business safety | Safety Excellence For Business

Safety II – What it is…and Why we Need it!

March 11, 2019 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

In my last Safety newsletter, I wrote about the need to significantly improve our safety performance.

I feel we are not moving fast enough to get to higher levels of performance. Way too many people are getting hurt and killed. Safety is a part of all we are doing and the whole system needs to be making improvements.

A big step was taken towards this goal in a Safety II in Practice Workshop in Saint Petersburg, Florida, on February 24-27, 2019. This excellent gathering was organized and brought together by Tom McDaniel, a widely experienced, practical safety leader. One speaker was Eric Hollnagel who has written several books about Safety II. He summarizes Safety II as “the ability to succeed under varying conditions, so that the number of intended and acceptable outcomes is as high as possible. The Safety II perspective looks at how work goes well and tries to understand how that happens in order to ensure that it will happen again.” The shift from Safety I, where we look at what went wrong, to Safety II where we look at what is going right and learn from it is critical for our work to attain higher levels of performance.

Tom McDaniel spoke of our obligation to present the closest interpretation of the truth in our organizations enabling the people to be given enough information to make the best possible decisions. We need to engage the people to help to improve our total performance including safety and reducing the number of incidents and injuries. We need to understand and build upon the things that people are doing right. He shared many practical examples to illustrate this.

Ron Gantt spoke about the need to widen our gaze to see the complex interactions of everyday work so we can see opportunities for improvement and facilitation rather only violations. He talked about the importance of going into our organizations, being with the people and seeing how they really do their work and the challenges they face every day as they get the jobs done. It is important to close the gap between work-as-imagined and work-as-done.

Our Safety I habits are strong and it is not easy to move into a Safety II approach and sustain it. Safety I and Safety II are not in opposition to each other. Rather we need to take the best of the basic rules, procedures and skills of Safety I, and build the positive approach of Safety II into our way of working with the people at all levels in the organization so that everyone can be the best they can be.

I was given the opportunity to talk about my work on Partner-Centered Leadership and shared information about the Process Enneagram, which is such a powerful tool to help people to come together to solve their complex problems. Partner-Centered Leadership is focused on sharing information, building trust and interdependence, helping everyone see the importance of their work for the success of the whole enterprise and moving into a better future. Everyone at the workshop was seeking ways to actually move into Safety II and make it happen so there was a lot of interest in this work.

Tom McDaniel was gracious in commenting:

“Dick Knowles has the most effective process for understanding and measuring leadership and its advancement. His knowledge on this subject is outstanding. He brings clarity to what many are already doing in an ad hoc method but by seeing this relationship distinction, it can only help you and your organization move further along. I know he has written a couple of books on this. He has helped many organizations succeed.”

This Workshop was an exciting step into a brighter future for the people in our organizations. Many thanks to Tom McDaniel for having organized this workshop and bringing everyone together to share and learn.

Our Progress is Too Slow for Safety!

February 12, 2019 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

Our safety progress here in the USA, in having fewer people getting hurt and killed at work, is way too slow.

A review of the Bureau of Labor Statics summary of fatal occupational injuries for 2011-2017 shows a 1% drop in fatalities from 2016 to 2017 to a total of 5,147 people having lost their lives at work. This is about 9% higher than the 4,693 people killed in 2011. The top three 2017 fatalities categories are roadway accidents totaling 1,299 (up 15% since 2011); slips, trips and falls totaling 887 (up 23% since 2011); and murders and suicides totaling 733 (up by only 2% since 2011).

Huge efforts by OSHA, The OSHA Voluntary Protection Program, ASSP, the Campbell Institute, the National Safety Council, NFPA, all their safety professionals and others seem to be stuck. A lot of significant effort like the ISO 45001 work is taking place. Big conferences are being held to share information, new ideas and all sorts of PPE, and other safety equipment. The ASSP conducts many safety professional certification programs in addition to all the various training programs and workshops. There is a lot of good information on the Internet to help as well. There is a lot going on! The amount of knowledge and expertise on safety is huge.

Why?

