Hi Ralph!

I just used Wastell's abstract in a paper I'm doing on "Biocontainment Standards" related to outliving their usefulness when they become too outdated in their procedural details.

Cool and impactful! (Wastell, not me!)

Dr. Bob Haugen
Director of Product and Technology Development
Flow Sciences, Inc.

910 332 4878

www.flowsciences.com
å Linkedinå å 'å Facebook 'å Youtube ' Twitter
Customer Satisfaction Survey

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE: This e-mail, including all attachments, is directedå in confidence solely to the person(s) to whom it is addressed, or an authorizedå recipient, and may not otherwise be distributed, copied or disclosed. Theå contents of this transmission may also be subject to intellectual property rightså and all such rights are expressly claimed and are not waived. The contents ofå this e-mail do not necessarily represent the views or policies ofå Flow Scienceså Inc. or its employees.

-----Original Message-----
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety On Behalf Of Ralph Stuart
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2022 8:27 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] New article for ACS Chemical Health & Safety is available online.

> >To add to Richard's point, something that some colleagues and I have been struggling with is the idea of who is really in a position to judge.

That is part of the discussion in this week's podcast of The Safety of Work, which talks about this challenge in complex organizations
Ep.89 When is the process more important than the outcome?
https://safetyofwork.com/episodes/ep89-when-is-the-process-more-important-than-the-outcome

The paper they discuss talks about how management methods, including risk assessment, are "often relied upon for 'relieving anxiety' rather than leading to successful or intended outcomes". The basic idea is that because the outcome of management processes can take to long or are too distant from the people 'at the coalface', organizations put their faith in a favored method (such as a focus on safety culture) rather than relying on rare outcomes to validate the process.

The most interesting aspect of their discussion to me is near the end, when the hosts wonder how to transition from reliance on methods to using actual outcomes to assess the value of the favored approach. Sticking with the favored approach provides some form of psychological security to the organization.

This podcast is in follow up to their discussion in the previous episode on the article "A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice' which they frame in terms of "Why do organisations sometimes make bad decisions?' That episode discusses the challenge of process design and renewal in complex organizations.

Interesting stuff.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org

---
For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional membership chair at membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas

---
For more information about the DCHAS-L e-mail list, contact the Divisional membership chair at membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Follow us on Twitter **At_Symbol_Here**acsdchas

Previous post   |  Top of Page   |   Next post