HOP principle no.3 Systems Drive Behaviour! What is a system that works so well that you can’t get enough of it? Your car, your kitchen, your grocery store? Concurrently, what is the system that you just get so frustrated by? Getting your car serviced, a messy kitchen or finding a car park when you go shopping? The airport system is a complex one. They can be stressful, busy and rude. My trip through Sydney Airport was none of the above. It was actually brilliant. Following recent upgrades it’s actually quite delightful to get through despite the massive crowds of anxious travellers. The whole process left me feeling very comfortable and quite happy. Systems drive behaviour. It comes at a cost, but that cost speaks volumes for how people will behave within that system. The way we treat people is also part of a system that drives behaviour. I’ve been in Brisbane for the past couple of days and it has definitely been a people oriented trip. Critical meetings, and farewelling a gentleman that has been in the Air Force for 45 years of dedicated service. Showing your presence, kindness, and empathy around these situations speaks volumes for how the system operates. His farewell speech included a homage to how important it is to treat every person in your organisation like they matter, because if you do they stay and will always reward you with good work. If you don’t want to invest the time or money to improve it, behaviour within your people will show that they don’t like it and they will walk away. This is why investing in your people and your systems is so important. Never ever stop looking after the system that looks after your people. Take a look at your systems this week. Are they building people up or wearing them down?

Next week, I'm stepping into a meeting that has the potential to affect the way we measure safety in the Air Force. If it works, it may bring significant cultural change. Instead of chasing how many accidents we've had 💥lagging indicators💥 (how most organisations have measured safety since forever), it's time to be way more proactive with tools like Learning Teams and the 4Ds as reportable 💪leading indicators💪 Can't do it alone. If you guys had the opportunity to talk to people about a generational change like this, what innovative approach would you use to get after it?

If you made a decision to start changing your safety culture tomorrow, what is the first thing you would do to make a start?

Shout out to @Mark Heaton who asked for some detail about what Safety Differently is about. In fact, this is good for anyone in a safety position. @Aaron Bulbert, @Andrew Munro @Tarryn Ryan @David Ferris, @Peter Grieves @Carla Prinsloo These OPerational Learning concepts are sweeping the safety world right now. Here's a quick video I made up tonight. An extended explainer is available on my YouTube channel.

- Fixating on individual blame over systemic context. Blaming the sharp-end worker while ignoring latent issues like inadequate training, production pressure, unclear procedures, or normalisation of deviance. - Weak safety cultures where folks hide errors due to fear of punishment, stunting learning. Fix the context driving the behaviour , and allow a safe and protected speak up culture. - Half-hearted HOP adoption, preaching error is normal but punishing it anyway. Not building psychological safety so people hide mistakes or near-misses → no learning, same traps repeat. Half-assed HOP adoption: saying error is normal but still punishing people, or slapping learning teams on top of an old blame culture without changing how leaders respond to failure. Did you notice these are all human related threats. Changing culture to beat these threats is challenging. A safety leader has to live and breath systems based approach (SBA) in order to have a win over behavioural based safety (BBS).