No organisation can promise zero harm. Even in the best-run organisations, expectations are missed, rules are bent, and people often get it wrong. The interesting question is how the organisation reacts when shit hits the fan. Here are some observations of organisational behaviour, apart from any possible espoused 'just culture' policy. Maybe you have the same, or quite different observations?

First, disappointment is inevitable, and it's organisationally dangerous. Whenever we turn expectations into rules, procedures, roles or standards, we also create the possibility of disappointment. Someone doesn’t follow the procedure. A risk assessment misses something obvious. A manager looks the other way. It’s not about the single issue itself, but what it does to the shared belief that “this is how we do things round here”. That belief has to be protected, and organisations use 𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 to do exactly that.

When expectations are violated, organisations usually respond in one or both of these ways: a) Sanction through anger, frustration, blame, and formal discipline. This reaction reaffirms the rule of “what matters”, helps the disappointed person cope emotionally, and signals to others what is “normal” and acceptable. b) Explanation and rationalisation through scapegoats, stereotypes and neat stories like “It’s always maintenance”, “Management don’t care”, and “That operator’s just careless.” These explanations allow everyone to keep believing the rule is right, and move attention away from the system towards a person or group. This makes future disappointments easier to “file away” without real change. Sounds familiar?

Second, there’s usually an implicit membership rule: “You can stay, as long as you accept the formal expectations.” To preserve that, open rebellion about rules is intolerable as it threatens the whole system. So what do organisations do? They prefer to frame things as 'mistakes', 'slips', or 'one-offs'. They separate the 'good person' from the 'bad action'. They use procedures, investigations and corrective actions to treat events as errors to be fixed instead of norms to be questioned, maybe by changing strategy or design.

Finally, there are formal and informal sanctions. Formal sanctions are the ones we recognise as disciplinary action, warnings and official performance management. But from what I've seen, collegial sanctions and personal and career sanctions often influence behaviour much more. Think of subtle and not so subtle reactions from peers, such as silence when someone speaks up, eye-rolling in safety meetings, and not being told about shortcuts everyone else uses. These signals teach people very quickly what is really acceptable, regardless of what the policy says. So does being moved sideways after raising concerns, or being quietly dropped from high-status projects... These are framed as business needs or cultural fit. But everyone learns the message...