HBR and BP

There’s a good essay on a Harvard Business Review blog describing how decision-making in high risk enterprises may be affected by BP’s disaster in the Gulf. Not surprisingly, the author’s observations include creating a robust safety culture “where the most stringent safety management will never be compromised for economic reasons.” However, as our Bob Cudlin points out in his comment below the article, such a state may represent a goal rather than reality because safety must co-exist in the same success space as other business and practical imperatives. The real, and arguably more difficult question is: How does safety culture ensure a calculus of safety and risk so that safety measures and management are adequate for the task at hand?