Safety Culture Excellence®

An expert on team-building once suggested that an excellent team member may occasionally break a rule but would NEVER violate a principle.  At first, these two concepts seem incongruous.  How could someone break a rule without violating a principle as well?  The simple answer is that rules are incomplete and imperfect.  They are often made with good intentions but seldom completely address all contingencies or always achieve the goal for which they were created.  Principles, on the other hand, are more universal.  They apply to all or many situations whereas rules are often specific to a particular task or circumstance.  Also, a few principles can replace a lot of rules making it easier for workers to internalize them.  

For example:  A rule might be “Never walk underneath a suspended load on a crane” or “Never walk into the path of an oncoming fork truck” or “Always walk through the pedestrian doors and not through the equipment doors.”  The principle behind these and many other rules is “Always avoid placing yourself in the path of moving or potentially moving objects.”  The more often you are in the path, the more likely you will be struck by a moving object.

Teaching workers safety principles prepares them to meet a variety of risks and to creatively apply what they have learned.  Rules tend to be “one rule to one risk” and teach workers to be mindlessly compliant.  What do they do when they face a task for which the organization has no rule or is an exception to the rule?  If they know the principle, they tend to assess the situation and devise a strategy to address it.  

Rules are guidelines to play a game.  Too many rules can make safety seem like an artificial activity governed by arbitrary guidelines.  Principles are strategic values that offer knowledge and wisdom to apply to the variety of situations we face in life and work.  They guide thinking rather than replacing it.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

In my column in OH&S Magazine, an article of mine was published March, 2013 titled, Stop Trying to Create a Safety Culture. - http://proactsafety.com/articles/stop-trying-to-create-a-safety-culture

It created a lot of buzz, which increased significantly when I posted it recently to the groups I belong to in LinkedIn. There is a word limit in the group comments, so to reply to some great feedback and discussion, I’ve organized my thoughts here.

Do I think we should stop creating safety culture? Yes. Safety Culture, or what we call it at least, already exists, good, bad, or indifferent. You only create the culture when you are first gathering people together from different backgrounds (e.g., experiences, employers, communities) and start aligning them to accomplish something. Only then (when the business opens the doors) are you focusing on the creation of a culture. Even that statement could be disagreed with, in that cultural influences were already imposed on people. Perhaps creation starts in the home? Perhaps culture of safety starts with the responsibility of the parents as their children enter the working world – that could be an interesting discussion!

The business culture is created after people have grown accustom to working together. Could the safety/production/quality/leadership elements be better? Sure, always. If someone thinks otherwise, they are breathing their own exhaust. The only way we advance is to believe there will always be a better way. I have yet to find a company that only and only improvement in “safety culture” would only benefit safety. (Safety culture: Just a term used to provide understanding and structure to, A. Bring focus and B. Provide bookends to manage within.) If there are opportunities for the aspects, characterizes and capabilities that shape safety to be improved, there are always opportunities for these to enhance all aspects of business performance.

What of multiple or subculture? I do believe there will be subcultures within cultures in mid to large size organizations and very disorganized smaller firms. I also believe that that a bit of autonomy is healthy, as long as it contributes to organizational vision and goals. However, I do not agree with the benefit of multiple safety cultures, unless the company-dictated safety culture is ineffective. I’d have to do research, there was a study I read about 5-7 years ago, that said every time you speak to your direct supervisor, your blood pressure increases. Now, how does that create alignment in all aspects of culture if there are medical reactions when an individual speaks with different levels of the business?

What I do think is counterproductive is to completely discount the term and how it is used as commonplace in today’s business. I hear and see people saying that it shouldn’t be used. In my opinion, these people are out of touch with today’s senior executive. Telling them they are wrong, will turn them off to a new way of thinking. Of course it will take new information and experiences to help those who own the overall culture to see the realities of safety culture. But, just nay-saying without a comprehensive alternative is just spreading pointless negativity. For example, there were several in the safety field (whom are Psychologists) that several years back, strongly discouraged and disliked the use of the term habit; It wasn’t scientific enough! Habit is a common term that provides great understanding and helps serve as a vehicle for important messages about safety.

