2024 Community of Human and Organizational Learning 30th Annual Conference

We will simplify the soft skills that are hard, demystify abstract concepts such as emotional intelligence, social intelligence and psychological safety to provide easy to use practical concepts.
In this workshop you will gain:
1. An understanding of how to use the brain chemistry of connection.
2. How to create positive emotions to stimulate the intrinsic motivation necessary for collaboration beyond engagement.
3. How to create more of the things that you need to deliver the performance you desire.

The business case for a diverse workforce proposes that diversity can help organizations perform better by promoting innovation, and improving decision-making, adaptability, engagement, and retention. Further, research on elite teams emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives in dealing with emerging, complex circumstances. This 'diversity of thought' helps form as complete an operational picture as possible as members of the team bring their distinctive backgrounds and experiences to bear on the situation at hand. However, diversity of personnel does not automatically create diversity of thought. Instead, teams (or workgroups) invite diverse perspectives when they create a local culture defined by psychological safety, where members feel welcome to communicate freely. In this talk, I’ll discuss concrete ways to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in teams; these techniques in turn, contribute to a culture of psychological safety. This talk first defines psychological safety, diversity, equity, and inclusion, then operationalizes those terms according to what group actions you would observe if you were seeing these concepts working well versus working poorly within a group. I will then walk through an example, drawn from the US federal wildland firefighting service, of how to intentionally re-design team practices to incorporate inclusion and psychological safety into the regular workflow of the group. This approach is different from common DEI approaches that rely on organization members to gain personal awareness about implicit bias and difference. Instead, my framework trains leaders on how to design an inclusive team culture by making small changes to existing group routines and practices, and intentionally designing new ones.

This is a case study in how to manage SIF risks for work in a highly variable environment.
Many times, in many forums, I asked rooms full of line clearance workers the question “How many of you have run from a falling tree or limb?” Almost all raise their hands. Being struck-by wood kills many line clearance workers every year. As Director of Safety and Human Performance for a line clearance company, I heard early on: “if you do this job long enough, you will get seriously hurt”. We didn’t accept this. We took the approach to learn everything we could about the risk of being struck by a tree or limb…and we discovered some surprising things that helped us better manage the risk of being struck by wood.
A traditional safety approach to managing this risk is: stay out of the drop zone and use 3-way communication before entering. Rules are important but rules are not enough to manage the risks that emerge from quick changing situations that are common in highly variable environments.
Several months into our HOP journey, we had a key insight from Ohio State University Safety Researcher: line clearance is among the most highly variable work he had ever seen, he ranked it second only to the special forces. We realized behavior-based safety was not a good fit…so what next?
We needed to expand from traditional safety, which is often a STATIC view of risk: identify all hazards and risks PRIOR to starting work –and you’ll be ok - to practices that supported noticing emerging risks and uncertainty. We needed to learn as much as we could about how work really happens. We found patterns in the responses to the question “What surprised you?” from 50 struck-by wood events and close calls.
In this talk, I will share how to identify patterns in how people are surprised, which can lead to identifying risk factors to enable getting in front of SIF risks. I will share concepts, tools, and practices we invented (e.g., Uncertainty Gauge, Press Pause, and Stack-up of Risks) that are effective in managing emerging risks which are omnipresent in highly variable work.
4. Abstract: Resilience Engineering FUNdamentals
Beth Lay, President of Resilience Engineering Association and Director at Forge Works
RE/HRO track, Breakout session
Reliability is about producing predictable, desired outcomes. Reliability engineers see people as sources of error as they work in stable, repeatable systems. How do we get better – or more reliable - based on past performance?
Robustness is about being strong and sturdy. How can we make the system able to withstand known risks?
Resilience is about anticipating how we could be surprised and preparing people and our systems to adapt to variability. Resilience engineers see people as sources of adaptation as they work in complex, unstable systems. How can we design systems that gracefully extend to manage surprise? (because we will ALWAYS be surprised!)
Note: We need all three: reliable, robust, and resilient systems.
In this session, we will talk about what it means to move from a focus on control to embracing variability. We will explore Resilience Engineering fundamentals and share tools and practices that enable us to work successfully in variable environments and to be prepared for surprise.

