After the work that was done to create Corrie Pitzer’s article about “Seven Deadly Delusions” in the April 2015 issue of Professional Safety magazine, and what I have done in summarizing the piece in my last two blog posts, I am sure at least a few of you are seeking a therapist’s couch. We might have established that you are truly delusional if you believe or act upon any of the delusions about safety mentioned in the piece.
[Image courtesy of Stuart Cole from Flickr via a Creative Commons license]OK, so the reality is that your work site is a risk factory, no matter how robust your safety program. So what should you do about this reality? For one thing, do not be delusional.
Here, allow me to summarize the rest of Pitzer’s article by presenting the seven correlated realities alongside the previously mentioned Seven Deadly Delusions:
Delusion #1: How an incident happens can be found along a straight line.
Reality #1: Systems are more complex. Many of our models in safety deal with going down the line of an incident in a linear way to find the ultimate root cause of the incident. But in reality, as every day is new, human nature changes dynamically, as do the interactions and roles of other humans around us. The world is not static, so our current models should not be static; we need to find more dynamic and pliable processes in order to keep up with the ever-changing reality of humanity. As long as there are humans in the workplace, nothing linear could ever be truly accurate.
Delusion #2: We are all about compliance.
Reality #2: We actually should be all about adapting to these dynamics. Focusing so much on complying with static laws or regulations misses the opportunities to change and adapt as situations warrant. While static, laws and regulations are designed to give companies the “wiggle room” they need to adjust their systems to meet the changing needs and risks of the work site on any given day or week.
Delusion #3: We need to be consistent in all that we do.
Reality #3: We should be enjoying the variableness of humanity. The idea of performing the very same operations over and over again does not actually mitigate risk but instead is supposed to offer a predictive signal for future incidents because consistency makes it easy to spot abnormalities and thus, note increased risks. However, to have such a tunnel-vision concept of exacting operations means there are a lot of controls and a lot of pressure on everyone to be robots to where any deviation – even if it’s actually innovative and could result in better safety and efficiency – is not just discouraged but practically prohibited. We need to recognize the inherent individuality of everyone at our worksite, and be willing to embrace changes and innovations and incorporate the innovation into our programs.
Delusion #4: We have all risks under control.
Reality #4: We honestly don’t really know every single risk. And you know what? That’s OK. If you are managing a work environment that has a near-zero maturity to it, chances are you won’t know all of the risks because of the lack of incident data. As long as you do not assume that a lack of incidence means low-risk, you will have to understand that some risks exist and may not really come to fruition. However, if they do, having a dynamic system in place to address those risks quickly will help further the safety of the organization.
Delusion #5: Human error can be prevented.
Reality #5: As long as our workers are competent, what’s the big deal? Let us take a more positive approach – instead of always thinking negatively about humans due to their erroneous natures and putting rigid systems in place to control behaviors and actions, let us take a stand where be believe our human workforce is the backbone of our company and the company’s success is because of the skill and competence of the workers. If we continue to trust and rely on their skills and intelligence, that means we can also learn to trust their “guts”when they get a pang that something is not right or safe in the work site, and trust them to be flexible to avoid those risks and get those addressed by a supervisor or manager in a a timely fashion.
Delusion #6: We need to have all our risks quantified.
Reality #6: As with human nature, randomness is king. As was stated before, safety officers love predictability, and being able to quantify risks and incidents helps officers find and address those risks so incidents can be prevented. But as most incidents are often accidental – and thus, unintentional – those that fall outside of the matrix of control and purpose and reason will be left out of safety programs. And it is that randomness, that acknowledgment of non-intentional behavior and action, that we should always make sure to understand. Because our programs account for risks that are logical when we act or behave intentionally, we often miss the random risks that occur when certain actions or behaviors are not intentional.
Delusion #7: We are so safe, we are practically invincible.
Reality #7: With safety, it is not about invincibility but about being resilient. Let’s face the truth here – no matter our best efforts to eliminate incidents, we can really only mitigate them. Incidents will happen, and people will get hurt. The key to a good safety program is to put the company and the workforce in a position to bounce back from such an incident and progress. This means knowing what happened and how it happened, pulling lessons from the incident and informing the workforce so it has the knowledge – and thus the power – to be stronger as a unit and make the company stronger as a result. Being able to recover from a setback is what sets many companies apart from others and setbacks in safety are no exception to this.