Safety Culture Excellence®

Have you ever looked into the eyes of workers in a safety meeting?  In some meetings the eyes light up, in some they gloss over, and in others they roll.  If you are creating gloss and/or rolling eyes, you have a great opportunity!  Think about it - you already dedicate time to safety meetings.  Why not get the maximum return for that time invested?

I know a lot of meetings are mandatory.  I know that being forced to do something can take the fun and motivation out of it.  But it doesn’t have to be a boring case of grudging compliance.  Meetings can be an opportunity to discuss upcoming issues, share expertise from experienced hands to new hires, discuss best practices, or plan an upcoming project.  It doesn’t have to be a lecture or sermon on thinking before you act.  It can be interactive and engaging with just a little effort and pre-planning.

The key aspects to creating bright-eyed meetings are practicality and participation.  Topics that don’t readily apply to real work get eyes rolling.  Boring speech-giving presenters or shallow attempts to involve workers make the eyes gloss over.  Remember this formula:  Practical topics + Engaging delivery = Bright eyes. 

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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).

The Huffington Post article, “America’s Disastrous History of Pipeline Accidents Shows Why the Keystone Vote Matters” highlighted the pipeline industry’s incident record and stated that on average one significant pipeline incident occurs in the country every 30 hours. The key question to ask is – what is the pipeline industry doing to reduce the number of incidents and lower the risk of harm to the environment and surrounding communities where they operate.

After the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion in California and per National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations, midstream industry leaders in coordination with the American Petroleum Institute (API) gathered and collaborated to develop a recommended practice (RP) for the industry. Known as, API RP 1173 Pipeline Safety Management System (PSMS), it provides guidance for developing and maintaining a comprehensive management system to improve operational safety and decrease the rate of releases and incidents.  The PSMS framework defined in API 1173 shares common principles with safety management systems found in other industries such as nuclear, aviation, offshore oil and gas, and refinery and chemical plants. These safety management programs have demonstrated reductions in operational risk, reduced occurrences of incidents, and provided a platform for continuous improvement to achieve operational excellence. Large, integrated energy companies already have such overarching management systems in place that cover pipeline safety, such as an operations management system. However, the standards in API RP 1173 will likely require effort and executive commitment to enhance existing operations management/safety management system to fully meet the API RP 1173 requirements.

While many midstream companies have various programs that address risk management, asset integrity and management of change, a safety management system will provide an integrated management system that cuts through organizational and functional silos to achieve greater transparency and awareness which leads to better decision making and safer operations. Recognizing the significance of leadership accountability and communications to achieve a sustainable and meaningful operations/safety management system, the API RP 1173 devotes significant content to framing the role leadership at all levels plays in ensuring safe and reliable operations.

The final release of API RP 1173 is anticipated next month and is expected to change the way leaders think about their business decisions to a more holistic, systematic approach. For example, the draft version of API RP 1173 states, “Managing the safety of a complex process, as well as simpler systems, requires coordinated actions to address multiple, dynamic activities and circumstances. Pursuing the industry-wide goal of zero incidents requires comprehensive, systematic effort. While process-related incidents are relatively infrequent but can lead to serious consequences.”

While not mandatory to adopt API RP 1173, an operator risks being found negligent for not adopting and following a PSMS consistent with RP 1173 in the event of an incident as it will be considered an industry standard for which pipeline operators to follow.

This has been a guest contribution by Katherine Molly.

Katherine, Principal of Northhighland, works with executive management and project teams to improve organization processes for safety and reliability, reduce capital program and business process risks, and resolve program/ project crisis and disputes in the energy industries. Supporting owners, contractors, engineers, their legal counsel and sureties, she has led assessment and improvement organization and project programs, enhanced project execution, coalesced conflicting parties, and participated in the settlement/litigation of business and project disputes ranging from $1 million to multi-billion dollars.

When new safety programs or processes are rolled out unsuccessfully, there has almost always been a failure to determine either the factors necessary for success, the factors that can contribute to failure, or some combination of both.  Without a list of the key factors of success and failure, a project launch is a blind affair.  This blindness seems more logical if the project appears to be well constructed and has been successful at other organizations or sites in the same organization.  Sadly, imitation of success is no guarantee of success. 

The reasons for the imitation failing are basically the differences in sites and cultures.  A good fit for one site might be a recipe for disaster at another.  That is why an analysis of success and failure factors is so necessary.  Such an analysis is unique to each culture.  It should include a review of past successes and/or failures and the factors that contributed to those; but it should also include simply asking a representative cross-sample of people what they think of the project and what it would take to make it work.  Good implementers and change agents have usually learned a lot about such analysis, but can almost always be more thorough if they simply list critical factors to success and failure, and address them in their implementations.

-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).

More and more organizations are using computer-based training (CBT) modules.  Most started using them for OSHA-required yearly refresher training.  The CBT approach had some advantages:  workers could attend individually rather than in a classroom with multiple students and an instructor; the individual training approach caused less disruption of business activities than a classroom approach; the training was self-paced so everyone could move through the materials at their own pace; the modules could include testing for knowledge levels; and the CBT could keep current rosters of who had completed the various modules.

Then organizations expanded the use of CBT into more questionable areas.  Along this path, someone forgot that CBT is education; not training.  You can impart information via computer but you cannot build manual skills.  Relying on CBT to teach manual job skills or even basics such as fire-extinguisher use is only a partial approach.  Students end up having knowledge without skills.  If the CBTs are followed up with on-the-job training or classroom simulations, the knowledge can begin to be translated into skills.  Without such follow-up, CBTs can simply create a false sense of competence that can, and has, resulted in serious safety incidents.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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).

I see more and more safety procedures written by corporate attorneys and their staff.  While legal exposure is a real business consideration that deserves attention, so is safety.  If the procedures are written in language the average worker can’t understand, or are too complex to remember, they have little chance of actually being implemented.  What corporate attorneys need to understand is that a written procedure is not an insurance policy against government regulators, especially if the procedure doesn’t become common practice.  Stiff fines have been given to organizations with excellent documentation but common practice that doesn’t match.  The people in the field need to walk the talk or the exposure is still there.

Sometimes all that is needed is a shorter version of the procedure aimed at worker terminology and mapped out into an implementation plan.  The legal document can still be in place as the organizational goal, while the shorter document is a practical attempt to turn the goal into reality in the workplace.  I have found regulators much more understanding of performance that falls short of the ideal if there is a plan in place to make it happen.  Attorneys: work with the safety staff to make procedures practical and applicable as well as liability limiting.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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).