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Five Principles of Human Performance

··815 words·4 mins
Book Organizational Safety Resilience
Matt Weagle
Author
Matt Weagle

Five Principles Visualization
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Todd Conklin is the host of the recommended PreAccident Investigation Podcast and recently published a book titled The 5 Principles of Human Performance. It’s an excellent introduction to high-performing organizations and the New View of Safety. To learn more, please visit Lorin Hochstein’s Github repo of resiliency papers.

In the meantime, I’ve distilled Todd’s Five Principles into a two different visualizations:

Mermaid
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The 5 Principles of
Human Performance
By Todd E. Conklin PhD
People Make Mistakes
Errors are normal
Since error is a normal state of existence,
error is never causal
Error is not the opposite of success.
Error is a part of being successful
Error exists in success as well as failure
Errors are not choices.
Error only becomes a choice in retrospect
You can't remove error
so you must defend against
the inevitability of error
Good systems
build in error tolerance
Knowing errors will happen
is a good thing
An error without significant consequence
is the closest thing to a
leading indicator data you will find
Blame Fixes Nothing
Blame is emotionally important,
but not operationally important
Blame makes error a choice in retrospect
Blame takes up emotional and intellectual
space with little added value
Blame misdirects resources and strategies
Blame is the opposite of encouragement
Learning & Improving is Vital
Organizations have two choices
when responding to failure:
to learn and improve
or to blame and punish
Learning is a strategic and operational
choice towards improvement
Learning is a deliberate
improvement strategy
Knowing how work is done is difficult
Workers are the experts,
the profound users of the work process
Workers always complete the process design
Defenses are placed in systems,
tested in systems,
and strengthened in systems
by learning how successful work is done
Context Drives Behavior
Workers do what they do for a reason.
And the reason makes sense
to the worker given the context
Complex systems don't lend themselves
to traditional metrics
Local rationale is information to be discovered,
not to be weaponized
The environment in which work occurs
mainly determines workers
behavior and actions
Individual behavior is influenced
by the organizational processes and values
How You Respond to Failure Matters
You have two choices:
getting better or getting even
You can blame and punish,
or you can learn and improve,
but you can't do both
You create the feedback systems you have
Managers shape how organizations learn
by their reaction to failure
Every aspect of improvement is contingent
on leadership's deliberate decision to get better
People are watching you

Graphviz
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I’ve also created PDF and SVG versions. The SVG version doesn’t include the dotfile PNG references. I’m not sure what the issue is there.

image

Raw Text
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The full raw text of the Graphviz visualization is posted below. Thanks to Geoff Baskwill for the recommendation!

  • Five Principles of Human Performance
    • People Make Mistakes
      • Errors are normal
      • Since error is a normal state of existence, error is never causal
      • Error is not the opposite of success. Error is a part of being successful
      • Error exists in success as well as failure
      • Errors are not choices. Error only becomes a choice in retrospect
      • You can’t remove error so you must defend against the inevitability of error
      • Good systems build in error tolerance
      • Knowing errors will happen is a good thing
      • An error without significance consequence is the closest thing to a leading indicator data you will find
    • Learning And Improving
      • Organizations have two choices when responding to failure: to learn and improve or to blame and punish
      • Learning is a strategic and operational choice towards improvement
      • Learning is a deliberate improvement strategy
      • Knowing how work is done is difficult
      • Workers are the experts, the profound users of the work process
      • Workers always complete the process design
      • Defenses are placed in systems, tested in systems, and strengthed in systems by learning how successful work is done
    • Context Drives Behavior
      • Workers do what they do for a reason. And the reason makes sense to the worker given the context
      • Complex systems don’t lend themselves to traditional metrics
      • Local rationale is information to be discovered, not to be weaponized
      • The environment in which work occurs mainly determines workers behavior and actions
      • Individual behavior is influenced by the organizational processes and values
    • How You Respond to Failure Matters
      • You have two choices: getting better or getting even
      • You can blame and punish, or you can learn and improve, but you can’t do both
      • You create the feedback systems you have
      • Managers shape how organizations learn by their reaction to failure
      • Every aspect of improvement is contingent on leadership’s deliberate decision to get better
      • People are watching you
    • Blame Fixes Nothing
      • Blame is emotionally important, but not operationally important
      • Blame makes error a choice in retrospect
      • Blame takes up emotional and intellectual space with little added value
      • Blame misdirects resources and strategies
      • Blame is the opposite of encouragement

References
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Attributions
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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.