1. Litigation. There are lots of sites that tell you of the stupidest warning labels on things. Like the stroller warning that tells you to make sure there is no child in the stroller before folding it for storage (find this and similar warnings here).  As a result things are made safer all the time, and we become less sensitive to failures that could happen. Good that things are made safer, bad that we become less responsible for outcomes.
2. Legislation. Safer cars, safer braking, safer restraint systems – all good. OSHA regulations – also good. Thinking that as long as I follow the rules all the laws protect me – not so good. There will never be enough legislation (I hope) to force everything to be idiot-proof. As I’ve heard it said, we are always making better idiots.
3. Over-Parenting. How much is too much? Almost every parent finds themselves in a situation where their child is hurt and wonders what they could have done or should have done differently. I didn’t make a point of stepping in the way of my kids for everything they wanted to do that I felt was not totally safe, but I did say “NO” when they wanted to play on a friend’s trampoline, which the parents had placed way too close to the side of their house. Even when you try to prevent something, your child may try it anyway and will then learn that you were correct or that you were just too cautious.
4. We’re busy. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of hearing about texting while driving. It’s a bad idea, don’t do it. But in the rush to get through our busy day, it can easily feel like sending this one very important message can be done safely. Busy-ness is not a good excuse for safety shortcuts.
5. Convenience. I’ve stood on chairs hundreds of times in my life. But now when I need to clean the ceiling fan or change a ceiling light, I get out the ladder. It takes more time, but it is markedly safer.

We can’t eliminate all risk. But we can learn to do a better job of assessing risk and making choices that will lead to safe outcomes nearly all the time.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

In the skit, the SNL anchor is interviewing another pilot who acknowledges Sully’s heroic effort, but is a little bitter. Why? Because he learned how to avoid the birds.

I’m not a pilot, but I would think that if Sully could have avoided the birds, he would have. This was not a 4-wheel drive truck going 35 miles an hour when a child’s ball rolled into the street. This was a massive airplane. There is no traction in air for quick maneuvers or an easy way to swerve away from the danger – I don’t think. But the idea was still interesting to think about.

In industrial safety, as I have written before, an accident is frequently discussed afterward with the use of the word “luck”. Sometimes good luck is at play, and sometimes bad luck. It was bad luck that the flock and that airlane were on intersecting flight patterns. It was good luck that Sully happened to be a student of exactly that type of landing. Another pilot may have been able to do the same thing, or maybe not.

The pilot on SNL seemed to think that the skill of avoiding the birds is what should be acknowledged.

Do you have someone with a knack for not getting hurt? They seem to avoid the dangers? Or maybe they just know more about spotting the problems and steering clear. It might be that you have something to learn from them.

Oh, and for the record, I think Sully is a real hero. Not for making the landing, but for being ready to do just that. For caring enough about his work to know what to do when the unexpected happens.

Let’s be careful out there.

Many were given for actually working safely – for getting caught doing the right thing. Others were a reward for not having injury. Or at least not having an injury reported, but I’m not going to go there today.

Anyone who has spent any time in the field knows that the saying “Working safely is it’s own reward” is true, but it doesn’t generate the kind of behaviors we really want. What we seek is vigilance and action. We want people to see the potential or injury or incident, and take action to eliminate the potential, reduce the likelihood, or reduce the consequence.

I’ve never once worked more safely because if we finished the year with the right record we would all get jackets. But I have used that type of reinforcement to help get the message across. To help people consider that their change in behavior is being rewarded. The change had a consequence of keeping everyone whole and the added consequence of a “prize” for the team.

Even though many safety and HR professionals feel that the best incentive is the promise of personal well-being, many risks are just not visible until experience and training help people to see them. So if rewarding people for avoiding injury helps them develop more discipline about working safely, then great. Fear is a great motivator, but if you’re ignorant of risks, or even a bit fearless, it won’t help you.

So how do you characterize your personal motivation toward safety? How do you motivate others?

However you choose to motivate, be careful out there!

It might not seem to be a brave thing at first glance, but I have seen bravery in plant managers who are willing to fire someone for a safety violation. It’s brave because it is not a popular decision. It’s brave because the employee involved was trying to keep production up when he reached into the machine. It’s brave because other employees who reported the action now feel at fault, and may never speak up again.

But where I’ve seen it done, it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Whenever I am involved in orienting employees, even when safety is not my direct accountability, I make it a point to let them know how I feel about my accountability for their safety. In short, if they don’t regard their own safety adequately, then we can’t afford someone to watch over them. One hundred out of one hundred times, I will go to an unemployment hearing over a perceived wrongful termination than to the funeral of an employee who I could have stopped from killing himself.

How courageous are your supervisors? Do they have the permission to be bold?

Thanks for reading, and let’s be careful out there.

I have submitted lists before of employee answers and supervisor answers to investigations questions. This last list in the series are the answers that management gives in companies do not manage safety well. These FGA’s are not from my current company, but I have used them as examples in training others to do investigations, to help contrast effective resolution from rationalization.

1. Our record is consistently strong.
2. We have trained employees to not do what the injured employee did. He made a bad decision.
3. That machine is guarded correctly. The employee made a bad choice.
4. The supervisor usually stops people when they are doing what the injured employee did.
5. That equipment meets OSHA guidelines.
6. We are committed to the safety of our employees.
7. The employee should have shut the machine down.
8. No one has been hurt that way before. It must have been a fluke.

There is one last set of FGAs to look at. What good management does. We’ll see that list soon.

As always, let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists are more clever. Lots.

Does someone have to be blamed for every accident? Isn’t it OK, at least once and a while, to conclude that “shit happens” at the end of an accident investigation? As long as we avoid ever making this mistake in the future?

For many people, closure seems to require that someone is blamed. Whether you are talking about a workplace accident, a traffic mishap, a forgotten birthday, or a lost dog, it must be someone’s fault.

But I think sometime there is no fault. Or that the only fault that could be found is that someone neglected to predict the future. They considered possible outcome, just not this one. And the truth is, there is a universe of outcomes for every action we take.

Finding or placing blame, especially for people in the workplace or in a traffic accident, is a way of bringing absolution. It means that my insurance won’t go up because of your mistake. It means that management, who may feel accountable for any injury, will still get their bonus. Someone else messed up, not them.

We make mistakes. Sometimes they hurt us, sometimes they don’t . Sometimes others suffer from our choices. We didn’t try and cause and accident, we didn’t mean for someone to get hurt, but it still happened. Life is random. We are sometimes in the right place at the right time, and other times we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And although that doesn’t read well on an investigation report, it is sometimes the only truth you can declare.

Have you been involved in an accident where there was no one to blame?

Let’s be careful out there.