The Art of Safety

Art of Safety Live Event – Calgary, Alberta – April 2-4, 2008

admin — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:06:06 +0000

Attention Safety Practitioners:

Ever feel you’re working way too hard and nobody is paying attention?

A special note from Gary Phillips

Do you wish that everybody around you took Safety as Serious Business?

Unfortunately most Safety Programs only go so far…

Announcing The Art of Safety Workshop

“A whole new approach to safety—the best I’ve seen in years!”

— Doug Moynihan, Hospital V.P. Corporate Services

Consider what happens when a simple shift in thinking delivers the Safety performance you expect and the programs you deserve…

And what if such a shift retained all of the successful elements of your existing programs but POWER SHIFTED them UP to the NEXT LEVEL?

Learn how to achieve Optimal Safety Performance

With The Art of Safety Workshop’s simple breakthrough techniques you’ll discover:

The 7 deadly Presuppositions of Safety and how to avoid them.
The 6 ESSENTIAL questions to diagnose safety problems and satisfy due diligence
The power of “Respectful Influence.”
The effective and easy way to maintain relationships when delivering “bad” news.
The right way to do investigations—to get to the heart of the matter without blame!
Simple steps to SUPERCHARGE your safety meetings.
How to get “buy-in” from workers and managers when talking safety.
The critical Safety Strengths of “going visual” for optimal safety performance.
Live 1-on-1 training with the author of the Art of Safety
Exclusive small group training environment

The Art of Safety provides you with all the information you need. It has highly-customizable:

safety meeting tips,
training ideas,
presentation techniques, and
communication tools,

that provide you and your organization with real-world functionality that anyone can use wherever they are. If your safety program isn’t where you want it to be, discover, right now, how The Art of Safety will transform your safety program.

A Live, Small Group, Personalized Safety Training Event

Space is limited to 25 people

Who Should Attend: The Art of Safety tools have been so successful that I want to share it with as many Safety Practitioners, Managers, and Supervisors as possible.

Your next chance to learn these simple, yet powerful techniques from the author of The Art of Safety, Gary Phillips, MA, CRSP, CHRP, NLP Licensed Trainer, is:

The Next Live Art of Safety Workshop is April 2-4, 2008

Location:
Holiday Inn Calgary Airport
1250 McKinnon Drive, N.E.
Calgary AB T2E 7T7
403-230-1999

Costs:

$1,995.00 Registration Fee

$1,595.00 HRIA members (anytime!)
Please use discount code AOSHRIA1 during checkout

$1,595.00 Early Bird Registration Fee.
Must register by March 19, 2008.
Please use discount code AOSCAL1 during checkout

Group discounts available.

The easiest way to register is to use our online order form.

You may also call toll-free (888) 622-9653 or download our fax order form and send it back to us at (807) 623-7099

Safety Incentives

gary — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:31:39 +0000

The idea of offering incentives to promote improved safety performance has long been a topic of heated debate. Some suggest that they don’t motivate al all, that they contribute to the hiding of incidents, increase negative peer pressure to under-report, and that they reward the wrong things or the wrong people. Others point to research, and results in the field that suggest incentives do work. Wherever you are on the debate, like all programs, incentive initiatives must be well planned and executed to satisfy a set of reasonable criteria and standards.

In the Art of Safety incentives are mentioned in the chapter on safety meetings, but not fully discussed. The workshop by the same name goes into greater depth regarding the 15 essential criteria for an effective incentives program and also includes the following checklist of the 15 characteristics that the rewards offered by an incentive program need to satisfy.

If you’re currently running, or plan to initiate an incentives program, consider checking the intended rewards against the checklist to see how they measure up.

Rewards Checklist

– Rewards the bottom line

– Attractive to the participants

– Incorporates progressive safety credits

– Simple rules

– Perceived as equitable

– Perceived as attainable

– Short accident-free eligibility period

– Rewards group and individual performance

– Operators participated in program design

– Prevents incident under reporting

– Rewards all levels of the organization

– Maximizes the primary goal (net savings or benefit/cost)

– Includes a research component

– Encourages wellness participation

– Clearly defines criteria and points, earned or lost

Job Safety Analysis

gary — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:55:41 +0000

At the core of many safety activities is the Job Safety Analysis. In reality it is most often a “Task” Safety Analysis, an individual task is analyzed, not a job. A job will generally contain a variety of tasks.

