Protection by Design is the permanent operating standard that governs how an organization accomplishes its mission without damage. It introduces the Protection Architecture System and the Performance Development System as the integrated operating model for designing and verifying the work system, developing the person for a defined function, and supporting qualification for assignment within defined conditions.

Protection by Design challenges the assumptions, language, and practices that have allowed occupational safety to repeat the same failures for generations.

Organizations continue to respond to damage with more rules, more information, more observation, more enforcement, and more blame. Yet the conditions that made the damage possible often remain unchanged. The employee becomes the focus because the employee is visible. The design of the work system, the decisions made before the work began, the conditions under which the work was performed, and the organization’s failure to verify capability receive far less attention.

Protection by Design presents a different standard.

Protection by Design is the permanent operating standard that governs how an organization accomplishes its mission without damage. It requires protection to be treated as part of the work itself, not as a separate activity placed beside operations.

The book introduces the Protection Architecture System and the Performance Development System as the integrated operating model used under that standard.

The Protection Architecture System examines the work objective, the work process, the conditions that allow failure, and the decisions, roles, controls, signals, and leadership actions required for protected work.

The Performance Development System develops the person for a defined function through education, demonstration, guided practice, correction, and evaluation. The evidence produced through that process supports the organization’s decision concerning qualification for assignment within defined conditions.

Drawing on more than four decades of work, observation, instruction, consulting, system development, and expert analysis, TL Peters II explains why behavior-dependency is not protection, why information delivery is not performance development, and why qualification cannot be based on attendance, completion, credentials, title, seniority, or assumption.

By defining the responsibility required to design protected work and develop verified capability, Protection by Design also gives a more accurate name to the person entrusted with that work: the Occupational Protector.