YOU are the Reason…for safety in the workplace

June 10, 2026 By Leave a Comment

There’s a reason – a very good reason for practicing Safety: YOU! Your life, your eyes, your ears, your fingers, your toes, your arms, your legs, your brain.

At its core, the purpose of safety is not compliance for its own sake. Compliance is a means to an end. The ultimate goal is to protect people – YOU… employees, supervisors, contractors, vendors, visitors and the public – from injury, illness, and fatality. It is about preventing serious incidents before they occur and ensuring that everyone returns home safely at the end of the day.

When an organization embraces this purpose, compliance becomes the foundation upon which a stronger culture of care, responsibility, and operational excellence is built.

Compliance establishes the minimum acceptable standard of performance. Safety excellence is achieved when people voluntarily do what is right, even when no one is watching, because protecting one another has become part of the organization’s culture and values.

safety in the workplace is for your safety

In a previous post, I shared how the number of fatalities (people being killed at work) is around 5,200 every year in the United States. Unfortunately, that number has fluctuated very little from year to year. If we have more safety professionals, more training, more audits, more regulations, more data, and more oversight than ever before, why do workplace fatalities remain relatively constant? What is being missed?

The next frontier in safety is not doing more safety activities; it is ensuring that safety activities influence the decisions, behaviors, and conditions are focused on the real outcomes we want.

The purpose of safety is not to create more safety programs – it is to prevent harm to people. So, to make sure that we’re really doing what we should be doing in the workplace, what are we really measuring?

  • Do workers trust management?
  • Do supervisors feel pressure to prioritize production over safety?
  • Are workers comfortable to stop work, for a valid safety concern?
  • Are critical hazards understood?
  • Are we watching for warning signs of a catastrophic event being ignored?
  • Why, after all our investment and effort, do serious injuries and fatalities continue to persist? What’s the root of this?
  • If our current approach is producing the results we see today, and the results are not good enough, then how should we be thinking differently now?

How about beginning to shift our focus:

  • Instead of asking if people are following the rules—how about, “Do people really understand the hazards?”
  • Instead of asking who made the mistake—how about, “What conditions made the mistake possible?”
  • Instead of asking how many audits we completed—how about, “What are the few things most likely to kill someone, and how certain are we that they are controlled?”

people need to practice working safely

Compliance seeks certainty through rules. Safety Excellence seeks resilience in the face of uncertainty.

For years I’ve been sharing about the Partner-Centered Leadership process because it works. It keeps people safe and fosters relationships, plus a healthy culture – Yes, your organization can become world-class in safety.

The Safety Leadership Process(TM) described in “Partnering for Safety and Business Excellence,” helps leaders to lead their respective organizations beyond compliance, to safety excellence, with virtually zero injuries. Huge costs are saved as the waste of human suffering, injuries, and lawsuits and bad press are avoided.

You can order a copy of “Partnering for Safety and Business Excellence” on Amazon and learn more about the five simple steps to get you there!

 

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

Teamwork in Action: Self-Organizing Teams

April 10, 2026 By Leave a Comment

The most fun I ever had in leading organizations was when we had all learned to work together in self-organizing ways using Partner-Centered Leadership ideas and the Process Enneagram to guide our inquiries.

People were full of creative energy, coming up with good ideas about how to solve their problems and do better work. We shared information about all that was going on – feedback was straight forward and useful. We all learned together through teamwork, became more resourceful, and better able to handle the chaos and complexity of the world around us.

when people work together through teamwork safety works

In the old days, when I was driving the people from the top down, the work was hard and not a lot of fun. Many days I was just worn out with all the negative energy bring sucked out of me.

As we all learned to work this new way, my role shifted to being a cheerleader for all the great work that people were doing. The gift of their energy above the minimum made a huge, positive contribution.

Why Teamwork Works

Everything that happens within an organization depends on the agreements that the people co-create together about how to self-organize and do their work. Every part of the organization lives within these bounds and standards. In using the Process Enneagram, the people talk together, listen, share, learn and do the work. The people at all levels are engaged and participate in this work. They build together on their shared values.

Every part of the organization, including those at the top, those in research, sales, manufacturing, maintenance, purchasing, human resources, etc., have these ways of working together.

If someone tries to develop separate ways of working, the organization begins to crumble. For example, if I try to do things differently in safety that conflict with these shared ways of working, people get confused and trust drops. Over time this can lead to the sorts of dysfunctional organizations many of us know so well.

