Safety Culture World

Placeholders – What is your performance level?

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

I meet with safety groups around the globe. On occasion, translators are on hand to ensure that the message and teachings are clear. Along the way, I have identified some truisms that affect how I engage with people and what I can do to help them. Two of these truisms are:

• Most (not all) countries, companies and local leadership personnel care about the safety of their work force.
• There are two types of safety leaders: improvers and placeholders.

Improvers review concepts presented to them. They then actively engage in using what is a fit for their needs and local culture in an effort to get to a zero incident safety culture. These are the people I enjoy working with, and who I tend to give assistance to first.

Placeholders come in two varieties:

• Those who have very little knowledge of safety and are trying to help by addressing the latest injury realities. Although they don’t know much, they do provide care and some level one and level two condition improvements. Though this group wants a safer workplace, they do not know enough nor do they put forth the effort necessary to improve the skills and abilities of themselves and their work associates that in turn are needed to improve the safety culture. They tend to use a lot of safety buzz words, and often seem to try to solve safety issues by letting people know they actively care. Unfortunately, this approach is not nearly strong enough to make any lasting improvement to the (usually) predominate production culture, and the end result is status quo. A member of this group will ask for a business card, but are likely to never take the time nor put forth the effort to make a contact that might enable them to improve.

• Those who view themselves as extremely knowledgeable safety professionals who are truly experts in all that they do. When presented with new concepts, they focus on defending their policies and procedures, and then rip apart any new ideas that might be presented. This is classic WITOID RICSAS behavior (When In Trouble Or In Doubt, Run In Circles- Scream And Shout). Though it feels good to vent, this unproductive approach has no lasting effect on a strong production culture. This type of defensive safety leadership is very comfortable in analyzing the latest accident and then writing more procedures and/or condemning the perceived stupidity of the workforce and management. They are experts in justifying their own superiority in defending all that they do, and resolutely resisting any changes to the current system with which they are so contented. These placeholders seem unable to consider anything other than what got them to where they are, but will never get them to a zero incident safety culture. Again, the end result is status quo.

With so many potential organizations to work with, and so little time to do so, it is logical that I try to make a rapid evaluation as to whether I am engaging with an improver or placeholder. Though I hurt for the people who work under placeholder leadership, there is not a lot one can do to help those who will not do what it takes to extract themselves from the mire of status quo. I learned long ago what one of the previous blog articles, “Wrestling With Pigs,” taught about the futility of trying to deal with the woefully obstinate.

Why not give some thought to which group you fall into, and what you can do to fully embrace the concept of Continuous Improvement?

The Doc

How to eliminate boring safety training

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Safety training is often concentrated on the “what” with little of the “who,” the “why” or the “how.” Training is also taken out of the hands of the people who are responsible for safety, the operations department, and is often done instead by a resource group such as the safety department. Below you will find some solutions to these safety training shortfalls to help make your safety training productive and more dynamic:

• Make up a safety training plan for each job type, including those in management and supervision.
• Engage those who have to do the job safely by training the “who,” the “what” and the “how” at each level of the organization.
• Make the operations department responsible for doing safety training in their organization. They must do their part to have a “culture of correct.” The safety department acts as a resource, the responsible department (i.e., operations department) does the hands-on work and the hands-on training. This makes the people on the front line the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) in safety excellence and this is where it belongs.
• Train your new hourly, supervision and management trainers in how to effectively present and get audience participation.
• Do training beyond safety and observation to develop professionally capable hourly, supervision and management leadership. This material includes things like:
- How to be communication interactive (giving and receiving effective feedback)
- How to lead Continuous Improvement initiatives in safety and solve your own problems
- How to be an effective presenter
• Give management a safety accountability that includes some safety training and/or introduces safety training to reinforce the importance of a culture of correct in the “who,” the “what,” the “when,” the “how” and the engagement of everyone within the organization.
• Develop an interactive culture of correct video that delivers a message on how important safety truly is. This video has on screen presence of hourly, supervision and management personnel. It has scripted interaction breaks so that during this safety culture training the work group stops and discusses the material. Once again this can lead to hourly, supervision and management on-stage presence in safety excellence.

The Doc

A Culture of Correct – Why pay attention to low risk incidents and injuries?

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of the spin offs for the never ending Heinrich Accident Pyramid controversy deals with the type of risk that leads to serious injuries. In turn, this leads to discussions about not sweating the small stuff and just concentrating on the fatal risk issues. This type of organization typically has a tight focus on downstream indicators, like severity rate because “After all, this is where the real money is.”

I truly struggle with all that is behind this kind of thought process. I believe it is necessary to have an organization live the principles around a culture of correct in all that they do. My personal focus on this approach was reinforced during a turnaround leadership position I worked some time ago. This organization was suffering from both safety and operations perspectives. They lived a culture of “get ‘er done”, which, in turn, led to frequent downtime, quality defects, injuries, VP level scathing, destructive demands, high stress, explosions, ad infinitum, etc. As the local operations executive, my decision was to either follow the previous autocratic approach that delivered frequent, non-value added demands, or to begin a culture of correct. We modeled our culture of correct after the Deming philosophy of a relentless pursuit of zero errors. Whether it was small stuff or high risk, we resolutely stuck with what was the correct thing to do.

In the beginning, the going was very rough. Our 40 year culture inertia of “get ‘er done” was very resistant to change. In the end, our teams of employees fixed everything in sight, as well as lots that was not visible. We also addressed the invisible mindsets of our people. When our value became a culture of correct in all that we did, neither the low risk nor the high risk issues led to injuries. On the rare events when high risk situations presented themselves, the employees thought about what was correct, personally lowered their own risks and performed most excellently.

I think a culture of correct is the solution to the never ending Heinrich controversies. Why not try this approach within your organization?

The Doc

Observation programs – A look at another safety controversy

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

It is hard to tell when observation processes first came on the scene. Maybe they came in back in the 1930s with H. W. Heinrich as he developed his ever so controversial injury pyramid. No matter which of these two topics is brought up with a safety crowd, the battle lines are drawn. Over the last five years or so, the debate about observation programs seems to have subsided. There was a period of time when national safety conferences would have a score or so of presentations on Behavior Based Safety (BBS) observation programs. These days, there will be maybe one such presentation. BBS has faded for a number of reasons.

Recently, I had a chance to talk to three well-respected safety professionals on a variety of topics and sure enough BBS came up. My first friend was ordered to use the program to ensure that upper management had visible involvement in safety. The data cards and the contact information were all of little or no real use, and went into the proverbial round file. All that really mattered with this level two approach was that a manager had been visible at the work place with some seeming interest in safety. The end result was of marginal safety value, but under the circumstances, better than nothing.

The next safety professional has a very different observation technique. He shows up at the front line and watches a tailboard meeting and then some individual crew instructions. All the while, he is checking instruction reality, technique, engagement style, etc. In other words, evaluating safety and operations leadership at both the supervisory and worker levels. And, of course, there are times when he chimes in and sends a strong personal message of visible upper management support for safety.

A third pro’s favorite field BBS tactic is to ask employees to explain the Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) instructions that apply to the job they are doing. That often leads to the worker training the observer (or safety pro) on how to correctly and safely do what is their day-to-day safety reality. In a short period of time, this observation process moves to credible, value- added safety engagement and demonstrates genuine, visible upper management engagement in caring about a safety culture of correct.

Yes, a level two BBS approach can be value added. However, it really needs to become a level four focus on employee knowledge utilizing the genuine one-on-one engagement of workers and managers. In doing so, there is an element of level six- passionate engagement and leadership in safety excellence. With these techniques, BBS becomes EBS (Engagement Based Safety). It is not about sitting in the background and then filling out a data card. Face-to-face safety engagement that goes beyond just watching and waiting is the key to improving the old style BBS. I have found this inevitable controversy goes away when there is noticeable, value- added engagement as a part of any safety process.

The Doc

Safety Culture Challenges – Implementing Near Miss in India and Pakistan

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

A question came through from the ISHN Near Miss Reporting webinar archive (http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=348458&s=1&k=3AD24A9638404CF4549B16426F8AA1C5&partnerref=cat). How can we implement this in 3rd world countries like India & Pakistan?

It is my belief that no matter what country or culture we live in our human DNA is pretty much the same. We all think and all have basic human needs, safety being one of them. The direction of local leadership has a lot to do with what we basic humans can accomplish. At the work cell level, there are always acknowledged leaders no matter what the task. Within reason the local leaders frequently have more leeway than they realize (see blog article titled “Boundaries” -- http://safetycultureworld.blogspot.com/2011/04/boundaries-what-are-your-real.html).

An effective Near Miss initiative will require buy-in from some level of your organization. If this leadership values employee safety enough to help you with such an initiative then you have a chance to implement. Assuming you have such a guiding coalition the next step would be to sell them on the concept. The PowerPoint that was shown on the webinar will hopefully help you to do so (reference archived link above to view presentation). However, the local leadership (you) knows best how to sell the members who must agree to doing anything like this. Here I would suggest a small team that would discuss the who, the why, the how and the when of selling the approach. Usually one person needs others to help develop and present this kind of idea. Personally I would not go into this kind of upper management meeting without both your planning team support as well as a target work group that supports their assisting the implementation of a comprehensive Near Miss system.

You will likely need other back up information on Near Miss. The internet is usually a decent source and of course Caterpillar Safety Services has some very good materials. We could set up a personal webinar if you needed one to present ideas, ask questions and give further detail. Assuming you have successfully sold your decision team, I have an important caveat as you head toward detailed development, launch and implementation: Pick your development team and pilot work cell very carefully! Doing Near Miss in an excellent, value added fashion in the Western culture and location is not an easy task. I would think there would be some very real challenges to a similar initiative in India or Pakistan.

I don’t think it is impossible because we are of common DNA and have common human needs. I have found that global companies bring a value set that decidedly assists in helping other cultures to succeed in implementing foreign culture concepts like this one. This response is likely just the start of a greater dialogue that I hope will assist you in this effort.

The Doc

The Wooden Rule – Acknowledging those who have made a difference in our lives

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden had an interesting rule for his teams. Whenever a person scored, he was to acknowledge the person on the team who had assisted. Once asked by a player, “Coach won’t that take up too much time?” Wooden answered, “I am not asking you to run over and give him a big hug. A nod will do.” We are not “just a bunch of independent operators.” Each person contributes to the success of everyone else.

Think back over your career- who has used their gifts to build up, strengthen and encourage you to be who you are? My list would take up too much type to get included in these short blog articles. However, for a starter I give thanks for:

• Dr. Dan Petersen, who spent three years of his life drilling into me the need to emphasize the realities of workplace culture, and the accountabilities for action and engagement that individuals must exhibit if safety is to be a high enough priority for an organization to really achieve sustainable improvement.
• Dr. Tom Eppes, who forced me to attend a professional speakers class. This, in turn, helped me to effectively reach thousands of people without boring them to death in the process.
• Standard Oil of California, an organization that trained all of their engineers how to write clearly and effectively.
• Tim Crane, my business partner who, even in very difficult times, provided the resources and encouragement to keep developing our unique approach in improving safety cultures worldwide.
• My wife, who continues to support my reaching out to other people across the world, even though this frequently causes us to be separated for extended periods of time.

Who are the people in your past and present that you need to give a nod of appreciation to for your small victories in life and profession?

The Doc

The Elephant Graveyard – What is your retirement plan?

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of years back, I had a job assignment that allowed us to go on a safari adventure in Tanzania and Kenya. On one of the outings, we were taken to the elephant graveyard. We had heard of such a place and had lots of questions about why and the like. Our Masai guide explained that elephants have seven sets of teeth that slowly wear out over their age span. As they are wearing down the last set, the older elephants move to an area that has lots of soft grasses that their deteriorating teeth can still chew.

Well, of course this had me thinking about what we would be doing in the retirement phase of our lives, as age deteriorated our abilities. That brought to mind my good friend and safety pioneer Dr. Dan Petersen who, when faced with his personal realities around such things as travel, stress, diet, exercise and the like, made major adjustments which allowed him to enjoy the latter years. More and more, he focused on what he could do, mental activity, rather than what he could not do. His activities went to such things as writing articles, a book and social networking. His choices were not about the next nap, or eating the grass in his limited pasture. They were about appropriate activities that could continue to bring a sense of accomplishment and engagement.

As I consider the decades past and the decades remaining, maybe there are seven seasons of life. Each of these decades seems to have a unique reality and focus. Where and how can you and I be value added, and enjoy the activities and contributions we can still do as we progress toward our eternity?

The Doc

Burning Bridges – Preparing for the next perfect job

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

In the world in which we currently live, there are ever fewer people who stay in one job for their total career. I sat in on a discussion with the president of a large construction company who was talking to a group of safety professionals about their future. He had been with this company his whole employed life, some 28 years. His comments to the safety staff were about recruiters who were out there procuring needed human resources. Their message was that the work/career world was no longer the same as he had experienced. He could expect that by the time his new recruits approached retirement, they would have worked for about a dozen organizations and been employed in three to five completely different professional capacities.

This translates to a very different kind of résumé, and the need to protect your back trail. As we sever relationships with the last job, the attitude that goes along with the phrase “Take this job and shove it!” is truly burning our bridges behind us. This came into focus when I received a call from a good safety professional whose company downsized him into the world of unemployment. Sure, he could go into a state of bitterness and verbally retaliate, but of what use is this approach?

How many more organizations are there in front of you, intended or not? If you are looking to the future which seems to be in front of us all, you will not be about burning your bridges behind you. Rather, we will learn from our past shortfalls and successes, and look to a better future in which retribution has no part whatsoever.

The Doc

Hacked Into – Recovering from tragedy

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Not that long ago, I opened the wrong email and got hacked into. My address book totally disappeared. My file system was corrupted and rendered useless. All those in my contact list received a message that my wife and I were being held hostage in Spain, and they needed to send off $2500 to bail us out. There were a few other uglies too, and it took almost a month to recover. Along the way, I got various notices from friends that ran the gamut from laughter to where to send the money.

About the same time, our son was to receive a masters degree from a university in a state to the south. Shortly before we drove down for this happy event, his area was struck by a tornado that completely destroyed the town in which his best friends neighbored. Those who lived in this town lost everything they had. Suddenly, in perspective, my computer woes went from tragedy to inconvenience. There are so many others who have lost it all in fires, floods, storms and injuries. And they, too, are called upon to rise to the occasion and recover from whatever tragedy has occurred.

This seems to be a part of our human nature, rising to the occasion, whatever it may be for each of us. Along the way, we are called on to do more than live in remorse. As I am called on to recover from whatever the event may be, I am reminded that part of the purpose is to invest in those who are also in need. Our family, our community, our profession all seem to be a part of a greater purpose that requires our engagement in and investment beyond the personal pain caused by things like computer hassles and worse. Rising to the occasion for ourselves and others seems to be a part of the purpose of the process we all get to go through.

The Doc

Sharing – Improving the lives of all whom we encounter

2011-11-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

I recently read a story of a family whose garden had six strawberry plants, but only one strawberry was produced. They carefully nurtured the lone strawberry and protected it from birds and other animals. When, at last, harvest day came, the family of four celebrated by slicing the fruit and savoring their bite together. From that event, each came away with a lifelong, personal message that things taste better when shared with others.

As I think back on times of togetherness, meals do indeed taste better when shared with others. Thanksgiving Holiday meals, with family, especially come to mind. Another such shared meal occurs when I return from business travel. At this time, one of the treats I look forward to is the tradition that my wife and I have of eating a welcome home meal together. During this simple celebration, we share what has happened in both of our lives during our time of separation. Truly, things taste better when shared with others.

There is another kind of sharing that we in our profession enjoy; how we have improved the safety culture of those with whom we interact. As I consider the downstream indicators that continue to improve, there is a warm satisfaction derived from sharing the gift of a better life with those we are impacting. Sharing our talents delivers a personal “taste” that is better when we make a positive difference with others.

While living a part of this profession that makes a difference to others, there is at least one other sharing that leaves a personal “taste” that is very satisfying. That “taste” deals with the development of lasting relationships that continue to bear a personal fruit of enjoyment for years to come. Our safety profession gives us a chance to plant the seeds that grow into friendships that don’t wilt or fade away. Rather, they spring to new life at each meeting. However, this kind of enjoyable, lasting fruit requires continual genuine engagement and caring for the realities of others.

How is your relational garden doing? The long lasting enjoyment available to you depends on your farming skills with others.

The Doc

Heinrich the 8th – Safety controversy and safety reality

2011-11-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a never ending controversy around the famous 1930s injury pyramid work of Herbert Wagner Heinrich. Once again, a long article has appeared in Professional Safety Magazine (http://www.asse.org/professionalsafety/pastissues/056/10/052_061_F2Manuele_1011Z.pdf) complaining about the lack of statistical rigor back in 1930. In turn, this recalls memories of a 1960s rock song “Henry the 8th” by Herman’s Hermits; “second verse same as the first….” And so on, ad infinitum.

The issue of the number of near misses/close calls to actual injuries has been revisited many times by the likes of Frank Bird in the 1960s, a UK safety society in the 1990s, and who knows how many others:

• Heinrich, 1930: 300 to 29 to 1
• Bird, I969: 600 to 10 to 1
• HSE Executive Group of the British Government, 1993: 189 no injury events for every 3 days of lost time

Indeed, almost all of us use the same concept every day as we focus on our organization’s downstream indicators. What is an injury rate, other than a reality that for every so many millions of hours of work we can expect a certain rate of near misses, first aides, medicals and lost time injuries? We each have our own injury pyramid reality that we wish would go to zero. And this is the whole crux of the tempest in the teapot that Heinrich started way back in 1930.

My favorite response to all this analytical rhetoric came from the late Dr. Dan Petersen. He was not concerned about counting or debating the various types of incidents. Rather, the real issue was what are we doing to prevent these inexcusable incidents from happening? His research showed that there were about 20 fundamental safety processes that, if people in a safety culture lived very well, were able to prevent incidents from happening. If the people in an organization error proofed these processes and lived a safety culture of practical accountabilities for each improved process, incidents would not occur.