A Job Safety Analysis is an adaptation of a Task Analysis – what do you need to know to be able to perform a given task. The classic Task Analysis identifies input and output indicators, conditions, criteria, and necessary resources. Then it breaks a task down into its component steps. The steps are analyzed to determine what knowledge and skill are required at each step.

The output of this is a lesson plan, which addresses those knowledge and skill requirements. When challenged after a serious incident, “How did you determine what to teach the worker?” a Task Analysis is the best defense. A Job Safety Analysis, on the other hand, is the same at the front end, up to the point where the steps in the task have been identified. Rather than asking what skills and knowledge are required, the Job Safety Analysis asks “What hazards or risks will be encountered at each step?” Corresponding controls are then built into the task.

The output is a procedure. REMEMBER that a procedure does not generally state what knowledge and skills are required to do a task safely, only the steps, so reading a procedure in a safety meeting, then asking “Do you understand?”, to produce a series of head nods, will leave your due diligence hanging out a mile.

Whether you’re a manager, supervisor, safety representative or safety professional, keep in mind that the use of the Job Safety Analysis to build controls into a procedure is valuable work. But when we analyze the job of ensuring that safety is taken care of, we recognize that Job Safety Analysis is only one of the tasks.

Task Analysis to determine the knowledge and skills requirements is also essential to satisfying due diligence. Setting appropriate standards, ensuring responsibility assignments are clear, keeping competence records (not training records), ensuring compliance and resource allocation, and engaging workers – are all necessary. Keep in mind as you do Job Safety Analysis that it is only part of the of the safety job, one of the essential tasks to ensure that you’ve satisfied due diligence.

Changing the Language of Safety – Part 1

gary — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:00:42 +0000

The “art” of safety, as opposed to the science or technology, offers subtle ways to use influencing language without inadvertently or clumsily sabotaging one’s own best efforts. The recently released Art of Safety offers ingenious ways to lift stalled programs off the plateau through the use of simple communication techniques.

One critical linguistic structure, related to the concept that the brain is literal and people’s attention will go where directed, is the phenomenon of presuppositions. These are utterances, or phrases, that carry with them something that is already presupposed by that phrase. If the receiver does not challenge the utterance immediately, it generally means that, at the unconscious level, they have “bought into” the presupposition.

Here are 2 examples of the 7 Deadly Presuppositions of Safety that need to be avoided.

1. “Can I help you?” – When someone walks into your office and you say, “How can I help you?” it presupposes you’re the helper and you’re in charge of the helping process. Then, who is helpless? That other person is.

As soon as they, in response, utter a single syllable, without challenging the presupposition, they’ve unconsciously “bought into” this relationship of dependency. This only reinforces traditional approaches that the leader is responsible for safety behavior, not the worker. “How can I help you?” creates dependant people. Avoid creating dependant people.

Avoid asking, “How can I help you?” A better, neutral question is “What’s up”, no presupposition implied. Dealing with this presupposition has broad applicability, well beyond safety applications. The Art of Safety also expands on why verbally presented information further creates dependency, while visual information empowers.

2. “Safety is job 1.” Everyone believes in the importance of safety and prevention, but producing a product or delivering a service is what our organizations are primarily created to do. We believe that production or service provision need not be conducted in such a way as to compromise safety. So these, along with quality, customer orientation, environmental protection, etc., are each important. But to say “Safety is job 1” attaches a primacy to safety, because of the ordinal reference to “1.” As well intentioned as that expression may be, as soon as we have to focus on productivity, we’re accused of not believing in safety, as if it were an “either/or” choice. It’s not.

We need to stop talking as if it is. This single utterance may be responsible for more workplace safety arguments than any other. It creates unnecessary conflict that can be simply avoided by referring to safety as a goal and priority “along with” production, service, quality, environment, etc. Even the most practiced leaders and professionals are often unaware of how they come across both verbally and non-verbally, and how they create the reality of the workplace by shaping how it’s experienced.

Small improvements in communication techniques pay big dividends in maintaining positive relationships and error-free performance.

Changing the Language of Safety – Part 2

gary — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:00:22 +0000

In Part 1 we introduced the concept of presuppositions, phrases that have negative impacts on our safety programs, here’s another example: 3. “Is it safe?” The answer to this kind of question is either a “yes” or “no” answer. It either is, or is not. This will polarize your safety program immediately. If all of your personal experience climbing ladders was not having it held, or having the top secured, and then never having fallen, it would tend to convince you that climbing a ladder without someone holding the base or tying off the top is safe.