Terry Mathis and I took a well, thought-out risk with our book published earlier this year by WILEY, when using the term Safety Culture in the title. The book is more about company culture and how to strengthen it overall (to improve safety), but we realize that if we want to influence those responsible for it (business execs), we have to provide it in a manner that might appeal to those that are serious about improving safety performance and culture. Keep in mind, it was not a self-published book so the goal was not to become a best-seller for profit. We were honored when it did on Amazon, and the best feedback we received from execs was they saw how it could be used in all aspects of business culture. – Exactly our goal: provide ideas for internally-led improvement.

If we are unwilling to accept new common terms and learn how to work with them to advance thinking, behavior, processes and results we are working against ourselves and the new generations, their habits, points of view and language. Heck, I’m still trying to understand twerking… (Side Note: I wrote this in MS Word as connectivity is limited where I am writing this from, and word didn’t recognize twerking!)

- Shawn M. Galloway

Shawn M. Galloway is the President of ProAct Safety and the coauthor of two books, his latest published Feb 2013 by Wiley is STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence. As an internationally recognized safety excellence expert, he has helped hundreds of organizations within every major industry to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture.  He has been listed in this year’s National Safety Council Top 40 Rising Stars, EHS Today Magazine’s 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS and ISHN Magazine’s POWER 101 – Leaders of the EHS World and again in the recent, elite list of Up and Coming Thought Leaders. In addition to the books, Shawn has authored over 300 podcasts, 100 articles and 80 videos on the subject of safety excellence in culture and performance.

I heard a good analogy recently about the difference between hazards and risks. “Hazards are the sharks you spot in ocean while standing on the shore. They become Risks when you get in the water.” How well do you help those you lead, understand, identify, and respond to the differences?

With good intentions, many organizations prompt activities to purposefully and proactively identify potential hazards in the workplace. While this is admirable, it becomes a complex issue when there isn’t a shared understanding of what a hazard is and isn’t, and how some turn into risk. But, not all risk will turn into incidents and injuries. Further, if there is a shared belief that “safe means zero risk and safety first”, or “safety is our number one priority”; might there be mixed signals sent?

Consider how this might be interpreted, “They say our goal is zero injuries and zero risks and that ‘safety first’ means we are controlling all the risks, yet we have brought several to management’s attention with no action!” This isn’t just hyperbole, this misunderstanding was the result of a conversation with a key union official within a client organization.   

Let’s provide some further context on hazards and risk. Wikipedia provides a good definition of hazard. “A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or environment. Most hazards are dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk of harm; however, once a hazard becomes "active", it can create an emergency situation. A hazardous situation that has come to pass is called an incident. Hazard and possibility interact together to create risk.” Note the key points in this, “most hazards are… only a theoretical risk of harm; however, once a hazard becomes ‘active’…”

A further search in Wikipedia provides another good explanation of risk. “Risk is the potential of loss (an undesirable outcome, however not necessarily so) resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction. The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome sometimes exists (or existed). Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks". Any human endeavor carries some risk, but some are much riskier than others.” Again, some key points to tease out: “Risk is the potential of loss… resulting from a given action”. Moreover, it points out “Any human endeavor carries some risk…”

Some safety advocates propose there is little point in debating terminology. I strongly disagree. How common language is used influences beliefs and behaviors within the culture. The English language has many different meanings for the same word. Have you ever used a word or phrase that was interpreted incorrectly? Of course you have. You know how important it is to use the correct words when communicating with your family. Why should our dialogue within safety be less important? After all, isn’t it our number one priority? Or wait, is it a core value?

- Shawn M. Galloway

Here is a short video on this topic: http://youtu.be/_BrpiL4rxgk

Shawn M. Galloway is the President of ProAct Safety and the coauthor of two books, his latest published Feb 2013 by Wiley is STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence. As an internationally recognized safety excellence expert, he has helped hundreds of organizations within every major industry to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture.  He has been listed in this year’s National Safety Council Top 40 Rising Stars, EHS Today Magazine’s 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS and ISHN Magazine’s POWER 101 – Leaders of the EHS World and again in the recent, elite list of Up and Coming Thought Leaders. In addition to the books, Shawn has authored over 300 podcasts, 100 articles and 80 videos on the subject of safety excellence in culture and performance.

