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Every episode
PreAccident Investigation Podcast
30 episodes
PAPod 611 - Command–Adapt Paradox: Rethinking Safety for a Riskier World - David Woods - PART TWO
Ep 976 · Aug 15, 2026 · 31 min
Part two of a deep conversation with Professor David Woods examines five decades of safety practice and argues for a stronger science base, foresight, and continual revitalization. Topics include the Command–Adapt Paradox, the fluency law, the law of stretch systems, and the novelty inequality, showing why plans must be paired with guided adaptability. The episode urges putting safe and effective outcomes first, working together to innovate, and rebuilding practical tools and research so safety…
PAPod 610 - Rock the Boat: Reimagining Safety Science with Dr. David Woods PART ONE
Ep 975 · Aug 8, 2026 · 30 min
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-45055-6_8#:~:text=The%20Command%E2%80%93Adapt%20Paradox%20arises,%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94being%20poised%20to%20adapt. Todd hosts Dr. David Woods in a two-part episode challenging the current state of safety science, arguing for more synthesis across disciplines and a shift from one-off fixes to ongoing capacity for safe, effective, and viable organizations. They examine the history and fragmentation of safety work, the rise of resilience thinking, ba…
PAPod 609 - Ra Donda Brings Us Up to Speed on Her Effort to Change the World
Ep 974 · Aug 1, 2026 · 30 min
Join Ra Donda Vought and Todd Conklin and they meet up to discuss how Ra Donda has refined her message to the world and how surprised she is in other, non-medical industry. It is always so much fun to talk with Ra Donda - she has great energy and is so much fun to spend time in discussion. See what you think - I think you will enjoy this Pod a bunch.
PAPod 608 - Modern Safety: How Children's Hospitals Are Rewriting the Rules
Ep 973 · Jul 25, 2026 · 38 min
Join Todd and Dr. Anne Lynne from the CHOL conference as they explore “modern safety” in children’s hospitals and the SPS mission — how new lenses on risk, leadership behaviors, and a willingness to try small experiments are reshaping safety, reliability, and improvement work. They discuss practical examples like reducing unplanned extubations, the role of leaders in creating capacity and permission, and how sharing success stories fuels innovation and wider adoption across healthcare.
PAPod 607 - Croquet Mallets & Outlaws: My Family’s Bonnie and Clyde Encounter
Ep 972 · Jul 18, 2026 · 25 min
Host Todd interviews his mother, Gyla Conklin, who recounts a true 1933 encounter when her father, Bill Brock, and friends were held up by Bonnie and Clyde near Meade, Kansas. The episode highlights a dramatic rescue at a park, a croquet mallet that saved the day, and a family newspaper account. Short, vivid, and personal, this episode underscores why recording family stories matters and offers a human look at a famous criminal story.
PAPod 606 - At the Cusp: How Leadership, Compassion and Worker Voice Are Rewriting Safety
Ep 971 · Jul 11, 2026 · 32 min
Todd Conklin talks with Rob Fisher about how leadership, workforce shifts and compassion are reshaping safety and reliability. They explore why organizations must move from fixing problems to improving systems, and how worker engagement becomes the key source of learning. The episode covers practical approaches—small experiments, better leader conversations, and data from observations (TEDS)—that help leaders act differently without adding more work. They also discuss legacy, cultural change, an…
PAPod 605 - When a Meeting Becomes an Emergency: Restoring the Room
Ep 970 · Jul 4, 2026 · 26 min
This episode recounts a medical emergency that occurred during a large conference and explains how a quick critical incident stress debrief helped restore the group and the organization. Todd outlines a simple restoration framework—who's hurt, what they need, and who will help—and walks through a seven-step debrief process that turns trauma into learning, supports people emotionally, and improves future response.
