In It Should Never Happen Again, Dr Mike Lauder questions the value of public inquiries. Every day, we hear about another inquiry being set up, or why the last one failed to deliver the hoped for outcomes. A great deal of time and taxpayers' money is spent on inquiries and even more on implementing their recommendations, but the author suggests that those conducting inquiries might be considered (by their own test) criminally negligent in the way they do so and that it is no surprise that they do not lead to the learning they should. The focus of Mike Lauder's research is the gaps between what is known, what knowledge is used by practitioners and those who judge them. He contends that the difference between the judicial perspective and that of practitioners who are judged by the inquiry process creates barriers that impede others from learning. Crucially, inquiry outcomes do not assist the leadership of organisations to improve risk governance. It Should Never Happen Again is based on research into high profile public inquiries and presidential commissions in the UK, the USA, Continental Europe, and elsewhere. Embracing issues ranging from terrorist attacks to pollution, fire and air disasters; criminal cases; banking and bribery scandals; and the state of public services, Mike Lauder contrasts the judicial perspective of those who inquire, the academic perspective of those who know and the practical perspective of those who are required to act, and offers new models for understanding risk and its governance.

Many inquiry reports blame management for their failures of foresight. These reports are based on the premise that, with a little more thought, these oversights, and so the crisis, would have been avoided. Is it really that simple? The important question is whether, without hindsight, it would have even been possible to identify the actual factors that lead to the failure. This book explores this issue as a practical problem. The book takes Barry Turner's Disaster Incubation Theory as its central theme. The first chapter explores the way Turner structured his theory and the way it has been used, before re-imagining it as a way to fostering foresight. The next three chapters examine key issues in detail. They explain why Turner's model was chosen, outline the issues that need to be considered when seeking to prevent such failures and how to use the proposed frameworks. Chapter 5 examines the lessons learnt from this study and, in particular, looks at the mental approach required when seeking such foresight. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a fully worked example. It uses work by Frank Stech who has applied Turner's theory to a past case. Crises occur everywhere and we continue to struggle to avoid them. In this book Mike Lauder provides executives with thinking tools to help them avoid missing the warning signs of their next crisis.

In It Should Never Happen Again, Dr Mike Lauder questions the value of public inquiries. Every day, we hear about another inquiry being set up, or why the last one failed to deliver the hoped for outcomes. A great deal of time and taxpayers' money is spent on inquiries and even more on implementing their recommendations, but the author suggests that those conducting inquiries might be considered (by their own test) criminally negligent in the way they do so and that it is no surprise that they do not lead to the learning they should. The focus of Mike Lauder's research is the gaps between what is known, what knowledge is used by practitioners and those who judge them. He contends that the difference between the judicial perspective and that of practitioners who are judged by the inquiry process creates barriers that impede others from learning. Crucially, inquiry outcomes do not assist the leadership of organisations to improve risk governance. It Should Never Happen Again is based on research into high profile public inquiries and presidential commissions in the UK, the USA, Continental Europe, and elsewhere. Embracing issues ranging from terrorist attacks to pollution, fire and air disasters; criminal cases; banking and bribery scandals; and the state of public services, Mike Lauder contrasts the judicial perspective of those who inquire, the academic perspective of those who know and the practical perspective of those who are required to act, and offers new models for understanding risk and its governance.

Many inquiry reports blame management for their failures of foresight. These reports are based on the premise that, with a little more thought, these oversights, and so the crisis, would have been avoided. Is it really that simple? The important question is whether, without hindsight, it would have even been possible to identify the actual factors that lead to the failure. This book explores this issue as a practical problem. The book takes Barry Turner's Disaster Incubation Theory as its central theme. The first chapter explores the way Turner structured his theory and the way it has been used, before re-imagining it as a way to fostering foresight. The next three chapters examine key issues in detail. They explain why Turner's model was chosen, outline the issues that need to be considered when seeking to prevent such failures and how to use the proposed frameworks. Chapter 5 examines the lessons learnt from this study and, in particular, looks at the mental approach required when seeking such foresight. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a fully worked example. It uses work by Frank Stech who has applied Turner's theory to a past case. Crises occur everywhere and we continue to struggle to avoid them. In this book Mike Lauder provides executives with thinking tools to help them avoid missing the warning signs of their next crisis.