A scholar once said that culture wasn’t so much what was in the heads of its members as what was between their heads.  In other words, what they share in common.  Leaders often ask how they can make safety cultural.  The short answer is, get everyone on the same page.  If every worker has the same definition of key safety concepts, the same vision of what safety excellence looks like, and can recite their roles, responsibilities and desired results, these concepts become cultural

An effective technique for culture building is to make communication and training more “sticky.”  Sticky means that the message or training sticks in workers’ memory and can be brought to mind quickly.  For example, if you want workers to remember a 3-or-4 step process, give each step a clever name and make them into an acronym.  Repeat them in meetings and training often and ask trainees to repeat them back until they do so easily.  

Just as every American school child learns the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, workers should be able to recite basic safety goals, objectives, definitions, and other concepts.  Even if the words are not exactly the same the concepts should be.  If the concept is not in the workers; memory, it will never be in their habits.  Shared habits form common practice and common practice is a visible artifact of culture.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

Trucking companies are beginning to address driver behaviors with new technologies.  Several companies make tracking devices that monitor drivers and photographically capture their behaviors and the road conditions in which they are operating.  Post trip, these companies can know how many times drivers hit the brakes hard, changed lanes suddenly, exceeded speed limits, and exhibited other behaviors critical to driving safety.  Many of these organizations are also monitoring driver cell phone calls and texting while driving.

All this information is supposedly designed to prevent accidents by changing driver behavior.  But how these technologies impact organizational safety culture seems to be an afterthought.  If used to coach drivers into better driving habits they can potentially create super safety cultures in which drivers strive for more excellent performance.  If used as an advanced way to police and punish drivers for offenses previously undetectable, they could seriously destroy safety culture and create a police state in its place.  

It is not technology that impacts safety culture, but the way in which organizations implement technology.  We have NEVER seen a safety culture punished into excellence.  We have seen many cultures coached into excellence.  How you use technology is up to you, but consider the culture you will create as well as the behaviors you will identify.  A degraded safety culture can quickly erase gains made through policing safety technologically.  

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

When my kids were young and I said something they thought was obvious, they would say, “Well, duh!”  I think this same attitude is prevalent today when we talk about safety strategy.  Most organizational leaders and safety professionals seem to think that safety strategy is either extremely obvious or unnecessary.  When we ask about an organization’s safety strategy we get a list of either safety objectives or safety activities.  Neither of these are strategies.

Most organizations we work with are doing almost identical safety activities.  They have a safety mission and/or vision statement, safety training, meetings, stand downs, rules, procedures, posters, JSAs, and safety supervision or oversight.  Leaders try to say the right things about safety to demonstrate their commitment and safety professionals try to make a showing in the workplace to dispel the concept that they are paper pushers only.  

But few organizations have thought about safety strategically as they would think about a new-product rollout or a merger or acquisition.  Safety is not simply activities that limit risks.  Safety performance is impacted by the organizational climate, chemistry, culture, management practices and a host of other influences.  Strategy is creating a framework that guides decisions about activities and evaluates their contribution to the overall goals.  Few organizations have a safety strategy and literally all of them need one.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

An article in the newspaper reported how many toddlers were backed over in their own driveways by their own parents and relatives.  The closing call to action was for the government to pass legislation making backup cameras mandatory on all vehicles.  While the intention is probably sincere, the method is flawed.  We have progressed farther in industrial safety than we have in off-the-job safety and should take the lessons we have learned and apply them to problems such as these.

We addressed backing issues in industry successfully as much as 30 years ago, long before we ever started putting cameras on vehicles.  We solved these problems through training and new procedures rather than through conditional fixes.  The problem begins with the fact that driving has become so routine for most Americans that they have lost their sense of vulnerability.  They view driving as a chore, a convenience, a necessity of daily life and not as the dangerous activity it actually is.  Driving-related injuries and deaths still outnumber industrial ones by about a ten-to-one ratio.  But we do not publicize this fact nor do we adequately train or prepare drivers to appreciate and address the risks of driving.  