If you’re challenged in the workplace, after climbing without someone holding the base, and asked, “Do you think that’s safe?” of course you answer, “yes.” Then you get punished for doing something you thought was safe, when you were just trying to get the job done. Now cooperation goes out the window. Since asking “Is it safe?” also provides an open invitation to spout our personal opinions about safety and invites an expression of our personal risk perceptions, it tends to be more divisive.

Instead, consider that every safety decision is really a business decision that balances three things, Cost, Risk, and Benefit. It’s better to think about what the risk assessment is in this situation and what kinds of controls offer the most benefit (risk reduction) for the least cost. It must be kept in mind that we enforce behavioral standards, not individual opinions of what is “safe”.

Another way to think about how we use language was also mentioned in Part 1. The brain is literal. And the unconscious does not process negation. Because the brain is literal, its attention is directed to whatever is suggested. If we use a negation, such as “don’t”, it doesn’t deter the brain from following the literal suggestion. Here’s an old example: Right now, don’t think about an elephant. Despite the direction to “not” think about it, the only way the brain can process the information is to think about an elephant. The parent who says, “Don’t spill your milk.” Is surprised when the child spills their milk a few seconds later. It is more useful to say, “Grip the glass firmly.”

In the workplace, people say, “Don’t forget your safety equipment.” Then, after an incident, how surprised they are when the worker says he forgot his safety equipment. Instead say, “Remember your safety equipment.”

Always express directives in the positive, while referencing the specific behaviors that are required. Safety professionals and managers often make similar mistakes when seeking support for their programs and inadvertently sabotage their own efforts. Keep in mind that we are shaping the reality of how others experience the workplace every day. As such we get the people and the programs we deserve. Think about what messages you’re sending both verbally and non-verbally. Deserve the very best!

Art of Safety Workshop – Toronto

gary — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:29:04 +0000

The next Art of Safety workshop is fast approaching – February 17 & 18 in Toronto – spread the word and think about who you should send… check it out on the website Events listing…

www.artofsafety.ca

Gary

Gary’s Interview on Beyond Lip Service Radio Show

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:01:33 +0000

On April 28th, I had the pleasure of appearing on Blog Talk Radio’s Beyond Lip Service Show.

Every day, we shape the reality of how people experience us and what we offer. Are you delivering your messages in the most effective way— the way that gets immediate buy-in? Listen in as Sharon Sayler (www.sharonsayler.com) interviews me about quality communication in the workplace, then click over to http://www.artofsafety.net/communicating-safety/ to learn more about how communication at the Front Line has changed these days.

One of the first reactions for many people who are under stress in the workplace these days is to strike out, most of the time, without any forethought.

So, how can you as a manager or safety program manager support and change the impact on an individual’s and company’s well-being? Learn how Communicating Safety at the Front Line my 1-Day Workshop helps people to deal effectively with difficult situations so that workplace miscommunication and stress does not harm physical or emotional health.
Learn the appropriate way to communicate

concern,
acceptance,
respect,
and willingness to help.

"Being a construction safety professional, I often need creative ways to promote safety. This program will become my recommended must… for both front line supervisors and project management"
~~Christopher Nicholas – Senior Safety Engineer

About Gary: Gary Phillips, BEd, MA (Adult Educ.), Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP), Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) is the manager and principle trainer/consultant for Northwest Training and Development. As an experienced organizational development consultant and Safety Professional, Gary teaches others how to say it and become a communications expert. From his home base in Thunder Bay, Ontario where he resides with his family, Gary offers services worldwide through NW Training and Development and is a widely sought after as a speaker and trainer. Gary Phillips is available for conference and workshop presentations.

Gary’s Interview on Beyond Lip Service Radio

admin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:48:01 +0000

The “God Delusion” of the Safety Profession

gary — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:55:33 +0000

The "God Delusion" of the Safety Profession

An equipment operator in the Canadian oil sands tells the story of being trapped in the cab of a burning haul truck. Determined not to die there, and despite the terrible realization that any escape attempt is going to involve burns, he kicks open the door, staggers across the deck of the truck and leaps twenty feet off the burning equipment. In the process he’s severely burned in the face, ears and hands, but is saved from further burns by his coveralls. We’ll leave him there and finish his story in a moment.

Did divine intervention save the day? Was his will to live the factor that saved him? Did the money and efforts invested by his employer pay off? Can we ever really determine how much of each made the difference?

