Working Together Makes All the Difference

November 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

When we are asked to come into an organization to help them improve their safety performance, we do not work on safety in the traditional sense.

We work with them to identify an important, complex problem they want to solve. It needs to be a problem that everyone thinks they know about and wants to solve. While the stated problem is something like, “How do we improve our total safety performance?,” their problems are usually much deeper than this surface level. We help the people to find the deeper problem that is driving a lot of their poor safety performance.

working safely together requires teamwork

We then gather a group of people together from across the organization, from the top management to people on the floor, and have a focused conversation about their problems. Our workshops usually last 1-2 days, depending on the size of the organization. As the people open up, a lot of important information emerges. Their answers are arranged around a circle (circles indicate wholeness), and they discover who and what they are as a group and how to work together in resolving this concern for the long-term.

This figure illustrates the process:

collaboration model shows who and what we are together

As they look at their question from these nine perspectives, the collective intelligence of the whole group rises. People often tell us that they did not know that they knew so much.

As they talk together, they discover that their main problem is in how they chose to work together which they describe when they talk about their Principles and Standards. Initially, a lot of dysfunctional behavior surfaces. They see that stuff like bullying, harassment, and lying are really causing their poor performance across the organization. It’s not just in poor safety performance. These poor behaviors contaminate all their work.

Paul Glover of the Forbes Coaches Council reported recently in LinkedIn that 48% of American workers are looking for other work because of dysfunctional behaviors like these, 70% see no reason to speak up about problems because they fear their bosses and co-workers, and only 33% are working at optimal levels. There is little psychological safety for raising and resolving problems together. Many organizations are in denial about problems like these. These dysfunctional behaviors adversely impact all aspects of the organization’s performance, and lots of people want to get out of there. Leadership, unfortunately, is in denial – often because egos are involved, or they don’t know how to turn things around. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way!

Note: This model works, when you decide it is time to make that big difference for your organization, to be intentional about the safety of your people! This model becomes your extraordinary leadership magnet for improved safety performance – because it contains all the critical elements – and because it is collaborative, alignment and effectiveness comes quickly.

Most people want to work in organizations where everyone is working together for the good of the whole. Leaders are seeking better ways for embracing safety. People want to be proud of their place of work and feel good about it. So, in our workshops we help the people to tap into this way of working and everything gets better, quickly. For example, we have seen the safety performance change for the better the very next day. When people decide that they want to change, they do it.

Call me at 716-622-6467 soon and share with me the safety concerns that are happening in your organization. It’s a free consultation. Leaders are looking for answers…I’ll demonstrate for you how quickly your safety issues can be rectified, and your people can be more engaged in the betterment, as well.

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

Stress in the Workplace

October 11, 2021 By Leave a Comment

The complexities and conflicting messages related to Covid, the shortages of skilled people to fill jobs, along with the related excessive overtime and the emerging supply-chain mess are driving stress through the roof.

remove stress from the workplace

This stress is hitting all sorts of businesses and organizations.

According to a recent AP story, a major hospital in Missouri has seen a big jump in violence related incidents. In 2019, they had 94 violence related crimes, including 43 assaults and 17 injuries. In 2020, they had 152 violence related crimes, including 123 assaults and 78 injuries. The American Hospital Association reports a big increase in violence related problems, but since most are not reported to the police, so the numbers are unclear.

Many businesses are struggling to get people to fill their open positions as business activity grows. But since the openings remain, the employees are forced into excessive over-time. Some organizations are running at close to 20% overtime, which is wearing the people out. In one organization we know, many people have been required to work seven-day schedules for weeks, which is not the right way to treat people. This causes excessive fatigue and is very hard on the families.

Now we have an emerging supply chain crisis. There are over 60 ships awaiting to dock and unload in Los Angeles because there are not enough truck drivers to move the freight out to customers. This is impacting businesses of all sizes.

In one automobile agency, I heard a salesperson telling a customer that she would have to wait for her car until at least January 2022. I was talking with a small business owner whose business is etching decorative glassware. He said he was suffering in his business because he can’t get glass ware for his customers.

All this increasing stress is leading to more injuries and incidents. All of us in each of our businesses and organizations need to be very cognizant of this and try to keep stress levels to a minimum. We need to help each other and care for each other. We are all in this together so let’s make the best of this and go the extra mile in being patient and helpful.

A different approach to solving our problems is needed.

