From Safety to Safely

Principles and Practice of Systemic Potentials Management

Erik Hollnagel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040159712
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The conventional interpretation of safety, known as Safety-I, denotes a condition where as little as possible goes wrong, and the focus of practical efforts in management or analysis is on the occurrence of unacceptable outcomes and on how to reduce their number to an acceptable level, ideally zero. The emphasis is therefore on how to manage safety as such, as seen in the ubiquitous safety management systems (SMS). As Professor James Reason astutely points out, this raises the interesting question of how it is possible to learn about something, let alone manage it, if it is studied only in situations in which it is absent. The solution proposed by and described in this book is to stop using safety as a noun and instead use it as an adverb: safely.

Now often referred to as Safety-II, this solution is the logical consequence of resilience engineering and will require new methods, several of which already exist and have proved their worth in practice for years. The question ceases being what to manage and becomes how to manage. Managing safety is protective, hence a non-productive cost, which at best avoids a loss. Conversely, managing safely is productive and can generate revenue in addition to preventing or avoiding losses; aviation and mining are prime examples.

From Safety to Safely provides a practical perspective on managing safely, illustrating a practical form of synesis. It offers a new understanding of safety, combining concerns for productivity and safety rather than juxtaposing them, and it shows how to manage complex industrial and social systems in the spirit of resilience engineering and synesis. It is the first book to completely dispense with the loaded term "safety" while offering a practical and viable alternative. Spoiler alert: this book does not mention or analyse any celebrated accidents.

This book is for all middle and senior managers, board members, and independent consultants seeking to ensure safe, revenue-generating operations.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Foreword
• I The safety legacy
• II The complexity conundrum
• III The futility of accident investigation
• IV Systemic potentials management
• V Coda: connecting the dots
• References
• Index