Every day safety professionals and leaders work tirelessly to prevent just such events from occurring. But what if some of the basic assumptions we’ve been making were actually working against us without our even knowing? Have we been presuming too much?

Even the most devout believer in God would agree that presuming to be god-like is offensive. It implies the height of arrogance or folly. There’s the old joke about the person rudely pushing through the cafeteria line in heaven, "Oh that’s God, some days he thinks he’s a doctor." Or think of those despotic leaders who drive their countries to ruin under such delusions.

The "God Delusion" of the Safety Profession refers not to a raging egotism, but rather to those assumptions that are taken for granted within the profession – assumptions that may actually mitigate against their own success. For example, thirty years ago the "conventional wisdom" for back pain was to rest in bed for two weeks, an assumption long since abandoned in favor of appropriate activity, following investigation to rule out significant disease.

It’s time to scrutinize other conventional wisdom that has dogged the profession for too many years, in particular that tired old chestnut "All accidents are preventable". Has anyone uttered this with even a moment’s consideration of its potential negative impact?

To come to grips with that assertion, we need to examine how language creates and influences reality and the implications of uttering some of our favorite, yet clumsy, safety slogans.

Studies of language have shown that the richness or paucity of concepts within a language shape reality for its native speakers. Italian, for example, contains many more references to emotional states than does German. When a concept is not contained within the language it is simply not part of the reality of its’ speakers. So our stereotypes of the fiery, passionate Italian temperament or the cool, logical German temperament reflect what concepts those languages make available to their speakers.

The brain is literal. Attention goes where it’s directed. Since the unconscious does not process negation, we know that directives, safety or otherwise, cannot be delivered as negative statements. Try "not" to think about an elephant, or the color blue. Despite the directive to "not" think about them, the only way the brain can process that is to think about an elephant or the color blue. As the magician knows all too well, attention goes where it is directed both verbally and non- verbally. Telling a child "Don’t spill your milk" only brings spilt milk to mind and, not surprisingly, you know what happens next. Instead we have to say "Grip the glass firmly." or "Hang onto the cup." Imagine saying something silly like, "Don’t forget your safety equipment." Well, you get the picture.

The real "juice" in communication is in the non-verbals, in the face, the gestures and other body movements. But let’s focus on the verbal aspects of how we direct attention inappropriately in safety situations through the invocation of a phenomenon known as "presuppositions".

A presupposition is a phrase with an embedded assumption. When someone approaches and I say "Can I help you?" it presupposes that I am the helper, that she is helpless, and that I am in charge of the helping process. As soon as she utters a single syllable in response, at the unconscious level she’s "bought into" this relationship of dependency. I’ve just created a dependent worker, or client or child. It’s much better to simply say, "What’s up?" – no presupposition of dependency implied.

So off-putting is the "Can I help you?" comment to retail customers, to have to depend on the store clerk, that retail has changed that presupposition to one you’ve heard so many times you’re sick of it – "Are you finding everything you need today?" Now "you’re" finding it, not just some things but "everything" and not just stuff you want but things you "need" – clever, albeit overused.

Occupational safety is unfortunately loaded with such well meaning but clumsy use of language – these negative presuppositions. For example "Safety is Job 1." Of course it’s not. But when you use an ordinal reference like "1", then other concerns such as production, service, quality, or environment, must necessarily be further down the numerical order, number 2, 17, 35 or 64. Then when you ask someone to focus on production, you know the response you’re going to get – "Well obviously you don’t believe in safety." Now conflict has been opened up and the credibility of the leader to apply future influence begins to erode. Consider saying, "Around here safety, production, service, quality and environment are all important and we have to balance them appropriately."

Or take that other stinker "Is it safe?" It’s a one-way ticket to conflict in the workplace. Because it contains the verb "is" from "to be", there are only two

choices, either you "are" or you "aren’t". So linguistically there can only be two answers, "yes" or "no". Yet there is no safety decision in the world that’s yes or no. Every safety decision at work or at home is a business decision that balances Cost, Risk and Benefit. Direct attention appropriately by asking "Have you done a risk assessment?" or, "Is the risk acceptable?" or, "What does a cost- benefit analysis say about the effectiveness of the various proposed solutions?"

When you ask "Is it safe?" you engage risk perception and opinion, but not risk assessment.