In the scientific and technical world in which most safety people have grown up, the dominant approach to problem solving has be a reductionist one. We were taught to look carefully at a problem, dissect it, understand the parts, and fix what is needed. We were taught to depend on fundamentals like Newton’s Laws, for example. Using the reductionist approach to solve safety problems may be reaching its limit, based on the fact that, the number of fatalities is gradually increasing and the rate of drop in all injuries I very slow.

The speed of change and the complexity of the problems has increased so much that we need a different approach to solving problems. This different approach has been developing over the last 50 or so years. This is called systems thinking.

In this approach, we are taught to look at the whole and the parts together and try to understand their inter-relationships and interactions. All the problems are connected so we can only understand the system using a different thinking approach. In systems thinking we look at relationships, patterns, and processes, asking question about how things are related, about the recurring patterns of behavior you see and what are the processes of interaction happening over and over. This is a big shift from looking at things, to looking at how people are interacting.

It can feel like we are giving up our quantitative approach to something that is more qualitative. It felt like this to me at first, but as I shifted my focus away from things to the way people interact, our safety and business performance improved. As I shifted my focus and way of thinking, I found that everything changed. As I worked with people using this systems’ thinking approach our safety and total business performance quickly improved.

The Leadership Dance by Richard N. KnowlesSystems thinking is something you need to learn in order to develop a higher level of your own performance.

If you read my book, The Leadership Dance: Pathways to Extraordinary Organizational Performance, available from Amazon, you can read about my own journey into learning about systems thinking, as well as offering some useful complexity tools.

This is a powerful, effective way of working, which I highly recommend.

 

less stress for organizational success

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

Improving Workplace Safety for Your Employees…

September 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Many Thousands of People are Being Injured and Killed at Work

Many, many good, safety professionals are working to maintain and improve workplace safety. Yet the number of people losing their lives in our workplaces (in just 4 years) has increased from 4,836 in 2015 to 5,333 in 2019, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2015 through 2019 there have been 25,746 people who have lost their lives at work. To put this into an alarming perspective, compare this to the losses in Afghanistan since 2001 (over twenty years) where there have been 3,592 allied forces who have been killed, based on Associated Press.

With all the effort put into improving safety performance in our workplaces, why have we not seen a reduction in the number of people being killed at work? New papers sharing improved ways to ‘improve workplace safety’ are presented at safety conferences by the American Society of Safety Professionals, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Global Congress on Process Safety, and many smaller conferences as well as in publications in a variety of journals. The informational know-how is available!

Each of the specialties of occupational safety, occupational health and process safety management have a huge amount of information that has been developed over the years to improve safety performance. While some progress has been made in reducing the total number of injuries from a rate of 3.0 in 2015 to 2.8 in 2019 (2,814,000 injuries) this seems slow to me.

What is Missing?

The fruits of all this work has to be carried out by the people actually doing the physical work, those close to the actual operating and maintenance processes. We need to help these people, and not just pile more stuff onto them.

wokrplace safety comes down to the frontline people

I have found in all my 60 years in working in research, production and consulting globally that a missing link is not talking with the front-line people and exploring and learning together how to improve the work so that fewer injuries and incidents occur. None of us have all the answers. We need each other. (Talking down to people doesn’t work; talking to people (one-way) doesn’t work—the key is in talking with our people!)

Here is a Simple Solution…

When I was the Plant Manager at the 1,300 person, DuPont Belle, WV Chemical Plant I changed this. In my leading process, I spent 4-5 hours a day for 7+years walking around in the Plant, being respectful, sharing information, listening, asking how I could help the people, asking them for their help, learning together to improve things and building trust and interdependence. I talked with everyone. My mantra was “I do not have a right to make my living at a place where it is okay for you to get hurt, and we have to make a living, so let’s figure this out together.”

Our injury rate dropped by about 97% in three years, emissions to the environment dropped by about 96% in 4 years, productivity rose about 45% and earnings rose about 300%. Safety is connected to everything so as we made safety improvements everything else improved. In this approach which I call “Partner-Centered Leadership”, all parts of our safety work came together as shown here.

partner centered leadership for workplace safety

Each of occupational safety, health and process safety have their unique knowledge and management disciplines. When they are brought together, in the region of overlap in the center of this Venn Diagram, this is where the people and the leading process described above come together. In addition to talking with everyone about all the dimensions of our safety work as I walked around, there was one place where this all came together and was clear to everyone. Our monthly Central Safety Meetings were open, and all aspects of our safety work were discussed openly with everyone. All questions and concerns were welcome, and fixed. I strongly urged our supervisors to talk with their people and the engineers to sit with the operators to teach them the elements of process safety.

