Awakening the Third Force – In Safety – It’s time!

March 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment

No, this isn’t about Star-Wars! And it is not about following the Jedi Path. This is a way of thinking with roots going back to Maslow around unifying forces.

For our workplaces, this is about the way we think about safety, the way we engage around safety, and the way we bring a third unifying force to the whole culture of safety.It’s the missing link in our respective workplaces. Without it, we tend to stay engulfed in a culture of compliance, yet despite trying and trying, we never reach excellence. Without it, we keep repeating the same mistakes – round and round we go.

With it, however, we intentionally move forward. We establish the culture that is committed to safety, inclusively cares about and connects with everyone, continually learns, and develops a depth of safety.

With it, safety has a constant aliveness. Without it, safety remains a by-the-way.

Read on to learn more about this “IT”…the Third Force of Safety!

The Awakening of the Third Force

I spoke at the American Society of Safety Engineers, Region IV, Professional Development Conference in Tampa, Florida on February 27, 2016.

Dick Knowles with Pamela PerrichI spoke about Partner-Centered Safety™ and the importance of this as the quickest way to achieve sustainable safety excellence. As many of you know, I have written and spoken about this many times over the last several years. The information and data I share clearly shows that this approach to leading safety is very powerful, producing improved results quite quickly. Many of you have seen the terrific results the people at the DuPont, Belle Plant achieved. This approach has a very strong scientific basis in complex adaptive systems theory.

It was exciting to see and hear one of the speakers at this PDC also beginning to talk about improving safety using a complex adaptive systems approach. This speaker had heard Sydney Dekker speak about this way of engaging the organization at an ASSE National PDC in 2014 and had gone to Australia to meet with Dekker. While they like the ideas of this approach, they do not have the tools to make the connections and bring the networks of people effectively connect with the physical work and come to life.

Several other speakers spoke about the importance of working more closely with the people, developing more trust and interdependence. There is developing excitement about this way of working together.

The Awareness is Growing!

There seems to be a growing awareness that working with the people makes a positive difference. While no one has developed the tools to actually engage and bring the people together into a highly focused and purposeful conversation as we do using the Process Enneagram©, a positive shift to fully engaging the people and achieving safety excellence appears to be starting to happen.

In my presentation, that was very well received, I introduced a new diagram about bringing the safety and business technology together with the people side of the enterprise releasing the Third Force (Partnering) to achieve Total Business and Safety Excellence. For over 100 years, the business, productivity, and the safety technology (the quantitative, rules, procedures, machines, etc.) of our work has driven our organizations. The people have often been pushed and driven to function like they were just parts of a great machine. When we shift our way of thinking and doing, we can effectively bring the people into the work using a complex adaptive systems approach and specifically the Process Enneagram Safety Excellence workshops, a whole new level of sustainable performance is created.

Total business excellence

In the Safety Excellence Workshops, using the Process Enneagram© (seeSafetyExcellenceForBusiness.com and RNKnowlesAssociates.com), the people discover and co-create new ways to work together and develop the excitement and commitment for sustainable safety excellence to be achieved.

The Third Force in Safety is Partnering – bringing the strengths of our business and safety knowledge and tools together with the goodness of and power of the people to achieve sustainable, excellent results. It is an active force, a compelling force – collaborative, focused, conversational, committed, and caring…and it works!

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , ,

Safety Culture…Is Yours Healthy and Thriving? How Do You Know?

February 17, 2016 By Leave a Comment

When the Safety Culture is right…what do you see? What does Excellence look like?

  • People helping each other;
  • People looking out for others;
  • People are committed to caring about people, the work, the success of the Business; Aligned, Cohesive.
  • Few injuries;
  • Full Reporting;
  • Learning from all incidents; Collaborative.
  • Safety is talked about all the time – integrated into the work and the conversation;
  • Process safety management is respected and rules followed.
  • People understand the need for enforcement of standards & rules.
  • Good People treatment principles apply. (No bullies tolerated)
  • Litter-free workplace; (people care)
  • Problems are discussed openly; Differences are discussed, resolved.
  • Training is fully completed;
  • Employees regularly input what training is most important to their success.
  • Improvements are made in timely fashion;
  • Communications are open…up and down organizational lines.
  • People fully understand that the success of the business is tied to making a profit. Safety excellence and business success go hand in hand.
  • Safety excellence for business means that people understand safety and the business – information is shared; relationships are built; and people know the importance of their role to the Business.
  • Processes for healthy discussion/communication are prevalent and used.
  • Leaders are involved, inclusive, and open.
  • People feel good about their roles, their coworkers, their business success.