We all have a shared responsibility to nurture and develop this way of working together because the results that are achieved are so much better than dysfunctional organizations can achieve.

At one level, each part of the organization is engaged in different sorts of work, but at a deeper level everyone is engaged in this same way of working and building together. Trust levels got a whole lot better. Interdependence among the various groups became stronger. Disagreement and arguments were fewer because we had learned to talk together and listen for the best ideas.

Our organizations are full of people who are quite intelligent. As we worked and learned together, the collective intelligence of the entire organization got stronger, problem solving got stronger, cooperation and helping each other became more common. As we became more successful, we celebrated each other’s successes.

work safely together through teamwork

The Payoff of Teamwork

In one plant of over 1,000 people, in working this way, we went from one of the poorest performers to one of the best of all the 150 plants in the company in just four years.

That was a lot of work, but it was so much fun and satisfying. People are still talking about the experience 30 years later.

Path Forward

If you want to learn more about this way of working and learning together, please give me a call at 716-622-6467 between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm EST.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Partnership, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Safety Success in Your Workplace!

February 10, 2026 By Leave a Comment

Let’s Not Keep it a Secret!

Our Industry’s Focus

As I read safety newsletters and various safety stories each day, I am struck that most people are focused on safety conferences and meetings, on developing better accident investigation procedures, and on withstanding OSHA audits.

These are important professional activities for sure, but I hardly ever see stories about successful safety work with our front-line people.

There about 5,200 people getting killed at work each year so this is not a trivial problem. We need to help more people go home to their families safely.

On LinkedIn, there are frequent arguments about the best investigation procedures or interpreting some new or old theory. For example, the “Bradley Curve,” which I was a part of creating, has received a lot of criticism and discussion with made up theory about it. That’s been useless, in my view. Apparently, the Curve has been used by different organizations in many ways. I hope they have been useful. Some of the theories discussed are way out there.

We, at the DuPont Belle, West Virginia Plant had been able to make terrific progress in talking together, listening and learning together. The Curve, now known as the Bradley Curve, was merely a simple way to illustrate what we had accomplished.

success in the workplace is built on safety

An Invitation…

I would like to publish some stories in my newsletter and website about safety successes in the workplace. Many of you know my passion for helping to make workplaces safer. I am sure that some of you also share this passion.

What successes can you share about reducing the number of injuries and incidents in your workplaces? How have you engaged the people to help them work with fewer injuries? What insights have you gained as you help to lead this work?

Sharing some success stories would be great to illustrate your work and provide ideas to others.

Many of you probably have some fine stories to share, which would help to provide ideas and guidance to others. Please send your story to me so I can put it into my newsletter and website, with attribution, of course.

individuals can thrive in the workplace with safety

Please Call Me

I would love to talk with you about your story and safety, in general, so please call me at 716-622-6467. I live in the Eastern Time Zone and calls between 10:00AM and 4:00PM are welcome.

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

The Safe Acts Audit…A Key to Safety in Businesses

October 10, 2025 By Leave a Comment

In many of my safety blogs, I have emphasized the importance of conversations so we can all learn and grow together.

The conversations brought us all together and helped us to achieve excellent business and safety results. As we became increasingly successful in our work, we introduced a new safety audit we called The Safe Acts Audit. It is very useful and powerful; we used it extensively.

the safe acts audit - leading indicator of the safety climate

Each week, the safety team of 2-3 people would walk out into the plant among the people, looking at how they were working. We wanted to observe people doing things right.

The auditors would just walk among the people and watch. They did not stop to talk; they just cruised around the plant at random times for about an hour, 2-3 times each week. They would observe 40-60 people each time, and if (by chance) they saw anyone working unsafely,* they would deduct a point or two from the beginning Safe Acts Index number of 100%.

(*Certainly, if the observed behavior of working unsafely was blatant, the person’s supervisor was immediately notified to prevent a potential injury; however, the intent of the audit was purely to observe and record what was being done correctly. It’s a whole different type of audit when you’re looking for the good things, not the negative.)

Most of the time the Index would indicate that 95-98% of the observations were of people working safely. It gave us a very easy way to sense what was happening. We also found that it was an excellent leading indicator. The Safe Acts Audit is not to be confused with a Gemba Walk. Remember, this Safe Acts Audit was simply to observe people, and to record the number of observations of people working safely – that’s the bottom line.

