“A refreshingly easy and inspiring read on how learning from everyday work leads to meaningful change.”
Donald Lyons
Senior Director, Global Workplace EHS/OH Excellence
BOOK: Learning from Normal Work
A practical guide to preventing incidents by understanding how work actually happens.
What you will find inside
The book follows a safety director through the practical reality of implementing proactive learning in a large organization.
The situations, challenges, and politics are drawn from real implementation projects across oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, and heavy manufacturing.
What industry leaders are saying about the book
Luminant
“Learning From Normal Work is simple and powerful, taking you from concept to principle to practice in an entertaining and masterfully informative industrial novel. I was taking notes on almost every page…”
Charles Major
Director of Operational Excellence and Human Performance
“This engaging guide on transforming workplace safety delivers a practical roadmap for organizations transitioning toward a learning culture. Ideal for safety leaders seeking culture change, reduced risk, and authentic engagement with frontline workers.”
Andresa Hernandes
Vice President of Safety
Odfjell Drilling
“With practical examples and actionable advice, it offers useful strategies to build safer, more effective teams and improve performance.”
Gøran Furland
VP QHSE
Why I wrote this book
Over many years, I have gained experience implementing HOP and proactive learning programs, first within global organizations like BP and Baker Hughes, and later as an advisor to large corporations. This book was born from those real situations: the successes, failures, and lessons, distilled into a step-by-step narrative.
I wrote it as a story because that is how implementation actually works. You do not follow a framework in sequence. You navigate competing priorities, skeptical leaders, frontline resistance, and budget constraints, all while trying to demonstrate that a different approach produces better results. The book gives you a realistic picture of what that looks like, with the complexity and practical constraints that leaders face.
Dr Marcin Nazaruk
Two decades turning safety science into tools people actually use.
Written for practitioners, not academics
HSE directors and VPs
The book gives you a realistic picture of what implementation looks like at enterprise scale, including how to build leadership support and connect proactive learning to outcomes your organization already measures.
HSE managers and safety professionals
This is the practical companion to the training. It covers the tools, the sequencing, and the common mistakes in enough detail that you can start applying what you read the following week.
Anyone curious about a different approach
You do not need a safety background to read this book. The story is accessible to operations managers, quality leads, and anyone responsible for how an organization learns from its own work.
Foire aux questions
The book is written as a story, not a textbook. It follows a safety leader through the practical reality of implementation, using real situations that are accessible to anyone regardless of their familiarity with HOP or safety science. Readers consistently say it is one of the most readable books they have encountered on this subject.
No. Every concept in the book is grounded in real situations drawn from over two decades of frontline projects. The challenges and solutions described come from actual implementations, not from academic models. The book tells you what happened, why it worked or why it did not, and what you can apply in your own organization.
Most readers finish it in three to four hours, depending on reading speed. It is designed to be concise and practical. Many readers report going back to specific chapters as reference when they are planning their own implementation.
Yes, and many readers do. The story format makes it accessible to leaders who would not read a technical safety book. Several organizations have used it as a shared reading for their leadership team before deciding whether to explore the approach further.
No. The lessons apply to anyone responsible for operational learning, risk management, or organizational improvement. Operations managers, quality leads, and HR professionals have all found it useful.
From the page to your site
If you have read the book and would like to talk about applying it in your organization, we are happy to help.