But why aren’t the improvements showing up in fewer people getting killed? Safety is about everyone going home to their families and loved ones healthy and injury-free.

I have a hunch!

Having worked as both a plant manager of big chemical plants for 13 years and consulting around the world for 23 years in all sorts of organizations, I have realized that so much of what we do in safety is managing the systems and processes and trying to keep things stable, focusing on reliability, predictability, stability, and control. This is good for the step-by-step, linear processes like running payroll, a production line, conducting a basic safety training session, or caring for the equipment and facilities and doing excellent PSM. Most supervisors and managers get promoted because they are doing a good management job. Every supervisory and management position has elements of managership that are very important and must be well done. But when we drive this sort of thinking relentlessly onto the people treating them like machines, things do not go well. This is where we are stuck in our safety work!

We need courageous leaders!

We need courageous leaders who focus on the people, change and the future. Leaders value sharing information, building trust and interdependence, and helping people to see how their job is important for the success of the whole venture.

Leaders see their organizations as if they are living systems; people are living systems so let’s treat them that way! Leaders go into their organizations on a daily basis modeling respect and openness, listening to and talking with the people about safety, the business and other important subjects. Leaders take a stand and ask the people to help them live up to it.

My safety stand was, “I do not have a right to make my living at a place where it is okay for you to get hurt. We also have to make profits so let’s get going and do both.” My stand on disrespect, harassment and bullying was that this was totally out of place. We need to treat each other with respect. I asked the all the people to hold me accountable to live up to these stands and they did.

When talking with the people, ask questions like these about their job:

How is your job going?
Do you know a better way to do it?
What are your two biggest safety hazards today and how are you going to manage these? (Employees need autonomy to be able to think things through!)
Do you have all the information you need?
Do you have the right tools and PPE for this work?
How can I help you?

In leading this way, I used tools for complex adaptive systems to help me develop clarity and co-create, with the people, the principles and standards of behavior like be respectful, listen, help each other, ask for help if needed, look after each other, apologize for mistakes, and tell the truth. We held ourselves and each other accountable to live up to these principles and standards.

Leading this way will help to shift us from Eric Hollnagel’s vision of Safety I to Safety II. In managing, we get stuck in Safety I and in leading, we break out and achieve Safety II.

Every supervisory and managerial position has a leadership component in their work. Supervisors have a larger managership component and higher level managers have a large leadership component. However, everyone with responsibility for people needs to balance and use both sets of skills.

When I was the Plant Manager of the DuPont Belle, WV plant, I led this way and the results the people achieved were amazing. Injury rates dropped by 98%, we went 16.5 million exposure hours between lost workday cases (8 Â½ years), emissions dropped by 88%, productivity rose by 45%, and earnings rose by 300%.

Leaders take a stand! Put your Stake in the Ground!

Go into your organizations listening to and talking with the people. Share your vision. Build trust and interdependence. Create safe spaces for people to talk with each other, to share and create the future. Everything will change. That is what I experienced at the Belle Plant.

Safety happens when people take the responsibility to take all they know into themselves and do it! In leading this way energy and creativity are released, resistance to change almost disappears, and everyone can become the best they can be. A lot fewer people will get injured and killed and the business will make a lot more money. This is what is at stake…a Stake that requires Leadership.

All it takes is the courage and WILL to lead.

Richard N. Knowles and Associates are happy to talk with you about this so please give us a call at 7167-622-6467.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business Tagged With: business safety, creating a safety culture, employee fatalities, have a clear safety vision and message, improving safety in organizations, OSHA, safety improvements in business, safety leadership

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry…

October 10, 2017 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

As I travel around and watch things happening, I see so many people in a big hurry. We are coming to the end of the good weather so people are hurrying to get outside jobs finished up. Roofers are really busy and not taking the time to properly use and secure their fall protection. I read of a recent 29-story fall in New York City when a guy on a big construction site fell through an unsecured hole in the floor.