After a year or so, most of us did Safe Acts Audits every time we went into the plant. These were mostly impromptu, and the official Index number was the one generated by the safety people. There is some subjectivity in doing this audit so we thought that the official number should be generated by the same people to reduce the variability of the Index.

Using the Safe Acts Index

Over time, we realized that the Safe Acts Index was a sensitive, leading indicator of the safety climate.

If the Index fell in any audit by 5-10%, there would likely be a recordable injury within the next 3 days. We had to immediately raise everyone’s awareness of the potential, and the need to work more carefully. We did this in several ways.

One way was to put a traffic stop light at the pedestrian gates; a green light indicated that we were doing okay; a yellow light indicated a drop in the Safe Acts Index; and a red light meant we had had a recordable injury somewhere on the plant. With the yellow light all of us would talk more about the safety and hold better toolbox meetings each day, simply to raise awareness.

Another way to raise awareness was to have all eight of us on the leadership team greet everyone coming into work on each shift for a day, reminding them of the need to be more aware, sharing that our Safe Act Audit numbers were indicating we need to all increase our awareness of doing our jobs safely, and that we do not want to see anyone be injured.

Another way was to publish a safety caution in the emails and newsletters we used. We also put cautions onto the login screens of their computers.

safety audit significance

Conclusion

All this communication effort was done with respect and caring. We wanted people to know that we cared and that we all had to work together so we could all go home safely to our families.

Doing the Safe Acts Audit was easy and a highly effective part of our total safety effort, contributing to helping us reduce our injury rate by about 97% in four years. It was a positive audit – seeking to raise people’s awareness to do our work safely and to watch out for each other.

There were 1,100 people working at the plant, so using our safety index as a way to look at our performance was reliable. By working together to improve our total performance, including safety, we did not suffer the problem of under reporting, but we kept a keen eye on that potential, so it did not develop.

If you’d like to know about how important this Safe Acts Audit process is or how you could adopt it for your organization, please give me a call at 716-622-6467.

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

Why Are People Getting Killed At Work?

August 10, 2024 By Leave a Comment

Indifference… At a local event this past week, I asked a friend who is involved in safety work the question, why are people getting killed at work? He quickly came up with this answer.

“A lot fewer people are being killed than it used to be before OSHA. There has been a lot of progress. We must be at about the best we can do.“

Then the conversation moved off to the Olympics. He just brushed this off as no longer important.

But this is important to the approximately 5,200 families who have had someone in their family killed. This experience remains with the family forever. And this 5,200 total number is an every year statistic!

Those of you reading my newsletters know that I am constantly trying to help people reduce injuries and deaths by building Partner-Centered Leadership and sharing real case studies that have been published in Professional Safety. We can reduce the numbers of injuries and fatalities, and we shouldn’t just push this problem aside with indifference.

hard hats save workers from being killed at work

Leaders Lacking Insights About What Is Possible

At a recent graduation celebration gathering, I was talking with a family member who has a very responsible safety leadership job in a large company, about my efforts to have fewer people killed at work. We talked about Partner-Centered Leadership and having everyone involved, co-creating our shared futures and taking more responsibility for the whole business efforts, including safety.

I was asked, “How do you work this way across widely dispersed sites?” This is a challenge for sure. The way I see it, this effort has to begin with the CEO and the Leadership Team. They need to talk about Partner-Centered Leadership and walk the talk at every site visit so people can understand that they mean it. The top people need to personally engage the lower levels in learning to lead this way and insist that everyone is involved. The CEO and Leadership Team should do some of the training of the lower-level people.

If someone does not get on board, then some tough decisions need to be made. The message should be that this is the way the company is going to do business going forward. But equally important is helping everyone to see that going home to one’s family at the end of the workday with all one’s body parts intact – no injuries, no incidents, is the absolute answer to What’s in it for me?

My mantra when I was a plant manager was, “I don’t have a right to make my living where it is okay for you to get hurt!” Does anyone have this right? The methodology for success is to engage people – for supervision across the board, up and down the organization to learn how to ask process questions. When it comes to safety, leaders who are in denial, or pretending one “doesn’t know” just doesn’t cut it. Asking process questions can ensure accountability.