How does your team, business, or organization measure up to these? It is worth doing a very simple analysis. On a straight line, along this measure, where does your team stand on many of the above items listed? What does that tell you about where your efforts should be placed?

Not too long ago, EHS Today had a neat article about Safety Culture and Training…worth a look. Here’s the link.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business Tagged With: ,

Safety Never Takes A Holiday…Not in Hunting Season Either!

November 18, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Safety Never Takes A Holiday…Not in Hunting Season Either!

In many places, the hunting season is underway or just beginning. This is always a time of change and hazard. Some years when I was a plant manager, we would have one or two serious hunting-related, off-job injuries – like falling from a tree stand or tripping over something and breaking a leg. There is a lot of change as people go into the woods and fields looking for game. Many have not done this for a while. Others may not be fully prepared for a sharp change in the weather where a heavy rain could come in or the temperatures drop below freezing and hypothermia becomes a worry. It is often dark and visibility is poor. I have read of hunters getting killed with their own weapon when they have tripped and accidentally shot themselves. Don’t load your gun until you are ready to use it.

There’s a certain excitement that pervades hunting season, especially with newbies to the sport, so hunting safety cautions and reminders are good to reinforce. Be especially careful and safety-instructive when you have hunting novices with you!

Safety never takes a holiday – not in hunting season either!

Checklists Really Can Save Lives!

BrochuresI have been talking about checklists in my previous newsletters and they can be useful as people go out hunting.

Consider this mental checklist:

  • What sorts of special hazards do you face when you go out into nature and experience the thrill of the season?
  • Are you alone?
  • Do you have a flashlight if necessary?
  • A compass?
  • A cell phone?
  • Do people know where you will be and when to expect you to return home again?
  • Is your equipment really ready to do what you need?
  • Are your weapons in excellent working order?

Too many questions????? My wife’s father died while he was doing what he loved – deer-hunting; but his heart was not strong enough for the exertion required in that terrain.

What about you? Are you healthy enough for the hunt? Do you have your emergency meds with you? Could you get help if you needed it?

Another change for many of you will be related to Thanksgiving and the travel to be with family. Here again checklists would be useful.

Consider this mental checklist:

  • Is the car in good condition and serviced properly?
  • For those up north, do you have a few blankets and emergency rations in case you get into a surprise storm?
  • Are your maps and plans well thought out for the routes and times of travel?
  • Are your tires in good shape?
  • Do you have your ice scraper?
  • Is your cell phone charged?

For the hunters and seasoned travelers, you probably have a pretty good fix on these things. However, in the hurry to get into the field and woods or get moving on your trip when people are anxious and a little uptight, it is easy to miss a critical thing. How many times in the past have you started out and remembered you left something important behind? A simple checklist, written or mental, could make a big, positive difference in your adventures! Remember, safety never takes a holiday!

Checklists in the Workplace

I recently read of a fatal accident where a man was killed while working on a lathe. It was properly shielded and okay for the normal conditions, but the unexpected happened. The part he was working on exploded apart under the high rotating speed when he engaged the cutter. The parts from the exploding piece went right through the shield and gave him terrible, fatal wounds.

As you get ready to start your jobs – talking together about being fully prepared – it is important to imagine the unimaginable. What unlikely thing can happen that can get one of you killed if things go in unexpected ways? For many of these unexpected events there are no safety procedures developed. They lurk just outside of the normal path of events for which we have plenty of rules.

We often discover these lurking tragedies by talking together and thinking out loud about things. This requires a culture where it is expected that you will talk together, listen carefully to what you are hearing, asking questions and being open to something new. Sometimes when two seemingly unrelated ideas come together new insights emerge that could reveal a potentially serious accident. Often when we are listening to comics, two seemingly unrelated ideas are put together can be really funny. Conversely, thinking of two, seemingly unrelated things or events could save a life.

Thinking about the unexpected can be a powerful thing. (Put that on your mental checklist!)

Backfilling: The Hazard of Temporary Workers

Another thing that can happen around hunting season and the holidays is the need to hire temporary people to backfill for those who are out. These people need extra care and attention, but things are often so busy that it is hard to give it to them. These people just don’t know the hazards.