Most of the people doing these jobs have a good idea about the hazards they face, yet they seem to ignore the possibility of getting hurt. Many of these people have families and loved ones who will suffer if they are hurt or killed. Why do you suppose they ignore this? Do they think “it” won’t happen to me?

What will it take to get these people to pay attention and be more mindful in their work?

Do we need more rules? OSHA already has plenty of them.
Do we need more fines? There already are provisions for fines, yet they do not seem to be having much impact.
Do we need more supervisors overseeing the work and making the people work more safely? Good supervisors are in short supply and those who are out there have lots to do and are also rushing.
Do we need more dramatic pictures and videos of people working unsafely as a reminder? There are lots of these floating around YouTube and other internet sites. Maybe those out on the jobs are not seeing these reminders…maybe (to their detriment) they have blinders on regarding the hazards of the work.
Trying to make people work more safely is okay, but we seem to be stuck with this approach. There have been about 4,600 fatalities a year for the last 4-5 years so things that we are doing are not having much impact.

Doing things to the people to get them to work more safely is not working well enough.

One way to do this is to open up the discussions about safety (and talk with each other) to make the workplace psychologically safe enough for people to stand up and ask the important questions and have the important debates about how to work more safely. Lots of organizations say that people have the right to stop a job if it is not safe; do they really?

There is so much pressure in many workplaces to get the job done as quickly as they can that people are reluctant to speak up. (Mixed signals). Some people are afraid of losing their jobs if they speak up. This is not okay!

Most of the pressure to hurry up and get the jobs done is based on the belief that this is the way to maximize their profits. How much does it cost to stop a job for 10-15 minutes to get the safety right? Injuries cost a lot of money in terms of the medical bills, lost time being away from the job, getting someone else in to do the work, OSHA inspections, reports, fines, bad publicity, investigations, and audits. The average cost for an OSHA Recordable Injury is over $50,000.

Stopping the job to get the safety right saves a lot of money, pain and suffering.

Slow Down and Work More Effectively

A good, proven approach is to have brief start up meetings to review the hazards of the day’s work, making sure we have the right PPE and other equipment in place and used, asking each other about what might go wrong and working to avoid this. We need to look over the schedules and be sure we have the equipment we need and the right people for the work.

Each person can make a good contribution to this start-up meeting by talking together, listening, and asking questions. Each person can take responsibility for themselves and their workmates so that everyone has a safe, productive day and can go home in good physical and mental shape.

The fastest way to get the job done is to do it right the first time!!

NOTE: A Good Leader knows this! Savvy supervisors care about the job getting done, while at the same time, that the people doing the job remain safe while doing the work. Holding start meetings to ask people…What are the things you really need to consider for this job? What unexpected things could happen? And how will you prepare for those? Do you have everything you need? Tools, PPE, etc.? What can you teach another (today) about the importance of this work being done safely? How will you look out for coworker/s (today)…during the completion of these jobs? A Good, Respected Leader/Supervisor knows and cares about the people reporting to him/her, shows commitment to safety in all ways, and continually develops expectations of excellence within a learning environment–which the supervisor is keen to establish.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: business safety, OSHA, work more effectively

Some Unsettling Trends

July 10, 2017 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

The American Society for Safety Engineers (soon to be The American Society for Safety Professionals) in Denver, Colorado, on June 19-22, 2017, was attended by about 5,000 people. This was a record for attendance. There were lots of papers and a huge trade show exhibit. I never saw so much safety equipment and other offerings.

I presented a paper during the last series of talks. It was titled “Breaking Through to Safety Excellence, Self-Organizing Criticality and the Process Enneagram©.” Even though I was among the last of the papers, I had about 150 people attend and received a rating for my talk of 4.7 out of 5. Many people came up at the end to talk further. If any of you would like to see my paper, please send me an email.

