PAPod 118 - Sidney Dekker and The End of Heaven

Safety Podcast, Safety Program, Safety Storytelling, Investigations, Human Performance, Safety Differently, Operational Excellence, Resilience Engineering, Safety and Resilience Incentives

This episode of the PreAccident Podcast is a special conversation with Sidney Dekker on his latest book, "The End of Heaven."  Sid digs deeply through the world of complexity, cause, and human beingness.  

In this unique book, Sidney Dekker tackles a largely unexplored dilemma. Our scientific age has equipped us ever better to explain why things go wrong. But this increasing sophistication actually makes it harder to explain why we suffer. Accidents and disasters have become technical problems without inherent purpose. When told of a disaster, we easily feel lost in the steely emptiness of technical languages of engineering or medicine. Or, in our drive to pinpoint the source of suffering, we succumb to the hunt for a scapegoat, possibly inflicting even greater suffering on others around us. How can we satisfactorily deal with suffering when the disaster that caused it is no more than the dispassionate sum of utterly mundane, imperfect human decisions and technical failures? Broad in its historical sweep and ambition, The End of Heaven is also Dekker's most personal book to date.

This is a conversation that moves from cause to the Protestant work ethic and back.  I love this episode and you will too.

We also present an open opportunity to be a part of an open discussion that will be held in "The Bay Area" on June 9th, 2017.  SCM Safety is presenting "Safety Differently with Sidney Dekker and Todd Conklin."  You are welcome and invited to attend.   

Thanks for listening to the PodCast!  You make every single episode a success.  This episode is another great success because of you - take tomorrow off.