We then talked about why there was so much resistance to these ideas. Based on some hard systems thinking, I think that the whole US safety industry with all the training, audits, fines, blame, etc. is driven by FEAR! This idea can be startling. Examining safety from a systems perspective was a different idea – particularly noting that fear was a key driver.

The problem with a culture being driven by fear is that it is very difficult to learn and do new things. Just about everyone is concentrated on covering their backside rather than talking together in an environment that is safe enough to explore new ideas together. When we work together using Partner-Centered Leadership, we can open up the vast knowledge that is lying hidden in our organizations. When we treat people with respect, listen and learn together, amazing new ideas and possibilities bubble up.

Everything changes! Productivity goes up. Earnings go up, Safety improves. The culture becomes one where almost everyone is learning, growing, taking more responsibility and producing great results. New possibilities emerge which often lead to much better earnings.

workplaces should value safety

Partner-Centered Leadership

When the CEO and the Leadership Team learn what is possible and how to work this way with authenticity and caring, this can spread throughout their organization and achieve significantly better results. It takes some effort and dedication, but there is no need for new capital investment. In a sense, Partner-Centered Leadership is free!

Contact me (716-622-6467) and let’s discuss how this can work for you and your organization.

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

Building Respect and Trust

December 12, 2022 By Leave a Comment

Why do so many managers and safety professionals keep treating the people in organizations as objects to be controlled so they will work safely?

They seem to assume that the employees can’t or won’t think for themselves and have to be made to work safely. These managers and safety professionals are not bad people, but they are stuck in their basic assumptions about people. So many seem to think that they have the answers and the power to make people do as they are told.

Thinking of the people as “employees” is part of the problem. Thinking of people as “employees” brings different thoughts to mind. The word “employee” is a legal word that defines my relationship with my employer with respect to things like hours of work, pay rates, benefits, etc. It also carries some tough top-down implications. If the boss gives an order, it better be done. The boss and the employee are not seen as equals in terms of respect, hopes, aspirations, good ideas and creative energy.

safety focus building respect and trust

This has been the approach for generations and yet, there are still over 6,000 people a year getting killed at work and thousands are suffering serious injuries. Just using the same approach, with variations, over and over, and expecting to see real improvements is a problem!

There needs to be a fundamental shift to assumptions like these.

My Safety Focus: Building Respect and Trust.

My basic assumptions are:

  • We work with people who have brains and can think; their hopes and dreams are similar to my own.
  • People do want to work safely and not get hurt.
  • People want to be treated with respect.
  • The people doing the work have important knowledge and ideas to contribute.
  • People want to be listened to.
  • I do not know what they know, so we need to share information together so we can do our best.
  • Safety is connected to everything we do; it is part of the whole system.
  • It takes everyone pulling together to achieve excellence.
  • I do not have a right to make my living at a place where it is okay for people to get hurt.

I did not work on safety as such. My focus was on the people and building trust and a better, safer future. The more I worked this way with the people, the better our performance became. Within 4 years, our Total Injury Rate had dropped by about 97% to a rate of about 0.3. (The rate was only a way to keep score.) The people liked working this way and sustained their performance for 19 years. I wrote about this in my recently published paper in Professional Safety [Knowles, R.N. (2022, Nov.). Leading vs. Managing: A tale of two organizational processes. Professional Safety, 67(11), 42-46].

The importance of building trust and working with people has been known for a long time. Douglas McGregor wrote The Human Side of Enterprise in 1960 about Theory X and Y. Recently the work of others like Rosa Carrillo in her book, The Relationship Factor in Safety Leadership, 2020, and even in this current issue of Professional Safety [ Sarkus, D.J. (2022, Nov.). Building community through servant leadership. Professional Safety, 67(11), 24-29.] are emphasizing the importance of respect and trust.

This shift in thinking and working with the people results in a lot fewer people getting hurt or killed at work. Yet why do so many safety people seem to be all wrapped up in chasing injuries and incidents? Some just counting the numbers. Others developing more advanced ways to get employees to work more safely, or to develop better ways to analyze incident situations. Many are just pushing production with little or no regard for safety. Some safety consultants have learned to give great motivational talks that are fun to hear, but have almost no impact in the workplace. The BLS statics on workplace injuries and deaths are not showing much improvement.

The global safety improvement industry was estimated to be over $20,000,000. The trade shows have lots of very fancy safety equipment and the consultants are selling their approaches. Is there a vested interest it doing things like we have always do it and getting the same results?

