Our tendency is to blame workers and label their personal failings as the cause of safety errors. Labeling does not solve problems that cause error. It is an illusion of human perception leading us to false conclusions resulting in dysfunctional practices that hurt the safety of our workers and the effectiveness of the systems we put in place to protect them. Learn a better way to analyze the behaviors of your employees to understand how they were put in a position to take the risk in the first place.
Our tendency is to blame workers and label their personal failings as the cause of safety errors. Labeling does not solve problems that cause error. It is an illusion of human perception leading us to false conclusions resulting in dysfunctional practices that hurt the safety of our workers and the effectiveness of the systems we put in place to protect them. Learn a better way to analyze the behaviors of your employees to understand how they were put in a position to take the risk in the first place.
Our tendency is to blame workers and label their personal failings as the cause of safety errors. Labeling does not solve problems that cause error. It is an illusion of human perception leading us to false conclusions resulting in dysfunctional practices that hurt the safety of our workers and the effectiveness of the systems we put in place to protect them. Learn a better way to analyze the behaviors of your employees to understand how they were put in a position to take the risk in the first place.
Do you want to make a difference? There are many ways someone in a leadership role can have a positive impact on the lives of their employees. Perhaps there is no leadership responsibility more profound than creating a sustainable, injury-free workplace. Every person who goes to work expects to return home in the same condition. When someone is hurt, the adverse effects of their injury ripple through the employee's family and friends. Achieving an injury-free environment is one of the most difficult problems many leaders face. Indeed, during 35 years in manufacturing I never discovered a singular solution to this challenge. However, over these years I observed quite a few leadership actions that significantly contributed to less risk-taking, greater hazard awareness and genuine collaborative efforts among employees and supervisors. Leaders who understood, embraced, and implemented these strategies saw a dramatic reduction in incidents and injuries at their facilities. In my experience, organizations with the best safety performances do not have a secret. They simply do a lot of small things collectively and strategically well. That's really what this book is about. It is a collection of leadership concepts, thoughts, words, and actions that (when strategically implemented) can move your organization toward a better safety future. There are no 'silver bullets' here. On the other hand, you don't have to do all of these things to be successful in your safety journey. The first section of the book takes a look at some fundamental concepts everyone who is striving to achieve safety excellence should understand. It includes a discussion on compliance versus commitment, how to develop a safety strategy, why people make mistakes and take risks, and an overview of a Just Culture. The core of the book reviews some key research findings in social psychology, sociology and neuroscience. I share personal experiences of highly effective leadership. And I recount other situations that exemplify the wrong approach. In each case, I discuss how you can leverage these concepts in a practical way to improve your safety leadership skills. Topics include: how our thoughts can drive our behaviors when it comes to safety, how the words we use can be influential on personal decision-making, how social influence and leadership actions can drive safety performance, and how to facilitate the right personal safety conversation. At the end of each chapter, there is a segment called the SAFETY LEADER'S TOOLBOX. This toolbox contains over 70 practical tools and tips for being a more effective safety leader! Readers are encouraged to consult the SAFETY LEADER'S TOOLBOX for small changes in what you think, say, and do to shape your safety culture. I invite you to put on your safety shoes and walk with me. Together we will consider how you can lead your organization to exceptional safety performance. Spoiler alert! One essential leadership skill is knowing why, how, and what to talk about when it comes to safety. Where do you begin? Start with a "Why" of caring. If you start with caring as your personal motive, you won't have to do everything perfectly. Your employees will want to do the right things for the right reasons. You can read this book in chapter order. You can also go to a specific chapter to learn more about a particular topic. Either way, you are encouraged to consult the SAFETY LEADER'S TOOLBOX throughout this book for small changes in what you think, say, or do to shape your safety culture. Choose a set of tools from the TOOLBOX that will enable you to move toward your safety vision. Start making a difference in the lives of others!
Around the globe, hand injuries are the number one preventable industrial accident-in manufacturing, construction, oil & gas, you name it. But what actually works to protect workers' hands? What kind of training actually gets through? What causes a worker to act safely (or not) in the moment? Which stats are meaningful and which are useless? What i.
Workplace safety is failing. Despite better procedures now in place on the job, people are still getting hurt. The problem lies in our thinking. We must shift the focus from rules to relationships. In PeopleWork, author and safety management consultant Kevin Burns presents his M4 Method of people-centered management for safety in the workplace. He lays out the practical, how-to steps that frontline supervisors and safety people can master. This promotes a relationship-based culture focused on mentoring, coaching, and inspiring teams. It's an approach that ultimately improves employee productivity and allows everyone to achieve their personal goals and the goals of their company. With PeopleWork, you can raise workplace safety to a level where it actually works.
In the course of their 20+-year engineering careers, authors Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman have picked up a treasure trove of wisdom and anecdotes about how successful teams work together. Their conclusion? Even among people who have spent decades learning the technical side of their jobs, most haven’t really focused on the human component. Learning to collaborate is just as important to success. If you invest in the "soft skills" of your job, you can have a much greater impact for the same amount of effort. The authors share their insights on how to lead a team effectively, navigate an organization, and build a healthy relationship with the users of your software. This is valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular series of talks—including "Working with Poisonous People"—has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.
Creating a Zero-Incident Culture presents a new twist on developing a sustainable safety process in a manufacturing environment. Quite simply, it's about my endeavor to keep employees out of the hospital. My desire is to see each and every employee go home to their families the way each one of them came to work: alive and with all their limbs. So I developed an approach to safety that's simple, straightforward, costs nothing, saves companies millions of dollars, and has been proven to work in various industries. The system is realistic and so easy to implement that anyone can do it.
This book presents the scientific principles and real-world best practices of behavioral safety, one of the most mature and impactful applications of behavioral science to reduce injuries in industrial workplaces. The authors review the core principles of behavioral science and their application to modern safety processes. Process components are discussed in detail, including risk analysis and pinpointing, direct observation, performance feedback, reinforcing engagement, trending and functional analysis, behavior change interventions, and program evaluation. Discussions are complemented by industry best-practice case studies from world-class behavioral safety programs accredited by the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (CCBS), which provide compelling evidence of the effectiveness of these behavioral science principles in reducing injury. The Science and Best Practices of Behavioral Safety is essential reading for safety professionals, process safety engineers, and leaders in companies who have implemented, or are considering implementing, behavioral safety; or as an aid to learning more about the scientific background behind effective and practical safety practices. Researchers, expert consultants, and students who are already familiar with the practice will also find the book a valuable source to further develop their expertise.
How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.
