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As I first began my Nuclear Safety Culture research, I recall a conversation I had with Charles Jones, who told me that "Safety Culture is like Religion" either you believe it and practice it always, or you don't. There is no "in between." His insight reflects the views handed down from the Father of the Nuclear Navy, Admiral Hyman Rickover, who had constantly preached "reactor safety and reliability."
My research has confirmed this notion as I discovered that Safety Culture must always be on the surface of the organization and be a required component of all organizational behavior and work process: Safety Culture needs to be static, pervasive, understood, and practiced uniformly by everyone in the organization. Furthermore, like the relationship of salvation to religion, safety culture is something that must constantly be worked for, yet we may never know if it has been fully attained until it is too late. Thus, Safety Culture is a continuous process that integrates the management of static operating principles that drive the culture of the nuclear industry with organizational learning systems that reflect operating experience and lessons learned.
There are several definitions of safety culture common to the nuclear industry, but most are relatively segmented, and do not take into consideration the dynamics of the industry or its systemic nature.
I define Safety Culture as "an amalgamation of collective behaviors and engineered work processes, that recognize the dynamic and systemic relationships between workers and their environment, which seek to reduce the risks of operational error and uncertainty through a shared-mindset that drives an emphasis on inclusion, participation, and forward-thinking of all members in the organization."
This view of safety culture is a departure from common perceptions that rely solely on technical discipline as the basis of safety systems. On the contrary, Safety Culture is a state of organizational maturity, which relies on static engineered values and constraints to drive organizational behavior and work processes.
Other organizations define Safety Culture as:
The International Atomic Energy Commission defines Safety Culture as the "assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals that, as an overriding priority, nuclear power plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance."
Merritt and Helmreich define Safety Culture as "a group of individuals guided in their behavior by their joint belief in the importance of safety, and their shared understanding that every member willingly upholds the group's norms and will support other members to a common end."
Zhuravlyov considers Safety Culture a "mentality" or mindset of the organization or individual in dealing with aspects of the organization. He presents safety culture as a shared paradigm, which he believes affects all activity and interaction.
Wert defines Safety Culture as "a work environment where a safety ethic permeates the organization and people's behavior focuses on accident prevention through critical self-assessment, pro-active identification of management and technical problems, and appropriate, timely, and effective resolution of the problems before they become crises."
Geller's concept of "Total Safety Culture" describes a culture in which everyone actively cares for the safety and health of others, focusing on the management of process, recognizing those factors that are upstream, and the results found downstream.
The British Health and Safety Commission defines Safety Culture as "the product of the individual and group values, attitudes, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization's health and safety programs."
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