Just Culture

It appears that the FAA is moving towards Just Culture at least as far as ATC is concerned. Hopefully this shift in Safety Culture will apply to all segments of the industry. However, it seems there is confusion about Just Culture non-blame and non-punitive aspects.
It does not mean if I report it I can get away with it. It was never meant to relieve people from their personal responsibility. It is meant to encourage people to report problems which are related to the organisation and the management system without fearing retribution, and it actually works.
There are several reasons why procedurers may not work, the most common is it was not communicated to everyone properly (training issue) or it could just be a bad procedure (wrong information, not effective, badly written etc..).

Just Culture will require extensive training at all levels for the cultural shift to happen. Mandating SMS (of which Just Culture is a part) will definitely help.

This will throw some light on the subject http://www.flightsafety.org/gain/just_culture.pdf

Safety and Production

Safety is a cultural issue and is an intuitive action in our personal life (crossing streets, driving, working at home etc...) which we tend to totally suppress when it comes to the workplace because we are busy doing something else (production). And of course it does not help much when senior management is more interested in production than its commitment to Safety (quality and trainning rank in the same category). Well as the saying goes if you think Safety is expensive, try the cost of an accident. Safety and Production are not necessarily at odds, and safety can be translated into production (less accidents, incidents, work stoppages etc..).
Safety Management System (SMS) is mandated across the aviation sectors in most countries whith remaining following within a few years. This is a traditionally "Safety" oriented industry but SMS formalises functions like risk assesments and mitigation and safety objectives, requiring a culture adjustment within the organisation. It will be very interesting to follow the implemetation of SMS and the organisational culture changes.