This is Simple.

Go into your workplaces, respectfully talk with the people, listen, share, ask them where you can be of more help, help them to follow up on their ideas and concerns, solve problems, build trust, and have everyone go home healthy and in one piece. Engagement!

You can do this!

To learn more about this approach see our web sites:
RNKnowlesAssociates.com and SafetyExcellenceForBusiness.com or give us a call at 716-622-6467.

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

Ours is not to wonder why? Ours is to do or die!

August 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

It has been over 50 years since President Richard Nixon signed into law the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act.

safety is important in organizationsWe are all familiar with OSHA as both a regulator for Safety Standards and Compliance in the workplace and as an Educator (offering Information and Training across-the-board on the OSH standards). Indeed, if you’ve not looked lately, go to OSHA.gov and scroll through the various topics available for your learning.

Have you ever wondered what our workplaces might be like if OSHA had not been enacted? Would employers, on their own, protect the health and safety of their employees? If there was no law that employers “must” have PPE, or Lock & Tag, or Vessel Entry, or Machine Guards, or Eye Wash stations…would they? If there was no expectation of you, would you be your brother’s/sister’s keeper in the workplace?

You may make sport of these questions because, obviously, times have changed.

There is so much more awareness to safety, to life and limb, than in 1970 when OSHA came into fruition. And sometimes, the regulations seem like they go overboard in detail. Still, what we know deeply is that every one of the regulations was written in blood – meaning someone was killed or severely injured – and that prompted the writing of the regulation to avoid additional victims falling prey to similar work circumstances.

The standards underscore the safe way of doing things, to reduce the hazards and reduce the opportunities for being hurt, maimed, or killed. The OSHA mandated rules and procedures have had a big, positive impact in improving workplace safety. But these only get compliance in most organizations.

Today, even with the OSHA laws in place, about 5,300+ workers become victims of job-related fatalities every year. Why is that?  Even with increasing numbers of Safety Professionals working within almost every facility, why is it that we keep killing so many people? Even with the oodles of hours of safety and health training that is conducted, why do these violations and tragedies continue?

We believe that a lot of the safety-related problems are systems problems. These are deeper than the things we can see on the surface like a specific incident or injury.

We need to dig in more deeply to find the things that are driving the surface problems. What is happening in the whole system and why? When we do this work, together, we can find things to fix that make a big, positive difference.

For example, we know that critical factors are the open flow of information for everyone, treating each other with respect and dignity and helping people to see how their work is important for the success of the whole organization. These ideas rarely show up in an incident report, yet from a systems point of view, these are huge.

We need commitments from across the organization
for improved safety.
It is all about everyone going home in one piece!

When we take a systems approach, we all get involved. The people and the company, together, working for improved safety results. Individual safety attitudes, fatigue, complacency, lack of taking responsibility, taking shortcuts and carelessness are addressed in the systems approach, and lead to fewer risks and serious injuries, even deaths.

Training must be meaningfully connected to the real work. Keeping track of injuries and incidents is also essential – why? These lagging indicators are one way to tell us if we are on the right track. But we do not use these to try to manage safety; we use leading indicators like the amount of time we spend in the field with the people, sharing information, listening, learning, solving problems and fixing them at an early stage; this is a powerful leading indicator.

We don’t want to return to the era where peoples lives or limbs accounted for little. Rather, that OSHA’s stated purpose for every company is fulfilled: “Each employer shall furnish a place of employment which is free/protected from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to their employees.”

I repeat my mantra:

“It is not okay for me to work and make my living
where it is okay for you to get hurt – physically or psychologically.
So, let’s figure it out together…how to profitably stay in business
and stay safe and secure all at the same time.”

What differentiates a good safety culture? Internalized, focused communications…up and down. It is the energetic daily conversations that are crucial for having a safe workplace and safe attitudes.

Because, through conversation you engage employees to think for themselves, in turn, focus (less auto-pilot) and ultimately, to develop a discipline where the employee thinks things through (daily), has the autonomy (choice) in addressing the perceived greatest risks, and overall, the daily conversation becomes the “muscle” – to active caring – building relationships. (And no one gets hurt!)

Plus, the more awareness of our surroundings we develop the better off we are from being surprised by workplace hazards, or from bullying emerging, or from being surprised by a perpetrator entering our workplace to do harm. Awareness matters in both the safety of doing our tasks and in the security of surveying our environment. Call me to learn more about the processes we use to heighten safety, security, effectiveness, performance. Culture matters.

