PAPod 592 - How a Near-Miss Sparked the Learning Team Movement
About this episode
Todd Conklin discusses the origin of learning teams and their impact on safety and training at Los Alamos.
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 approach spread across the lab and why it remains a fast, effective tool for operational improvement.
More episodes of PreAccident Investigation Podcast
- PAPod 601 - Rethinking Safety: AI, Pre-Jobs, and the Power of Listening
- PAPod 600 - The Future of Safety: Learning Teams, Storytelling, and Not-Knowing
- PAPod 599 - Learn Like Bob: How Pediatric Teams Saved 30,000 Babies
- PAPod 598 - What If Risk Never Leaves? Exploring Transportable Hazards
- PAPod 597 - From the way, way, way, way, back machine...Pain as a Predictor: Martha Acosta on Finding the Signals Before Failure
- PAPod 595 - Beyond Checklists: How Conversations Transform Safety Culture
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