Our Continuous Improvement teamwork on these, and a few other processes, has shown Dan to be right. If our hourly through senior management personnel will live practical daily accountabilities for each error proofed process; minor through serious incidents no longer occur. Safety performance does not improve by counting, or debating, various downstream indicators. Safety performance only improves if we will do appropriate, value added activities that eliminate the possibility of incidents from occurring in the first place.

The Doc

Back and Forth – Learning from our past

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, I heard a quotation that caused me to stop and reflect. It went something like “Life must be lived forward; unfortunately it can only be understood backward.” As we move forward in our lives, it seems that the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path seldom provide more guidance than just enough to take the next step. We must learn from our history or be doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

I have had a few opportunities to change jobs. As I recollect, the actual number is right at 20. At each fork in the road, it has been worthwhile to stop and review my experiences with both the distant and recent past. What have I done well? What needs to improve? Which fork in the road should I explore that seems to be the better fit for who I am and where I have come from? With such consideration, there seems to be just a little more light shining on the path forward.

As I talk safety with companies and individuals I find there is a genuine interest in moving beyond the classic approaches. The focus on regulations and observations is still a need, yet these reactive tools don’t provide a zero incident safety culture. As you look to live forward why not give consideration to how you can build a more involved – creative past with new safety tool sets like perception surveys, Continuous Improvement Kaizen teams, specific safety accountabilities and the like.

The Doc

The End Game – Going from vision to action

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

A number of business publications emphasize the need to “Start with the end in mind.” This catchy phrase admonishes us to stop long enough to think out where we are going, and how to effectively get there before we jump into the fray and work on whatever issue is challenging us. What is the needed vision, and how do we begin and engage in this vision with actions that will get us and our organization to a worthwhile conclusion?

A while back, I was in charge of a mission impossible assignment to turn around an organization that had a history of miserable performance. One of the challenges was a highly adversarial relationship with a very strong union whose members had been abused for years by autocratic management. The end game was a need to get performance from both management and union members who truly hated each other, yet truly needed each other to keep from going out of business.

Sink or swim, what would it be? The only viable decision was to swim together instead of continuing the classic definition of insanity; doing the same thing and expecting different results- pigs wrestling with pigs. In turn, this required a vision of both sides combining forces with the enemy (each other), in an effort for all to remain employed. At the same time, we needed to meet the needs of a customer that was ever more unsatisfied with our inability to meet said needs, as we had focused on battling each other instead of fulfilling customer desires.

This end game vision required the leader-manager (me), to begin to humble myself and serve the needs of the hourly employees, salaried employees and customers all at the same time. After some significant time of personal reflection and thought, off I went to meet with the union leadership. At last, we began an extended period of slowly healing the perceived and real wounds inflicted on both sides. We mutually developed the credibility that allowed us to change our workplace culture so that we could work together effectively.

Many of us struggle with both what the vision is, and a plan for the actions necessary for its achievement. The Continuous Improvement approach to achieve organizational excellence would counsel us to back off from the fray, come away for a time of reflection, and follow the simple approach of “Plan, Do, Check, Act.” Are you currently struggling with a personal or work situation that would benefit from this approach of going from vision to action?

The Doc

How to change an industry’s safety performance

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

To make a change in an industry’s safety performance, the first necessary element is a Guiding Coalition/Steering team that will help work with the various idea/solution providers and the wide ranging customer base and their leadership. We have worked with similar Guiding Coalitions in: The Wind Industry; the electrical contractor transmission and distribution (T&D) – OSHA strategic safety partnership; North West Public Power Association (NWPPA); National Mining Association, as well as large decentralized industrial companies.

What follows is a meeting in which discussions center around: the players, the issues, the Guiding Coalition’s realities and the time constraints. In each of our above mentioned partnerships, we have provided a limited starting proposal that has a focus on one segment of the total organization spectrum. This is the pilot we believe necessary to prove the concept under field reality conditions.

The Guiding Coalition/Steering team follows the pilot performance progress each month as a part of the formal review process. Start up to final results typically takes 9 – 12 months. Each of the organizations we have worked with has had experience with other approaches to safety culture excellence and has decided to try our proposed solution only. However, it is not all that uncommon for organizations to do a “bake off” with more than one potential solution provider.

Once the pilot is finished, the Guiding Coalition team decides on a roll out strategy that includes a limited number of other divisions/organizations who want to implement the solution process. This next phase includes: organization training; third party assistance; Guiding Coalition reporting and system wide communications on the progress. This progressive roll out continues and is actively reported on at national conferences and in publications to all allied organization sites. The Guiding Coalition team continues to monitor field reports and provide input to these groups as appropriate. They also assist in the documentation of the best practices and in so doing help to set, monitor and communicate the standards of the total organization community.

During the time of this guided roll out, specific culture questions are answered, personnel development is addressed, training is solidified, documentation is finalized, practical audits are developed and the diagnostics are modified, if necessary. The Guiding Coalition/Steering team has a hand in all this with various sub teams that are evaluating, developing and improving the tools and approaches being implemented across the industry. Each of the sub teams and their target process partners are chartered to ensure timing, scope, resource and deliverables. The data and input for the sub teams comes from the partners who are either rolling out or actively using the improved safety culture approaches.

And now some do’s and don’ts for such an industry wide initiative:

Choose the development and roll out organizations carefully. They must want to be a part of this effort and not just assigned to it. The effort required to be successful is not trivial. They have to stay the course over time.
Make sure the charters are done well. There needs to be excellence in defining and delivering time, scope, resources, good leadership, commitment and outcomes.
Perform initial and ongoing in-depth training that answers questions and develops knowledge of the safety culture excellence approach with all members of the Guiding Coalition/Steering team and the pilot teams.
Ensure the teams are well funded.
Make sure the Guiding Coalition/Steering team is relatively small, compatible and with no side agendas, poor relationships, predetermined outcomes, and the like. There also must be a couple of field savvy "boots on the ground" types who are a part of this leadership. They provide a reality check that is absolutely necessary to delivering the credibility that will be required for any industry wide initiative to be successful with the line organization hourly employees who are to live the new and improved safety culture.

The Doc

Six Critical Components for Safety Excellence

2011-10-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Dan Petersen was one of the great safety pioneers of the last 50 years. His focus was consistently on developing a viable safety culture that lived safety accountabilities at all levels of the organization. Organizations fully utilizing his Six Criteria of Safety Excellence are among the leaders in safety performance. These criteria are:

Visible Upper Management Commitment to safety. In most organizations it is difficult to pry executives away from their cost, quality and customer responsibilities and have them be visible in the workplace with respect to safety. Roles, responsibilities and associated activities are essential if we are to make the executives field presence accomplishable.
Active Middle Manager Involvement in safety. There is a reality for organizations having far fewer middle managers than in years past. This fact makes their active presence on a regular basis at the workface even more of a challenge to occur. Once again practical roles, responsibilities and activities provide guidance for these important people to make themselves known in safety where it counts most, on the front line.
Focused Supervisor Performance is another key attribute for excellent safety performance. Supervisors have very detailed and specific accountabilities for cost, quality and customer service cultures found in the typical operations culture. In safety this level of detail and daily accountability is often lacking. Once your supervisors get on the right track their safety performance improves remarkably.
Active Hourly Participation without a doubt is of major importance. The hourly employees are the ones who deliver performance with respect to cost, quality and customer service, why not safety too? They are used to accountabilities for everything except safety. Using this criteria makes a lot of sense, and besides that, it works very well.
The System is Flexible to Accommodate the Site Culture One size does not fit all safety organizations and departments. Yet, we often try to force a regulations and observations approach on all that exists. This just doesn’t work; appropriate departmental safety flexibilities are a necessity.
The System is Positively Perceived by the Workforce This is the feedback loop in safety excellence. We measure our employees’ perceptions and issues throughout the organization and then put teams to work developing and testing innovative solutions. If there is no effective feedback mechanism an organization quickly stagnates and then deteriorates.

An organization needs to identify what has to happen before it is able to make the leap from "talk" to active and visible involvement that can attain a sustainable culture of true safety excellence. The Six Criteria of Safety Excellence are an effective test for safety initiatives. Are these visible elements a part of your safety processes?

The Doc

Developing Meaningful Leading Indicators

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

The six sigma methodology for manufacturing has a relentless focus on achieving zero errors in the workplace. Upstream (or leading) indicators/metrics are a vital part of the error proofing processes that assist the facility teams in focusing on their progress toward zero errors in all that they do. This has not been a part of the approaches used by most organizations when it comes to improving safety performance. Fortunately, a six sigma tool utilization approach is currently being tried by a number of safety leading-edge organizations.

These groups are focusing in on the upstream activities that deliver the downstream results instead of just utilizing “rear view mirror” techniques which concentrate on past injuries; things we do not want to happen. As the thought and action leaders in safety concentrate on error proofing the upstream processes that have been proven to reduce and eliminate injuries, they too have found a need for leading safety indicators.

In the history of safety, there is not a lot of evidence of safety indicators beyond counting injuries, incidents and observations that are all reactive to conditions in the workplace. A model that goes beyond injuries and observations is presented in Dr. Williamsen’s article on Six Sigma Safety as published in Professional Safety Magazine. Therein are details for six levels of tools that can assist an organization in relentlessly pursuing a safety culture that does not tolerate injuries or incidents.

Each of these levels of proactive improvement in safety performance must also have proactive/leading indicators of how the organization is doing in eliminating injuries and incidents.

Level One deals with regulations, policies, best practices and procedures which are fundamental to improving safety conditions in an organization. This is a very reactive level of safety do’s and don’ts, which focus on the traps that exist in every organization’s workplace. The leading indicators in this lagging approach to safety performance allow an organization to concentrate on the activities all need to do on a regular basis to eliminate hazards in the workplace. Safety work order systems, along with Action Item Matrices for injury Root Cause Analyses solutions, are typical examples of value added level one leading indicators.
The Level Two leading indicators deal with what is visible in the workplace. We must all effectively react to these if the visible issues are to be eliminated. Here, the focus is on observation programs, Near Miss Resolution, Inspections and the like. We need to track completion of proactive activities that help reduce the visible issues if injuries are to be eliminated.
Level Three moves into the proactive world of safety performance excellence. What are the safety accountabilities that people from all levels of the organization must consistently do to deliver a culture of value added engagement in safety excellence? Leading indicators in Safety Accountabilities revolve around the work of Dr. Dan Petersen’s Six Criteria of Safety Excellence. The focus is on value added safety activities from people at all levels of the organization.
Level Four is all about determining what our people believe are weaknesses in the safety system and culture. Once again, Dr. Petersen’s Six Criteria of Safety Excellence is used, in this case dealing with the safety perceptions of the total workforce. The leading indicators at this level deal with what our people believe needs to be improved.
Level Five is the engagement of employees throughout the organization in Continuous Improvement teams that are working diligently to improve all the issues noted in levels one through four. Here, the leading indicators are Action Item Matrices that the teams are focused on completing.
Level Six deals with the passionate leadership that becomes the guiding coalition once the Continuous Improvement teams are performing. As the teams attack and resolve the problems the organization used to live with, a major culture shift occurs. More and more people throughout the organization engage. They become the passionate zero incident safety culture leaders that has this approach become self sustaining. The leading indicators at level six deal with the activities of this ever increasing group of leaders.

Significant safety culture improvement and "zero-incident excellence" isn’t a matter of prioritizing. Rather, it requires incorporating safety as a core value and integrating well-defined, practical accountabilities with associated leading indicators — into the organization’s overall operations from top to bottom. Safety accountabilities become a key metric tied directly to job performance - just like those for production, quality and customer service. These indicators are used to establish a culture of safety accountability that addresses why incidents happen in the first place. This kind of safety culture has every employee engaged in appropriate, practical activities. In turn, they don’t tolerate any unsafe activities or conditions.

The Doc

Getting real with what it takes to deliver performance

2011-09-26T06:00:00.001-07:00

A frustration of many safety pros I know deals with the fact that almost everybody believes in safety and gives safety lip service only. When it comes to doing the actual work it takes to deliver safety excellence, suddenly the ranks of safety involvement decidedly thin out. Or, as one of these friends recently lamented; they will gather round the conference table and sing safety Kumbaya, but never go out into the workplace and do anything about getting to zero.

Safety Kumbaya; singing 10, dance 0. This is not a good score when it comes to implementation. We have to do more than sing. Where are the people who will take to the streets our clearly defined system that deals with concrete facts, proven models, and sustainable results that encourage organizations to continue digging deeper?

I guess at first we need something specific, not vague language and vanilla concepts, to inspire the leaders we can find to take this revolution to the streets (work face). Do you have such a well thought plan in place? Can you communicate your dream effectively? Are you doing so?

If you have three yes answers to the above questions, then it is time to search your organization for a champion who will march forward with you and attack safety mediocrity. No, it is not time for a sit in, that wont work in the productivity world that often smothers safety initiatives. You will need a well thought out plan, followed by appropriate actions that are sustainable.

In the continuous improvement world that speaks to our post modern operations cultures, the term plan-do-check-act comes to mind. What is your well thought out plan?

Does it include:

A diagnostic that leads to valid improvement actions?
Improvement teams focused on credible data?
Accountabilities?
Appropriate training of the fundamentals of these accountabilities?
Measurement of value added activities?
Feedback based on completion of these value added activities at all levels of the organization?

In truth, there is a lot of hard work that needs to take place before you are ready to march on a system/culture that has been neglecting safety for a long, long time. Is it your time to stop singing Kumbaya safety and start the hard work it takes to change a culture of neglect that is so often apparent in our workplaces across the world?

The Doc

The Trouble with Breakthroughs -- Getting beyond the current state

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, I heard a quote that stopped me in my tracks: Nothing fails like success. In our profession, there is a passion for performance. Many of us have experienced the thrill of safety culture improvement, and, unfortunately, this thrill often leads to getting stuck in the rut of comfort and complacency. As humans, we all resist change to some extent. When we are presented with new ideas or concepts, it seems natural for us to try and find holes in what is different from our paradigms that are built on our experiences/successes.

I once worked with a small group of innovators who were trying to get to perfection in an important foundational part of their large company’s performance. They scheduled themselves into every seminar given on the topic and took numerous opportunities to visit and benchmark at appropriate sites around the world. When asked what they learned, I was not a little surprised at their responses. They admitted that they focused on defending their own best practices. After all, they were an industry success model, well, at least in their own minds they were.

In a progress report-out, they got torched by a V.P. who forced them to stop defending themselves and start doing some R&D (Rip Off and Duplicate). Where could they steal shamelessly, run some trials to prove the new concepts and get breakthroughs instead of defending status quo?

Are there some different concepts that may help improve safety which have been percolating in your mind? Maybe it is time to think through the possibilities, develop a pilot trial and see if a minor (or major) breakthrough can be the result of getting out of your personal comfort zone.

The Doc

Developing industry wide solutions for safety excellence

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

The cynic’s comment on this challenge might very well go along the lines of “How to solve world hunger.” Sounds impossible and yet there is at least one model that has been successful globally. In the 1960s Dr. W. Edwards Deming approached American auto makers with a proposal to improve their product quality and sell more cars. Dr. Deming was shown the door. In general, people and organizations resist change.

Dr. Deming did not give up. He continued the search until he found a willing partner to try new approaches that were foreign to the conventional wisdom of the auto industry. That willing person was headed by a Japanese man, Mr. Toyoda. The Toyota organization took the Deming concepts and began experimenting with them and improving them with the assistance of knowledgeable guidance. Over a period of years Total Quality Manufacturing (TQM) was developed with results that broke the status quo performance of the rest of the world’s conventional wisdom mindset organizations.

As other manufacturing organizations decided to try these new approaches they too had paradigm breaking success that were evident to all consumers and competing manufacturers. And the ball started rolling from one manufacturing organization in one country to others worldwide. As they were playing catch up, Toyota continued the relentless pursuit of zero errors with the Toyota Production System (TPS) and thus this leader continued to stay far ahead of the followers and conventional wisdom masses.

Continuous improvement teams expanded from quality focus to productivity and into customer service initiatives. Those who committed to using this globally proven employee engagement problem solution approach in all areas of their businesses began to pull away from the competition as they error proofed the upstream processes that delivered the downstream results in all that they did……except safety.

Conventional wisdom maintained a death grip on safety, the same way conventional wisdom organizations spun into a death spiral when they resisted the improvement culture that went beyond doing what they had always done, while expecting different results.

For decades we have used three safety tools; regulations, observation programs and psychology. These tools deliver safety statistics that used to be acceptable, i.e., industry average. In the 1980s Dr. Dan Petersen researched a radical new approach; focus on the underlying culture issues that have been shown to be statistically relevant and develop value added personal accountabilities in safety at all levels of the organization. He started getting paradigm breaking downstream safety indicator (injury rate) results with his clients. Dr. Petersen found pioneers who were willing to break out of the conventional wisdom trap and focused his scarce resources on the leaders who helped deliver safety excellence.

Along the way, some of these same customers added an enhancement to culture and accountabilities; they introduced continuous improvement teams focused on safety along the lines of those they were using in the operations culture. As a result their downstream safety results got even better, much more quickly. A globally proven approach used by future state focused organizations worked in safety too; just like in the quality revolution organizations that were willing to commit to take the risk of being on the leading edge have found ways to eliminate the risks involved with people who work every day in our global world. However, just like with Toyota, there are a very few who are willing to break out of decades of conventional wisdom mind block. And yet, as the downstream safety indicators continue to significantly improve quickly, others are beginning to take notice.

What then is the solution to safety world hunger? I believe it is to focus on the usage of this new tool set that has been proven to deliver safety excellence beyond conventional wisdom. These approaches will be tried by leading edge organizations. In turn, these organizations will tweak the tools and techniques to get even better, even quicker. These solution approaches then must be publicized and more organizations will be influenced to go beyond doing the same thing and expecting different results.

