Some excellent SMS insights from Down Under
Today’s subject is based on a superb article, published by Flight Safety-Australia, about two leading SMS experts highlights
- how this safety discipline improves your aviation concern’s preventative consciousness,
- and
- tremendously insightful diagnostic terms to assess where your organization really is in the SMS spectrum (and what after deciding in which category you team is, what needs to be done in all 5 stages).
Dr. Graham Adkins, formerly with Qantas, recognizes that this discipline’s introduction and constant reinvigoration takes time and effort. He reinforces this point with examples of how its benefits suffuse all aspects of the company. The circle of those committed to being aware of and actioning on SAFETY RISK becomes a powerful proactive aspect of all, enhancing the likelihood that someone’s eyes will target a behavior, practice, attitude, paperwork or whatever that might result in a tragedy.
Professor Patrick Hudson’s experience in assessing SAFETY CULTURE at aviation enterprises is the basis for his definition of 5 levels of SMS health:
- pathological
- reactive
- calculative
- proactive
- generative
The symptoms of each stage are explained in simple terms. Easy to understand, but not readily applied by the SMS team. A diagnosis that your peers believe that “accidents are caused by stupidity”, his pathological stage symptom, may not bode well for your future career. Even at the other end of the Professor’s scale, distinguishing between an MRO being at the “proactive v. generative level” might reflect badly on your own team of SMS apostles.
Self-diagnosis does not work well in the field of medicine. Most of us do not know the right questions to ask and even those with the requisite knowledge have problems reaching a difficult conclusion about one’s heath. In applying Dr. Adkins and Professor Hudson’s valuable lessons, SMS experts outside of your organization are more likely to reach more realistic observations. Having been through many such telling conversations, the consultant knows how to phrase the words so as not to make the employee defensive. Repeated such exercises also creates a sensitivity to learn from what is said and what it really signals. Aviation professionals are not stupid and know how to reply without damning themselves. Long answers with safety buzzwords may fool the novice questioner, but the veteran is more likely to know how to get behind the memorized speech.
JDA has had many engagements with all manner of aviation companies to
- support SMS implementation, training, safety reporting software applications and SMS Manual drafting.No there is no one-size-fits-all book that is handed over to the client; our team works with the organization, works to define what risks its operations pose and draft the whole set of policies, procedures and paperwork WITH the company’s SMS team. That interaction assures that the customer does not just put the work product on the shelf, but is thoughtfully and aggressively moving toward Professor Hudson’s GENRATIVE STAGE.
- Conduct Safety Assurance System (SAS) Reviews- when experts are called in to audit your books, the finance guys get nervous. The JDA experience has contributed to a demeanor and conversation (no cross-examination) that avoids the creation of a protective barrier. Our SAS professionals have been able to get meaningful results for the client and most significantly have seen real changes,
- Lead Safety Culture Assessment- much like the SAS, this assessment enters a difficult corporate ecology and the associated fear of criticism. Even more so, this service looks at attitudes, workplace atmospheres, respect for the SMS discipline and a willingness to foster the principles.
It will be most worthwhile for you and others in your organization to spend a few minutes to read their wisdom coming from DOWN UNDER.
If the messages of this Flight Safety Australia moves you to apply them to your team, please let us know!!!
Bringing it all together: Culture, safety and the pursuit of excellence
Jun 30, 2025
Oiling the wheels: integrating safety culture and SMS
A compelling argument for SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (SMS) is their ability to nourish a safety culture and make safety a priority in all areas of an organisation. But like any cultivation, this takes time and effort.
{Dr.} GRAHAM EDKINS contends that an SMS cannot be truly effective if the organisation does not work on its safety culture.
Edkins, former general manager safety systems at Qantas, now works on the highly regarded Integrated Safety Management Systems course hosted by the Singapore Aviation Academy.
He has a mechanical analogy: ‘The SMS is like the engine components in a high-performance sports car; those individual components will not function efficiently without the engine oil. Safety culture is the enabler for the SMS,’ Edkins says.
Like an engine, an SMS will not function if its parts are not connected. ‘For many years aviation has had in place systems for managing safety, and these have served us well,’ he says. ‘However, some aviation service providers have yet to achieve fully integrated safety management systems.’
Edkins says integration requires conducting a link analysis where we ask how each SMS element will communicate with each other. For example, the SMS element ‘management of change’ can be linked to ‘risk assessment and mitigation’ through understanding that any change to the environment will impact the effectiveness of risk controls.
Organisations can also link core business processes such as finance, legal and marketing to each SMS element. For example, safety training and education can be linked to marketing by ensuring there are specific requirements for any information provided to members of the public or customers to have consistent safety messaging.
‘Striving for an integrated SMS provides a practical demonstration that you have a positive safety culture,’ Edkins says.
Stairway to safety: Levels of safety culture
Patrick Hudson developed his safety culture ladder after study of the offshore oil and gas industry. Image© Airbus Helicopters
The pay-off for integrating SMS into your operation is climbing the ladder of safety culture.
Professor Patrick Hudson, one of the world’s leading authorities on the human factor in the management of safety identifies 5 levels of safety culture:
- pathological
- reactive
- calculative
- proactive
- generative.
In the PATHOLOGICAL STAGE, management believes accidents are caused by stupidity, inattention and even wilfulness on the part of employees. Fine sounding messages may flow from on high, but the majority still reflect the organisation’s primary aims, often with ‘and be safe’ tacked on at the end.
The REACTIVE STAGE is where safety becomes a priority after an accident. It can be a temporary stage for otherwise pathological organisations, or it can develop into the CALCULATIVE STAGE, where an organisation puts safety processes and systems into operation. ‘Calculative cultures both have a process and use it,’ Hudson says.
However, CALCULATIVE ORGANISATIONS RUN THE RISK OF GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS OF SAFETY MANAGEMENT, Hudson says.
The transition to becoming a PROACTIVE ORGANISATION involves making the processes and systems that are now in operation truly effective. Proactive organisations use their processes and systems to anticipate safety problems before they arise. This is a broadly similar idea to the military developed concept of a high-reliability organisation.
In the GENERATIVE CULTURE, all these elements come to fruition. In the proactive culture, the top of the organisation is still driving safety but has created the potential to let those who are the subject matter experts take responsibility and accept it as well.
Hudson describes GENERATIVE ORGANISATIONS as ‘the lunatics that are running the asylum’ but means this as praise. It is a state where safety awareness is spread throughout the organisation.
Success is, ironically, a problem for organisations attempting to climb the safety culture ladder.
‘A common problem in organisations that are struggling on the borderline between the calculative and the proactive/generative levels is success,’ Hudson says.
‘Once significant improvements in outcome performance have been achieved, management “take their eyes off the ball” and downgrade efforts, on the grounds that the problems have been solved. But this is behaviour typical of the reactive stance and represents a reversion.’
