Safety Culture Excellence®

It is incredible to me how tenaciously old thinking clings to the safety community.  I continue to hear pundits assert that confrontation is a key skill of creating a safety culture.  Unless you want a confrontational culture, I couldn’t disagree more if they were twice as wrong.  So, why do you not want to make confrontation a common skill and a key part of your culture?  Because confrontation is a “stopping tool.”  If you cling to the old idea that safety is getting workers to “stop taking risks,” then you tend to think this way.  Workers get hurt because they take risks.  “Workers are the problem with safety.  Fix the workers and you will fix safety.”

However, if you can grasp the concept that workers don’t want to get hurt and that they are the customers of your safety programs, then you will think differently.  Accidents happen because of risks.  Safety needs to help management identify and remove or reduce risks where possible.  Safety needs to help workers identify and deal with remaining risks efficiently.  Workers need to help each other practice taking precautions around the remaining risks.  The key skill of safety is coaching, not confronting.  Safety is about starting excellence, not stopping stupid risk taking. 

If you continue to think the about safety the way you always have, you will do as you have always done and produce the same results you always have.  Get away from confrontational thinking and embrace the concepts of safety excellence.

 

 

 

-Terry L. Mathis

 

For more insights, visit 

www.ProActSafety.com

 

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 three consecutive times. 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).

One day during my management career, I got visited by four specialists from corporate, then by my regional manager.  The safety, quality, logistics and IT specialists in sequence told me about all their new initiatives that would require my support, understanding, and staffing.  Then my boss showed up and asked me if I had any questions.  I simply asked him, “While I am doing all these programs would you like to try to continue to do business as well?”

Almost all managers must juggle a number of priorities without dropping any.  Safety should not be one of these!  Safety is not something else you do; it is the WAY you do everything.  It is not a conflicting priority with anything else if you integrate it into the flow of work and the fabric of culture.  Yes, safety meetings take time, but not if they are simply a part of shift start-up meetings or tool-box meetings, which you have anyway.  Yes, safety training takes time, but workers attend training of many kinds, none of which is expendable.  The best safety is completely imbedded into the workflow and not perceived as separable or competing.  If you think this is not possible, seek out some of the excellent organizations that have made it happen.

 

-Terry L. Mathis

 

For more insights, visit 

www.ProActSafety.com

 

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 three consecutive times. 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).