We must go beyond the battle for more regulations, beyond using just another observation program, beyond more psychology. None of this conventional wisdom of more regulations, more quality inspectors, more caring helped deliver low cost, high quality and on-time products. The organizations that improved significantly all engaged their people in a structured approach that had them focused on a relentless pursuit of zero errors. Injuries are errors. More and more leading edge organizations are discovering that Drs. Deming and Petersen were right and that this (relatively new) approach works incredibly well in safety.

To change an industry worldwide?

1. Define what needs to be done
2. Train the organization leaders how to do this
3. Measure how well they do it
4. Recognize them for performance
5. Continue to have them improve the tools
6. Significantly publicize the results and in so doing influence others to get on board

The good news is that items 1 through 5 are all in existence for a few safety leaders.

The Doc

Safety Purgatory – Escaping the monotony of status quo mediocrity

2011-09-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

Safety Purgatory: Safety people stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don’t have the authority to really lead the group and the executives are sending messages that undermine the safety efforts. They are just sitting around and waiting for things to go all to “heck” (I’ll thank the Dilbert cartoon creator Scott Adams for this phrase).

How’s that for a definition? I imagine many of you in the readership audience (myself included) have had this purgatory experience on more than one occasion. Over the years, I have learned some approaches that have helped me in escaping this kind of purgatory. Remember the blog articles a while back on “Island Hoping,” “Boundaries” and “Complaint Equals Goal?”

I look for what options are available to me and the team with which we can make a positive difference. The first one is what group is open to getting out of the box (purgatory) and willing to put in some concerted effort to improve their performance. This is the island I hop to and start dedicating our scarce resources to help them escape the drudgery of mediocrity. No matter where I have worked there has always been an island of people who are willing to take this kind of chance. However, I do have to put in the effort to discover who/where they are. They don’t just jump up and pound on your door begging you to enter in and help them.

Next comes discovering where in the boundary limits we can start this initiative. Once again there has always been an area in which the leadership is not micromanaging or actively trying to crush initiative. After all “they” cannot be everywhere all the time. There is at least one little corner in your culture of “heck” that can be worked on.

What do we do with our island of opportunity within our boundaries of possibilities in order to escape safety purgatory? Some inspiring words from Eric Clapton provide guidance: “It has been up to me to inspire me.” Where is the focus for this inspiration? Go back a few blog articles to “Complaint Equals Goal.” You now have the team, the target and the method (hard work within a limited scope).

With a little knowledge we can ask the right questions and lead in a way that opens the doors to true excellence. We can both know the truth and can practice it in such a way that we can be set free from all kinds of purgatories including those in the “heck” of safety mediocrity.

The Doc

The electrical industry surge – A different kind of approach to improving safety cultures in our utilities

2011-08-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

For years, electrical utilities mimicked general industry with respect to eliminating injuries; they followed the OSHA regulations and used observation systems (Behavior Based Safety). As a result, just like general industry, the utilities plateaued at unsatisfactory injury rates.

In the past two decades, intense global competition has forced general industry to significantly improve their productivity, quality and customer service levels. Industry leadership learned that Continuous Improvement teams composed of hourly and salaried employees do a superb job of delivering effective solutions for these problems. The teams do a diagnostic to determine root cause issues, and then develop systems with appropriate accountabilities that deliver zero-error results.

Recently, industry safety culture leaders have expanded the Continuous Improvement team approach to eliminate injuries, commonly achieving total injury rates of less than one and going multiple years without lost time injuries.

Now leading edge utilities have begun to follow suit. They:

Do a statistically validated safety diagnostic
Develop a 3-5 year safety culture improvement plan based on the diagnostic weaknesses
Train their people how to use Continuous Improvement teams in safety
Use these teams to solve their previously hidden safety systems issues
Enjoy consistently decreasing injury rates that are far better than utility industry averages

This approach works as well in the utility industry as it does in general industry.

The Doc

Nuances vs. hard decisions – the Likert or binary scale as a safety culture indicator

2011-08-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

One of the frequent questions about the Safety Perception Survey deals with the use of the more traditional Likert (1 through 5) evaluation scale vs. our binary (yes or no) scale. A number of our safety culture improvement customers have commented on this. Their input comes down to a familiar “central tendency” reality. It seems that when humans are given the option of a 1 – 5 answer scale for a safety survey about 70% of them choose the central tendency answer of a 3. Yes, there are 1 – 7 and 1 – 10 scales out there, but the central tendency reality applies to these slightly modified Likert scales as well.

My discussions with Dr. Dan Petersen about his use of a binary scale revealed that the developers of our Safety Perception Survey noticed this same middle of the road reality in the early stages of their research. Dan’s comment went something like: “We decided that we weren’t interested in the nuances of a 2.8 vs. a 3.2 score. Rather, we wanted to find out if the safety processes were fixed or broken (well or sick).”

As we work with large numbers of customers and 10’s of thousands of surveys some other benefits of the binary answer scale have appeared:

The binary scale offers a third option; “I don’t know the answer.” This is a third data bank which reflects a lack of knowledge about questions and processes that have been statistically proven to make a difference in safety performance. In turn ‘no response’ answers allow an organization to relatively quickly and inexpensively train in areas of low safety knowledge and understanding

Hourly employees quickly decide the binary yes – no answer they believe is workplace reality. Managers often struggle with making the yes – no decision because “Sometimes we do this and sometimes we don’t.” The managers often take longer to answer the survey questions because they stop to consider this uncertainty that at its root is an indicator of safety culture weakness; “We are inconsistent.” When the Continuous Improvement teams begin focusing on resolving safety culture weaknesses the hourly abruptness and the manager contemplation both help the teams get to in depth, rigorous solutions to safety culture problems.

Central tendency survey approaches do not have either of the above strengths.

My experiences after interviewing our customers is that once presented with the brutal facts of what is fixed and what is broken, they are much more able to deliver viable solutions that go beyond the traditional observation systems and psychological approaches to safety culture weaknesses. They too feel that when you pay a doctor for a diagnosis you want a yes or no answer not a “sorta – kinda” maybe. But then our customers are predominately operations type cultures that like the rapid “find it – fix it – move on” approach rather than what is often found in the slower reality of an academic “more study is required” persuasion.

The Doc

The four Seaborgs – Principles to live by

2011-08-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

My undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering is from the University of California. One of the fond remembrances of this difficult and challenging time in my life was being taught by Noble Laureates. A noticeable number of the faculty had received this extremely high honor. I guess my favorite of these was Dr. Glenn Seaborg, a man who had discovered, or co-discovered a number of elements at the local Lawrence Radiation Laboratory that was associated with our Berkeley campus.

To me and many others Dr. Seaborg was a great scientist, a great teacher, a great man and a great role model. In an interview I read, he stated the four principles he lived by that made all the difference in what he did and who he was:

Do not procrastinate - Do it now
Do the most unpleasant task first
Talk to the person you dislike most first
Keep everyone informed - Force communication to occur

I try to live up to these four simple, yet powerful Seaborgs. How might they impact who you are and what you do?

The Doc

My boss – reporting relationships for the safety function

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Another frequent controversy in the safety world is what part of the organization should be responsible for the safety function. To whom do we report? Common answers I get are:

HR because it has always been that way
The president because therein lies the most power and it sends the right message
Operations because they have the problems and more resources to help solve the problems

My answer deals with where the safety function will get the most support. Where is there leadership that will actively support improving the safety culture and not just, at best, provide lip service? I want a driving force to help drive safety performance. It is not about “the where” it is about “the who” that makes a difference in safety excellence.

The Doc

Money – safety incentives

2011-08-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

A topic that never seems to go away is safety incentives. One of our survey questions deals with the concept of whether employees would work more safely if they were paid more for doing so? Once again today a customer posed this question as it is a frequent battleground for the 900 or so separate organizations they are responsible to assist with safety.

My opinion on the matter continues to undergo some adjustment as I work with various safety cultures around the globe. Last week in New Orleans, Louisiana I was presented with a new safety incentive wrinkle. The construction organization that had me on site brought up the question as they described paying the one lucky employee each quarter whose name was pulled out of the hat (if the total organization had no lost time injuries). The smiling employee came up front and was given a $100 credit card which was activated after they had passed a drug screening!!! Amazingly no employee in their organization had failed a drug screen for more than two years. Hmmmm….this bears some more thought.

You all have heard of the 80-20 Pareto principle that 80% of your problems are concentrated in 20% of your occurrences. In this case, I think monetary incentives are more like 1% and one-on-one contacts dealing with genuine feedback for a job well done are the other 99%. The 1% monetary reward occurs when a significant downstream milestone is accomplished. The milestone is not publicized before it occurs, so people don’t hide injuries. The people in the safety culture do not tolerate employees not reporting all injuries and the hourly and salaried leadership concentrates on credible positive one-on-one reinforcement of the people in the work culture who continually do things right from a safety standpoint.

Frequent one-on-one contacts are worth more than money. And sensitivity to the local culture helps if you do not have to compromise principles, values and ethics.

The Doc

Logos – who do you represent?

2011-07-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

The small company I have worked for over the last decade was recently bought by a very large company, Caterpillar. Lots of things changed significantly in going from an entrepreneurial organization with about a dozen employees to a global Fortune 50 mega-company with more than 100,000 employees. A small part of the package was a set of shirts I was sent with the Caterpillar logo on them.

I was surprised to find out how this seemingly small token has significantly impacted my travel realities. No, it is not about getting perks because of the big company. The real change has been the notoriety of the logo. Now fellow travelers frequently ask me if I work for Cat and then launch into a discussion that deals with something of interest to them about this company that has one of the three most worldwide recognized logos.

Today in a hotel elevator in Washington DC, a Saudi Arabian man saw the logo and struck up a conversation about purchasing Cat® equipment in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. This is quite far afield from the safety consulting focus I truly represent for Caterpillar. However, this recent circumstance and many other similar ones brought to mind the consideration of just who do I represent to others? A little thought about the origin of the word “logo” led me to the Greek term for knowledge.

The current knowledge of the Cat brand for this Saudi man and the others comes from the people who built the brand. However, once they begin a discussion their knowledge of the brand and its logo is adjusted by their impression of how I represent the image behind the logo. So their last impression is a result of my personal logo and how it fits to the company logo.
And that led me to consider what my personal logo truly is as I somewhat subconsciously communicate my logo to others. Their perceived knowledge of me is a result of my actions with them. And that has led me to rethink some of my actions to improve my brand in areas that were a part of my blind spots.

How is your personal logo? Are there any blind spots that may have tarnished your otherwise shining star?

The Doc

General MacKenzie – the importance of face time

2011-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have met a number of interesting people. One of my favorites is a person whom I consider to be a Canadian National Treasure, retired Major General Lewis MacKenzie. Lew had the doubtful pleasure of commanding the United Nations forces in Kosovo during the major conflict times. One evening while we were discussing leadership principles he told me a story that made a lot of sense.

General MacKenzie was in command a hodgepodge of troops from many different countries, races and ethnic backgrounds. The high command of the UN decided this challenging mix of soldiers needed to be stationed in Sarajevo which was in the middle of the battle zone between the factions who were at war over who was to control the country. His command was significantly divided across all kinds of challenging beliefs, values ethnicities and experiences. Added to this was the fact that every day his whole command was being regularly shelled from three directions while he received a seemingly infinite string of nit picking, non value added, sometimes conflicting commands from UN brass and bureaucrats.

As Lew struggled with trying to achieve some semblance of control over this chaos his Command Sergeant Major (CSM) made his thoughts known; Morale was in the toilet and The General needed to make his presence real at the battle front with the troops he commanded. After some intense discussion Lew ordered the CSM to come to his office in the morning, after lunch and in the evening every day. When his CSM entered The General put down the paperwork and followed the CSM to the field for an hour of face time with the various units under The General’s command.

His whole organization’s culture dynamic took a major turn for the better as order, personal discipline and morale were lifted beyond measure.
Each of you is an important leader in your organization, whether you realize it or not. And your people need to see you and interact with you at the workface. If you will put down the office work and make your leadership visible and felt you will be amazed at how much better your organization performs.

Thank you Major General Lewis MacKenzie for this lesson in leadership.

The Doc

GPS – Recalculating our way to excellence

2011-07-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

On road trips I often use a GPS navigation device to guide me along the drive. After entering the destination a voice tells me which road to follow, as well as when and where to make each turn. When I leave the pre-determined route, either accidently or on purpose, the GPS voice says “recalculating” and gives instructions to get back on the correct path to my destination.

How I wish there were a voice from on high that told us how to recalculate our approach to safety in the workplace and at home when someone in our midst takes the wrong path and puts our final destination of going home injury free at risk.

There are all kinds of road signs along the way in the form of policies, procedures and regulations with respect to safety. And yet our employees, and yes on occasion ourselves, take a detour from best practices that put ourselves and others at risk.

As Dr. Dan Petersen used to say “if the answer to who is in charge of safety is anything other than ‘I am’ it is an accident waiting to happen.” So, when we have a close call or an injury, we need to take personal responsibility to stop our other activities and recalculate our path to a zero incident workplace. Pay attention to the workplace indicators and treat them as a voice from on high to change our way and get back on the path to the zero incident culture that we all want to have.

The Doc

License plates – remembering and learning from our heroes of the past

2011-07-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite license plates is the one used in Québec. The surrounding text reads; “Je me Souviens” or “I remember” in French. To me this speaks of a proud heritage developed by the men and women of past generations. Another of my favorites are those that speak of veterans who have served in our country’s military. I especially like my brother-in-law’s Purple Heart license plate and am glad to have him park it on our farm as he stays with us for six months each year.
On this day, our country’s celebration of Independence, I also think of, and give thanks for, the many people in the safety profession who have contributed to our profession and the safety of people throughout the world. Sure our technologies have improved since the days of the safety giants like Heinrich, Petersen and Bird. But, as one of my military friends told me; “We stand on the shoulders of those who went before us.”
During this holiday week I am in remembrance of our past heroes who labored to give us Independence from the seemingly never ending onslaught of military oppressors. And I add to this, heartfelt thanks for the continuing efforts of those in our profession who work to give us independence from the seemingly never ending onslaught of potential injuries in the world’s workplaces and at home.
The Doc

Seeds – Doing what you can

2011-06-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

A quote I heard recently goes something like “If you cannot create a tree plant a seed.” Many of us in the safety profession work for different organizations and on significantly varying projects. Recently, I find my work is taking me to many different organizations scattered across the planet. I feel fortunate that at each location one or more of the audience comes forward and engages to some depth in discussions on creating or improving viable safety cultures.
This is a lot different from my days at the facility level where I could work in the longer term to assist in growing a tree of culture excellence. These days it is more about planting a seed and then watering it via email or phone calls.
We all have different stages in life that affect our potential impact on work and families and their cultures. Yet when called upon, I cannot opt out if the situation links with the talents I have developed over the years. So, I take time to plant that seed. And, if called on, water it to the best of my abilities within the available resources. Maybe, just maybe, there is a small forest sprouting in the scattered landscape of my travel realities. The message? Don’t opt out if personal perfection is not possible; rather engage to the best of your ability with the situation that is presented to you. The days and memories are better this way than if I had done nothing.
The Doc

World Class safety cultures – What does it take

2011-06-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Is there anything from Caterpillar Safety Services outlining the positive things or actions that we can expect to see in facilities with 'world class' responses to the survey questions for each of the survey process elements?

Best Regards, Steve

World Class safety performance:

Back in the days of the survey development one of the team members, Dr. Dan Petersen, defined world class safety as an organization that was within the best 10% of his customers at this point in time. The best had a total injury frequency of 1.0 – 1.2 and a lost time frequency of 10% of that, or about 0.1 based on 200,000 hours of work. Some 20 years later our best customers have total injury frequency rates of 0.4- 0.7 and go multiple years without a lost time injury no matter which industry or country they operate in. These lower downstream indicators come from accountability and process excellence. And thus I would redefine ‘world class safety’ as an organization that is continuously improving in safety and is relentless in their efforts to get to zero. I am really more interested in the organization’s safety culture focus and improvement efforts than in the downstream indicators.

These organizations engaged in the relentless pursuit of zero do some very interesting and effective things like:

• Teach and live Near Miss excellence and then deliver 1-2 near miss solutions per employee per year. That means they do hundreds of Near Miss Resolutions each year and solve about 90% of them within 3-5 business days by the work group that turned them in. Their injury numbers plummet as a result of this intensity on fixing whatever is not right in their area of responsibility.

• They run 2-4 continuous improvement safety teams each year to fix (error proof) the Safety Perception Survey key processes. In addition they also complete 3-5 other safety issue continuous improvement team items each year.

• They all have completed a team focused on Safety Accountabilities. As a result personnel from all levels of their organization live these important safety culture upstream activities that deliver downstream indicator performance.

To get more depth ideas on these concepts you can read the Six Sigma Safety article that was published in Professional safety a while back. You should also have your organization begin to live Dr. Dan Petersen’s Six Criteria of Safety Excellence. Both these safety engagement culture realities really work in helping you and your organization deliver and live a relentless pursuit of world class safety performance.

The Doc

Getting Older - The realities of a retired life

2011-06-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

How many of you read the “obits” in the paper? I remember an old ditty that goes something like: “I wake up each morning and dust off my wits, pick up the paper and read the obits. If my name isn’t there I know I know I’m not dead, so I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.” When I look at the obits, I especially enjoy the nostalgic photos of loved ones like the young man grinning from a WW 2 uniform, or the beautiful, vibrant young lady outfitted in 1930’s dress with a script that reads something like “89 years young, grew up on a farm in Illinois during the Depression.”

It seems that all too often those who have had long lives feel sidelined as they reach their latter years. But in the obits we see verses, messages and readings reminding us that the older we are, the more meaningful and enjoyable our lives. More over, they often allude to communities in which these men and women were “planted,” so that in the rich soil of fellowship with others they continued to “bear fruit” and be “fresh and flourishing.”

