Interlocking Surprises: Their Nature, Implications, and Potential Responses

Safety organizations need to manage their working conditions continuously and effectively while dealing with constant surprises [1]. This chapter calls attention to an increasingly prevalent phenomenon, which I term interlocking surprises. While not completely new, this phenomenon is not fully understood and carries significant implications for research and practice. In conceptualizing interlocking surprises—their nature, implications, and potential responses—my aim is rather simple. It is, to paraphrase social theorist Norbert Elias, to take some steps toward developing the conceptual models and overall vision by which we—academics and practitioners—can make comprehensible in thought what we experience in our everyday realities [2].