Just Culture 101:
An Introduction
What is "Just Culture?"
The word “just” has several meanings.
- Very recently (they just arrived)
- Simply/Only (he was just looking for fame)
Exactly (that’s just what I need)
… But that’s not the meaning in the term “Just Culture”
The "just" in Just Culture comes from the term Justice.
It means fair, ethical, righteous,
and moral.
That's why we use this logo
A Just Culture is grounded in
When things go wrong, the outcome can range from minor inconvenience to major loss. The more severe the negative outcome (harm), the quicker we are to blame individual people in the name of “accountability.” We want someone else to feel our pain.
Holding people accountable for things out of their control leads to fear, distrust of authority, and a culture of silence where concerns are never raised until during the investigation after bad things happen.
Here is the problem – very rarely is anyone actually trying to harm someone else. Most harm and bad outcomes are due to simple mistakes, or decisions that didn’t seem risky at the time. Humans are innately fallible, and we are not always in control of our mistakes. We are often simply trying to do the best thing we can, given the information we have at the time.
Humans are an integral part of our world, and we cannot correct mistakes simply by disciplining them. The next person may make the same mistake. To achieve long-term improvement, we must move past reflexive blame and shame.
When things go wrong, the outcome can range from minor inconvenience to major loss. The more severe the negative outcome (harm), the quicker we are to blame individual people in the name of “accountability.” We want someone else to feel our pain.
Here is the problem – very rarely is anyone actually trying to harm someone else. Most harm and bad outcomes are due to simple mistakes, or decisions that didn’t seem risky at the time. Humans are innately fallible, and we are not always in control of our mistakes. We are often simply trying to do the best thing we can, given the information we have at the time.
Holding people accountable for things out of their control leads to fear, distrust of authority, and a culture of silence where concerns are never raised until during the investigation after bad things happen.
Humans are an integral part of our world, and we cannot correct mistakes simply by disciplining them. The next person may make the same mistake. To achieve long-term improvement, we must move past reflexive blame and shame.
In a Just Culture, we aim to understand the full picture of what happened, including opportunities to build more robust systems and safer processes.
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Just Culture in Action
A collection of stories
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FAQs page