With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. Note: OSHA has now weighed in on Workplace Violence as any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive psychological behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide.

OSHA'S 2020 Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Violations

Top 10

  1. Fall Protection, construction
  2. Hazard Communication Standard, general industry
  3. Respiratory Protection, general industry
  4. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction
  5. Ladders, construction
  6. Control of Hazardous Energy (lockout/tagout), general industry
  7. Powered Industrial Trucks, general industry
  8. Fall Protection – Training Requirements
  9. Eye and Face Protection
  10. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements

What we know is that companies must have a company culture that embodies both a systems perspective and a strong safety focus. How does your company stack up? We wrote the book on improving safety culture – give me a call if you need a re-set – 716-622-6467.

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

Situational Awareness…for Safety…for Security…for Life!

July 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Situational awareness is being aware of what is happening around you in terms of where you are, where you are supposed to be, and whether anyone or anything around you is a threat to your health, safety, and well-being.

for your safety and security be aware of your surroundingsOur knowledge, experience and education enable us to understand what is going on around us and helps us to determine if it is safe…if we are “clued in.” This is not a complicated idea, yet we see so many people who seem to be totally oblivious about what is going on around them.

  • Have you seen people walking down the street with their cell phones right in front of their faces?
  • Have you seen someone grab a chair to stand on to get something off a high shelf?
  • Have you seen someone driving their car with the phone in their hand and not paying attention to their driving?
  • Have you seen news stories where people just seem to walk into really dangerous crowds with little care?
  • Have you seen a person climb into a manhole in the middle of the street without proper respiratory protection?
  • Have you seen people climb poorly secured ladders that can easily slip?
  • Have you seen people at work who are not using the right PPE or not using handrails?
  • Do we see ourselves doing things like this with little awareness of the potential situation we are getting into?

We see things like these almost every day. The people doing these things are not stupid – rather, they are exhibiting a clear sense of lacking awareness in the moment. (Their proceed-with-caution flag is missing!)

Situational awareness applies and is a big part of our safety…to understand what is “not normal”…as in cracks happening in a foundation, or pipes carrying chemicals showing signs of a leak, or Personal Protective Equipment beginning to show wear. It may apply to your health – paying attention to your intuitive knowing, for clues and signals that something has changed or does not seem right.

Recently in the news, most of the people seemed to have ignored warnings and were situationally unaware before the collapse of the condo in the Miami Beach, Florida disaster.

We put so much at risk to just save a minute or two. Why is it we do not pay attention to what is around us and take a moment to protect ourselves? Are we paying attention or are we just charging along hoping things will be okay? Is saving 5-10 seconds in a job worth the risk to you and your safety?

A specific area of focus for us at NageleKnowlesAndAssociates.com is Situational Awareness related to violence in the workplace. We need to be vigilant in the event someone from outside the organization comes in to do harm. We also need to be vigilant for potential violence springing up from someone who is on the inside like an employee, vendor, or customer. (Home-growing an active shooter happens – especially when people treatment principles are lacking.) Paying attention to how our friends and co-workers are behaving and talking is important.

If you see something or hear something,
you have to SAY something.

If you see sudden changes in behavior of a person or hear them talking about doing violence, that needs to be brought to the attention of your supervisor or the HR people. And anyone with a domestic violence restraining or protection order needs to be certain that their company is aware of it, in order for security to be fully prepared! Domestic violence spillover into the workplace is a major danger for violence in the workplace.

We help people to learn how to observe, to put their attention on what is “not normal” and to be prepared to make quick decisions as the situation unfolds…whatever that situation may be.

We teach the Color Codes of Situational Awareness as a way for them to think about their situation in the moment.

White: Being oblivious to what’s happening in your surroundings.
Yellow: Fully aware, but still relaxed.
Orange: Very Alert…something has triggered your focused attention.
Red: Decision time…Act.
(Black): The consequence of inaction, or inability to act; paralysis.

Where are you in this picture?

These color codes would be a good discussion at home with your family as well.

recognize the color codes for situational awareness

Situational awareness is essential for being prepared to work safely and to protect yourself from an active shooter situation. Recent events show us how tremendously important this “knowing” is for all of us…at our workplace, and in our life-space too.

We at Nagele and Knowles help a wide range of organizations address unwanted safety issues, address security and cultural vulnerabilities, and reduce the risk for workplace violence. You don’t have to do that all yourself…We have done that for you!

