So where is a good place to start when talking about Resilience? There are a couple of authors who will be far more eloquent in their descriptions of Resilience than I ever will be. Eric Hollnagel and Sidney Dekker both talk a lot about Resilience and I recommend them to you if you have an interest in the subject.
I think Resilience goes beyond just the safety system and how we ‘do’ safety in the real world. I feel that an individual can show resilience as defined above, as can a business. ‘Resilience’ is one of those wonderful things that you can think about not only after an unwanted outcome of an event, but before hand as well. The language of resilience is great fodder for conversations when you are out and about as a leader. You can explore with the guys and girls pout in the plant or mine about how they prepare for the unexpected, which bits of their tasks they have to watch out for, and what they pan to do when it all goes wrong. These can be great conversations starters.
So, what does this look and feel like in practice? Ask what could go wrong. Not only the low-level hazard stuff, but the high level catastrophic failures – the fatal risk questions. Be in a state of chronic unease. Do not be lulled by a good run of safety. Do not be surprised when things do go wrong. Be in a position to say; “Yep, we knew that might happen. This is what we had planned to do about it and we have done exactly that”. Below are some questions that may prompt some great conversations about resilience either in the normal course of a leader spending time in the field with his/her people, or when interviewing or investigating after an incident:
Inspirations for interview questions for Resilience – What is the level?
• In the preparation of a take five or a JSA/THA, what level of thought do you put into what could go wrong?
• Which specific parts of a task do you need to vigilant around?
• How best do you prepare to respond to any expected disruptions?
• What do you do if something unexpected happens? For example, an interruption, a new urgent task, an unexpected change of conditions, a resource that is missing, something that goes wrong, et cetera?
• Before you start a task, or at a point during a task, what process do you follow that would, or could, look for, or think about any potential disturbances, surprises and changes that could happen?
• How do you monitor what is going on within your task, or around you, to check that there are no disturbances arising that might interact with you in the completion of your task?
• How do you keep an eye on things that may become a threat in the near future?
• Did you observe anything in particular to make you think something might not go as planned?
• What level of your thought goes into the long-term drift and trends about the way you are doing the task? Have you always done it this way?
• What has changed over the last few months about the way we do the task?
• What do you need to keep an eye on in terms of keeping any long-used shortcuts you have developed in focus?
• What have you learned from the last time you did the task? The way you did it?
• What could happen that is not expected?
• Do you know of any previous incidents or near misses involving this task or similar tasks?