I heard a story about a high school aged fellow who came into a box making plant as a temporary employee and was assigned to a box-making machine. He was told to push the red button and the cardboard would be fed into the machine, scored, cut, folded and glued, then the finished box would be ejected from the machine. They also told him that now and then the machine would jam so he would have to quickly crawl into it to pull the cardboard out. Over the next few weeks, he successfully pull out some jammed boxes, but one day he did not move quickly enough and got pinned in the machine. Fortunately his heavy sweater got caught in the machine, jammed it and saved his life. He did get a long cut in his leg. He was stuck in the machine for about 30 minutes before someone discovered him and got him out and to medical help.

This is a pretty extreme example, but it illustrates the point. Look out for the temporary employees and help them. They are people too!

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

Why were we at this VPPPA Conference?

September 17, 2015 By Leave a Comment

At our exhibit booth, Claire and I shared our Partner-Centered Leadership approach. We handed out brochures and other literature that can help organization’s achieve safety excellence and move towards their OSHA Star designation. We were there to share important information, including the need to be able to lift up and address one’s safety elephants that are preventing organizations from being the best they can be.

We talked with a lot of people and learned of their safety journeys:

  • Those who had attained their Star status were looking for ways to sustain their performance, but there was a deep concern that complacency was undermining their safety achievements. Sustaining their work was a goal.
  • Those who were working towards their OSHA Star status were often struggling with communications problems between and among the workers, the union, and even the supervisors and managers. Getting everyone on the same page, and committed to the endeavor seems insurmountable (to some).

The Keys to Success and Sustaining Safety Performance

The keys for addressing both of these concerns in building sustainability into their programs and in achieving the OSHA Star status is for the people at all levels and parts of the organization to talk together to get clear and aligned on just what they really want to do. How sincere and authentic is the desire to have safety excellence for the long-term? (This means Communication with a Capital C—requiring Co-creation, Clarity and Coherence.) In addition, together they must take the time to co-create a set of ground rules about how they agree to work together in order to achieve their safety goals and then hold each other accountable to live up to them. (That’s Partnership and Commitment!) The process to achieve this is available to you and your organizations now.

There is no question that excellence in safety performance is good for both the people and the business. Creating and sustaining a workplace where everyone can go home injury-free, where everyone is treated respectfully, and everyone shares core safety values is what we should be doing.

In creating a workplace like this, the people are also generating benefit for the business. Eliminating OSHA Recordable Injuries and avoiding the average cost of $50,000 for each one provides real value for the business. Maintaining the production without the interruption of having had an injury and all the distraction that this causes is a also major contribution to the business. Building a reputation of being a safe, reliable supplier of quality produces another big value to the business.

Once everyone is clear and aligned that they really do want to achieve and sustain excellence, then talking together every day about doing this is critical. Toolbox meetings at shift start need to alert everyone on the challenges of working safely and a review of the day’s tasks, the looking out for the unexpected, taking two minutes before a job to be sure the right people and equipment are there, and emphasizing the importance of helping each other to stay alert and focused are also very important for these meetings.

As managers and supervisors walk around, they need to be talking respectfully with the people, listening and showing that they are really concerned for their safety. In doing this, we all learn together as better relationships develop and new ideas emerge. Talking with the people as true partners in the safety and business effort is key to moving to excellence. With everyone working together, on the same page, you are creating Partner-Centered Safety.

What are the overdue safety conversations you need to have?
And with whom?

What is it really all about?

This is all about having everyone go home in one piece and having a profitable business. Excellence in both the safety performance and business results are attainable.

When I was the plant manager at a big chemical plant, we got the total injury rates down to about 0.3, sustained this for 16 years, and had our earnings go up 300%. We have the roadmap that never fails—if you’re ready to travel that journey with us!

We can have it all if we want to do these things.

When the safety gets right, everything else gets right!

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Leading Safety…Working with People because People are the Key!

July 17, 2015 By Leave a Comment

“Safety 2015,” the Annual ASSE Professional Development Conference and Exposition, was held in Dallas, Texas, in early June. It was a terrific conference and gathering of about 4,000 safety professionals. There was a lot of networking, excellent keynote talks, a vast array of all kinds of safety equipment, and lots of papers in concurrent sessions. About 100 people came to hear me talk about achieving sustainable and excellent levels of performance. Total Recordable Injury Rate was <0.4 for 16 years when we approached the organization as a complex adaptive system (CAS).

There was a lot of interest in this based on the attention of the audience, the quality of the questions and the excellent feedback I received at the end. This was the only paper addressing the complex adaptive systems approach to achieving safety excellence at this conference. Based on my experience, this is a much easier and more effective way to lead safety. The Safety Leadership Process©, the correct tool for use in CAS, requires the leaders to get clear and focused in their safety thinking and message, then go into their organizations listening, talking, abundantly sharing information with the people about how to get better and then helping the people to implement their improvement ideas.

