
This argument from the operations employees is a common
variant of something heard a lot in business – “that’s the way we’ve always
done it”. In the safety profession this is a common response we get when we go
to employees to tell them how to do jobs safely. It can be frustrating for us
because it’s hard to change people’s minds if they are stuck in the past.
However, we all know that the “that’s the way we’ve always
done it” argument is flawed. Risk has a frequency component to it. So something
can be done multiple times without incident, perhaps due to nothing more than
luck, but the risk can still be high. Obviously in the case above about the
chemical transfer, doing it for years did not mean that it was free from risk
of chemical exposure.
Of course the problem is that the propensity of people to
learn through trial and error provides a potential for a false sense of
security. We do something, we get feedback from our environment that it was
safe (as evidenced by the fact that we did not die, nor were we injured), and
so we learn that this is the right thing to do. Add to this a further human
propensity to push boundaries and test limits, which means that as we cut
corners and start to believe that doing so is “safe”, we will be more likely to
cut the corner even further. This leads to drift and is an obvious recipe for
problems.
So how should we deal with it? The traditional approach that
many have advocated is to focus on the person and prove them wrong. The problem
is one of risk perception, so the story goes, so we need to focus on how to fix
their risk perception.
This is a flawed approach in our opinion. First off, the
problem of risk perception is not an individual problem, it’s a people problem.
People have tendencies to downplay or overplay certain risks more so than
perhaps they should. This is a common finding in risk perception research, so
if your approach is to try to change the risk perception of every person you
come across who you believe has a flawed understanding of the risk they face,
you are going to face a never ending battle.
Even if this is doable though, we think the focus on risk
perception sort of misses an important point. The issue is not about their
understanding of the risk, but with their definition of safety. Think about it,
if someone says “that’s the way we’ve always done it” as evidence that what
they are doing is safe enough, they are saying that safety is the absence of
accidents. Nothing bad has happened, therefore they must be safe. Obviously
this is a bad assumption though. Safety should not be defined by its absence
but by its presence. If your organization relies a lot on the “that’s the way
we’ve always done it” argument then your organization is defining safety in a
very reactive way.
But this doesn’t mean, as safety leaders, we should
immediately go into a diatribe explaining how their implicit mental model of
safety is causing them to make a fundamental logical error. You’ll just get
blank stares if you do that. Instead, we recommend you use “that’s the way
we’ve always done it” to change the conversation in your organization around
how safety is defined. For example, try this for a response:
“You are right. You’ve done it that way for a while and
nothing bad has happened. So something must be going right. Why don’t you walk
me through the process you use and lets specifically identify what about what
you’re doing is making this successful?”
What have we done by responding in this way? First, we
acknowledge their expertise. After all, their experience is valid. Nothing bad
has probably happened and it very well could be because of what they are doing.
By acknowledging that you affirm their expertise, which reduces some of the
confrontational nature that tends to mark interactions between safety
professionals and workers. The conversation becomes positive and more
productive.
Second, we allow the worker to begin to reflect on their
work. Essentially we start learning from what goes right. We can pinpoint those
key elements that enable success, those things that we think are making us
successful but really are not, and those things that are actually holding us
back. Furthermore, you’ve changed the focus of the employee from proving to you
that what you are recommending is not necessary, to proving what they are doing
is sufficiently safe. This simple change in perspective may help them see
things that they couldn’t see before. It also changes your perspective, and you
might begin to appreciate aspects of the job that you never appreciated before,
such as the complexity of the work, or the unique expertise of the workers.
Finally, this process enables better decision-making in the
organization. By explicitly identifying what is making the job safe you have a
clearer picture of the critical tasks that may need some additional protection.
You may see how one of the key elements keeping workers safe is their ability
to communicate with one another, for example, which can help you better assess
the risk of organizational changes that may affect that communication. Think
how much more effective training new employees will be knowing which steps in
the task and which features of the job are critical.
The key point in all of this is that changing the
conversation can have profound effects. Start looking at how the actions and language
within your organization implies what their definition of safety is and look
for opportunities to change that conversation toward seeing less as the absence
of negative events (accidents, incidents, deviations) and more as the presence
of positives (i.e., the capacity to achieve success under varying conditions).
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