Many managers think that you can not have excellence in safety and earnings at the same time. That is not what I found at the plant I led where we cut the injury rate by 97% and increased the earnings by 300%.

safety focus building respect and trust

Conclusion

If the whole safety effort was shifted to treating people with respect, listening and learning together and doing what makes sense, there would be a huge improvement in total safety and a lot fewer people getting injured and killed.

Is the effort to build trust, learn to treat people with respect, to listen more carefully, to build on each other’s good ideas too high a price for saving many, many lives?

What will it take to make the shift?

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

A Safety Systems View for Organizations

November 10, 2022 By Leave a Comment

Everything happens through the people and all three phases of safety are interconnected.

Note: Many Safety Practitioners go about their safety work task-to-task without considering the broader “systems” in which they work, nor the people that are impacted by their decisions. This newsletter is intended to help lift up safety thinking and actions to a higher level. A systems approach can have a big impact on improving the total safety performance.

In October, I introduced a new figure showing a whole systems view of safety, where occupational safety, occupational health and process safety management are connected and work together through all the people in the organization.

I have thought a lot about this figure and want to share a new figure with you.

the whole safety system

We all live in a world with dynamic systems moving all around us all the time. When we can see the systems around us, we can be much more effective in understanding how things are interacting and deciding what we need to do. We can become much more resilient and sustainable. This is certainly my own experience when working with organizations. In many ways the safety system behaves like a living system where everything is connected and working together.

The traditional approach I see being taken in most safety work is one where the organization is treated as if it were a machine. The belief is that if we take it apart and fix the parts, that it will work better when we put it all back together. The “master mechanic” comes in, fixes the parts, (the employees) and tells it what to do. Improvement is modest at best, and resilience and sustainability are low.

Taking the “living” safety system apart to fix it, kills it.

In thinking about the living safety system, all the people in the organization are involved and partnering to build a better safety future through continuous conversations in a psychologically safe space, at all levels, about how to improve together, think about new ideas, learn, and do things for improvement. All the people in the organization are the center of it all.

Each component of safety is placed around the people. Each safety component has their own particular technology which needs to be done very well. In doing each part as if they are separate does not result in achieving safety excellence. It is in embracing the whole safety system where everyone wins. Together we co-create a culture that is both resilient and sustainable.

You’ll notice that I have introduced a new term I call “Environmental Safety,” which looks at process safety management in a different way. Environmental Safety relates to impacts on people and the air, water and land from wastes, spills, fires, explosions, leaks, sloppy operations, etc. It includes a lot that is already in process safety management PSM When the PSM is done well, the environmental safety is excellent. When the PSM is neglected disasters like the Deep Water Horizon kill people and create huge messes.

The safety system does not exist in isolation. There are a lot of other systems surrounding it that connect directly or indirectly that can be influenced by how well the safety system performs. A highly effective safety system can have a powerful, positive impact on the larger systems in which is functions. A poorly functioning safety system can negatively impact a lot in the larger systems around it, which can then raise concerns, drive regulations, anger the people, the families, the communities and weaken the business in countless ways.

dig deeper to reach a little higher when it comes to business safety

Conclusion

When we use a systems view and see what is going on around us, we are much more able to make effective decisions. Everything moves through the people. In sharing all information, treating people with respect and trust, and giving people the credit for their learning and accomplishments, we create the conditions where energy and creativity are released. We can effectively move in response to changes and become much more sustainable. The people and the business are winners.

Note: I refer to the people in the organization as “people” rather than “employees.” The word “employee” is a legal term that defines the relationship of the person to the organization with things like hours of work and rates of pay. It also carries strong, negative implications about the boss/subordinate relationship. However, referring to people as “people” implies that we are all in this together coming from different perspectives, bringing different gifts, knowledge and skills which are all needed for shared success.

We all work together with respect and build trust.

Please call me at 716-622-6467 or email me at RNKnowles@aol.com if you would like to talk about these ideas. See also RNKnowlesAssociates.com and SafetyExcellenceForBusiness.com.

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

Respect, Trust, Partnering and Safety…Excellence Emerges…and it Matters!

October 10, 2022 By Leave a Comment

Safety and Environmental Performance

When I was the Plant Manager of the DuPont Belle, West Virginia chemical plant, I developed a practice of walking around the Plant 4-5 hours a day, every day for almost 8 years, for the safety of the employees. The plant was a mile long and a third of a mile wide, with about 1,300 people working there.