In spite of the large attendance and all the safety equipment in the trade show, I feel some alarming trends in safety performance. The number of workplace fatalities in the US has been at around 4,700 each year for the last 6-7 years. New regulations and ISO Standards are not making a strong impact. This is true in other countries, as well like New Zealand, where they have already had 28 fatalities; almost as much as for all of 2016 even though they had a new National Standards issued in April 2-16.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: business safety, safety performance, safety trends

Managing the Dynamical Balance Between Production and Safety

June 12, 2017 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

Lots of organizations proclaim that “Safety is Number 1” or something like this. In my early years, I thought this way as well. In reality, we have to have both in order for the business to make money. I have talked about this before in other newsletters and in my talks at the ASSE Annual PDC Conferences.

Sometimes we need to work on and talk more about the safety hazards, needs and requirements. Other times we need to work on and talk about the production needs. Both Safety and production are always in the conversations; sometimes more of safety and other times more of production. This is a both/and situation.

We were always in this conversation when I was the plant manager and you can see from the results mentioned in the proceeding section, we were able to do very well in managing this dynamical balance. It is dynamical because, not only are the situations dynamic in themselves, but also there are many situations going on at the same time around them so everything is always moving. We have to be very alert, talk together, help each other work at our highest skill levels.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: business safety, production safety, safety in the production area

Hand-in-hand with Safety Issues…Let’s Lift Them Up!

March 13, 2017 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

It Should Be No Surprise…Spring comes Every Year…Hand-in-hand with Safety Issues…Let’s Lift Them Up!

Each time the construction cycle picks up, more people get killed, mostly from falls. Some falls are the result of poor footing. Some falls result from poor housekeeping and clutter. Some falls result from inadequate barricading of edges or open holes in the floors. Some falls result from poor pre-shift preparations and the work is started before things are ready. Some falls result from people rushing to get the work done quickly. Some falls result from some people being careless.

Each of us needs to be physically and mentally ready to do the work. Do you have pre-shift meetings that really focus on getting ready for the work of the day? Is all the PPE and safety equipment ready? Have people gone through 10-15 minutes of stretching so that they are physically ready to do the work?

Have all of you talked together about the potential fatal accidents that could occur in your work? Do you just step back for a couple of minutes and imagine what you think is the impossible? Have you talked about recent near misses and learned from what they can teach?

People newly hired for the work are at a much higher risk of being injured or killed. They need to know the requirements for the work. They need to be introduced to the specific hazards of the work at hand. Do they know the safety requirements for this work? Do you know if they are really qualified and trained for the work? What previous experience have they had with the work at hand? Do you know if they are physically and emotionally fit for the work? Who has talked with them and screened them? Do you trust them enough to work safely with you?

With all the uncertainties and variable working conditions, all of you need to be looking out for each other – I mean really watching and helping each other. Being ready and willing to stop unsafe work is important. It is critical that information flows freely so that everyone knows what is going on and are able to work closely together.

A big barrier to open communications are the bullies among you. They push people around, shut down important communications among yourselves, and cause people to pull into themselves at a time when people need to be open, sharing information and helping each other. Supervisors and managers need to be aware of who the bullies are and stop this destructive behavior. Sometimes the supervisors are the bullies so management needs to deal with them. This sort of behavior needs to be eliminated or the bullies removed from the work.

In all this construction work, the people actually on the job are the most important in helping each other. You are there. Please be present, alert and pro-active in your safety efforts.

Filed Under: Safety for Business Tagged With: be present in your work area, business safety, safety of others

Breaking the Pattern – Allowing the New to Emerge…via The Partner-Centered Safety Leadership Workshop

September 12, 2016 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

In many of our newsletters, I have talked about helping organizations co-create their safety future using the Process Enneagram© complexity tool in our Partner-Centered Safety Leadership Workshops. This is a powerful tool to help bring the people together around their safety challenges – breaking the old patterns, and co-creating a better, safer future (together).

Here is a brief description about how our Partner-Centered Safety Leadership Workshop takes place:

In a recent workshop, a cross-section of the people, including their manager, came together for a day. There were about 19 people present. We began with the question, “How do we improve our safety performance?” With this as our central focus, we engaged the people with the Process Enneagram©. Everyone participated in developing their living, strategic safety plan over the next four hours in an interactive dialogue in which everyone participated, including delving into the issues and behavioral patterns that keep recurring.

