processes and programs. He has brought these systems to major corporations around the world. Conklin practices these ideas not only in his own workplace, but also in event investigations at other workplaces around the world. Conklin defines safety at his workplace like this: "Safety is the ability for workers to be able to do work in a varying and unpredictable world." Conklin lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and thinks that human performance is the most meaningful work he has ever had the opportunity to live and teach.