Give us a call at 716-622-6467. We are here for you!

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

Reducing Workplace Violence and Building a Better Place

June 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

All of us, together, make a difference in the safety and the lives of our co-workers.

When Claire Knowles, Robin Nagele, and I (NageleKnowlesAndAssociates.com) are asked to come into an organization to help them reduce the risks of workplace violence and develop an active shooter protection plan, we have a good selection of options for them to consider, ranging from a comprehensive training and development plan to a bare-bones introduction. We see workplace violence ranging from a simple lack of respect to harassment to bullying to fighting and even murder, and our offering covers the range. Workplace violence can happen from the inside (bullying, harassment incivilities) and from the outside (perpetrator entering the workplace with intent to do harm). It covers Psychological Safety and Physical Safety.

we need to all work together for workplace safety

However, many people see this whole subject from a wide range of perspectives. It is very unlikely that an active shooter situation will develop here so why bother? Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2019, 761 people were murdered at work. Homicides were 454 and suicides were 307. This is the fourth highest cause of workplace fatalities. Could that happen here? It is a myth if you think it can’t happen in your workplace.

Harassment and bullying are HR problems and not often considered safety problems–but they are because they impact psychological safety. They can lead to people making mistakes and getting hurt. Lack of respect, harassment and bullying are just little issues (unless you are the target) so why spend the money? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2019, in addition to the 307 suicides, there were 313 drug overdoses at work. What was the impact of harassment and bullying on these people? Their psychological safety is hugely impacted. There are all sorts of ways to try to talk your way out of these sorts of issues. But there is a big impact on both the people and the businesses’ profits.

In the unlikely event of an active shooter situation, people can be killed and injured, the business will be shut down as a crime scene, the bad publicity runs rampant, and the regulators and lawyers will be all over the place. Your relationships with your people and customers will be a shambles. This results in huge losses.

When the business leaders tolerate lack of respect, harassment and bullying, the workplace is not psychologically safe, and people stop talking together and sharing information. This costs a lot of money in grievances and HR meetings, etc. It also costs a lot in missing the possibility of new business opportunities that are discovered as people talk together about how the business is doing and find new ideas for new opportunities emerging from their conversations.

We can all come together and address the elimination
of all forms of workplace violence.
Let’s pull together and make it happen for the good of us all.

Building a Better Place – We can do this Together!

There is so much bad news of workplace shootings, conflict of all sorts in our cities and streets, police and other citizens being killed and the endless arguments in our governments at all levels that it is tempting to just try to shut everything off and pretend nothing is happening. It feels as if we are in chaos with no good answers to be found.

But there are many good people in our cities and states, in volunteer organizations, in our governments and businesses. We need to rise above all this noise and strife. I believe that most people want to live good, safe lives, to raise their families, to seek life, liberty, and happiness. We want this in our private lives, in our homes, towns and cities as well as in our places of work where we spend so much time.

We can each make a positive difference in our homes, neighborhoods and at work. We can look for the good we each have to offer and make connections. We can have conversations together about how we are doing. We can talk about the little things that matter and connect us. We can show caring for each other and kindness. We can value our differences without trying to force them onto someone else. We can do this at work where we spend so much time together. We can find our common purpose and build on that.

As all of you readers know I have a great concern about leadership and workplace safety. When we build a more harmonious workplace the levels of anger and frustration drop. We can treat each other as real people and not some object to push around. We can build a better workplace with co-created principles and standards of behavior.

I know we can do these things because we did this at the plants where I was the manager and in the businesses in which I consult. When we co-create our principles and standards, working together with respect and listening, sharing information freely, helping people to see that their work is important, the levels of anger and frustration drop. I have seen this many times over. When this happens, more and more of the time we are focused at doing things right and the total performance of the organization improves. We can learn and grow together so our levels of knowledge and understanding go up. Fewer injuries and incidents occur. Total quality of our life and the products we make get a lot better. I have seen this happen over and over. We can do these things if we want to do them.

Our leaders play a big role in this by setting the standards and modeling the positive behaviors that are so important. We all watch our leaders and those with integrity and a caring heart are those we most admire. Their behaviors and the words they use set the way for us all.

However, we all have a role to play. We can all be winners as we pull ourselves up. Sometimes, it is not easy, but we can all do this with courage, caring, concern for each other and commitment to the dream of a better world.