Together, the group determined what new commitments needed to be made (by all of the team) in order to get where they wanted to be, together – to achieve the best results for a safe workplace.

We then asked the people to identify what the top four things were that they needed to immediately work on and develop a plan of action. Then, they self-organized into four teams of about equal size to work on their respective topic. After about two hours, each team reported out to the entire workshop group, sharing their ideas and plans to improve safety and to solve their problem. They identified their leader, the team members, their plan of action and when they would be meeting again to do their work.

After the workshop, the participants shared what had happened with all the others in the organization who had not attended, asking for ideas for improvement.

In order to sustain this work, their manager needed to talk with all of them frequently about the progress of their teams. The manager supported each team with the resources and contacts they needed to do their work. About once a month, all the teams came together and reviewed their progress with each of the other teams and the manager. Open communications with the rest of the organization kept everyone informed of the progress.

The manager talked with everyone in the organization about their Safety Strategic Plan, sharing information abundantly, listening carefully, and building credibility. He/she also spent time with each team to understand their work. The manager often helped the teams to contact others in the organization or suppliers so they could make progress. The manager created the environment of open communications and trust to make all this happen and to sustain the work.

When Claire and I returned to this organization after about four months, each team met with us to discuss their progress, frustrations and successes. Every team had made progress and everyone was talking about how to help the organization improve. Several teams had completed their initial project and had begun to work on the next piece of work to help the organization get stronger and safer. Almost everyone in the organization was talking about ways to help to improve the organization’s safety performance. Clearly, the organization had markedly improved, moving forward to a better, safer workplace for everyone. And they co-created that future (together).

Discover how your organization can see safety turnarounds quickly. For more information, contact us at 716-622-6467.

Filed Under: Safety Leadership Process, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: business safety, safe work environment, safety education in the workplace

Conceptualize “Caring” in Your Workplace! Then Conceptualize “Tragic Fatality” in Your Workplace!

August 10, 2016 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

Eighty (80) pages and counting…that’s how far I got while perusing the numerous pages for the 2015 fatalities logged on OSHA reports – there were still many names and circumstances yet to read.

Each one of the entries represents a real person – who has a name, a family, a job, and was doing a task within his/her workplace. I also looked at the OSHA count for 2014 and the total fatalities in the workplace that year numbered 4,821.

Think about this tragic loss of life. 4,821 is a big number made up of 1+1+1+1 + another, another, another, and each single number is not just a number…it is connected to a personal name. Having recently visited the 911 Memorial in New York City, it really drives home the importance of an individual – a named individual. The visual has such meaning.

Making a living shouldn’t have to cost you your life. As Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health notes,workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses are preventable.

Employers and Employees share responsibility for safety. We say that we care. We know that we care deeply when we are touched by the closeness of a tragic injury to someone we know – we’re able to put a face and a name to the number. Yet, how many times have you tuned out during a safety meeting, thinking that the subject was boring, or giving only lip-service, believing it can’t happen here.

If only we all understood that every single safety rule has been written in blood. Meaning someone, somewhere, somehow was hurt badly enough that rules emerged to prevent a recurrence. Yet, the OSHA logs keep growing, showing real time statistics. We have a lot of caring to demonstrate!

Conceptualize real caring. What does it look like in your workplace? In the 80’s, there was something called a “Unity Triangle,” which was a useful model…to strive for commitment within a team structure in a way that demonstrates caring, understanding and openness (all three) so that individual growth is stimulated while team efforts are increasingly directed toward achieving safe workplaces, and organizational alignment of goals.

The learning is this:

Ponder this: We can have safe workplaces. We can have involved, caring, individual, safe-minded employees. We can understand that safety rules are written in blood and we can be open about connecting with our coworkers to keep learning and remaining diligent in keeping each other safe. We can be open to reaching out in ways we may not have done before; we can be open to achieving full Safety alignment…by everyone in the workplace, in our teams, individually and collectively.

