PreAccident Investigation Podcast

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.

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 way, focus on learning from everyday work, foster resilient systems, and remember to take care of yourself while having some fun.

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.

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 on creating success, and set leaders up to respond thoughtfully when things go wrong.

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-work practices.