My friends assumed that meant the questions were along the lines of: “If an engineer pulls two socks from his drawer, and there are 33 total socks of 4 different colors, what are the odds he will pull a matching pair without looking?” Answer: If he’s an engineer, no chance.

All kidding aside, I am still good in math, so when people start to provide statistics about anything, I listen with a bit of skepticism. For example, most of us have heard news reports over a holiday weekend that highlight how many traffic deaths have occurred compared to the same weekend in previous years. Sometimes, facts are added like how many of the people who died were wearing seatbelts.

In reality, number of deaths compared year to year doesn’t tell you much. A few more or a few less is normal variability. What matters is looking at all sorts of other data, like how many people were on the road, what is the historical trend over several years, and what has changed in laws and road structure. The number who were wearing seat belts is even less important without knowing how many non-fatal accidents were recorded and the related seat belt stats to compare.

In industry, the US government established standards for measuring and reporting safety in the workplace. The numbers are calculated monthly, reported annually, and are used by some companies to evaluate their managers. There are all sorts of definitions about what must be recorded as an accident, when it becomes a lost time accident, and how to calculate an incident rate based on hours worked. When the definitions change, many managers worry it will impact their numbers.

The truth is, changing the rules of how we measure outcome won’t change the outcome. Taking action changes the outcome.

Here are the numbers that matter:

• How many incidents did you effectively investigate and resolve in the last 12 months?
• What percentage of your employees say that safety in their primary accountability?
• What percentage of your employees would welcome input from their co-workers on how to work more safely?
• What have you done to make the workplace safer this year than it was before?

These are the numbers that matter. These are the numbers that say you are making the choice for safety.

Tell us all how you make things safer where you work.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

Your personal safety is determined one decision at a time. Sometimes you are dependent on the decisions of others. Other drivers, your doctor, the guy who puts new brakes in your car. But how does your personal decision process work? Do you know? Take a moment to answer these three questions:

1. A ball and a bat cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

Each of these questions has an incorrect answer that many people quickly come to. In fact, in a study where these questions were posed to over 3,000 college students, the average correct score was1.24 out of 3.

Does this mean our intuition is wrong? It all depends on the models we have in our heads. The concept of doubling every day is a geometric progression, which is not in everyone’s day-to-day thinking. Neither is the concept of production planning. But, in the study, people who got all three answers correct were also more consistent in their risk-taking choices. Risk taking, the acceptance or denial of risk, is ultimately a decision process.

What does all this mean? Well primarily it points to the variability of being human. We are not 100% consistent in all we do, including the way in which we choose to protect ourselves. The reason Health and Safety regulations have become what they are is that people don’t always take precautions they could because they are inconvenient, too costly, too time consuming. When the government steps in and says “you must” then people fear the cost of the certain punishment over the cost of the low-probability potential loss.

Are you an independent thinker when it comes to safety, or do you rely on regulations and on the expectation that all products are designed with our safety in mind?

So you can check your scores, the answers to the three questions are here:

1. The bat is $1.05, and the ball is $0.05.
2. 5 minutes
3. 47 days

If you got all these correct, then you have some pretty clear thinking going on. I hope that extends to your choices regarding safety. Don’t forget, 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!

]]> http://saferbychoice.com/2010/04/questions-your-first-answer-correct/feed/ 1 http://saferbychoice.com/2010/04/situations-eitheror-choice-each/ http://saferbychoice.com/2010/04/situations-eitheror-choice-each/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:12:32 +0000 Tim http://saferbychoice.com/?p=730

Do you know much about your own decision processes? Are you risk-averse? We think differently depending on how the choices are stated.

Consider this situation:

You have to choose between either

- an 80% chance of winning $4,000 with a 20% chance of winning nothing

or

- a 100% chance of receiving $3,000

Then look at this situation:

you can chose between

- an 80% chance of losing $4,000 with a 20% chance of breaking even

or

- a 100% chance of losing $3,000

In a formal study, 80% of the people chose the certain outcome in situation #1 ($3,000) even though the gamble had a higher payout.

In situation #2, 92% of the people chose the gamble, even though it’s mathematical expectation of a loss of $3,200 is larger than the certain loss of $3,000. When the choice involves loss of money, we are risk seekers and not risk averse.