While the conference and exposition presented lots of good papers and displayed a huge array of safety equipment, I got the feeling that a lot of people think that they are disempowered for making safety improvements. Many lament, if only management would listen to the safety professionals, or if we added more focused safety people, or if we could purchase more of the fancy new equipment like that on display, that maybe then our safety would get better. Is this not more of the same way we have been managing safety for years?

I think that more technical papers, more traditional training activities, and new safety equipment will only get the organization to the level of safety compliance – it does not get organizations to the level of safety excellence. I have tried this technical-based approach over the last 50 years without achieving safety excellence. And why? Because people are the key!

But, when I shifted to using the Safety Leadership Process©, described above, the shift in attitude, the willingness to improve performance, and the energy and excitement of the people, enabled the organization to reach and sustain the higher level safety excellence.

Those in leadership positions and at the top of the organization have the responsibility to engage with the people – setting the conditions where excellence can be achieved. This only requires a commitment to get clear on the safety message, go into the work places and engage with the people exploring new and better ways to having every one go home without having been injured at work. With courage, care, concern, and commitment, we can all reach and sustain the level of safety excellence!

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The Gift of Discretionary Energy

April 2, 2015 By Leave a Comment

We can reach safety excellence only if we all pull together, giving our best. This takes extra energy over and beyond the energy we need to put into our job to keep from getting fired.

safety leadership tips Talking together is one of the most important things we can do to help to improve the safety in our workplaces. Letting people know that you care about them and respect them. But too many times I have seen supervisors and managers talking down to their employees ordering them to do this or that.

This is energy that we can give or withhold. This is energy that people will freely give if they are feeling valued and want to help everyone go home in one piece.

We can help people to feel really valued when we take interest in them, help them and ask them to help each other for the good of the whole organization. Being open and honest is a big part of this. Being consistent in working with them this way shows we are serious about them and want them to be a part of the team. Being clear, consistent and fair in holding everyone up to meeting the safety standards, not tolerating bully’s, and telling the truth are keys to this as well.

This is the way that most of us want to be treated so let’s do it for everyone!

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For a Safe Workplace Look at What You See

March 13, 2015 By Leave a Comment

We are constantly looking for indications relating to the strength and health of the safety climate in our facilities.

In January I talked about leading indicators I have found useful for occupational safety, health and process safety management. Another quick way to assess the safety climate relates to looking for the use of improper, makeshift tools. These can often be seen as we move through our facilities.

how to spot safety issues in businessAt a recent safety conference I learned about a way to quickly assess whether a manufacturing site was cutting corners and trying to get by on less than the best. The person speaking, Ewan Alexander of BHP Billiton, said that he looked for improvised tools being used.

An example is a wrench with a piece of pipe shoved over the handle to make the handle longer and thus be able to turn a bolt that should be turned by a larger wrench properly designed for the job. Pounding the handle of a wrench to loosen a bolt is another example of improper tool use.

Improperly Using PPE, like using a small respirator when full-face protection is required, is an example of cutting corners. Using dirty, partly opaque face-shields is another example. Using the wrong choice of gloves is another indication of cutting corners and poor decision-making.

The presence or absence of these problems is something we can observe if we pay attention.

When we are awake and making observations, we can quickly see how we are doing and take actions to improve things.

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Safety Excellence: Paying Attention to the Details is Key

January 16, 2015 By 1 Comment

A very effective leading indicator relating to occupational safety is to see and keep track of how people are working, and paying attention to details. These are called Safe Acts Audits. We look at a significant number of people doing their day-to-day jobs and keep track of what we see over time.

The way people choose to do a job is very strongly influenced by what is happening in the working environment, the culture—which strongly impacts their thinking. All that is rushing around in their minds (work, family, home, sports, politics) at the point of making a decision and acting on it is really important. Feeling pressured, rushed, bullied, undervalued, disrespected, not listened to, being pushed around by their supervisor, etc. are systems problems that create cloudy thinking resulting in someone getting hurt.

When these poor behaviors, done by individuals, persist over time it is clear that they are tolerated by management; I refer to them as systems problems. We can try to address these each time they arise, but if they keep coming up and the system does not change, they are systems problems.

When we observe people working safely (this is most of the people) we praise their safety efforts, and when we see someone working unsafely we need to pay attention and work together to correct the systems problems that are negatively impacting them. The openness we advocate where it is okay to talk about these things, to challenge decisions, to ask for help, to stop a job if they feel it is unsafe, is called Partner-Centered Safety.