PAPod 604 - On the Edge: Risks, Resilience, and Red Bull’s Adventure Athlete
Ep 969 · Jun 27, 2026 · 32 min
Host Todd Conklin interviews Red Bull athlete Will Gadd about adventure sports, recent tragic incidents (a parachute crash in Butler, Mo., a Moab base-jump, and a bungee failure), and how the outdoor world approaches risk. The episode explores the difference between being robust and being resilient, the limits of individual skill, and how controls, recoverability, and community learning can reduce harm in high‑hazard activities.
PAPod 603 - Procedures: The Double-Edged Sword of Safety
Ep 968 · Jun 20, 2026 · 20 min
In this episode Todd Conklin explores the paradox of procedures: they keep work stable but also limit flexibility. He explains how procedures can be both necessary and constraining in high-risk, high-consequence environments. Todd highlights the value of incremental safety—making small, thoughtful changes over time—while building communities of practice to better prepare organizations for an uncertain future. He closes with practical advice: treat procedures as thresholds rather than one right w…
PAPod 602 - From Brazil with Safety: Gilval and the New View Revolution
Ep 967 · Jun 13, 2026 · 34 min
Todd Conklin talks with Gilval Menezes about Brazil’s growing movement to adopt the New View of safety: translating resources into Portuguese, building community, publishing a field guide, and running learning teams to shift culture away from blame. They discuss practical work on HOP implementation, the cultural challenges of translation, the urgency driven by workplace fatality rates, and the push to develop methods that fit Brazil and wider Latin America.
PAPod 601 - Rethinking Safety: AI, Pre-Jobs, and the Power of Listening
Ep 966 · Jun 6, 2026 · 35 min
Todd chats with Ron Gantt about the future of safety — from AI-driven pre-task tools to the limits of rote checklists — and why listening to frontline workers matters more than ever. They explore leadership’s role in shaping responses to incidents, bridging power gaps with contractors, and designing systems that actually support real work. Through examples from healthcare to construction and candid anecdotes, the episode argues for intentional, human-centered change: test tools in context, focus…
PAPod 600 - The Future of Safety: Learning Teams, Storytelling, and Not-Knowing
Ep 965 · May 30, 2026 · 24 min
In this part two conversation, Todd Conklin and Bob Edwards explore what the future holds for operational learning and safety. They discuss learning teams, storytelling, the power of curiosity and not-knowing, and how the people closest to the work provide the best solutions. The episode highlights successes from pediatric patient safety, the Navy, and industry examples, and emphasizes cultural shifts away from quick fixes and metrics toward continuous, practical improvement and clearer stop-wor…
PAPod 599 - Learn Like Bob: How Pediatric Teams Saved 30,000 Babies
Ep 964 · May 23, 2026 · 31 min
Todd Conklin and Bob Edwards discuss Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS), a grassroots movement of learning teams that used operational learning to dramatically reduce harm in pediatric care. The episode covers emotional stories from the SPS meetings, practical methods like soak time and learning teams, the power of continuous improvement, and the real-world impact of saving thousands of young lives.
PAPod 598 - What If Risk Never Leaves? Exploring Transportable Hazards
Ep 963 · May 16, 2026 · 16 min
In this episode, Todd Conklin questions whether risk can ever truly be removed or if it simply moves around. He distinguishes between hazards and risk, discusses how organizations shift risk through contracting and worker practices, and argues that while hazards can be managed, risk remains dynamic and persistent. Todd also highlights the role of controls, barriers, and margin in starting work safely, and teases upcoming conversations on psychological safety, AI and safety, and leadership.