If you do not do this, then who is going to do it? It rests on each of us.

make a difference in the safety and the lives of your co-workers

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

Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can’t Replace the Wisdom of the Skilled People Doing the Work

May 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

I have read several recent articles about how big data and artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to help to improve safety.

The AI approach involves the collection and evaluation of huge amounts of data (big data) to learn from human behavior, looking for patterns and helping to improve safety performance. By doing this over and over, the machines can learn to keep doing better and better analyses and even begin to provide predictions about improving human performance. For example, repeated activities like lifting can be studied, problem patterns in lifting techniques be identified and improvements in the behavior or the physical arrangement of the lifting work modified.

This could provide very useful information that could reduce injuries and incidents, however, it is important to understand that people creating the algorithms are making assumptions and decisions about the way the work is done. “The devil is in the detail.” This can lead to a gap between the work-as-imagined and work-as-done. While the piles of data, the patterns they predict and the predictions they make can be useful, they can also be a problem. All this information can be quite beguiling and lead us to thinking we have all the information we need to reduce the injuries and incidents.

These studies can help to reduce injuries and incidents by providing the people some tools to see what is happening and make some adjustments in their behavior. But relying on them to do our thinking is a problem.

These tools need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. There is nothing to replace the wisdom and good judgement of the people actually doing the work and helping each other to see and improve what they are doing.

artificial intelligence can't replace the wisdom and good judgement of humans

These AI tools can help, but they are not the final answer. It is those close to the work who need to make the final decisions. We do not want to automate taking peoples’ brains out of the picture. These AI tools cannot see the actual situation that the person is facing as he/she does their job. Decisions often need to be made as the work unfolds to get the work done right. The gap between work-as-imagined and work-as-done needs to be closed as much as possible so the best procedures and practices can be used to do the work safely.

work as imagined

We need to help each other to rise to be the best we can be. Partnering together, helping each other, talking together about the work and the potential safety challenges are all highly effective ways to improve the total performance in sustainable ways. We should not allow the AI to push the thinking and good judgement of our highly skilled people aside. We can use AI as a supplement and to provide clues about improving the work. But pretending that AI can do our thinking for us is myth.

Everyone sharing information about your particular situations, treating each other with respect, telling the truth, making sure that the standards of performance and expectations are clear, helping everyone to see the importance of their work for the success of the whole business are foundational. Treating the people as intelligent, highly skilled and thoughtful will bring out the best in them.

AI can help, but it is not a replacement for the collective intelligence of the people who are dedicated to excellence.

I would be remiss if I did not insert (here), that the process for actually achieving this highly effective communication among and with people is Partner-Centered Leadership. Please call me (716-622-6467) and I’ll show you how easily this framework can be applied to your every-day communications and Leadership.

The Internet of Things (IoT): Another Caution

There are more and more electronic tools becoming available to help us with all sorts of tasks. We see ads for building electronic homes, installing fine security systems and even monitoring the sleeping babies. There are dozens of Apps for our cell phones so we can keep track of things.

Monitoring tools are also becoming available to monitor people as they do their work. It is a good idea to monitor someone who is working alone at a remote location or working alone at night doing security in a big warehouse. Sensors installed across wide locations enable rapid response in the event of an accident or emergency.

Like AI, these can be quite helpful, providing we don’t become too dependent on them. As these tools are developed and deployed, remember that they are put together by people who are making assumptions about their particular use.

Some of this monitoring can be used – drawing from the old time and motion studies from the days of Frederick Taylor in his 1911 book, “Principles of Scientific Management“. There is high value in learning from the past. There is high value in integrating new technologies. Yet striking that right balance is key – and always, always, with the genuine involvement and input of the people who are actually doing the work.

Summary

AI and IoT can be quite useful, but they need to be taken with caution and not allowed to replace the good thinking, planning and actions of our highly skilled, intelligent people. The comments in this newsletter are not luddite, but rather a caution about not throwing away the thinking, creativity and resourcefulness of the people with whom we work. Let’s help people become their best and rise to the top.

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

Accountability is a good thing…Especially as it applies to Safety!

April 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Have you heard of “The Oz Principle?”

The New York Times bestseller, The Oz Principle, defines accountability as “a personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results.”

Some people cringe when they hear the word accountability. Some people are afraid of it. Why is that? I have a very basic philosophy when it comes to being accountable for safety in the workplace:

“It is not okay for me to make my living
where it is okay for you to get hurt,
physically or psychologically!
So, let’s figure it out together…
how to profitably stay in business and
stay safe and secure all at the same time.“

The real why: All organizations know that one of the keys to their success is safe operations; that is, ensuring that their People go home at the end of their shift in one piece – having their eyes, ears, limbs, and life intact, regardless of the position they hold or the task at hand. This is the fundamental bottom line of accountability. It means looking out for your own safety and that of your coworkers all the time.