If the ratio of the number of people we observe working safely (most of the people) compared to those working unsafely (very few people) drops, that is we see relatively more people working unsafely, we know that something has changed and must be addressed immediately.

We call this ratio the Safe Acts Index. When the Safe Acts Audits are done 2-3 times a week we can stay close to the current climate and react quickly to a drop in the Index by raising awareness, increasing the number of safety conversations, by helping everyone to become aware of a change and to use extra alertness looking out for and helping each other. In our experience, when the Index drops an injury occurs within the next 2-3 days unless the level of awareness and concern is promptly raised.

safety leadership excellenceSafety excellence is achieved and sustained one day at a time, day after day.

In Partner-Centered Safety we can do this together. Give us a call — let’s talk about how you and your team can reap the safety benefits of this unique-and-clearly-successful, focused way to eliminate injuries and incidents in your workplace.

 

Next month, we’ll discuss the leading indicators for occupational health and process safety management.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , , , ,

The Lurking Elephants…Can You See Them Now?

December 19, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Did you hear the story about the Safety Elephant who roamed all over the place stomping people down, messing things up, and completely blocking the ability of the people from having the important safety conversations?

creating safe workplaceYes, the elephant that got in the way of having the conversations that matter? You did? Oh, you have one of those too?

Safety First Elephants are big and smelly. Everyone knows they are there because they stink up the place, making it smell rotten. Elephants are also sneaky, often disguised, or even invisible. Sometimes they show up as the bully who tries to push everyone around and control the group. Sometimes it is a boss who just doesn’t seem to care. Sometimes it is “obliviousness” to what is really happening. Sometimes it is simply an undiscussable that has been allowed to fester. Anyone who tries to speak up about an important issue is silenced, put down, demeaned or ridiculed. The elephant just loves this. The elephants are in control! They are having a happy time!

You know that the elephant has a name…yet, you speak of it in whispers. (For the purpose of this Safety Flash, let’s call this elephant, Hiney – the H is for Hidden!) While Hiney is invisible or disguised, Hiney loves for you to talk about him/her in private, with a person you can trust. You might talk about Hiney in the restroom or by the water cooler. You make Hiney really quite visible in these conversations. But when you stay quiet in the situations that really matter – when you could constructively make an issue explicit, but you don’t – then Hiney remains very safe. So back in the workplace, Hiney keeps sneaking around, messing the place all up and stomping all over. Hiney is really very unfriendly – just loving it when someone gets hurt because you couldn’t talk about the real safety problem. Sometimes there are whole herds of Hiney’s!

Hiney is really very afraid of being made visible. If you just look Hiney (aka, the undiscussable) right in the eye and name the big, stinking elephant, everything changes! The big, cowardly, stinky, brutal Hiney seems to just melt away. You can talk about Hiney and work to fix the safety problem. There are courageous, safe ways to name and address the hidden elephants! Hiney can’t stand the light of the truth! Transparency hinders elephant herds. Fewer injuries and incidents will happen when you learn how to lift them up and address them. Call us…We’ll show you how!

Check out Can You See them Now? (Elephants in our Midst) – Discover the hidden elephants that are lurking in your organization or Work team…Then Vanquish Them! Available on Amazon.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

The Oil Patch

December 5, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Recently, there was one man killed and several others seriously hurt when a tank they were cleaning exploded. The article describing this accident talked about how high the injury and death rates are in Wyoming, in the oil industry, due to lacking a “culture of safety.”

safety leadershipThere is no doubt that work in the oil and gas industry is tough and dangerous, but that is no excuse for disregarding the health and safety of the workers. Almost all the deaths occurred when safety procedures were not followed. There is plenty of safety information available relating to tank cleaning. Have we not learned the lessons of improper confined space/vessel entry?

But, the demands for production are high. People are pushed to do things faster and quicker so corners are cut and procedures are modified to make the work quicker and easier. Communications are difficult because the people are dispersed across many working units. Do we just say that this is the way it is and bad stuff happens or do we take the responsibility to create a culture of safety? I think that supervisors and managers need to step up to the problem and solve them like they have shown that they can solve other tough problems.

My mantra, as a Plant Manager, was:

“I don’t have a right to make my living at a place where it was okay for you to get hurt. Now we need to make money so let’s figure out how to do that safely.”

If these supervisors and managers really work with the people, they will be able to make a big step towards very much improved safety. Following safe confined space/vessel entry procedures is a given – if we want our people to be able to be safe. Where do you stand?

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , , ,
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