Has your company’s cause analysis program been ineffective when it comes to reducing the frequency and severity of incidents?  If so, your program may be missing its single most important ingredient, which is integration with Human & Organizational Performance (HOP) principles.  In the absence of a thorough understanding of HOP principles and solid cause analysis processes that prompt their consideration, analysts and leaders will often lock on to human acts and equipment issues that triggered an incident rather than identifying the fundamental reasons why they occurred.  The resulting shallow analysis typically spawns weak corrective actions that leave the door open for incident recurrence.

Join Rick Foote, co-author of IEEE Standard 1707-2015 (IEEE Recommended Practice for the Investigation of Events at Nuclear Facilities), as he discusses proven approaches for integrating HOP principles with cause analysis protocols, thereby improving overall program efficiency and effectiveness.

Rick Foote, co-author of IEEE Standard 1707-2015 (IEEE Recommended Practice for the Investigation of Events at Nuclear Facilities), will lead a session intended to help attendees identify stronger, leaner, and more cost-effective corrective action plans in response to significant incidents.  

While many investigation approaches include detailed processes and structured tools for identifying the causes of incidents, few provide more than minimal guidance when it comes to developing the associated corrective action plan. As a result, organizations often struggle when it comes to implementing sustainable corrective actions that reduce the risk of incident recurrence to acceptable levels.

Attendees will learn a structured approach for resolving incidents with ‘surgical strikes’, thereby avoiding costly ‘shotgun’ corrective action plans that seek to address everything (while often resolving nothing). Attendees will also learn how to distinguish between corrective actions that are truly capable of long-term risk reduction and those that provide no lasting benefit.

Unwanted errors and surprises in high-hazard industries can end lives, ruin careers, and capsize reputations overnight.

Join us to learn the fundamentals of seven practical steps successfully used by: aviation, health care, emergency fire & rescue services, electric utilities, the military, and other high-reliability teams across the globe.

The seven steps are: (1) Take a Learning-Based Approach. (2) Build Psychological Safety. (3) Lead After Action Reviews. (4) Transform Investigations. (5) Apply Defenses. (6) Improve Systems. (7) Build Resilience.

You’ll get practical techniques to apply immediately, plus eye-opening insights to help you improve reliability and safety for years to come.

Results...
"We got more practical ideas from Jake than from any other keynote we can remember. After dinner, we talked about Jake's presentation for more than TWO HOURS! That led to REAL change when we returned to the plant.”
~ Maintenance & Reliability Leader at the Xcelerate 2019 conference

“We engaged Jake as a keynote speaker for our company-wide safety conference. Our leaders, from field foreman through executives, were unanimously impressed. Since Jake’s presentation, our project managers and field foreman have told me that they are starting to experiment with many of the practical ideas that Jake taught us.”
~ Fred Barlow, Vice President & Chief Safety Officer, Reliance Electric, Inc.

“Jake is an expert in human performance and an even better presenter. Our event attendees gave him extremely strong feedback on the webinar he did for us... We would highly recommend working with him.”
~ Matt Barbour, Manager of Communications & Training, Texas Reliability Entity, Inc

This presentation offers a comprehensive exploration of the integration of performance psychology tools with human and organizational learning, providing attendees with practical insights and strategies to optimize individual and collective performance. Grounded in the presenter's expertise as a performance psychology specialist, the session begins with an overview of the presenter's background, highlighting their extensive experience and expertise in leveraging psychological principles to enhance performance across diverse domains.
Building upon this foundation, the presentation delves into the rich history and evolution of psychological theories and practices in working with elite performers. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the psychological factors that underpin peak performance and the pivotal role of mindset, motivation, and resilience in driving excellence.
Furthermore, the session explores the intersection of cognitive science and human error, offering valuable insights into the cognitive processes that contribute to errors and breakdowns in performance. Attendees will learn how to identify cognitive biases, optimize decision-making processes, and mitigate the impact of human error within their organizations.
An integral component of the presentation is the integration of biofeedback techniques to predict and prevent human error. Attendees will discover how biofeedback technologies can provide real-time data on physiological and psychological states, enabling proactive interventions to enhance performance and prevent errors before they occur.
Through interactive discussions, case studies, and practical exercises, participants will leave the session equipped with actionable strategies to integrate performance psychology tools into their organizational learning initiatives. Whether aiming to optimize individual performance, foster a culture of continuous improvement, or mitigate risks associated with human error, this presentation offers valuable insights for organizations seeking to thrive in today's complex and dynamic landscape.