Safety results are an aspect of culture – how it is led, taught, reinforced, expected, and enforced – in the safe performance of tasks, in the safe conditions of the environment, and in the respectful engagement of employees in their own safety and those of their team. Safety refers to injuries, incidents, and fatalities in the workplace, as well as the potential psychological harm from bullying and harassment and of course, to the security of our workplaces to being vulnerable to an active shooter. Accountability needs to be present in all dimensions.

accountability is important for workplace safety

But employee safety and wellbeing are not inherent to workplace cultures – they are actively fostered and maintained through a commitment to accountability. (Safety is led through our shared accountability.) Effective leaders do not ignore safety accountability if they care about their people. So effective and caring connect with accountability. Where do you see yourself in terms of Accountability? Are you owning it? Are you accountable through the hard stuff and the easy stuff?

I was particularly uplifted to read in the March 2021 issue of Professional Safety Magazine, an article by Paul A. Esposito, “Safety through Accountability & Recognition.” In the article he quotes OSHA (1989) – (and this is worth noting):

“Management commitment and employee involvement are complementary. Management commitment provides the motivating force and the resources for organizing and controlling activities within an organization. In an effective program, management regards workers’ safety and health as fundamental value of the organization and applies its commitment to safety and health protection with as much vigor as to other organizational purposes. Employee involvement provides the means through which workers develop and/or express their own commitment to safety and health protection, for themselves and for their fellow workers.“

So back to the Oz Principle for Accountability.

It is a personal choice. You make that choice every moment, in every hour, in every day and every year while working within your workplace, while doing YOUR job.

As we start a new quarter of 2021, why not do some introspection around the choices you make. Do you have the courage, care, concern and commitment to make a positive difference? Have you formed bad habits? Are you taking shortcuts? Do you step in when you see something unsafe or do you shy away? Do you care about your workmates? Are you doing your best to work safely, and to look out for your coworkers because it is the right thing to do?

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

Why are so many people being killed at work?

March 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Not to be ignored…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report for 2019, the most recent summary report, shows that in 2019, 5,333 people were killed doing their jobs.

it's time to evaluate business safetyIn 2017, 5,147 died and in 2018, 5,250 died. For the last 5-6 years the trend has slowly gotten worse. (Note: The BLS reports do not show much, if any, progress in reducing the number of people being killed and injured over the last 5 years or so.)

In 2019, about 2,814,000 people were hurt, which is about the same level as in 2017 and 2018.

Thousands of people are working to improve safety in the workplace, yet these numbers show that improvement in performance is almost non-existent. The various safety journals have lots of good information about ways to improve things. There are lots of consultants doing a lot of work with various organizations to improve safety. And there are many professional safety organizations, including OSHA, ASSP and the National Safety Council, that provide increased training and awareness. Still, people are being killed and hurt at work.

Why isn’t there progress?

All these statistics are lagging indicators. So, what drives this poor performance? What are the leading indicators showing us?

I think that the key leading indicator relates to the way the organizations are managed and led. The traditional, top-down, command and control approach, in a whole lot of organizations, is at least 100 years old and is based on Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management, which goes something like:

The people at the top of the organization are smarter and brighter than those doing the work so the top people know better and tell the workers what to do and the workers do it – a.k.a. the mechanical model (of the past).

There are lots of examples that show that this approach does not work very well. For example, in a recent article I saw, the safety regulators in Australia 35 years ago introduced the Sex Discrimination Act, but in 2018 the Australian Human Rights Commission survey showed that 1 in 3 workers were harassed in the last 5 years – despite the endeavor. So much for top-down proclamations. Please don’t dismiss this example as just a problem in Australia or that sexual harassment is not a safety problem because you’ll be wrong on both points.

We declare safety endeavors over our workplaces with phrases like “The Goal is Zero” and slogans like, “Safety First.” Similarly, “Zero Tolerance” for harassing and bullying behaviors. And these are important because we need visual signage and reminders for raising our awareness. Yet we know that words and declarations alone won’t work as effective motivators for better safety performance or better treatment of people, nor does the old mechanical model/command and control approach work for the long-term.

We have to bring all the people together.