After a week of working on my daughter’s latest project list at their home in Connecticut, I recognize that muscles ache, joints hurt and my pace sure has slowed down. And I am thankful that I am still able to be “renewed day by day” even though the renewal process takes longer and is significantly assisted by the Jacuzzi tub we installed a while back on our small farm.

As I continue being a semi-retired part time employee my wife has threatened to have a T shirt made for me that reads “I’m not 67, I’m 17 with 50 years of experience.” No matter how old we get, we can still be young at heart, with the added benefits of our many years of knowledge, wisdom, service and personal devotion.

The Doc

Difficult Times – Rising to the Occasion

2011-06-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

The first six months of this year have been memorable - make that indelible as a result of a string of personal and local disasters. In January, I dislocated and broke my ankle while very carefully walking in the snow. Within a week I had to take an assignment in the remote frozen north of Canada. Since that first grueling trip I have had the continual “opportunity” to gain first hand knowledge of the challenges (and some victories) facing people who live in a world of wheel chairs, crutches and pain medications.

Once off crutches, splints and “meds,” and while on R&R in Australia, I limped along a beach only to receive a painful foot wound on a hidden object in the sand and viola, both feet were bunged up. Upon returning home, we were greeted by downed trees, power outages and “fried” home electronics, the collateral damage of storms that swept the Midwest in our absence. Shortly thereafter a hacker brought down my computer systems with an especially nasty virus making my travel and business presentations very difficult.

During this same period I witnessed far worse tragedies in my travels: Massive flooding in Australia; Inundated farmland and homes in the Mississippi River basin of the United States; Tornado devastation near my son’s living area in Mississippi; Total forest fire destruction in sections of northern Canada.

Why do these things happen? Could it be that there are adversities in our lives to determine if we can get over them properly? As experienced adults we may no longer be surprised by fiery trials, because strange things have happened and continue to happen to us. But, it is more difficult when, try as we may, we cannot shield our children from their own trials.

In life it seems we need to rise to the occasion and do what the trial demands of us. And as parents we need to teach our children about this fact. I have found out that struggles which are an inevitable part of my life are not resolved by my complaints, but by learning and applying an internal vitality to face anything that comes my way. I never could dictate demands to my father, nor can I make demands on what life brings to me, and so many others have it much worse than I.

Without a doubt I need to get beyond complaining and self pity and carry on working through the adversities. And, by the way, it sure helps that we have a small community of wonderfully supportive friends and work associates around to help. When they come to our aid it is a personal pleasure to thank them for all they do for us. And then I look for opportunities to return the favor to them or to someone else. In this world of trials and tribulations there is always someone in need I can reach out to and assist.

The Doc

Promotable: Developing background and leadership excellence

2011-05-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have watched many safety professionals struggle to get their message across. In addition to this basic struggle another has also been common; an inability to be promoted beyond a position that just evaluates and enforces government safety regulations (regs). The safety pros I’ve worked with have been good people, yet they seem to nearly always have difficulty gaining the confidence or trust of the upper level managers who determine career advancement. What then does it take to earn the trust of your superiors? In general my model of Trust is that it comes as a result of exhibiting personal Character and Competence.

The first stumbling block for gaining trust in personal competence is our profession’s nearly single focus on regulations as the all important determinate of safety viability. Sure regulations are a fundamental building block of our profession. Yet a too tight focus on regulations as the all important tool is a nearly certain nail in the coffin of advancement with the production dominated culture that is common to many safety professional’s work environments. The production managers know about regs and yet their culture places more emphasis on getting a job done and solving problems than it does on another set of government rules. Consequently the safety pro is often stuck in a box where a single focus regs tool delivers the wrong message with respect to trust and competence. The safety pro must live a strategy that goes beyond glasses and gloves if they are to gain respect/trust and the promotions that can go with it.

This same production mentality/culture usually demands excellent presentation skills that include the ability to think on your feet and provide solutions to unexpected questions that come from the audience. Once again a regs focus that is more of a check in the box approach is not a good fit for this environment, especially if the presenter is not of the caliber that the production culture demands. Add to this the drawbacks of a “safety language” that does not include production fundamentals such as ROI and productivity. The regs language and approach is all about stopping production and productivity not about solving problems and moving on in a profit generating manner. The safety pro leader - messenger has got to:

• Go beyond regs

• Improve presentation skills

• Engage in a safety language that is a better fit for the governing production culture

• Use teamwork to engage the production personnel in finding productive solutions to safety issues

There are some different models for safety that fit in well with production cultures:

• What Causes Injuries

It’s not conditions, it’s activities. A production culture’s employees often believe that safety shortcuts are acceptable production shortcuts that can save time, and “time is money.” Such a group has a norm that continues to frustrate the regs focused safety pro. A Safety Accountability model is needed that parallels and supports the production accountability reality of always doing the right activities no matter what.

• What Safety Improvement Tools are Effective

The “usual suspects” of regs and observation programs are neither dynamic nor well enough respected; nor are they effective enough to get to a six sigma zero error rate – zero injury safety culture. There needs to be a diagnostic of the underlying safety culture and a continuous improvement approach that engages hourly and salaried production personnel in owning and solving their safety culture problems. A glasses and gloves approach just doesn’t have the power to deliver zero. And without teamwork solutions the “lone ranger” approach safety pro is lost.

• What are the Criteria for Safety Excellence

The successful, respected safety pro engages personnel from all levels of the organization:

o With individualized safety accountabilities

o That focus on activities

o That eliminate the possibility of injuries

It is not about counting things you don’t want to have happen; like injuries or items on observation check sheets. Rather it is about counting and reinforcing the excellent completion of activities that eliminate the possibility of injuries by people throughout the organization. And this requires some flexibility as well as a feedback diagnostic to determine how well the safety culture excellence engagement processes are working.

• Confronting the Brutal Facts

Author and professor, John Kotter, wrote an excellent book on “Leading Change.” Our safety pros need some of this same education that their promotable production culture counterparts have:

o What is required to overcome the complacency that so often defeats safety improvement and safety careers?

o Where is the guiding coalition that helps lead safety excellence initiatives?

o What about the people and physical obstacles that keep derailing the safety initiatives?

o How does the safety pro deliver the vision, communicate it effectively and generate a safety culture of frequent small wins?

A focus on glasses, gloves and observation check sheets just can’t deliver the kind of performance needed to overcome these common business culture obstacles.

• Turning Discipline into a Positive Force

The safety pro that focuses on punishing (disciplining) others for rules/regs infractions is missing a whole new world. This new world of performance is about a personal discipline in living a culture of excellence in all that is done, every day. A good definition of effective discipline is: Training which corrects, molds, strengthens or perfects. The production culture world focuses not on punishment, but on a personal discipline that lives and executes excellence in activities as a way of life. The safety pro needs to put an end to Theory X management and move on to much more effective Theory Y and Theory Z approaches. In this whole new world, unless the infraction is a flagrant abuse, discipline for correction becomes a culture of coaching on how to do the job correctly. In turn, this leads to a culture of a personal discipline that has employees at all levels of the organization always doing the job correctly and safely.

• Recognition for a Job Done Well

Few safety pros focus on what is going right. Their normal single focus culture of check in the box regs and concentration on observing and trying to “catch and correct” what is wrong is a death knell to the safety pro’s advancement possibilities. Globally dominant organizations relentlessly pursue getting jobs done right. They are way beyond the 50 year old “catch and correct” management approach. A modern interpersonal effectiveness approach to high performance has leaders, managers and every day personnel giving feedback to others. And this feedback is about “catching and congratulating” people for doing the job right. The new culture norm is seven times more focused on positive reinforcement than negative extinguishment. Most of the activities in a normal organization are done correctly, yet seldom are these frequent successes given any recognition. Safety pros need to develop a safety culture that both meaningfully and frequently celebrates the every day wins.

• A Kaizen Culture

The relentless pursuit of zero! This is the key to success for many modern global business leaders. The Continuous Improvement tools of six sigma, lean and kaizen deliver engagement of personnel throughout the organization in a culture of success. The safety pro who will rise above the maddening (non promotable) crowd will use this excellent production culture approach to help deliver a zero incident safety culture “every day in every way.”

Trust: The result of Character and Competence. How does a safety pro develop character? I would suggest to you that it is about their taking a leadership involvement in using these common business competency tools and in so doing developing a safety culture that goes beyond glasses and gloves. It works for your production counterparts; it can work for you as well.

The Doc

Sudden Impact: Preparing to handle the inevitable difficulties

2011-05-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Modern safety and management theory don’t always make it into the every-day real world. Theories are great, but applying them is another story. And carrying out everything you’ve learned while your back is against the wall — during the heat of a crisis — can be especially challenging.

With more than two decades of improving management styles and the development of bottom-up management and more participative forms of leadership, we’re still seeing old-school autocratic managers lay down the law. Too often, they’re responding too quickly. It’s as if they’re reacting for the sake of … um, reacting. It’s as if 20-years of proven best practices are being forgotten.

How can you prevent “reflex management”? The best answer is preparation. Like the quarterback, it only makes sense to continuously think through all the incident scenarios and try to anticipate the many factors that could ripple downstream. It’s imperative that managers know how to quickly respond to whatever safety emergency they face. One wrong response — retribution or other hasty disciplinary measure, for example — can have a devastating effect on not only the morale, but could also erode all the progress you might have made up to that point.

How do safety managers and supervisors prepare for the worst? By sticking with the rules of accountability and protocol that help identify the event’s root causes. Beyond that, there is also a set of seven practical factors to address well before we’re in reaction mode.

1. Establish and define boundaries and then work diligently to stay inside them (e.g., should you manage case rate by the month, or should you apply the government standards (i.e., a 12-month rolling average)?) How thorough is the incident investigation process and at what point does upper management get involved? And if disciplinary consequences are necessary, make sure they are clear, defined, and fair.

2. What outside forces (union, government agencies, etc.) are required to review the scenarios that warrant disciplinary measures? How are differences going to be communicated and resolved? Do you know the rules of engagement when it’s necessary to escalate unresolved disputes?
3. It’s essential to have a clear understanding of the weaknesses in your safety processes, procedures and culture. If you’re a safety manager, it’s your job. At any given time, you should have a prioritized list that’s part of a continuous improvement plan. Regardless of how much support you get from upper management, it’s your function to continue to push forward and demonstrate both why (and which) specific resources are essential for the welfare of people and the company.

4. Make your relationship with a mentor manager a priority. This is your go-to point person to lessen the probability of having the trap door being swung out from underneath you when a crisis manager makes a “sudden impact” decision.

5. Be prepared for the intrusive autocrat by knowing where the line in the sand is; explain to safety committee team members what is and isn’t a “non-negotiable” issue so everyone’s clear about the rules of engagement. This critical communication helps to improve needed awareness and to lessen the reaction if a serious incident occurs.

6. How are you going to get the necessary information out of your front-line managers? Be quick; procrastination will only increase the chance of the “sudden impact” negative ripple effect.

7. When a serious event occurs and a rogue decision has been made by another manager, your role is to stay the course: continue to be an effective manager, present your concerns to upper management, and protect and support your employees through clarity, decisiveness, and your ability to listen.

A crisis demands a good leader. And although a good manager is not always liked by everyone, your consistency and fairness will always be respected and remembered. Be willing to admit when you don’t have all the answers, while working behind the scenes to get them. Finally, don’t wait until you’re on your heels. Prepare yourself now. Define rules, know them, and stick to them. Less stress — and a more satisfying safety management career — will be the result.

The Doc

Climate vs. Culture: Developing a permanent, excellent safety culture

2011-05-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Most organizations struggle with the dynamic of Climate vs. Culture in safety. To better understand this active issue in our work force – and our away from work reality – what is Climate? And what is Culture?

First a look at Culture – it is like the underlying forceful river that keeps rolling along day in and day out. Changing the direction of this strong guiding reality of an organization is very difficult. After all, we are trying to attack years and years of “We’ve always done it this way.” This river is made up of the ideas, beliefs and attitudes of your people that are firmly entrenched. All these combine into solid immoveable “norms” that individually make up the Culture.

Climate is more like “flavor of the month” sand castles that don’t stand a chance against the mighty Culture River. New Climate that comes in with new employees is quickly washed away by peer pressure. New ideas, beliefs and attitudes (both good and bad) are erased by the local “norm” that resists change.

Do people resist change? The answer is “no”…….that is as long as someone else other than “yours truly” has to change! So a better answer is individuals and groups and organizations all have their own Cultures – and they all greatly resist change.

Culture(S)? Many Cultures exist in the body – safety, production, quality, camaraderie, etc.

How do we go about changing the mighty Culture River? The sand of “flavors of the month” have little or no permanence. Rock solid principles, with strength of character, combined with commitment to long term engagement are absolute musts when it comes to Culture change. The leadership that desires to deliver Culture change must be committed to long term “Authentic Involvement.” This needs to be an involvement that engages personnel at all levels of the organization in what is viewed as (believed to be) a worthwhile effort to an agreed upon goal.

How does leadership determine what the shared needs, goals and visions are for their organization? One way is for upper management to huddle together, discuss, decide and issue a decision (edict). This short term approach that does not involve the vast majority of the employees is doomed to long term failure. Authentic Involvement requires participation from all levels of the group in question if the desired Culture change is to occur (and not be swept away as another ineffective management dictated flavor of the month).

In the safety world there are many kinds of data available to help solidify agreement across your extended family of employees. The obvious deal with “downstream indicators” or the injury, incident and near miss items we have seen so often, for so long. This reactive approach is not enough to launch a lasting Culture change. The downstream data just does not provide a clue as to what is wrong with the Culture or how to attack the malaise that exists. In conjunction with downstream data that indicates a need to change (improve) there needs to be material on what and where the Culture issues exist.

We need to find out what is going on “between the ears” of our people who are generating the downstream incident data. A good way to do this is by having your organization take a valid safety Culture survey. The best I have seen to date is the survey developed by Dr. Dan Petersen and Dr. Chuck Bailey. In this survey all levels of the organization give their truth on questions that have been statistically validated to make a difference in downstream safety performance. In turn, the questions on this survey “map” to fundamental safety processes that likewise are proven to make a difference in downstream safety performance across all of your organization.

This viable information about the state of the safety Culture is then provided to continuous improvement teams. The teams are trained in how to solve culture issues using a series of non-mathematical tools that assist in problem resolution. To ensure “Authentic Involvement,” all teams have a cross section of employees from various levels of the organization. Team members decide which survey questions and processes to tackle. They then engage in a systematic approach to problem resolution. The team functions along the lines of those that have been proven to be effective by similar teams involved with quality, production and customer service issues.

Why does such an approach work to achieve the difficult task of changing the mighty safety Culture River? There are a number of reasons. And these all boil down to: all people from all levels of the organization being actively involved in:

• Determining what the real underlying Culture issues are via the safety perception survey

• Deciding what Culture issues to work on

• Resolving the agreed upon issues

• Training others in the solutions to these issues

• Auditing the results of the team developed solutions

And in the end, continually deciding on what to do next as they engage in a relentless pursuit of a zero incident safety culture with a rock solid approach that is able to overcome the mighty safety Culture River that does, and will, resist change

The Doc

Authentic Involvement, Dan Petersen, NSC Press, 2001, ISBN 0-87912-232-3

The Seven Unforgiveable Sins: What kind of discipline is appropriate?

2011-05-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Discipline: What does this word mean to you? To some it brings up memories of punishment; a time of unpleasant and severe consequences for some action, not necessarily based on guilt or severity of the supposed offense. To others the word speaks of personal responsibility, i.e., self discipline; the personal value of doing a job or acting or even dressing appropriately.

What part does DA (Disciplinary Action) have in your organization? As groups struggle with what their position is on correcting its members for inappropriate activities they sometimes consider the root word of discipline: disciple. What is a disciple? Common definitions include: A student, or one who learns from a master and who spreads the culture of that teacher. In this manner we are all disciples of some kind of culture. How we were brought up is played out in our beliefs and actions throughout our lifetime. We tend to pass on the good of our upbringing and, unfortunately, the bad as well. The environment in which we live and work also influences our position on discipline. As you think of this, consider the various organizations you have worked for and you will “see” the philosophy they had on discipline (punishment) and how it affects your own stand on this matter.

As I have talked to organization leaders throughout the world, most struggle to some extent with the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of discipline as it is to be applied to employees. The range of punishment is wide: from 20-60% discipline for injured employees to less than 0.5% discipline for any and all circumstances that involve employees.

Most organizations believe that 80+% of injuries are the direct result of employee error. One organization did a study and found that only one of there last 200 recordable injuries was not directly attributable to unsafe acts. If it is the employees’ ”fault” that they were involved in an injury, shouldn’t they be punished for their mistakes? On the other hand isn’t the injury itself consequence enough for the action that led to the hurt that was received? What about an example that needs to be made so that others will be more careful and not be personally sloppy enough to do the same thing?

I once discussed this matter of discipline for actions to injured employees with the famous safety pioneer, Dr. Dan Petersen. He gave me a unique perspective: Management often builds traps into the workplace that “catch” the worker and lead directly to injuries. Examples of this include: significant overtime, inappropriate work schedules, ineffective training, poorly designed workstations and the like. In other words, “It’s no wonder some employees get injured considering some of the things we ‘ask’ them to do.” When a thorough multiple root cause analysis is done (including the “5 whys”), in all honesty how do management traps (mine fields) play out in the events and injuries?

What part of discipline is adult correction, i.e., actively trying to disciple our employees, or use a modern improvement approach of coaching? This is a question that is more and more frequently being asked by upper management as they struggle with what it takes to achieve a zero injury workplace. What is the best policy or process to address mistakes that can or do lead to injuries? What is the best way to help reduce the painful injuries that affect employees and the bottom line? If one considers the concepts put forth in the accident pyramid; a result is that most mistakes do not lead to injuries, but rather go unseen and unaddressed for a variety of reasons. There is often an “unnoticed culture” of close calls that goes on and on. If an organization is to get to a zero injury culture, these continuing errors must be given focus and resolution. We can’t allow them to be driven underground through fear of reprisal.