PAPod 597 - From the way, way, way, way, back machine...Pain as a Predictor: Martha Acosta on Finding the Signals Before Failure
Ep 962 · May 9, 2026 · 22 min
Todd Conklin interviews Martha Acosta, a pioneer in human performance and instructional design, about using organizational "pain points" and paradoxes as early indicators of system failures. They discuss why near misses and workplace frustrations are valuable signals and how leaders can turn those tensions into opportunities for learning and improvement. The episode offers practical advice for managers: be present, look for pressure points across roles, and treat minor pains as diagnostic cues t…
PAPod 596 - Incremental Safety Practices: Reductive vs. Inductive Safety
Ep 961 · May 2, 2026 · 20 min
Todd Conklin reviews Erik Hollnagel’s new book "Incremental Safety Practices" and explains the core idea that safety efforts fall into two approaches: reductive (removing hazards) and inductive (building resilient systems). He urges listeners to view safety as an ongoing capacity managed in everyday work rather than a static goal achieved after eliminating risks. The episode invites organizations to reflect on whether their programs focus on hazard removal, resilience building, or both, and emph…
PAPod 595 - Beyond Checklists: How Conversations Transform Safety Culture
Ep 960 · Apr 25, 2026 · 30 min
Host Todd Conklin talks with Daniel Hummerdahl about his new book, An Invitation to Safety Conversation, exploring how everyday safety talks can move beyond scripted checklists to become learning moments that bridge leaders and workers. The episode shares practical stories and techniques for asking better questions, listening more, and scaling conversational practices across organizations to improve safety, trust, and performance.
PAPod 594 - Bridging Cultures: Safety, Migrant Workers, and the Heart of Agribusiness
Ep 959 · Apr 18, 2026 · 31 min
Coming into this episode, Todd Conklin welcomes Al Thomson to discuss safety in the primary sector, focusing on migrant Pacific workers and a human-centered approach. Al shares how Monarch Platform blends pastoral care, cultural understanding, and contemporary safety (HOP) to support a diverse workforce across New Zealand’s agriculture and horticulture industries. The conversation covers cultural differences in risk perception, village success planning, measuring workforce capacity with role-spe…
PAPod 593 - Young Voices, System Thinking: A Conversation on Safety with Mousa Yassin
Ep 958 · Apr 11, 2026 · 33 min
Host Todd chats with Mousa Yassin about shifting safety culture from blaming individuals to designing systems that tolerate failure and recover quickly. They cover life-saving rules, the concept of recoverability, lessons from software engineering like chaos testing, and the importance of learning over punishment. The episode emphasizes practical ways to build resilient systems, nurture learning teams, and make safety training engaging and effective.
PAPod 592 - How a Near-Miss Sparked the Learning Team Movement
Ep 956 · Apr 4, 2026 · 29 min
Todd Conklin tells the origin story of "learning teams," sparked by a self-reported near-miss at Los Alamos involving a postdoc and an arcing wrench. Rather than pursuing a punitive investigation, a group of workers gathered to identify what needed to be learned, uncovering broader gaps in postdoc training and safety planning. The episode explains how learning teams prioritize asking better questions, collecting the right data, and designing system-focused solutions. Conklin describes how this a…
PAPod 591 - Workers Are the Solution: A Conversation with Corey Pitzer
Ep 957 · Mar 28, 2026 · 33 min
Todd Conklin talks with Corey Pitzer about fatality prevention, Human and Organizational Performance (HOP), and how safety thinking has shifted globally. They explore controversial views—treating workers as problem-solvers, tensions between engineering/energy-based approaches and systemic/new-view thinking—and use real examples to show why designing systems that absorb variation matters more than trying to eliminate risk.