In every place in which we have worked we bring the people together to talk about the problem, open up the free flow of information, treat each other with respect, listen to each other because everyone has an important perspective, learn, seek better ways, and make the changes we need to make. When people are participating in creating the changes they do not resist the changes but rather apply their energy and creativity to solving the problems.

When I did this as a Plant Manager of a large chemical plant, working with the people, the injury rates dropped by 97% in just 3 years. When I worked in a large sugar mill with all the people the injury rate dropped from about 10 to ZERO in just 3 weeks. (This was shown in their annual data). When I worked with people in a truck manufacturing plant this way, the injury rate dropped from about 6 to ZERO in just a few days. (This was also shown in their annual data.)

There was no new investment in computer programs or equipment. Long involved training courses were not needed.

Most people want to become part of the solution!

It is time to wake up!

Let’s put the 100-year old, Frederick Taylor model in the museum and step up to working with all the people. Become engaged with your people in Safety. It takes a lot less time and saves a lot of money!

We know how to make this happen and would like the opportunity to talk with any of you. Please call at 716-622-6467. You can find background information at RNKnowles Associates.

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

Bringing Safety People Together…It’s all in the Venn!

January 11, 2021 By Leave a Comment

I want to share some experiences I’ve learned about the importance of sharing information and building trust – especially as it applies to the various safety aspects of our workplaces.

We surely had our hands full in 2020 with all the COVID-19 issues. While the new vaccines will help, change will always be with us. Each of you can make a positive difference for the people in your organizations by sharing information about what is going on, building respect and trust and listening carefully, so you really understand the issues and concerns.

I have noticed that those working on occupational safety and occupational health do not interact much with the people working on process safety management (PSM), and vice-versa. For example, at the ASSP meetings, I rarely hear any one talking about PSM and at the AIChE Process Safety meetings, I don’t hear much about occupational safety and/or occupational health. It is as if these are different stove pipes. But each of these are areas where people are deeply involved in the total safety performance of the organization. I have found that when everyone is talking together about the total safety, synergy emerges and all areas benefit.

When I was the Plant Manager of a big chemical plant, the people working in these three areas were engaged in conversations and contributed to improvements across the board. This Venn Diagram illustrates how we brought them together while maintaining their unique contributions.

the importance of sharing information and building trust

Each safety area was managed separately, using their own operating discipline. Where the three areas came together, we talked about what was happening and looked for input from each other. This significantly raised the total safety and environmental performance of the site. PSM also has a big impact on the environmental performance when spills, accidental chronic emissions, release incidents, improved yields and fires and explosions are eliminated; and a lot less is emitted to the environment.

The area of overlap of the three safety disciplines (at the center of the Venn diagram) is where we engaged in Partner-Centered Leadership:

  • Sharing all information
  • Building trust.
  • Listening to each other’s problems and opportunities.
  • Learning and finding better ways to do the work together.

For example, we talked about the three disciplines in our site Central Safety Meetings, keeping careful track of our safety workorder backlogs, meeting our safety equipment inspection schedules and talking about incidents and injuries that had happened, and what we could all learn from them. The engineers went into the various production areas and sat with the operators to learn what the operators were experiencing as they ran the processes, and the engineers taught the operators the engineering technology supporting their work, helping them to understand what was happening in the manufacturing operations. The supervisors, engineers, operators and maintenance people talked together as safety and work procedures were developed. The gap between work-as imagined and work-as-done virtually disappeared. As trust and the open dialogue improved, our safety and environmental performance really improved.

In just three years, the Total Recordable Injury Rate dropped by about 97% to a rate of about 0.3, and the people sustained this for 17 years. PSM improved with much lower levels of releases and upsets. The emissions to the environment (accidental and permitted) went down about 95% in four years. When the PSM was run as a separate stove pipe from the occupational safety and occupational health stove pipes, the Plant’s performance did not come anywhere close to these low levels. This is significant!

The improvements we made in how we worked together in safety spread into all the other parts of our work in running the big (1,300 people) chemical plant. The more we shared information, treated each other with respect and listened to each other, the more the total performance improved. For example, productivity rose by about 45% and earnings rose about 300%.

Learning to work more effectively, through our safety work, spread to the whole organization. Each of you reading this newsletter can make a big difference as you engage with the people in your organizations, sharing information, building respect and trust. The impact of your work will spread.

Want to know more? Contact me at 716-622-6467. Or, Order my book, “Partnering for Safety and Business Excellence” on Amazon.

 

Note: Venn is a diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets. Take a look at what sits right in the middle!

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