If the overwhelming majority of injuries are caused by human error, what percentage of them should lead to punishment? One of the companies we worked with had executive leadership that wanted never to punish their employees, and yet had site leadership that felt a standard is necessary in order to get a consistent message and consistent execution of policy across the multi-shift, multi-site, multi-country workplace. In an effort to do so, one of their continuous improvement teams decided to propose “the seven unpardonable sins” for which Disciplinary Action will always be given. Here they are:

1. Willfully or deliberately creating or ignoring a safety situation or condition that has the potential to harm any individual on company property.

2. Knowingly falsifying a company document. – Including but not limited to time cards.

3. Fighting on the job. – If you retaliate you’re both gone. Walk away.

4. Possession of alcohol or illegal drugs on company property. Prescription drugs not written to the possessor are considered illegal in this situation.

5. Reporting to work or being detected while on the job under the influence of alcohol or any illegal drug. Prescription drugs not written to the user are considered illegal in this situation.

6. Willful destruction of company property.

7. Insubordination.

As you consider the workplace discipline issue what is your well thought out position?

The Doc

Boundaries: What are your real constraints?

2011-05-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

What are boundaries? A practical definition is “the lines or limits that are not to be crossed,” such as not passing a school bus when its red lights are flashing and one doughnut per week. We all create boundaries, some less rigid than others, but they’re meant to benefit and protect us without getting in the way of what we want to accomplish.

Nearly all of us struggle with effectively engaging others in getting our own desires to become reality. There are lots of things we’d like to accomplish, and in general, they require others’ buy-in. By setting up boundaries and rules, we’re often faced with objections. It’s natural for people to push back on our “reasonable limits/boundaries” in order to “get ‘r done.” We can expect resistance whenever our expectations are perceived to inhibit others’ actions and wants. Yet some limits are needed. To help overcome this normal human behavior, it is necessary to have open, candid communication on boundaries, expectations, and common goals.

To illustrate this concept, I’m reminded of the boundaries that were once diagramed by a former boss of mine. I knew he meant business because he asked that I close the door before taking a seat in his office. He sketched the following on a white board:

He carefully (and with some intensity) laid out what was bothering him about my work behavior. The four sides to the box represented his boundaries; inside of which were his comfort zones; he told me I needed to stay inside them. The four walls included safety, ethics, legality and lost-profit potential. He explained finite limits in each area and that he viewed all of them essential — to the company, to his career and to my role as a manager. As I looked and listened, I could understand his points, even though my boundaries in some cases differed from his. We agreed that I had never crossed any of his boundaries. (Had I done so, the discussion would have been about the end of my career for violating his rules of engagement.) Instead, he explained what was bothering him: I was operating at (or beyond) the edge of his comfort (buffer) zone.

Although I didn’t cross the lines, his personal reality was that he had a buffer or comfort zone that I was operating beyond. In truth, I needed to give him a “mental comfort zone” that wouldn’t keep him awake at night or worrying about mishaps that might jeopardize the success of the business, have legal implications, or even cause embarrassment.

From a rational management standpoint, buffer zones are a boss’ friend. They allow some leeway for those subordinates of us who can operate too close to the edge. On the other hand, there are bosses who keep too tight of a leash; they’re never fully comfortable with decisions their charges might make. These are the micro-managers of the world. Fortunately, my boss was not one of those.

My boss’ point of view made sense, and in my mind there was much more to the diagram than what he initially drew. I began to see all kinds of different boundary diagrams. Among the obvious ones were things like personal credit card debt or excessive speed. Another intriguing set of boundaries involves the raising of a teenager. Our kids kept pushing the limits until they found out what truth really was. What they were doing was testing both the limits and the buffers of my wife and me. A “no response” from either of us set up a laissez-faire family culture that was potentially dangerous to our children, our family and others.

What do the boundaries have to do with safety management? A prime example is the whole area of OSHA regulations. Here the boundary system appears inverted. Often the bureaucracy doesn’t seem to care what we do as long as we put a check in the “regs” box. This is not the type of culture that leads to high performance. A healthy safety culture needs more than a “check in the box mentality.” Standards & Regulations are only part of the equation.

In conclusion, I had never thought of my actions as out of the norm. For me, they weren’t. It was just that I was more comfortable than my boss was when it came to operating on the edge. Rather than fight the proverbial City Hall (which never works), I decided to give my boss a buffer in each of his sensitive areas. In the end, there was little difference in what I was doing or how. I was allowed to continue a very similar strategy and tactics, but with a slightly longer time frame to achieve the goals we both needed. Had I not changed to fit the boss’ boundary buffers — his realities — it is doubtful that I could have kept my position much longer.

As I have worked with people and organizations around the globe, dealing with boundary limit realities has proven to be very beneficial. Whether or not he or she realizes it, every boss has a mental boundary and buffer diagram that is not a perfect square. There are some areas in which you have almost total free will, and others that are very well defined. I challenge you to use a reasonable approach to identify the real limits as soon as you can. By doing so, you can extend your personality and passion into near unlimited performance . . . thereby making your life, job and organizational experiences much more rewarding than living in a virtual, unexplored box of mediocrity.

The Doc

Safety Perception Survey beginnings

2011-04-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Survey had its beginnings in the late 1970’s when Dr. Dan Petersen and Dr. Chuck Bailey teamed to study what really made a difference in safety performance. Their research took place in two parts. The first focus was on what “conventional safety wisdom” said made a difference, i.e., “procedural – engineered,” OSHA regulations and the like. This five year effort showed that “The 12 most commonly used criteria in standard safety program audits are poor measures of program effectiveness.”

Another piece of the first study was input from safety professionals on processes and questions that they thought would make a difference in observable safety performance. As a part of this discovery effort approximately 1500 potential survey questions were distilled down to 73 questions which the study showed to have “a statistically significant response.” The validation approach compared question responses from a poor safety record (high injury rate) organization to those of a good safety record organization. All questions that had no significant statistical difference in response between these two very different safety record organizations were eliminated from the survey. These validated questions were then mapped to 20 safety processes that when existent in a safety culture should consistently give observably better worker safe practices. These observably relevant questions and their 20 “management systems” were then retested in a second phase of the nine year study.

After reviewing the data from the first study a second multi-year “verification study” focused on positive reinforcement of correct safety activities and “the quality of the 20 management systems which have an effect on human behavior relating to safety.” They found that “The most successful safety programs are those which recognize and deal effectively with employee and supervisor behavior and attitudes which affect safety.”

Additionally, the research team began to engage in problem solving efforts around the weak scoring processes that the survey showed to exist. In this phase of the study, question responses from another set of good and poor safety record organizations were once again compared to confirm the validity of high question scores to good safety performance (low injury rate). The end result was a strong statistically valid correlation between these 20 high scoring processes, improvement efforts to low scoring processes, training of supervisors in these improved safety management systems and consequently the percent of observable safe worker behaviors and subsequent lower injury rates. And thus the conclusion that when present at higher percentages, these questions and the associated processes they map to, were statistically valid indicators of the “human factor” and associated worker activities and therefore a culture of better safety performance (lower injury rates). Or as their study conclusions stated “Application of 20 category survey technique developed by this study provides a reliable measure of safety program effectiveness.”
The Doc

Confronting the Brutal Facts: Obstacles to safety excellence

2011-04-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Author and Professor John Kotter wrote an intriguing book on “Leading Change.” In this book, Dr. Kotter presents eight common obstacles that keep organizations from achieving excellence and then discusses what to do to overcome these barriers. But this is a management science book, what relevance can it have to industrial safety? The more I look into achieving global safety culture supremacy, the more I am convinced that excellent business approaches provide us a far better road map than we get from “the usual suspects.” Those “usual suspects” are government regulations and compliance audits (level one tools) and observation programs (level two). There is a whole other world out there that can help our profession in achieving performance excellence. Sadly any business approach to improvement has been neglected for far too long by the majority of our profession. Our safety pros need to delve into and utilize some of the same education and business tools that our promotable production culture counterparts live with on a day-to-day basis. With this in mind here are four of Dr. Kotter’s eight obstacles to achieving excellence:

• What is required to overcome the complacency that so often defeats safety improvement and safety careers?
• Where is the guiding coalition (upper management active participation) that is needed to lead safety excellence initiatives?

• What about the people and physical obstacles that keep derailing the safety initiatives?

• How often does the safety pro deliver the vision, communicate it effectively and generate a safety culture of frequent small wins?

A focus on glasses, gloves and observation check sheets just can’t deliver the kind of performance needed to overcome these common business culture obstacles. As we look to the next 100 years of safety culture improvement we will have to go beyond “the usual suspects” and begin utilizing some of the excellent readily available business practices to help us deliver a zero incident safety culture, both locally and globally.
The brutal facts are that we have plateaued in safety performance with the current decades old safety approaches that have stagnated our safety cultures. Take a look at what Dr. Kotter has to say, confront your organization’s brutal facts and start using modern culture excellence approaches that go beyond the basics that have stalled our safety initiatives.
The Doc

Ruts: Improving our life

2011-04-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Medical studies have shown that even though people who have had heart-bypass surgery are told that they must change their lifestyle or die, about 90% do not change. Typically two years after surgery the patients haven’t altered their lifestyle. It seems that most would rather die than change.

You know this personal stubbornness lives in other parts of our lives as well. And week after week we are given messages that reinforce what is the correct path for us to take:

• Substance and food warnings

• Governmental regulations

• Educational programming

• Personal interaction principles

• Safety standards

And I, for one, tend to stay in my own comfort zone with my “personal, private, low pressure, portable” ideas, beliefs and attitudes.

On occasion, do you feel a twinge to:

• Make a donation to a struggling organization, friend, or family

• Follow the rules

• Caringly reach out to help someone

• Slow down and live a more cautious lifestyle
How do I (you) get out of personal ruts and on to the track that we really should follow?
Think about it. Is there a twinge that you should take on as a personal challenge to get out of your ruts? Why not pick one twinge to work on until it becomes a habit you are happy to live with. I have read that it takes about 21 consecutive days of doing a new task for it to become a habit.
My personal twinge, after breaking my ankle while skiing, deals with slowing down and living a more cautious and caring lifestyle.
Do you have such a twinge? Do you have one that you would like to have? What is it? What should you do about this?
The Doc

Round Trip: Sustaining safety culture excellence

2011-04-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

I began to get deeply involved in helping organizations achieve safety culture excellence back in the 1980s. At that point in my career, I was in charge of manufacturing engineering for a Fortune 20 company. One of the facilities experienced a fatality which in turn led to a serious corporate wide safety initiative. Within a week of the tragedy, I was assigned responsibility for the safety of about 10,000 manufacturing employees who worked at 40 plants scattered across America. The organization ran an average recordable rate in the 20’s and had no real safety focus. Production was king as measured by cost, quality and customer service upstream indicators.

After some research we hired a famous safety consultant, Dr. Dan Petersen. For three years Dan and our team lived on the road developing a safety culture excellence model that quickly delivered a corporate wide average recordable rate of about 1.2. We were all very happy with a safety accountability culture that worked well across the entire nation.
And then everyone went back to their “normal day job.” After all, we were convinced we had achieved “mission accomplished” and I left the company for other, greener pastures, so to speak. Some years later, after presenting the success story at a safety conference, the current safety manager for the organization stopped me to discuss his current reality. It turns out that five years after we all celebrated how good we were, the whole organization was back at a 20 recordable rate. The new safety culture stuck for a short while after the resources were reallocated to the ever dominant production culture and then collapsed.
My lesson from this: you must never declare victory. The relentless pursuit of zero has to be relentless. If we back off, the second law of thermodynamics effect seems to take over and the whole system degrades. And you know this is exactly what our production culture counterparts have learned. We all must keep the push for excellence alive. To quote Yoda; “There is no try, only do.” We must stay engaged.
The Doc

Choices: Where to focus our efforts

2011-03-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have received a lot of good advice in my life. Near the top of the list is “Life is not made by the dreams that you dream, but by the choices you make.” Your life today is the sum of all the choices you have made up to this point.
We need to embrace the things that are excellent. In any given situation we have a whole continuum of choices – ranging from really rotten choices, to the mediocrity of average, to good and then those that are truly excellent. How can we move across this continuum past our natural impulses all the way to excellent choices?
Often it’s challenging to make the most excellent choice, especially when there aren’t many others joining us. Sometimes the process of making the right choices may feel as if our own desires and freedoms have been suppressed. However, in our personal life choices that are focused on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control seem awfully good standards for which to aim.
And in the work world I like sincerity, honesty, engagement, process excellence, integrity, self control, humility, respect for others and the energetic work needed to accomplish what we are paid to do.
What would you like to add to this list to make it personal for you?
The Doc

Crutches: Realities of injured employees

2011-03-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

What do crutches bring to your mind? I remember things like old jokes about “rubber crutches” or some dated cartoons showing old guys racing on crutches. Recently my perspective has changed a lot! Right after posting the blog article “Crotch Rocket” which deals with personal risk assessment, I slipped while skiing, dislocated an ankle and broke some leg bones. The old jokes just didn’t seem to be funny anymore. As I have had to live and travel while on crutches, I have discovered things like transportation security agents’ need to pay closer attention to anyone with metal parts. Then there are the realities of the collateral affects of pain meds. Or how about the surprising care shown by all kinds of people who will try and help those who are in need? Ahh, what a pleasant surprise!

These significant personal lifestyle changes caused me to consider in greater depth the fateful realities of our injured employees. They get to live with the pain, the inconveniences, the medication side effects, and the family and acquaintance relationship realities that just shouldn’t have happened.
We will all continue to be exposed to tribulations in the current world in which we live. And with this in mind, what are the risks in our workplaces and lifestyles which we need to take a determined leadership role in delivering permanent solutions?
The Doc

Fork Your Own Broncs – Taking Responsibility for the Problems Facing You

2011-03-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

Both the past and the current culture of living on a farm or a ranch is that of self sufficiency.If your horse is hungry, no one else is there to feed it.You have to fork (feed hay to) your own broncs (broncos or horses).

For many years I earned a living helping organizations escape bankruptcy and become profitable. Obviously improving safety was an important part of the turn around necessities. These sick companies continually looked for someone else to solve the problems they had created. They were trying to live in a world of “The government should do... The union should… the management should…. The engineers should…This never worked.

The “Theys” of the world had to become the “us” that had the problem. We had to learn to fork our own broncs. To paraphrase Michael Topf; “You shall not ‘should on’ anyone.” The expression I use in these circumstances is; “Count on them for absolutely nothing.” In other words, what can we do within our own resource limits to solve the problems we have?

Instead of looking for excuses that keep us from solving problems, we need to list the barriers we face and begin breaking down those barriers with the resources we can control. And from a safety profession perspective I have learned that I can count on the many and various OSHA organizations for ‘absolutely nothing.’

In troubled organizations, once we began the process of taking responsibility for our own actions we could begin solving our own problems. To achieve this kind of culture requires a team approach that gets the organization using all its personnel resources. The Lone Ranger approach does not work. We need a team of dedicated people, with diverse talents, relentlessly tackling the problems that face us. And it takes time to build the team, to learn the skills, to solve the next wave of problems, to operate ‘Autogenously’ (an engineering term for self sustaining fire). Just like on the farm, it takes time to learn how to fork our own broncs and all the other activities that are necessary to survive and excel.

What are the safety broncs you need to start forking yourself and not waiting for others to do so?

The Doc

Credit: Image 1

Make My Day – What challenges you

2011-03-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

On occasion my brother-in-law shows up with some dated movies he would like to watch with us. Clint Eastwood and John Wayne are some of his favorite actors to watch. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard Dirty Harry say “Make my day!”

Well of course this has some kind of safety implication.What Dirty Harry is really doing is challenging his counterpart to give him an assignment that utilizes his unique talents to solve a problem his counterpart is struggling with. Now I bet you never thought of this in that way, did you?

My challenge to you all is to go out and find those issues in your workplace and its culture that can “make your day!” What does your organization have that fits your unique talents and training and would benefit from your engagement? Your involvement and leadership in these issues will not only make your day personally, but will also make for many more safe days for your organization and its people.

The Doc

Credit: Image 1

A Stitch in Time – Planning ahead in Safety

2011-02-28T10:01:00.000-08:00

Remember that old saying “A stitch in time saves nine?”Often organizations in need of improvement have put off fixing things for so long, that what would have required a band-aide had they paid attention earlier, now requires major surgery. It seems their culture often deals more with denial of the present state needs and focuses instead on the expedient. That is until the little things pile up and become a full on emergency. This is a leadership issue. It can exist at every level of the organization, and therefore needs to be solved at every level of the organization.

The solution starts with the leader in charge of the problem at hand. I remember working with a Captain of a large ship repair facility. He was under strict orders to paint a huge vessel and get it out to the fleet NOW! During the process the manned snorkel equipment used to paint the ship suddenly took a five foot drop that resulted in no injuries, but definitely frightened the painter out on the end of the boom. The Captain was under significant personal and career stress to paint the ship and release it to the fleet. Instead of taking an expedient approach, he began a thorough investigation that got to root cause before he resumed the mission critical task demanded by the Admirals to whom he reported.

He did the stitch in time before major surgery was required.

Every day, every organization has things that need improvement. As I work in the field, I make a point of asking those at the workforce and their leaders what is it that needs attention? I then make a point of following up to see that this is taken care of to both their and my satisfaction before major surgery becomes a necessity. At first the list is very long, but as attention to small stitches and major surgeries takes place the culture changes from one of firefighting to a daily accountability for the attention to details that keep us all out of the hospital.

Is it time to begin changing your culture to one that focuses on “a stitch in time?”