Let’s say a worker, in previous jobs and at home, has been up and down ladders thousands of times. Seldom did they get someone to hold the base. They knew enough to position the base in relation to the height, how to do a leg lock on the ladder, how to maintain three point contact and how to maintain a center of balance. In all those real world exposures they learned that they can do this safely without someone holding the base. Then they go to work for an employer whose rule is to have the base held. One day they walk half way across the plant to do a brief job but forget to bring someone to hold the base. Eager to get the job done, up they scamper, do the job and descend just as a supervisor rounds the corner and asks, " Is that safe?" Now the supervisor opened up a Pandora’s box of opinion, which can never be wrong. The worker considers all their life experience (because attention goes where it’s directed) and they say, "Yes, it is." The response? "That’ll be three days off without pay." And you can kiss future cooperation goodbye when punishment is associated with what was thought to be acting safely.

Which returns us to the worker peering down from atop the ladder. Instead of asking that rhetorical question that ultimately undercuts your authority, say, "That violates our standard and it’s not forgivable. There’s a consequence." Stay away from invoking opinions about "safety-ness". It’s an opinion trap. We manage performance, not opinion or attitudes.

Keep in mind that "we get the people we deserve" as leaders and as parents because we are constantly shaping the reality of how people experience us and the organization through the ways that we communicate both verbally and non- verbally.

Well that brings us to the grand daddy of all presuppositions: All accidents are preventable.

If that ‘s indeed true, it presupposes that we must be in control of every internal factor – state of mind, attention direction, motivation or attitude – within every individual performer. It also assumes we must be in control of every external factor – weather, environment, equipment, traffic design – in all circumstances. In other words, here it comes, we must be God, or at the very least god-like. And although most of the workplace environment is indeed available to our control, the internal workings of the human element are not, for one important reason – we do not have permission in the workplace to fool around in people’s heads. We do when they willingly come to counseling or coaching, but not otherwise.

In the perfect, god-like hindsight of investigations we actually begin to believe our delusion. If perfect hindsight allowed us perfect foresight to control all variables then maybe that would be true. But it’s not.

With environmental and equipment design factors, that hindsight has served us well and continues to do so. Yet in the area of human performance it simply has not worked. And even in terms of process controls, although hindsight has been successful to a point, many in the workplace now suggest that we may have gone too far, overproducing procedures, guards and personal protective equipment to the point where people actually struggle to get the work done. A recent parliamentary address in the United Kingdom specifically expressed concern regarding health and safety standards.

The real problem with "all accidents are preventable" is blame. If the statement is true and an accident occurs, most people tend to assume "Then I must be to blame." And people who feel blamed are no longer in a resourceful state to contribute, to be open and honest in investigations, or to freely offer cooperation going forward.

So let’s return to our burned operator in the oil sands. When repeatedly questioned in the investigation, what else could you have to done to prevent this, he admits that at that point he felt like he should have just stayed in the cab and accepted his fate. That’s surely not the goal of our well-intentioned investigations.

Consider also that workers know all too well that instead of all accidents being preventable, "s#*t happens". Despite our best attempts to control everything, we simply don’t have that god-like power. Things will fail, errors will be made. In fact an absence of errors generally indicates an absence of learning and growth. Whenever a leader asserts "all accidents are preventable" their credibility suffers because the statement flies in the face of the workers’ experience of reality. When credibility suffers, the power to positively influence diminishes.

Clearly the sector that offers the best of safety records, and has avoided the "blame" response, is aviation. Pilots and flight crews freely admit errors, creating a culture that encourages the learning needed to prevent them in the future.

Consider culture as a set of behaviors that a specific group has come to think of as normal. Despite claims that "we’re not looking for blame" (Don’t think about an elephant), most organizations haven’t come close to what aviation has achieved. To change culture is not some mysterious secret, we simply start by changing our standards for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, specifically regarding blame and consequence.

The best application of our professional "god-ness" is to apply the principle of forgiveness. Let’s make those few "deadly sins", the ones that regulators won’t tolerate violations of, severely punishable as we do with theft in the workplace. But make everything else forgivable. S#*t happens. Errors occur. Without errors there is no learning. Forgiveness brings honesty, learning, and progress towards injury reduction.

Organization leaders and Safety Professionals need the courage to challenge conventional wisdom and to use language professionally. Stop saying all accidents are preventable. Commit instead to lowering risk to acceptable levels, reducing frequency and severity of incidents, accepting error as part of the human condition, and finding the grace of forgiveness.

NorthWest Training & Development

438 S. Franklin St.

Thunder Bay, Ontario

Canada P7E 1R4

(807) 622 6077

(807) 623 7099 (fax)

nwtd@tbaytel.net