PAPod 590 - Gird Your Loins: NASA, Risk, and the Return of Recrudescence
Ep 955 · Mar 21, 2026 · 59 min
Todd interviews Professor David Woods about recent NASA mishaps and a growing cultural shift toward "cheaper, faster" decision-making that sacrifices safety. They explore how past safety gains have lost vitality, highlight cascading modern risks (the "messy nine"), and argue for mutual assistance and revitalized resilience practices. Wood's most recent writing on this is available in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists called: Cheaper, Faster, and Who Gives a Damn about Anything Else. The episode…
PAPod 589 - Failing Safely: Todd Conklin on Resilience, Recovery, and Real Work
Ep 954 · Mar 14, 2026 · 39 min
In this episode, Todd Conklin joins Amir Shahzad to discuss human and organizational performance, resilience, and how to design systems that allow failures to be caught and recovered before they become disasters. They explore the gap between work as imagined and work as done, the value of learning from everyday work, and practical steps leaders can take to create safer, more resilient workplaces. They also cover cultural change, the role of procedures, adaptive behavior, and the potential—and ri…
PAPod 588 - Weak Signals, Big Consequences: The RaDonda Story
Ep 953 · Mar 7, 2026 · 26 min
Hosts Todd and Brent discuss an upcoming restorative workshop centered on RaDonda Vought's account of the Emory Hospital event. The episode highlights how normal performance variability can combine into serious failures, the value of storytelling, and the importance of learning and building resilience across complex systems. The workshop in Santa Fe (March 31–April 1) invites healthcare and high‑risk industry professionals to move from “what” happened to “how” to apply lessons in practice. For m…
PAPod 587 - Start in the Black: How Sleep Debt Impacts Safety
Ep 952 · Feb 28, 2026 · 27 min
Host Todd Conklin interviews fatigue expert Mark Rosekind, PhD about his path from sleep research to roles at NASA, the NTSB, and NHTSA, and how sleep science applies across transportation and safety-critical work. Key takeaways: think of sleep like a bank account (sleep debt), "start in the black" before major schedule changes, the benefits of strategic naps, and systemic ways organizations can reduce fatigue to improve performance, health, and safety.
PAPod 586 - VUCA, Uncertainty, and the Case for Innovation
Ep 951 · Feb 21, 2026 · 19 min
Todd Conklin discusses VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Adaptation) and argues that innovation and safety improve when organizations embrace uncertainty and gather more diverse information and perspectives. He mixes personal travel and Olympics anecdotes, touches on aviation and healthcare examples, and invites listeners to a hands-on workshop to explore these ideas further.
PAPod 585 - When Safety Stalls: Who Will Reinvent the Field?
Ep 950 · Feb 14, 2026 · 31 min
In this clip from the Pre‑Accident Investigation Podcast and Punk Rock Safety, Todd joins Ron, Ben, and David to debate why safety innovation is stalling, where new ideas are coming from, and who’s pushing practice forward. They explore barriers like regulatory pressure, the pull of “normal,” and the difference between improving safety and redesigning work. Using examples from pediatric intensive care and other domains, the conversation highlights pockets of progress, the danger of idea corrupti…
PAPod 584 - How Pediatric Hospitals Cut Fatal Extubations by 60% — 12,500 Lives Saved
Ep 949 · Feb 7, 2026 · 19 min
This episode tells the real-life story of how the Society for Patient Safety and a network of children’s hospitals used learning teams, proactive safety huddles, and simulations to reduce unplanned extubations in neonatal ICUs — cutting rates by 60% and preventing thousands of deaths. It covers the data, the frontline-led solutions, the narrowing of racial disparities, and an invitation to a small conference in Santa Fe to learn and share improvement practices.
PAPod 583 - When Normal Variability Breaks: The ReDonda Story
Ep 948 · Jan 31, 2026 · 27 min
This episode previews a small workshop in Santa Fe where Todd Conklin, Ann Lyren, and guest ReDonda Vaught will explore a tragic patient safety case. They frame accidents as the unexpected combination of normal performance variability and discuss how to learn from such incidents. Listeners will hear about the meeting goals (March 31–April 1), opportunities to chart the event, and practical tactics for organizations to identify and respond to accumulating risks, with cross-industry lessons and a…
PAPod 582 - Accountability vs. Blame: Who Really Owns Safety?
Ep 947 · Jan 24, 2026 · 19 min
Todd Conklin breaks down why accountability is an act of clarity, not blame or discipline, and why leaders and workers share responsibility for operational safety. He highlights the need to set roles before incidents occur, contrasts accountability with performance management, and announces a case-study workshop about Redonda’s Vanderbilt story in Santa Fe (March 31–April 1).
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