These results are similar to people’s views of safety. The risk has to be evident and understandable in order for people to avoid the risk. If it is abstract or unknown, then people are less likely to use the provided protective gear or equipment. In my experience as a driver, for example, I can only recall two times in 40 years when wearing my seat belt mattered. So I could wear it less often and it probably won’t matter. The only problem is, I can’t predict when the next time I should be wearing it will be.

What did your choices to the situations above tell you about your risk aversion? Do you think that your answers were all about the benjamins? Would you have a different view if the content were about four fingers or three fingers?

Next post, we’ll look at two more situations with more serious implications. Will your answers or approach change? We’ll see…

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!

While I agree in principle, the truth is that some groups on average are higher performers than others. And the least of the best might be pretty darn good. And if I assume that supervisors have the same distribution, well then I might just be getting ranked by a low end supervisor in the first place, and maybe ranking people is one of his low performing areas.

What if you put one hundred employees, who all had some knowledge of each others’ work, in a room with three big circles on the floor. The “average” circle has room for 50 employees to stand in, the “above average” circle has room for 25, and the “below average” circle can hold 25. Tell them to get into the right circle, discuss it among themselves, and be arranged correctly in two hours.

Chaos, right?

Now put the 8 people who mange those 100 in a room and ask them to arrange their people. More orderly? Maybe. More correct? Who knows.

But this is a safety blog, not an HR blog, so let’s turn the focus to safety. Imagine 3 operating plants with identical accident measures in terms of human impact. No fatalities, no lost time injuries, 3 cuts requiring sutures in each facility. No one suffered any permanent disability. One plant has very active safety committees, another has no committees but has 100% attendance at safety meetings, and the third has neither of those distinctions, but has also recorded 350 near miss incidents for the year, where the others recorded less than 100 each. Which plant manager is above average in safety management?

This year’s stats are not enough to go on. You would want to look at all kinds of factors to make that assessment. It was great that no one was killed or seriously injured, but which of these would be a suitable place for your son or daughter to work? None would be good enough from my standpoint. I want them to work in the one with above average safety performance year after year. Not in one period, but over many. These are all below average.

Do you measure safety by failure rates, or by the actions that lead to successful results?

Let’s be careful out there.

The title of the post did generate a response from reader Paul that I had not considered. I had never thought about the effectiveness of the “How’s My Driving” bumper stickers that trucking companies use. Do you think they make a difference?

The insurance industry thinks they do. Not the stickers themselves, but the way in which the industry uses them. They do not use responses generated by the notices for punishment, but to provide more focused training. And the results are pretty good.

In a study analyzing the impact of behavior-based training, there were reductions of over 50% in the number of vehicle crashes following full implementation of the notices and corresponding training. There were many other measures, almost all showing some improvements credited to this approach.

So how do you get your feedback on your driving? Is there room for improvement? Got a number for us to call to compliment or challenge your skills?

Everyday people die across a city, a country, a continent, and the world. Some are known to just the few others they may live with, and some are known around the world. The idea that too many have passed is a reaction to the known names that have come up recently. David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays were all in the news for their deaths in the last few weeks.

Is that too many? Is it statistically unusual or is it just the normal variation in human death. Is it more than we should permit without taking action of some sort?

OK, so that sounds a little weird, as though we could take action to prevent celebrity deaths. But in the world of safety, where we specifically take action to avoid injury and possible death, we are reacting to the idea that too many people are maimed or killed in certain ways.

The invention and popularization of the automobile increased the death rate, and engineers are continuously looking at how to improve the safety of vehicles. Too many people die and so we try and find ways to avoid the crash or at least minimize the harm to occupants.

Someone thinking that “too many famous people have died” is making an observation based on experience. It’s not an observation you can exactly take action on.

In your workplace, in your home, have you ever thought that too many people are hurt or die due to a certain act or condition? What steps have you taken to eliminate the problem?

Take this one for example: Seventy-five percent of all adult deaths are preventable. I don’t remember exactly where I heard it, but it was likely in a sound bite in the news.  The author was discussing the importance of eating right, exercising, and making routine visits to the doctor. Somehow, he failed to identify that 100% of all adult deaths are inevitable.

What I think he was trying to say is that we have some say in our health, and therefore, to some extent, when we die. Health and Safety are much the same thing. When we perform an unsafe act, we are endangering our wellness. I can eat right, exercise regularly, get routine check ups, and then go bike riding without a helmet. Truly safe behavior takes discipline and attention each and every day. Do you do something that compromises your efforts toward good health? What are you trying to do differently, and what gets in your way?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!