Mind-Shifting Into Safety Excellence

David Black wrote What to Do When the Shit Hits the Fan, an excellent book on loss recovery. Unfortunately, this concept has been embraced by many organizations as a mantra for safety activities. In underperforming organizations, safety emphasis is placed on reactive activities, such as:

• Physical safeguards (poorly designed so they'll be removed) as an alternative to eliminating hazards.
• PPE to limit the amount of “it” that sticks to employees.
• Shinola — All those games, contests, blind drawings and corny slogans (Safety First!) that create cynicism and defer claims reporting until all prizes have been awarded.

Leaders in peak performing organizations, meanwhile, understand the risk management strategy continuum:

Level I — Retroactive strategies that focus on loss/cost — Mitigating the size of loss and finding creative ways to finance loss costs out into the future via contractual agreements or insurance mechanisms.

Level II — Reactive strategies that focus on controlling risk — Meeting minimum standards, retrofitting safeguards, encouraging employees to work safely (around exposures), providing PPE, inspecting out hazards, observing out unsafe behaviors and employing gimmicks to motivate employees with bad safety attitudes.

Level III — Preemptive strategies that focus on operational excellence — Forging a strong culture by building strong values, planning safe processes, building collaborative relationships and employing managerial practices that instill trust and reinforce safe behaviors on the shop floor.

MIND SHIFT NO. 4

This is a shift from forced compliance with rules by some to shared ownership of values by all.

It's almost uncanny and predictable: I'm sitting in a safety committee meeting to observe effectiveness, and the secretary reads accident descriptions so causes and corrective actions can be discussed. At some point in this process, one attendee says, “We ought to have a rule concerning that,” to which all other members agree, and the rulebook (that few read) grows in girth.

All organizations have two safety processes: the safety program, which is the written rules that define what is desired, and the organizational culture, which is the unwritten rules that determine what actually gets done.

Note that I did not say safety culture, as that's the current great hoax being sold to the profession. What used to be behavioral safety now is safety culture. What used to be incentives now is safety culture. What used to be safety motivation now is safety culture. Beware of those selling quick fixes and safety culture elixirs! There is no such thing as a separate safety culture; there only is only organizational culture.

Culture is complex, deceptive and all-powerful, and it influences all organizational outcomes including safe vs. unsafe. To affect change in safe outcomes, an organization must assess and address its basic beliefs and values concerning safety and the impact these have on shareholders and stakeholders.

Tom Peters spent a decade searching for the secrets of performance excellence, culminating in his book, In Search of Excellence. When asked to sum up all these findings into one critical lesson learned, he simply answered: “Figure out your values system.”

Managers in safety excellence organizations work with employees to develop shared values to guide their actions when there are no rules. Excellence organizations lead by values, more than they manage by rules.

MIND SHIFT NO. 5

This is a shift in understanding that if repetitive unsafe behavior is a problem, more training most likely is not the answer.

In seminars, I often ask: “What one area consumes most time, energy and budgeted funds?” By far, the most common answer is employee safety training. Training in safe practice is important, the first or second time around. But if unsafe behaviors continue after good training has been provided, then you can bet good money that more training, re-training and finally remedial training are not the answer.

In the science of performance management (PM), training is an antecedent, an activity done in advance of behavior for the purpose of directing that behavior. The PM literature is clear that antecedents alone are relatively weak shapers of behavior, influencing it only about 20 to 30 percent. Yet, when repetitive at risk behaviors persist, the common cry is more training!

A number of years back, results of a study done by the U.S. Postal Service were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Postal Service undertook an extensive safe lifting/handling training program to address back and soft tissue injuries. The program was comprehensive and involved physicians, nurses, safety professionals, physical therapists and ergonomic specialists. After implementation, results showed that it did not reduce the number of injuries, the lost time associated with those injuries or the average cost of the injuries. What it did produce were better-educated injured workers.

Was the training flawed? No. There were other factors — cultural, organizational and managerial in nature — countering those good efforts.

In organizations with repetitive unsafe practices, a lack of consequences from line managers often is the problem. A consequence is any action taken after a behavior and has the purpose of shaping the future of that behavior. Consequences can and should be both positive and negative.

Consequences are strong shapers of future behavior, with an estimated impact at 70 to 80 percent. At-risk behavior thrives in organizations that have good safety programs but weak consequence delivery by supervisors. Safety excellence organizations understand that effective consequence delivery controls work performance and emphasize reinforcement over whack-a-mole disciplinary practices.

MIND SHIFT NO. 6

This is a shift in safety from a problem orientation to a solution orientation.

It's Saturday afternoon and you're on the golf course with your best buddy. The score is tied as you approach the 17th hole, a 170-yard par three, of which the first 140 yards are over water.

Your buddy has honors, and tees up his ball. As he takes his warm-up swings, what do you say? “Don't hit it in the water!” ('cuz you're a buddy). And sure enough, what happens? Kerplunk. Splash. What we think about, we bring about. Our mental state plays a major role in determining our performance.