The Doc

Credit: Image 1

Superfluous or Super Important? Safety and senior management

2011-02-21T09:59:00.000-08:00

One of the universal questions in safety seems to be; “What role does upper management need to play?” These highly skilled people are busy helping their organizations succeed. There is seldom time for the addition of more tasks to dilute their efforts on “the really important things.” Like most of us, upper management personnel typically work inside their comfort zones of skill, passion and knowledge. Let’s face it, very few of them know much about what it takes to run a zero error (injury) safety culture. This topic is not taught in colleges and universities. OSHA, the elephant in the room, is only focused on conditions and regulations. Achieving safety cultural excellence is seldom more than a big ‘huh?’ when it comes to the top dogs in a typical organization.

A great pioneer of safety culture, Dr. Dan Petersen, spent 50+ years studying how to achieve safety culture excellence. One of his findings was ‘the six criteria of safety excellence.’ Number one in his list of six is “visible upper management commitment to safety.” Moving down one level, Dan’s second criteria is “active middle management involvement in safety.” This is partially explained by the fact that accountability for actions necessary for excellence flows up from the workforce where injuries and dangers are most predominant. Add to this the fact that upper management support is necessary if accountabilities are to be delivered on a regular basis. I guess this leads into one of Dan’s other words of wisdom-- “What gets measured is what gets done!”

But what data does management typically have with respect to safety? They get injury statistics; downstream indicators based on things they don’t want to have happen. This is radically different from the upstream indicators they get from other core functions. And what do downstream safety indicators tell them to do personally?

Nothing. There are no upper management accountabilities that go with the safety indicators which don’t give a hint as to cause or solution to the tragedies that are contained in injury statistics. Just like other core functions, we must manage by activities. These activities must involve accountabilities throughout the organization that have a positive effect at the workforce where quality, productivity and safety are first delivered. In turn, teams with salaried and hourly employee input are required to get these accountabilities correct. In essence the executives end up being responsible for delivering a certain quantity of quality value added activities in a timely matter as designed by the local subject matter experts (SME) who are doing the work.

Management’s part in achieving safety excellence then becomes an active, visible, supportive participation in developing and nurturing “a culture that just does not tolerate injuries.” Put all this together and two major factors of the problem with getting these highly talented upper managers to engage is that “they don’t know what they don’t know” and they seldom carve out any time to get the education and knowledge necessary to get themselves passionately engaged in an function in which they are so desperately needed. Once they take the time to gain the knowledge, I have never seen them do other than follow their heart which just naturally does not want anyone to get injured. Once this occurs their organization begins a journey to safety excellence that will not fail.

Engaging upper management in meaningful safety culture training is a need that unlocks the power that delivers the solution to an organization’s safety culture. This training goes way beyond level one regulations and level two observations which is about all that is ever taught to them. And so when I go into a new organization that wants ‘to get to zero’ I insist on a day of highly participative safety cultural excellence training for upper management. Just like the great quality pioneer, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, if the executives won’t carve out the time to learn why and how to get to a zero error culture, I decline the assignment and move on to an organization that can provide executives who will invest a day to find out what they do not know and then do something about it.

It’s not the words, it’s the message lived by the actions of senior management.

The Doc

Practice Makes Perfect – Are we sure we are doing the right things?

2011-02-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

Like many of us, I was brought up with parents who repeated cliché statements they meant as examples for me to follow in becoming a successful adult. As I went out for sports, or worked on homework problem sets, or learned a musical instrument “Practice Makes Perfect!!” was a mantra I often heard. Then one day I met a professional golfer who gave me a very different perspective. Ben related his experiences with amateur golfers who “pounded golf balls at the range day in and day out” with little or no improvement. Why? Because they were practicing the wrong techniques. They needed coaching in perfection, not just the “same ol’ same ol’” so he told me.

This brought to mind a personal teen age lesson of mine after I rolled my father’s automobile one late, rainy night coming home from Tecate, Baja California, Mexico. Indeed I had been practicing a number of the wrong things. Once I got off probation, which included paying for repairs to his vehicle, each time I got the privilege of driving his vehicle Papa told me: “Try and keep it right side up this time son.”

And now as I work with organizations that are trying to develop and live a zero injury safety culture, they too have to address their old practices and processes that just aren’t good enough to deliver zero error performance. As Ben told me: “Perfect practice makes for perfect performance.” Where do you and your organization need to perfect the “good enough” of the old culture that keeps you from getting to great? Indeed “Good is the enemy of great” and we need to perfect what is no longer good enough for the excellence we now need to achieve.

The Doc

Death: Management Excuses that Kill Safety Performance

2011-02-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have met with quite a number of mangers who had safety as one of their “agenda items.” Some were serious about making improvements, but unfortunately most were complacent about the safety performance of the organization for which they had responsibility. Unless there was a “trigger event” that could not be ignored. Then they typically searched for someone to punish before slipping back to a state of BAU (Business As Usual). Without facing a trigger event here is a partial list of the “Usual Suspects” (Excuses) I have heard:

• We don’t have time to work on these minor issues, we have higher priorities

• People get injured

• It’s not my job

• Diagnostic surveys and subsequent actions cost too much money

• I don’t like/trust consultants

• It will never work for us

• I get paid for ….. not for safety

• We didn’t use to have these problems

• No matter what we do the government regulators will fine us anyway

• We’ve never tried this approach before

• Talk to HR, safety reports to them

• It’s easier to demand and control than to try and involve others in the process

• The cost of injuries is inconsequential

I imagine many of you have heard some or all of these excuses to justify the status quo. So what is to be done with this kind of organization leadership?

I often consider “the voice of sarcasm” which goes something like, “When the IQ reaches 50, I suggest you sell.”

“So your organization follows the classic model of insanity when it comes to safety?”

However, I find that this is not really effective, so I then make two internal comments before leaving: “Don’t bother to cast your pearls before swine.” “Without a guiding coalition any significant change initiative does not occur. I guess we will have to wait for a significant change in management.” And these unspoken comments are then followed by my verbal closure: “If there comes a time you would like to work seriously on improving safety, please contact us. We’d like to help you in this effort.”

Mentally it hurts, but sometimes you just have to shake your head and walk away. There is no value added change that comes from expending your own scarce personal resources in “wrestling with pigs.”

The Doc

Crotch Rocket – My personal risk assessment

2011-01-31T07:15:00.000-08:00

What is it that gets your adrenaline flowing? I think we all have something we do that “turns us on.” For some it is low risk; my wife loves to garden, and will even go out in the winter to make sure the next season’s perennials have the best chance. For others the ‘turn on’ has a much higher personal risk. From a profession viewpoint NASCAR drivers and football quarterbacks come to mind.

But what about you and me, “the average Joe” who holds down a job and still looks for something beyond the day to day. In this arena friends who consistently drive high horsepower motorcycles (or sports cars) have many more opportunities for personal disaster than the gardeners of the world. From personal experience, those who frequently ride bicycles or jog on public roads may not get the adrenaline rush, but do qualify for consistently engaging in hazardous hobbies.

Remember “The Big Five” article a while back? How do your off the job activities with high risk assessments come into play with those things that are most important to you? As you answer this question keep in mind that injury statistics consistently point to off the job activities as being the leading cause of injuries and fatalities.

As safety pros what are we doing to reduce our off the job risks, those of our family members, and those of our employees? As with on the job safety culture, the personal examples we demonstrate to others greatly affect their personal actions. Is it time for you to do a personal off the job risk assessment and then professionally do something positive about it? It will greatly affect your Big 5 and that of others.

The Doc

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Developing organizational excellence

2011-01-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

I have been engaged with many organizations, in many industries, in many cultures, in many countries, with many different kinds of people. I guess you could say I have lived in the world’s organizational scatter diagram. There have been the good, the bad and the ugly to quote an old Clint Eastwood movie. Every once in a while there has been one where everything and everyone has aligned to deliver true excellence.

Digging a little deeper and analyzing the scatter diagram there have also been a number of findings that stick out about these great performers. One of the “Aha moments” discovered as a part of many long airline flight navel gazing sessions is that “A company is only really the people.” There are a couple of corollaries to this; the first being “The best processes with the wrong people equals disaster.” And yet when faced with a struggling organization, disappointing results and frequent errors many leaders insist on writing more procedures and policies that spell out what must be done to cover the many mistakes that just keep on occurring. The mountain of paperwork grows and the problems continue.

Enter the second corollary; “Weak processes with the best people equals success.” Our chances at success truly depend on the people we employee. And here comes the third corollary, a quote from Walter Meisner who developed Citi Bank into a world financial power; “If you have the wrong person in the right job no matter how hard you manage them they will fail. Conversely if you have the right person in the right job no matter how poorly you manage them they will succeed.”

A key to success then becomes hiring and retaining the right people for the jobs at hand and then supporting and empowering them to do the very best they can. Sure they will undoubtedly launch some procedures to follow, but that’s secondary to developing a successful organization. Whether it is in safety or any other function it is all about the people.

The Doc

Aaarrrrgggghhhh!!!! Emergency Preparedness

2011-01-17T09:40:00.000-08:00

A thorough overall risk assessment will uncover potential workplace emergencies. Responses to those scenarios must be well thought and appropriate. Of course there is also a need for abatement plans to lessen the possibility of the disaster. All this is a basic and legal safety necessity. That being said, over the years I have experienced some real difficulties with emergency preparedness. I have noticed the following trends:

Written procedures are often lacking. Organizations bring together a group of field people and practice a scenario, but don’t document it. The crew may well practice their approach, but over time tribal practices degrade this experience. Problems arise when there is no firm reference or source document that establishes clear cut procedures. Without a reviewable document training and improvement are impossible.

Procedures are not created by personnel who will practice them in the event of an emergency, instead written by technical staff. This creates a document that is cumbersome or ineffective in the real world of chaos that is frequently a part of these “Ah Sh*t!!” events.

Procedures are blindly followed and not updated to take into account the changes that always occur over time.

Practices are neglected or only given cursory attention. After all when we do real practice actual potential disasters they truly disrupt our normal productivity.

If any of the shortfalls listed above is a part of your emergency (lack of) preparedness, and if you are not adequately prepared when sh*t happens, don’t expect to be able to execute procedures correctly in the face of a true disaster.

When there is no time to make up for the false sense of security we counted on, were we really prepared? Even Superman needs clothes. Emergency preparedness is a very important part of safety excellence. Do it well.

-The Doc

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Video: Avista Utilities

Leading Vs. Lagging Indicators

2011-01-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

LEADING vs. LAGGING INDICATORS....I would like to hear from others on what Safety Indicators their organizations use to measure their Safety Performance. My company currently uses Lagging Indicators (i.e., Incident Rate, WC per Hour, etc.) - to assess and measure its Safety Performance - which is very good. But we currently are hiring field personnel and expanding what we do - therefore are measures will not predict our future risk exposure. I would like to hear from others on what type of Leading Safety Indicators that they use - such as Near Miss Severity, Employee Safety Participation, etc. Also please comment on what you think is the best Leading Indicator to measure and why.

Steve,
Downstream results aren’t dependable in sustaining a proactive approach to safety culture excellence. Using injury statistics to drive a safety system is just not effective in the long term. To achieve a safe work environment, the employees’ specific tasks and activities that eliminate incidents need to be well defined, trained, measured and recognized. And individuals up and down the total organization need to know these tasks matter to management and their peers. In essence the organization has a safety culture that focuses primarily on the presence of safety (what we want to occur) rather than just reacting to the absence of safety (the incidents).

I recommend a shift of focus to the upstream activities that deliver the downstream results. In other words, focus on activity-based objectives that can be measured and rewarded. This also means your team needs to get together and agree on what to regularly measure and reinforce.

Without measuring the upstream activities, you simply won’t get the downstream results you want. Once you’ve established that the primary focus needs to be on what goes on upstream, the downstream numbers begin to take care of themselves. That is, assuming you have the right person at the right job. A worker can do all the right activities, but perform them poorly because of the role s/he is in. The lesson here is to match the right worker to the right job and hold them accountable for their activities that deliver the results you want.

Discipline: Handling People Who Won't Follow the Rules

2011-01-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm writing an article on handling people who won't follow the rules, procedures, policies etc and seek input and insight. The article will cover the role of discipline, but from this august group I hope for more sophistication than "fire them". -Norman

Enforcement...does that mean discipline? Wait…what is discipline? As I was growing up and in need of firm guidance, discipline was often kicked off when my papa told me “You’re in a heap a’ trouble, Boy.” In my adult years, when I have been trained and am responsible for my own actions, discipline is mostly in accordance with the dictionary definition; “Training that develops self control.” So for the most part work place discipline becomes adult correction, and that means personal coaching/engagement, not punitive enforcement.

I have worked in organizations with leadership that always went to Disciplinary Action (DA) as the first approach when something went wrong. During those dark years I learned that punishment seldom worked effectively. A thorough investigation that focused on discovering and resolving root cause issues around the incident often showed the organization to have a significant part in the causes. The overwhelming percentage of times our processes were weak, and/or our culture reinforced taking dangerous shortcuts in order to “feed the production dragon.” I can remember a circumstance where punishment was demanded until I stood firm that if we gave the employee time off without pay we would have to do so for his supervisor and the superintendent. It was obvious they knew that what was going on in the background was wrong and had been so for a long time.

I believe there are four steps in the process it takes for employees to consistently do the job right:

-Define what must occur to get the job done correctly and safely. Not a soft/sloppy definition, but a robust, well thought out, error proofed procedure with appropriate actions and accountabilities

-Train the employees and supervision how to do the tasks safely and correctly, with no short cuts

-Measure the employees performance in doing the tasks/process correctly and safely

- Recognition or feedback is provided to the employee on their performance, and appropriate corrections made if need be.

When an incident occurs, see if this model has been followed. Usually there are one or more flaws in these four fundamental steps that have directly, or indirectly, led to the mistake. Correct the process with the employees and their leadership and the need for punitive discipline is seldom necessary.

But what about “Cavemen” (Citizens Against Virtually Everything)? I have found that there are hard core cases that exist in some organizations. Most organizations have a multi-step process of progressive discipline to address these problem children (who are usually less than 1% of the total population). My experience is that this process, too, is neither robust in how to go about separating impossible employees, nor is it followed correctly. If you have employees who willfully violate important and correct processes you must take progressive action to resolve the cancer they cause.

In this case I use a “three T model” to guide my decisions. Employees who consistently do the wrong thing either need:

-Training to do the job correctly

-Transferring to another position where their talents match the job requirements

-Termination if you can’t train them to do the job, or find one they can do, it is time to “get them off the bus” and send them on to some other organization

The Doc

How to have an effective safety commitee

2011-01-03T15:46:00.000-08:00

Monthly Safety Committees - What makes them effective? How do you measure? How do we ensure it is a benefit to are management system? I would like to know successes and failures other people have had.

Louis,
As with many others involved with safety, for years I have struggled with ineffective safety meetings. Untold hours are spent by valuable people resources with little or no perceptible value added results. As we began involving Continuous Improvement (CI) safety teams to fix the many broken parts of a safety culture, safety meetings were high on everyone’s ‘needs to be fixed’ list. The result of these CI efforts typically has a well defined ‘POP statement.’ What is the Purpose of the safety meeting; What are the measureable, value added Outcomes of a safety committee; What is the Process by which these Outcomes will be achieved. Here is an example of an organization’s POP statement for safety committees:

Purpose: Develop safety accountabilities for all levels of our organization that will help us eliminate injuries.

Outcomes: Accountabilities that make a difference in safety for every job in the facility; a tracking system to follow accomplishment of these accountabilities; a reward system that reinforces these activities; reduced injury frequency as a result of doing this work well.

Process: How will we accomplish our purpose and outcomes?

Typically what follows is a description of how the team will work. Often this is to split up into small problem-solving teams that include ’volunteers’ to accomplish small tasks. Why volunteers? When people get to place themselves in performance zones where they are comfortable, they are much more likely to succeed. Conversely, quick delegation can possibly lead to having the wrong people on the wrong task. If there aren’t enough volunteers to do all the work in the time allotted, time or resources (or both) might need to be increased. This is not a crisis team; it is an improvement team that works the Continuous Improvement process. If no one wants to work on the needed tasks, then either the leader does them, or other people are asked, or the task goes undone until a later time when people, resources and time are available.

An entire safety program was developed from scratch in less than nine months using this effective safety meeting process. Hourly and salaried improvement team members applied these guidelines for all safety processes. The resultant safety system led to a reduction of serious injuries by more than 80% in its first two years.

Effective safety meetings engage your people in developing solutions to the issues they believe are the current problems keeping the organization from achieving a zero incident safety culture. This is the process that will energize your safety meetings and deliver excellence through active participation of your people. No more boring, ineffective coffee and donut safety meetings!

Retake-Learnings from past mistakes

2010-12-27T08:04:00.000-08:00

There are many times in life when we wish we could have a retake. Whether because of mistakes we have made in facial expressions, voice inflexions, words, or deeds- we wish we could start over. We wish we could take back all that we messed up that has affected ourselves and others.

Over the years I have found that for many of these personal mistakes I get a chance to try again when a similar circumstance occurs. The question then is, have we learned from our mistakes? Have we learned our lesson, or have our inappropriate behaviors/responses become such a part of us that we head back down our own personal road to destruction?

Those questions can be asked about safety as well. Are we just repeating the same mistakes?

Do we get trapped in the accident reaction cycle, or do we strive to learn from and improve safety culture based on our past?

The choice is ours.

The Doc

Image credit 1: http://www.drewmaw.com 2: http://freelancefolder.com/learn-from-freelance-mistakes/

The Snake’s Tail- Permanent problem solutions

2010-12-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

In one of my other career lives, I assumed responsibility for an injection molding business that was plagued with poor quality, late deliveries, deceitful rumor mongering and, of course, the resultant threat of bankruptcy. If you have been a somewhat regular reader of these short blog articles it is likely you are thinking there is about to be a story that has something about forming Continuous Improvement teams. Yes, and yet that is not the point of this vignette.