Certainly we should make conditions as safe as possible.  Cars can be better equipped and driveways and roadways can be better designed for safety.  But there will always be the need for more, and that more is for operators of vehicles to make sure they know what is in their path before they drive.  The problem is not backing, it is checking before you back.  Until drivers take personal responsibility to change their pre-driving routine the problem will persist regardless of the gadgets we attach to vehicles.  We learned this already in industry and should not need to repeat the learning cycle before ending these tragedies.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

When safety results are unsatisfactory, managers tend to say, “We are not doing enough for safety.”  There is an assumption that more effort will produce better results.  In the short term this often seems true.  When leaders focus on one priority over others, followers tend to direct their efforts accordingly.  Leaders assume that their additional activities produced the desired results.  Often, it was not the effort but simply the priority that drove the improvement.  However, such knee-jerk reactions rarely work long term. Sustainable results depend more on the quality rather than the quantity of effort.  

One organization increased the hours workers spent in classroom training because they discovered knowledge deficits had contributed to accidents.  Accident rates reduced in the short-term, but knowledge levels did not rise.  The emphasis on reducing accidents had focused worker efforts, but the training had not been effective in improving knowledge.  Leaders realized after some investigation that the problem was the quality of the training.  The training did not address the most critical knowledge needed.   Increasing the quantity of the poorly designed training had simply subjected workers to more meaningless and ineffective activity.  When the quality of the training was improved, more quantity was not needed.

Many organizations purchase the latest fads in safety training and programs in hopes of improving results.  Again, there is this assumption that more is better.  Rather than improving existing programs and training and aligning them with a better safety strategy, let’s simply do more.  Unfortunately,” more” doesn’t fix ”poor.”

Very few organizations are failing to dedicate enough effort to safety, but many are not using that effort to its maximum effectiveness.  The answer is not more effort; but better effort.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

What if everyone in your organization obeys the rules, follows the procedures and wears their PPE with a minimum of supervision or management?  Is this safety culture excellence?  NO!  This is a culture of compliance, not excellence.  Certainly, it is a move in the right direction and is a desirable accomplishment.  It is a step above command-and-control but still a number of steps short of true excellence.

Excellence is well above and beyond simple compliance.  Most rules and procedures are minimal standards for safety and only address the most common and obvious risks.  Even organizations which reach high levels of compliance still have a level of accidents untouched by their efforts.  As organizations begin to plateau in their compliance efforts, they often look for advanced strategies to help them accomplish the next step change.  

Beyond compliance, workers must think and act intelligently; not just mindlessly comply.  Organizations must examine their influences on workers to make sure they reinforce safety and not shortcuts or acceptance of risks.  When all factors, both individual and organizational are aligned to go above and beyond compliance, the potential for excellence begins.  At this level of performance, compliance is so basic that is expected of everyone all the time. The new measure of success is repeated victories, not simply playing a decent game.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.

When we talk to most executives about effective safety communication, they instantly focus on the vertical information (i.e., what flows from leaders to the workers and what workers send back to leaders).  Vertical communication can happen directly, through various communication media, or through the usual organizational levels person-to-person.  While this vertical information is important, so is lateral communication: what goes between workers and other workers.  

Safety engagement and behavioral programs often attempt to increase and/or improve lateral communication.  Regardless of whether you are using such a program or simply wanting to improve, if you want your workers to talk effectively to each other about safety, you should address the following issues:

1) Conversations between workers should be focused on improvement targets, not just common practice.  Targeted improvements create legitimate talking points and create discrete dichotomies of “did you do this” or “did you not do this?”  Having workers simply evaluate each others performance more often leads to disagreement than improvement.  Remember to consider targeting improvements in safety culture as well as accident prevention.

2) The model for conversations should be one of coaching rather than confrontation.  Confrontation creates enemies who disagree.  Coaching creates allies in change.

The goals of lateral conversations should be to, A) Encourage those working toward improvement, or B) To discover what is influencing or blocking improvements in those observed not meeting improvement goals.  

Often the best way of discovering such issues is simply to ask “Why?” or “Why not?” when a fellow worker is not doing the targeted precaution. Approaches that follow these guidelines more often prove successful.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.