I needed to engage with everyone to get to know them, their work, and to see what I could do to help them. I did not make decisions as I walked around, since that would weaken the line supervision. I would talk about our mission of being the best we could be with our responsibilities for safety, the environment, the people, the quality of our products and work, our customers, our customer service, our costs, and our community. I would share the news of the day, talking openly about things I knew about the plant, our businesses, and the community.

I would also ask if they had any news to share. I would ask for help in how I could improve my own job. There was a lot of give and take; some days were great and some were very hard. My mantra was, “I don’t have a right to make my living at a place where it was okay for you to get hurt. We also need to make a living so let’s figure this out together.”

we can make a difference for workplace safety by working together

In our conversations, we talked a lot about occupational safety and occupational health. Many good ideas emerged. I would encourage the people to follow-up on their good ideas and support them. We would also talk about process safety management and the importance of keeping the chemicals in the pipes, improving yields, and reducing waste.

I encouraged them to go after leaks and to talk with the engineers about how they could run the processes better. I encouraged the engineers to teach the supervisors and operators about the theory and processes they were running. I encouraged them to learn as much as they could. I would ask about the safety and environmental maintenance work orders and if they were being taken care of promptly. When people asked me questions I couldn’t answer, I told them I did not know the answer, and promised to get back to them with the answer, which I always did.

We had a Central Safety Committee of about 50 people, which met monthly. People from across the organization participated and led the various committees. We integrated all our discussions, so everyone was thinking about their roles in improving occupational safety, health, and process safety. The 4-person safety group, operators, mechanics, supervisors, and engineers were all involved.

While each of the three parts of safety have their own technology, they all overlap in the people doing the work. We saw all aspects of safety and environmental performance as an integrated whole where everyone could make contributions. As the safety and environmental improvements built, this way of working, sharing information, building respect and trust, and helping people to see the importance of their contributions and to find meaning, spread all across the plant.

Treating the People with Respect and Building Trust

In addition to improving our safety and business performance, we emphasized the importance of treating people with respect and telling the truth. I modeled this as I walked around and visited with the people. I apologized for the mistakes I made. I encouraged them to talk together this way as well. I also worked hard to eliminate any bullying or harassment behavior because it is bad for the people and blocks the open flow of information, greatly hindering any improvement efforts. As it became safer for people to speak up and share their ideas and thinking, our total performance significantly improved. Everything happened through the people giving their energy, creativity, and resourcefulness.

The Integrated Whole

Everyone does some of each of these three phases of safety in their jobs. While each of these has different technologies and requirements, they are all in play all the time. For example, an operator moving a container of chemicals needs to be wearing the correct PPE, lifting correctly and being sure that nothing gets spilled. Or a clerical person needs to be seated properly to take care of their back, handling office equipment like scissors carefully, and putting their trash into the proper containers. Or a truck driver needs to use three-point contact when entering and exiting his truck to prevent a fall, have proper cushioning in the truck to support their back and adhere to speeds that are appropriate for the highway conditions.

All dimensions of safety are taking place all the time, as each person does their work. Each person needs to integrate these as appropriate for their particular assignments and tasks. When these are an integrated whole, their jobs are much easier as they think about them together.

Having them as an integrated whole also goes a long way to preventing disasters like the Deep-Water Horizon where the people on the drilling platform received a safety prize for great occupational safety, and then the platform blew up a day or so later because the process safety was falling apart.

The work of the Belle Plant people clearly shows that if we approach safety as an integrated whole, the total performance of the people improves.

approach safety as an integrated whole, the total performance of the people improves

Summary

Trust was built, people opened up, shared their ideas, learned, made decisions about improving their work, and brought occupational safety, health, and process safety management together into an integrate whole. The mood of the entire organization became very positive as things came together. In just four years the people had cut our injury rate by 97% to a Total Recordable Injury Rate of 0.3, reduced our emissions to the air, water, and land by 95%, improved productivity by 45% and increased earnings 300%.

This integrated way of working can happen for your business too. Give me a call at 716-622-6467 for more details. Let’s get started! Please check out our website: Safety Excellence for Business.

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

Our Progress is Too Slow for Safety!

February 12, 2019 By Leave a Comment

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

Our Progress is Too Slow with SafetyA 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 ½ 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: , , , , , , ,

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: , ,
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