The injection molding reality is replete with a myriad of machine and technology variables. Of course there were also people variables that in combination delivered a really murky pit of despair. The relentless pressure to make more parts, sooner, with less labor had the previous administration following an approach of “good enough” and not a culture of excellence. “Just get it out the door now!” seemed to be what was done every day in every way. In turn, that led to the daily crud with a work force whose morale was in the same pit of despair. One more dynamic, my college student son was a summer intern in the electrical maintenance department. Of course he was watching my actions and would learn whatever lessons were communicated by an organization under my leadership.

The question then: To follow the current culture of expedient, or to develop a culture of an unwavering commitment to excellence? The employees were knee deep in snakes and I was an elephant on a tight rope (a big target in a precarious situation that couldn’t be missed by those who decided to take shots at me. Fortunately this elephant also comes with a thick skin). Those of you who are somewhat regular readers of these short blog articles might expect that it is time for a ‘My papa once done told me,’ so here it is: “Son don’t ever cut an inch off a snake’s tail. It just pisses them off. Go for the head!”

Our Continuous Improvement teams became committed to “killing the snakes” with which they had been living forever. They developed Purpose, Outcomes, Process (POP) statements that were focused on taking no prisoners, all problems must be solved by them. Their Action Item Matrices (AIM) listed every problem they could think of with respect to the snake (problem) at hand. At the end of each snake killing initiative, the team held a celebration lunch and handed out small (dead) plastic snakes in recognition of their successful “going for the head” efforts.

Soon the whole business turned around and my son learned a valuable lesson that ‘his papa once done told him’ in both words and actions. Got snakes? Go for the head!

The Doc

Kilimanjaro- The Role of New Technologies for Solving Difficult Issues

2010-12-13T07:31:00.000-08:00

Kilimanjaro is a very large mountain (about 19,000 feet) near the equator of Africa. In the local language Kilimanjaro translates to ‘difficult mountain.’ In the 1800s it was a very difficult mountain to climb. The modern technology for mountain climbing was not invented and very few people were fit enough to be able to make the climb. However, in our century about 200 people begin the trek to the top of Kilimanjaro each day and there is even an annual round trip marathon run to the top of Kilimanjaro. Areas of the mountain which were not climbable 100 years ago are now a normal venue for the climbers with newer technology tools, equipment and a culture of fitness.

In today’s workplace we too have some difficult safety culture mountains which need to be climbed that weren’t even attempted 50 years ago. The old technology of regulations, observations and authoritarian management style will only take us part way up the mountain of a zero injury safety culture. They will not take us all the way, nor will they solve certain reality areas that require something beyond glasses and gloves and punitive discipline. The whole new world of human culture in a very diverse workplace requires new, more advanced safety technologies.

What newer tools and technologies are available for our current difficult safety mountain challenges?

A good diagnostic of your existing safety culture to determine what terrain needs to be conquered
A series of joint management-employee teams to address the culture crevasses that exist
A lifestyle of safety accountabilities (fitness) for all which in turn develops a passionate culture of zero injuries and engages people from across your organization.

The end result of the application of these new safety technologies is that all in the team are able to live in and enjoy the benefits of a zero injury safety culture. We now have the means to regularly conquer our current day, more difficult safety mountains and deliver a culture that just doesn’t have injuries.

The Doc

Image 1: Back On My Feet

Poop- A culture that solves hard problems

2010-12-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

In the Middle America fly over country farm belt where I live there is a humorous old story about a farmer and his son who are walking down a dirt road at dusk. The farmer sees a big pile, turns to his son and says; “Looks like poop.” As they get closer he tells his son; “Smells like poop.” He reaches down and sticks a finger in the pile; “Feels like poop.” The farmer puts his finger to his tongue and mutters; “Tastes like poop, sure glad we didn’t step in it!”

It is not all that uncommon for safety pros to be confronted by serious problems that sure look, smell and feel like a pile of poop. However, in our profession that is all about eliminating the possibilities of injury, we can’t walk around (avoid) these stinking realities. We aren’t paid to step into the piles either. Rather, we are to work with our fellow employees and carefully shovel the dangers out of our work and off the job environments.

Safety can be a very satisfying career, and denial or aversion of difficult situations is not a part of who we are.

The Doc

Biggest Threat To Business?

2010-12-03T14:56:00.000-08:00

"Change works best when it's collaborative and interactive"--couldn't have said it better ourselves! Below is an article by best selling author Harvey Mackay . We liked it so much we had to post it!

There’s an old saying that goes: It’s easy to change things. It’s hard to change people.

Resistance to change is perhaps the biggest threat to progress a business can face.

Case in point: In 1972, a young engineer at Texas Instruments named Gary Boone came up with the idea for a full computer on a chip, which we now know as the microprocessor. He got a patent even though he had trouble getting his colleagues interested in his work.

Eventually, Boone made enough noise to get a meeting with the company’s top computer jockey. Boone explained his idea for a computer on a chip to his superior.

“Young man,” said the expert, “don’t you realize that computers are getting bigger, not smaller?”

Oops.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak tried to sell the idea of personal computers to their bosses at Atari and Hewlett-Packard. But their bosses weren’t interested. So Jobs and Wozniak started Apple Computer. For the quarter ending September 2010, Apple Inc. had revenue of $20 billion. (I got that information on my iPhone.)

Neither of these changes happened overnight, nor were they without plenty of hard work and hand-wringing. Not all changes are for the better. Anybody remember New Coke? But those instances quickly prove to be learning experiences for the next innovation.

I am in an industry that has seen remarkable change in the last 20 years. Communication that used to be mailed in a crisp envelope now travels through cyberspace almost instantly. Fax machines and the Internet forced us to look at the future of our business. We are constantly readjusting — changing — to accommodate and, in fact thrive, in our increasingly paperless society.

To not only survive, but also to thrive, the skill you need to master is resilience.

Your organization’s ability to change quickly depends on your employees. Memos and new mission statements won’t produce results on their own. Change has to come from within your work force.

If you’re a manager, you need to set the stage so employees know what’s happening in your company and in your industry, or they won’t see any reason to do things differently. Share as much as you can about your finances, the problems your organization is facing, and what’s likely to happen if you all do nothing.

Remind your staff that change takes time. To be successful people will have to look to the future, not to short-term gains and losses. Performance won’t be transformed overnight. Once you’ve restructured, implemented new systems and launched new strategies, give the learning curve time to achieve the progress you’re looking for. Don’t be so impatient for results that you sabotage your efforts and those of your work force.

Change works best when it’s a collaborative, interactive process. Consider everyone who’ll be affected, from front-line employees to high management, as well as customers and other stakeholders. Provide them with updates on your progress. Ask them how it’s going and what could speed things along.

If you’ve done a good job of selling the change and giving them the facts they need to bring it to life, their insights and opinions will prove invaluable.

Susan Dunn, a clinical psychologist, has observed that people who can bounce back after failure and figure out what needs to change to confront new obstacles without losing their nerve generally do these essential things:

• Learn from experience. Resilient people reflect on what happens to them — good and bad — so they can move forward without illusion.

• Accept setbacks and losses. Face the reality of what happens in order to get past it.

• Recognize emotions. Resilient people identify what they’re feeling and express their emotions appropriately.

• Keep time in perspective. Past, present, and future are separate. Don’t mix them up (by letting what’s in the past determine your choices in the here and now, for example).

• Think creatively and flexibly. Look for new ways to solve problems and face challenges.

• Take care of yourself. Resilience is based on good physical and mental health. Get enough rest, eat sensibly, and spend time with people who support you.

• Ask for help. Resilient people don’t try to do everything themselves. Ask others for assistance, and learn how to do so graciously and effectively.

Mackay’s Moral: If you still believe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, you might as well roll over and play dead.

Source: Change works best when collaborative | Portland Business Journal

Incentive Programs?

2010-12-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing some great questions on LinkedIn lately, and decided to answer a couple via a blog post.

Christopher W., Safety Director at Stansell Electric Co., Inc. asked:

What are your feelings related to incentive programs as a part of the safety program?

Christopher,

I am sure you have accessed all kinds of negatives and positives from others on safety incentive programs. I have seen a number of incentive systems used by organizations we have worked with in many different countries. From this, my personal sample I have found two types of incentives that have a measureable positive influence on a safety culture:

A downstream indicator celebration event: This type of safety incentive is an unannounced celebration when a milestone event occurs. A typical downstream indicator safety milestone would be something like ‘One Million Hours Worked Without an Injury.’ The leadership of the organization waits until the milestone is achieved and then holds a significant celebration for all employees, like a catered meal. If they hype the event before it occurs people have a tendency to hide injuries and this is not a positive safety culture characteristic. The celebration is not a matter of money or the typical ‘trinkets and trash.’ Rather it is upper management, hourly and salaried safety leadership visibly and personally thanking all those in the organization for delivering an injury free culture.

Daily visible, felt, personal feedback for doing the job safely and correctly. This is an upstream indicator that is far more effective than all the meals and gadgets given out for injury rates. Each level of an organization develops safety accountabilities that become their own leading indicators. Some of these indicators for each level include giving personal feedback to others for demonstrating the presence of an individual’s correct safety culture. In this way personal, positive, real and effective one-on-one contacts provide the incentive (positive reinforcement) to continue living a zero incident safety culture. This is the low cost, highly effective safety incentive program I prefer

-T

Surprise- The danger of taking short cuts

2010-11-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

People who travel in foreign lands on occasion experience gastrointestinal distress. In fact this is such a common event that each country has its own special name for the traveler’s woes: In Mexico Montezuma’s Revenge; in Morocco the Infidel’s Reward; in France the Ugly American; in Egypt the Curse of the Pharos; on Safari in Tanzania the Surprise of the Big 5. My wife often travels with me to these places. Being a dietician she has a better understanding of the dangers that lead to these sudden, painful, debilitating events. Many times as I have stepped into the danger zone she issues a warning that goes something like, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Normally I pay attention to her sage advice and yet on occasion I am so sure that I will be ok and the situation looks so simple and gastronomically safe that I choose to follow my own personal, private culture and make a questionable decision/act.

Not always, but not never, I pay the price for my decision and experience another sudden, painful, debilitating event. She shakes her head, smiles and hands me the pill of the day as I go about suffering the consequences of my shortcut. Our trip slows down, but I don’t!

As you ‘sit and think’ over the next week; what are the cultural realities that you and your organization live with, ignore and take shortcuts you know are risky. They don’t always lead to injuries, but when they do the root cause is often traceable back to something we knew we shouldn’t be doing. There are usually work rules, procedures and Job Safe Analyses that have addressed this same issue in the past. For one “good reason” or another we just choose to ignore that still small voice that says “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Sit, think, act correctly and stop experiencing the sudden surprises that lead to the pain and makes us feel so stupid.

The Doc

Island Hopping- How to set priorities that will help you succeed

2010-11-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

In World War ll’s war in the Pacific some strategic islands needed to be taken while others were bypassed. The term Island Hopping described this reality.

In the world of safety there are often too many needs for the available resources. That leads to the question; How do we handle this common difficulty? In all the situations, in all the countries, in all the cultures I have worked in there has always been one or more work groups that are a local success culture. There is just something different about this kind of team. They get things done well and on time.

As I enter local difficult situations I often ask various employees and managers; “What are you proud of?” Inevitably I will eventually find someone who has good answers for this open ended question. From there the path leads to one or more groups that are the strategic objectives for a world of limited resources. Give this group all the support you can and they will turn the mess into success.

And the support has to go beyond just dolling out cash. They need training, mentoring, attention, communication and the like. If they didn’t need this, they would have already solved your safety problems. With your help they are your best hope for victory in the war against injuries that all too often just doesn’t have enough resource to do everything for everybody.

The Doc

Image 1: Za Rodinu

Termites- Succession planning

2010-11-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Savannah (grass lands) of Africa is home for the Macro Termite. This insect lives in colonies which make huge (6 feet high) termite mounds that are evident throughout the land. The Termite colonies have a queen that lives for about 20 years and untold thousands of workers that last about 5 years each. Each of the workers has a specialty job it diligently performs for its whole life. And it is not uncommon for the lifespan of any members of the colony to quickly end as an Aardvark (termite/ant eater) chooses their particular termite mound for an evening meal.

OK, so what does this have to do with a safety culture?

Have you done any succession planning to ensure that your plans for an injury free safety culture continue in the event of unexpected (or expected) personnel changes? We don’t live forever, nor do our people stay around forever. What you are doing is too important for it all to come to a sudden end because of an “Aardvark” like event that takes one or more critical people out of action.

A good succession plan is important to termites, businesses and safety cultures. Why not update (create) yours soon.

The Doc

Spill Panel Says Rig Culture Failed on Safety

2010-11-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

By SIOBHAN HUGHES

WASHINGTON—A federal panel probing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Tuesday put the spotlight on the safety culture at companies drilling the well, seeking to move beyond findings a day earlier that rig workers didn't consciously put costs ahead of safety.

"The problem here is that there was a culture that did not promote safety and that culture failed," said Bob Graham, co-chairman of the panel created by U.S. President Barack Obama. "Leaders did not take serious risks seriously enough; did not identify a risk that proved to be a failure."

William Reilly, the other co-chairman, said that "BP, Halliburton and Transocean are major respected companies operating throughout the Gulf and the evidence is they are in need of top-to-bottom reform." He said that "we know a safety culture must be led from the top, and permeate a company."

The comments came one day after the panel's chief investigator, Fred Bartlit, said he found no evidence that individual workers made conscious choices to put costs ahead of safety. His emphasis left an impression among people such as Ronnie Penton, a lawyer representing some workers on the rig, that the commission was not focused enough on probing the root causes of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

"The investigators have to want to investigate whether safety was sacrificed for money and time," Mr. Penton told reporters on the sidelines of a second day of spill commission hearings. While the investigators "did a great job" laying out some basic facts, "we're looking at the operations--we're not looking at the root cause."

Some possible root causes were the subject of Tuesday's commission hearings. On Tuesday, Steve Lewis, a drilling engineer for Seldovia Marine Services who has reviewed evidence related to the BP oil spill, said one reason that rig workers may have missed red flags is that the well was designed as an exploration well with only the possibility of producing oil—meaning that the primary focus was on exploration. When workers shifted to developing a production well after oil was discovered, BP may have had to rush to put new plans in place.

"That detail was left unattended to probably due to the lack of availability of mental resources—engineering time—until it became apparent that it was going to happen," Mr. Lewis said. "Then there was what I would have to describe as scrambling to catch up on that design."

He said the evidence is a lack of detail in the company's plans for wrapping up work on the well—known as abandoning a well. There were a series of changes in procedure as workers sought to temporarily plug the well before production occurred, sparking confusion and argument aboard the rig on the day of the disaster.

"There was no real detail of abandonment in the initial plans," he said. The final plans were "totally deficient" in providing guidance and simply ordered workers to "accomplish these major steps," he said. "That's totally inadequate," he said, attributing the problems to a "lack of command and control."

A BP spokeswoman wasn't immediately available to comment.

This Article is from the Wallstreet Journal

Economics- How to Excel in a Tough Economy

2010-11-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

As we’re all faced with the realities of a depressed economy, it’s not unusual for some to believe it’s reasonable to lower a few expectations. After all, how realistic is it to sustain a high level of safety excellence when morale is suffering from the economic uncertainties that come with layoffs, pay cuts and a seemingly unending stream of gloomy forecasts?

There are lessons here, as I’m reminded of my late father-in-law’s perspective on the Great Depression:

“If elephant overalls were selling for a dollar, I couldn't buy leggings for a canary.”The lesson: conserve cash to be able to survive and live — and engage — for another day. Companies, local governments, and individual consumers are doing this now, and it’s unlikely to change until we have reasons to believe that the economic climate is improving. Things will get better, but it will take time, even as it did in the ‘30s.

“When times are rough, if you’re gonna survive you gotta be tough.”
Individuals and organizations have to look to different approaches to be successful. Many old ways have to change in order to make it through the difficult times. The classic definition of insanity, “doing the same thing and expecting different results” applies. In many areas we have to make some tough decisions and stick with a new course that is uncomfortable, yet seems to have a better chance of success than the old ways.

“If you are looking for comfortable, life ain’t the place to be.”
Complaining doesn’t make it better. Face reality and work through it.

As an example of all the above, in 1998 I took over as managing director for a nearly bankrupt munitions manufacturing facility. The lagging indicators were terrible: the company had not been profitable in 14 years, it had been successfully sued for fraud on multiple occasions by the federal government, the previous six managing directors had been fired in less than six years, management and employee relations were miserable, and safety performance was horrid (e.g., severity rate of 142, annual explosions, etc.). As you’d expect, morale at all levels of the organization was abysmal.

The safety department had a staff of nine degreed professionals who followed the locally accepted model of writing more procedures, training the same sleep inducing regulation-based material, and conducting inspections that often ended with “power plays” like closing down operations for any kind of supposed violation.

The facility had shelves full of procedures, in part because the onsite government inspectors made sure of it. Internal specialists and government inspectors coexisted, but the “partnership” was rarely pretty. It wasn’t unusual for the frequent condition inspections of these two groups to have widely disparate conclusions. Observation programs were ineffective throughout the 43,000-acre facility, but worst of all were the turf wars, power plays and other assorted miseries that doomed the entire safety culture. More policies, procedures, or observations did not help the safety incident rate, production performance, or morale. In our dire economic straits adding staff personnel was not an option, everyone had to be doing, or unfortunately, be laid off.

My decision was to begin a kaizen culture of continuous improvement teams in every work cell, one that would hopefully bring together both hourly and salaried workforces. It was a hard sell to the management, at-large employees, and the safety department. Every work cell began an improvement team that focused on eliminating all impediments to excellence in operations.

Our mantra became “Complaint = Goal,” which replaced the previous unofficial “Complaint = Grievance.” In addition, we worked to promote a “no excuses” approach and pushed everyone to be engaged and actively involved in developing solutions.