That’s unity…that’s being aligned on the principle that making a living (anywhere) shouldn’t have to cost a real person his/her life…none of us are numbers. We are a Team, with named individuals, committed to the betterment of our collective workplace.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: business safety, safety

Shifting the Way We Look at Organizations

July 11, 2016 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

On June 29, 2016, I presented a paper at the American Society of Safety Engineers 2016 Professional Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It was titled “Partner-Centered Safety: A New Leadership Approach for Safety Excellence.”

My message to those who attended my session was that the Bureau of Labor safety statics show the rate of improvement in reducing injuries in the workplace has slowed down since about 2009 and the rate of improvement for deaths has stopped; about 4,600-4,700 people are being killed at work each year.

The safety professionals and managers are putting a lot of effort into improving the safety performance in our workplaces, but we seem to be stuck. I think that the problem is that we are approaching organizations as if they are just complicated systems rather than as complex systems.

The complicated view of organizations has served us well, and a lot of progress has been achieved. Now we need to move forward in our thinking.

When we view our organizations as complex systems, a better description of the way organizations actually behave emerges.

While many people crave reliability, predictability, stability, and control for their organizations, this is rarely achieved. Our organizations are full of movement, feedback, changes, and surprises. Nothing sits still; everything is in motion.

When I learned to view my organization as a complex system, everything improved. Our injury rate dropped by ~97%, earnings rose ~300%, emissions dropped ~88%, and productivity rose ~45%.

My experience in leading the organization as if it was a complicated system was difficult and strenuous. I felt that I had to push everything to get the work accomplished safely, and we never achieved success. When I shifted to a complexity view of the organization, everything became easier to lead, my work was more effective and the improvements were dramatic. In working with the organization as a complex system, the people opened up, the conversations were more purposeful, and energy and creativity were released. All dimensions of the business improved and the people were pleased and proud of their achievements.

There is a lot in making this shift in perspective. I think that everyone can learn to work this way. I would be happy to talk with any of you about this and help you on your own journeys.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: business safety, complex systems, safety

Buddy Benches

May 10, 2016 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

buddy-bench There was a video on Facebook a few weeks ago about Buddy Benches being placed in schoolyards. The video explained the importance of the communication and training that is essential to their use and effectiveness.

The essence of the Buddy Bench is for inclusion and safety. Kids who feel alone and have no one to enjoy their recess time with are encouraged to sit on the bench – as a signal that he/she is in need of a friend, a buddy, a playgroup to join. Conversely, when the Buddy Bench has a person sitting on it, the kids who are enjoying their recess time, are chartered to practice being a Buddy…by sharing friendship, to invite the person into their group, to ask what might be troubling the bench-sitter, to provide protection from a bully; the list of helpful acts extended from the community of kids towards the person in need of a buddy is heartwarming.Buddy Benches serve as a safe place for kids who are feeling bullied or for kids to make new friends.

In exploring Buddy Benches, I learned that they are multiplying; they are in many school districts across the country. Some Boy Scout troops are now making Buddy Benches for schools for their badge-earning credits. The Buddy Bench is a simple idea to lessen loneliness, to counter bullying, and to foster friendship and a sense of belonging. Buddy Benches provide the symbolic learning space for both asking for help and, in return, receiving the extended hand of friendship.

After learning about this uplifting idea, I thought about inclusion within our workplaces and about being our brother’s/sister’s keeper – simply because it is the right thing to do – ensuring we have each other’s back. I thought about OSHA’s workplace bullying guidance, the connection to the General Duty Clause, and knowing that escalating workplace bullying, harassment, and intimidation is linked to poorer safety performance as well as employee mental and physical wellbeing. And, of course, I thought about employee accountability – we are each accountable for our behaviors. I thought about the culture of our workplaces being strongly related to the worst behaviors we are willing to tolerate. I thought about that old book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” by Robert Fulghum. Remember those simple truths?

How our work worlds would be improved if we all adhered to the same basic rules as children: sharing, being kind to one another, no hitting, cleaning up after themselves, learning together, etc. Maybe we need to place something like Buddy Benches in our workplaces. What do you think?

Filed Under: Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: business safety, safe work environment, safe workplace