Communication

The material in this post is extracted from Chapter 20 of the book Process Risk and Reliability Management and from the ebook The Risk Management Professional.

Safety professionals are rightly making increasing use of photographs and videos to train and educate the workforce, and to analyze incidents. In particular, security cameras often provide a fine record of an event as it unfolds.

However, it is important to be careful. Not only can images be deliberately changed, but the camera may not record everything of relevance. The following set of pictures was taken by a process safety professional who was visiting the Grand Canyon as a tourist. So, there is no doubt as to their legitimacy.

Communicating — Not Telling

One of the founders of the discipline of process safety was Trevor Kletz. He understood that human beings communicate best not by reading reports, articles or presentations but through stories.

The Kletz Legacy

One of the founders of the process safety discipline was Trevor Kletz (1922-2013). Probably his best eulogy is also the simplest, "He saved lives."

As we reflect on Trevor's contributions it is clear that one of his greatest gifts was that of telling stories. He wrote extensively on technical topics such as hazards analysis and inherent safety, but he is probably best remembered for his story-telling books such as Learning from Accidents and What Went Wrong? Human beings learn best from stories and Trevor knew it.