Our old culture of “They should have . . .” or “She should do. . .” was no longer acceptable (i.e., no one was allowed to “should on” anyone). The point was to focus on solving the problems at-hand by putting emphasis on the issues we could control at the moment. The high injury rate (poor safety performance) was an absolute necessity culture change initiative. Each of the self-directed improvement teams was tasked to resolve both operations difficulties and the many safety issues that existed. The safety professionals had to become accountable to actively participate with positive efforts that helped us improve in every work cell.

Getting started was difficult. There was a significant, palpable negativity by the majority of all employees to any change, especially one that involved teamwork between “warring parties.” This was reality, even though the CEO had let everyone know that there would be no 8th managing director; failure meant facility closure with a total layoff of all personnel, including the 7th managing director (me).

The safety pros were similarly uncomfortable with a change in roles, responsibilities and associated accountabilities. I explained that they were not members of ASSC (American Society of Safety Cops), but the ASSE, and we all desperately needed them to get engaged with people, not more procedures, and to start doing some of that “engineer stuff.”

In our dire straits none of us could afford to be interested in our own personal comfort. We had to be about personal and team growth. We had to stop whining and engage in the hard work of culture change. There was to be no hesitation about shutting down an operation faced with “red” (immediate) risks. However, we agreed that a red-yellow-green danger rating system ensured that safety decisions would no longer be a “one size fits all” proposition.

And for every safety CAR (Corrective Action Request) that was written, they were to become a part of the solution, and not just a part of the problem. Our world was now Complaint = Goal, this included the safety department team as well as the managing director. They (we all) had to become mentors and coaches of how to become a zero error culture. Injuries, incidents and “sudden deflagrations” (aka explosions) were neither to be a part of our present nor our future.

Sure, there was resistance, particularly during the “heavy lifting phase” of culture change. However, when we looked back after 12 months our new culture was delivering:
The first profit in 15 years
637 small, documented improvements (kaizens)
A severity rate that plummeted from 142 to 9
Zero sudden deflagrations

In the following year our interactive teams completed more than 700 kaizens and we had gone from “worst in safety injury performance” to placing among the top third of all the corporation’s facilities. Morale, as you can imagine, was at an all time high! As year three began, the two surviving safety pros along with the much leaner team of all employees were well on their way toward their first 1,000,000 hour LTI-free celebration in more than a decade.

In the end — and with our current difficult times in mind — I believe that you can learn more from bad times than you can from good.

So, what should safety professionals do proactively in our current time of economic troubles?

-Become interactive, interpersonal problem solvers that relentlessly assist in solving issues (safety and otherwise) that exist in the organization
-Turn complaints into goals
-Stop worrying about your own comfort and focus on growing yourself and your organization
-And, as Winston Churchill once said: “Never, never, never give up!”

The Doc

FNGs and FOGs- Protecting the new employee

2010-11-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

There was a time in my distant past when I was on active duty with a branch of our United States military services. There were many important lessons that I had to learn and apply in the combat exercises we practiced on a regular basis. Our personal ability to learn these life and death lessons in many ways determined our ability to graduate from an “FNG” (‘Fantastic’ New Guy) to an FOG, if you will accept the obvious socially correct usage of the “F word.”

Was it luck, learning, application, consistency, focus, skill, intelligence, effort, etc., that lead to surviving long enough to become one of the Old Guys? Probably it was some of each of the above. Now that I am no longer an adrenalin pumped 20 year old (as my papa once told me, “young and stupid”) I see the same parallel in the global world of safety. All our employees start out as FNGs who are at risk.

Numerous safety studies continue to show that new employees experience something like 40-60% of all injuries. As in the military, the FNGs of our organization just “don’t know what they don’t know” and they are greatly at risk because of their lack of experience, knowledge, skills and attitude.

As leaders in safety culture we all need to do whatever it takes to get our FNGs to become FOGs without their acquiring any “Purple Hearts.” With that in mind, what is your company boot camp for new employees?

Do you toss them to the wolves, or is there a carefully thought out engagement and learning process to insure their achieving a zero injury survival and graduation from FNG to FOG? The FNGs typically have high enthusiasm and low knowledge. The FOGs often times exhibit apathy and high knowledge. If our tribe is to be successful we have to pass on the knowledge and improve the attitude at every step in the process.

How do you “on board” the valuable new employees you will need to have your organization excel in the future? Is it an excellent process or a matter of luck?

The Doc

The Future Of Training As I See It- Employee leadership

2010-10-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

The current state of safety training for many organizations looks like:

Compliance programs have had little to no change in years. They are stale and uninteresting
Smaller staff has lead to videos or web based training. This continual cost pressure has all but eliminated the more effective stand up training that employees benefited from in the past
The above results in a “check in the box” mentality to safety training that affects morale, as a general disinterest in safety topics becomes endemic.

Global forward thinking companies are involving their hourly work force in Continuous Improvement teamwork. The better organizations are focused on transforming their cultures in production, quality, customer service and safety to hourly involvement and ownership of their workspace: activities, deliverables and accountabilities.

The hourly employee delivers the product, its quality, its timing and their own safety and that of others. The focus is becoming “the hourly employee as CEO of their 10x12.” After all, as my papa once told me, “We pay for the body and the mind comes for free.”

The workforce culture in the next five years will continue this migration toward a culture of hourly ownership of all that they need to do to deliver excellence in quality, production, customer service and safety.

Hourly personnel will start each shift with a 5-10 minute mini training on what applies to their work that day: PPE, forklifts, JSAs, etc. Once they make this shift from listener to do-er, they will become the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) that practice and live excellence of all that it takes to become the low cost, high quality, on time producer of the organization’s products. All this while living the zero incident safety culture they train and own on a relentless, never-ending basis.

How does this fit with your organization’s future training plans?

The Doc

Image 1: (C) TOpNews.IN

Chelan County PUD Embraces Safety as a Value with Lasting Effects

2010-10-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Chelan County PUD has a history of embracing safety as a districtwide value. Safety Director Ron Franklin purchased CoreMedia’s video within a month of its release, and subsequent viewings reinforced not only the value the PUD placed on safety, but a desire to emphasize it in the PUD’s value statements.

Chelan County PUD had previously listed safety as a subcategory of “operational excellence.” Realizing its importance as a foundational business practice, members of the PUDs strategic planning team and the Safety Director wished to highlight safety in its own value statement.

"Safety is a part of everything we do as a utility, not just a component of operational excellence. We were in the process of drafting a strategic plan for our utility and in the process reviewed our value statements and felt safety was important enough to single it out.

We watched ‘Safety as a Value’ and it reinforced the importance of calling it out on its own. Viewing CoreMedia’s film was a useful tool in support of this crucial element,” Ron stated.

Their newly added Safety Value Statement is as follows:

We have a strong commitment to public and employee safety as an integral part of our daily work. We promote a positive and proactive safety culture with active employee participation. We strive to prevent every accident and try to learn from those that do happen so they are not repeated. We have the courage to hold one another accountable for working safely.

Chelan County PUDs efforts to redefine its value statement are an excellent step in the move toward safety being completely integrated into the way they operate.

Congratulations, Chelan County PUD. We salute your passion for safety and commitment to a zero incident safety culture!

The Sundowner- Your personal culture

2010-10-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

Tourist groups in Africa share a universal tradition called “The Sundowner.” After the day’s activities the whole camp gathers around for a time of discussion with beverages and snacks of choice. The day's events, scenery, excitement, and challenges are thoroughly reviewed by all. Personal and group items are noted and shared. Depending on the group (and the beverages) it is not uncommon for the Sundowner to spill over to a “Moonriser.” People across all the diverse cultures take time to relax, get to know each other, and form a bond that is unique to the safari camp culture.

As we discussed all these important to the moment circumstances one evening, a thought came to me about how a similar approach would help my personal family life. But, can I really spare the time to better bond with my family? Rather the question is: Can I really afford to not spare the time to do so? Should not our families be more important than our jobs?

Tonight I plan to engage in a sundowner, and maybe even a moonriser, with my wife. We are both key to our own personal culture that must continue to transcend work. Why shouldn’t we all engage in sundowners/moonrisers with members of our family on a regular basis?

Let’s strengthen the all important family bond, both at work and at home.

The Doc

Image 1: Oppulentafricantours.com

Lemmings- Avoiding leadership catastrophes

2010-10-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

Most animal species have a dominant sex. Either the male or the female takes charge for leadership of the family or group unit. While in Africa I saw the exception to this general rule. That exception is the Wildebeest (sometimes called the Gnu since the noise they make sounds like someone saying the word gnu). They have any number of characteristics that are peculiar to their species. Each year the vast herds of Gnus engage in a gigantic on going migration. Some 2 million of these animals traipse from one end of the Serengeti to the other and back again traveling thousands of miles while doing so. During the migration about 200,000 to 300,000 of their number loose their lives to all sorts of dangers: Crocodiles, Hyenas, Lions, rivers, lakes, Vultures and the like. As a result the Wildebeest is a major ingredient in the food chain of their parts of Africa.

I guess there are a number of reasons for this carnage. However, the one that really stuck out to me was the random leadership of the massive Wildebeest herds. Thousand of the animals mill around in an area until, for some unknown reason, one of them starts the next disaster by diving into a lake, or river, or down a cliff, or the like. Then the thousands in the herd follow blindly to their deaths as the Crocodiles, Lions, Vultures, etc. wait for the inevitable mealtime.

We need to choose our leadership (safety and otherwise) based on observable demonstrated character, competence and integrity. The team then works together with leadership to minimize risks and maximize outcomes (safety and otherwise). Seniority, popularity, dominating personality, sex, status and the like are not viable characteristics for leadership (safety and otherwise). Our lives and careers depend on leadership being done as close to perfection as possible. When it comes to safety (and otherwise) we must not make poor choices that have us stepping over the cliffs of risks like Wildebeests (the Lemmings of Africa).

Is it OK to have safety leaders who come from the hourly ranks? The salaried ranks? Who have no safety certification? My answer to these questions is: “Yes, if the observable character of these leaders is what it needs to be.” Don’t get trapped into making an expedient safety leadership decision that in turn can lead to a Wildebeest culture for your organization.

The Doc

Hub Caps

2010-09-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

What is the purpose of a hub cap? Well... it makes the vehicle look better, but has little to do with performance. It makes you feel good, but other than that really does nothing constructive.

A cynic in the audience might very well draw some parallels with laws and programs that sound good, but really don’t accomplish anything of lasting value.

We have many programs in safety that seem awfully similar to hub caps: the annual safety poster contest, safety bingo, trash and trinkets incentive systems, etc. Well those were pretty easy, but what about some sacred cow hub caps like Lagging Indicators or Behavior Based Safety? Can you read on if one of these really nifty hub caps is “attacked?”

Observation Programs/Behavior Based Safety/BBS-- While being a better than nothing addition to an outdated regulations only approach, the ever popular “catch and correct” programs that teach line employees to observe and report:

Do not deliver zero
Tend to abdicate management of safety leadership responsibility
Are not easily integrated into other management functions throughout the organization

OK, if implemented as a part of a robust system that includes proper accountabilities and training, they can become an element of the safety toolbox. However, this “level 2” tool is often viewed as:

A stumbling block by hourly employees that both react to peer pressure and desire active upper management participation. Checking off forms and tracking (often) questionable data inspires neither the hourly employee nor upper management
A quick safety awareness improvement tool that unfortunately also quickly becomes both ineffective and an expensive non-value-added frill
A reactive approach that is both foreign to and lacks credibility with executives. No where else in the many decades of operations excellence is such a “check on (rat on) your fellow worker” approach used

Does BBS have some value? Yes, none of us go into the workplace with our eyes closed.

Should BBS be a tool in the safety performance world? Yes.

Should BBS be a cornerstone of your organization’s safety efforts? Based on the above, I think not.

Why not spend your scarce time, involvement and financial resources for safety in developing solutions to safety issues that work better than hub caps?

The Doc

The Five Es of Safety

2010-09-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Way back in the 30s H. W. Heinrich launched another one of his personally observed safety paradigms: the three Es of safety. They go something like:

Engineer out the problems first
Educate your people as to what they need to do
Enforce the rules on all who do not follow them

Well Crud! There is not an engineered solution to every workplace hazard. Yes, I have “called in the engineers” on more than one occasion to address and resolved some pesky issues that puts our people at risk. However, most of the time a better “engineered solution” is found by bringing the members of the workforce together and brainstorming a solution to the issue that is bothering, or potentially harmful to them.

Education of people is also very important, as long as it is interactive. The boring, repetitive stuff that often passes for education is truly counterproductive. The level one regs training is necessary, but often done too poorly to have any really lasting value (other than a check in the box that does little or nothing to protect the employees). Back to engaging the workers; what is it that really needs to be trained to reduce their probability of injury? They become the ones who do the training.

Enforcement...does that mean discipline? Wait…what is discipline? As I was growing up and in need of firm guidance, discipline was often kicked off when my papa told me “You’re in a heap’ a trouble, Boy.” In my adult years, when I have been trained and am responsible for my own actions, discipline is mostly in accordance with the dictionary definition; “Training that develops self control.” So for the most part work place discipline becomes adult correction, and that means personal coaching/engagement, not punitive enforcement.

The next question then becomes: How can the people who are at risk be engaged in effectively engineering, training and disciplining their own safety needs? My typical mantra is: “No outside resources, we solve and train our own issues with our own people.” However, there is often some initial outside resource necessary to train the skills that help us do our own solutioning. From there on we can engage our own people “satisfactorily.”

What then is a definition of “satisfactorily?” My own practical experience is about 90% of the day-to-day problems can be solved in house by the people who are experiencing the issues. But, as my papa once done told me, “The solutions don’t fall off the tree, boy. You gotta work at them.” You may need to hire someone to initially train your people how to be self sufficient. From then on just help engage/lead your own in house safety pros, i.e., your workforces who need to develop and own solutions to their issues.

The five Es of safety? The other two, as alluded to above, are Employee Engagement. This is what will transform an ineffective 30s safety culture to the high tech world found in a modern day zero incident safety culture.

The Doc

The Big 5

2010-09-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

Todd Britten is a fellow safety pro and consultant who consistently provides excellent assistance. Recently Todd impressed me with a concept that really makes sense-"The Big 5." Todd was working with an organization’s safety improvement team. The team was struggling with how to effectively engage a workforce with a long history of accepting a weak safety culture. Lights went on in the people’s heads as Todd described his personal Big 5:

Faith: “My number one value is a faith in the Lord. He is my guide, my savior, my Lord. In all things I try to be committed to following His examples and teaching.”
Family: “My wife, my daughter, our siblings and our parents are next in line. I will do whatever it takes of me for them.”
Health: “I have been blessed with good health, both personally and within my family. It is amazingly easy to take this for granted.”
Job: “I ride for the brand and love what I do. Assisting others to develop and live their own Zero Incident Safety Culture is a daily inspiration that I truly love to engage in.”
Country: “I love the country we live in. The United States is truly the land of the free and the home of the brave. “

Todd’s next comment to the audience was to have them list their own Big 5. This led to some deep, meaningful thoughts and discussions that definitely made a profound impact on those with whom he was working.

And then the kicker; “What would happen to your Big 5 if you were to be involved in a serious injury?”

I know that when Todd talked to me about this, I stopped and gave it some real thought. This led me to be even more committed to my personal safety, that of my family and that of those with whom I come in contact

What are your Big 5?

How about the Big 5 of your family and associates at work, or in your community?

Can this concept lead to a commitment that will make a difference in yours and others’ personal safety?

The Doc

Wet Pants

2010-09-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

A while back I took an assignment to assist an organization in south central Russia. Their desire was to make deep seated and far reaching improvements to their culture, and leadership was well aware of the weaknesses that were keeping performance at a low level.

On-site, day one: I met with my Russian counterpart, Alexey. I had anticipated a series of meetings with various staff members that would focus on determining their root cause issues and then beginning a process for Alexey’s organization to do something about them. The language barrier was extreme yet Alexey had an extremely good simultaneous translator in Anna. Like many of the simultaneous translators, this young lady had been very well trained by the KGB. I was now concerned about the ‘real agenda.’ Fortunately, one of our American team members confided to me alone she had once been a simultaneous translator for the CIA. Thank you Nina. Let the intrigue begin, Comrades!

Alexey tossed out the first ‘hand grenade,’ so to speak, when he explained the plan for day two. “Dr. Williamsen you will be giving a series of three speeches throughout the day. The first will be to leaders in our community. We are in the third largest city in all of Russia. These are very important people to us. Next you will address the academic community from our university. There will be faculty, administration and students who want to hear of your plans to assist us. These are very important people in our efforts to move forward. Toward the end of the day you will be interviewed on national television and what you have to say will be widely broadcast. However, I must warn you of one thing Dr. Williamsen, do not mention the word change. As you know we have had very difficult times in our country and so change has become a very bad word.”

I was shocked in many ways. I had anticipated teamwork in determining the changes they needed to develop and implement, not a series of political maneuverings and denial. I was reminded of what my Papa once told me, “Son the only people who really like change are people with wet pants." (Ok, so papa was quoting Mark Twain, but the message was still clear)

I then explained in three different speeches to these “very important people” the necessity of forward planning for gradual change, so they would not be blind sided by events similar to their country’s economic collapse. I told them (in not so many words) to get out of the world of BS and denial and begin planning. This is the only way to avoid a trigger event that will bring on the excruciating, radical, revolutionary change of catastrophe that we all desire to avoid.

My career in assisting organizations to develop meaningful, realistic safety culture change began at a Fortune 20 company that experienced another fatality. This event left all the executives with “wet pants” and the necessity of subsequent radical safety culture changes to their sick production only focused culture. My message to Alexey’s organization is the same as it is to you: Don’t wait for a trigger event to give you wet pants! Take a deep, realistic look into your safety culture and begin a quiet revolution which avoids trigger events that lead to “wet pants” for all.

The Doc

Image Credit: FlexibleLearning