to creative problem‐solving, continuous improvement, team excellence, and action item matrices. These ripples combined and resulted in the development of a safety culture excellence process that the Fortune 50 heavy industry manufacturer now uses worldwide, which, in turn, has helped to eliminate tens of thousands of serious injuries.
As a result of these people going out of their way to cause caring ripples in my life, I have had numerous opportunities to drop pebbles on how to deliver safety culture performance excellence with safety personnel and associated executives across our planet. Not surprisingly, the desire to help other people, as influential people have helped me, has provided many benefits for my many acquaintances. In turn, they have delivered on their personal desires to spread ripples of learning, way beyond mere safety‐related issues, to many other people.
There are numerous others who have sent both pleasurable and painful ripples into my life. Getting to the point then, what pebbles can you drop into the huge pond of life, which will ripple out over time, to improve the lives of the masses of known, unknown and unseen others? That is the purpose of this book you are about to read (and I hope both enjoy and benefit from).
1 The Funeral
Aaron is physically sick to his stomach as he attends the funeral of a 37 year employee who fell to his death at work on the weekend. As he stands just behind the tearful widow, Aaron and his fellow employees are equally in tears. This was their close friend who was known for a good work ethic, reliability and friendship. Aaron, the organization's new safety manager, could see it coming with a Recordable Injury Frequency (RIF)1 of >10 for more than a decade, and yet the company leadership just kept doing the same thing and hoping for different results. Aaron's day only gets worse as he feels the guilt of living in a sick culture of denial that has now taken the life of a good friend.
Do you ever experience something that is wrong, something that you try to hide? To some extent we all do! Personally, an experience such as this brings to mind recently working in a third‐world country with a “challenged” work environment, while also traveling with family members after the work assignment. There were many excellent sights, people, sounds, and events wherever the vacation travels took us. And yet we experienced multiple troubles as well. While viewing a raging, dangerous river in a remote village the guide, Dalmiro, related that this was the location of a significant international extreme kayak event each year. Dalmiro then revealed that besides the boulders there was an added, hidden danger; the village of 10 000 or so people had no wastewater treatment and all the raw sewage was also a “secret” part of the raging river!
This “secret” comment brought to mind the story of a family member and her childhood obstinacy about eating certain foods. She hated hamburgers and refused to eat them. Her parents would “park” her at the table until she finished her meal. However, acting like the child she was, she crossed her arms and pouted. When her parents left the table, she would toss the meat behind the refrigerator and after a while call out to say she was done. All were happy as long as the subterfuge continued. One day her father cleaned behind the fridge, and the deception came to an end.
Unfortunately many people in the safety profession have experienced organizations which have hidden the ugly, rotten, stinking truth about their culture of employee injuries. The subterfuge works for a while and then……
Give some thought to your personal and organizational circumstances. In the long run there is no escape from reality. You cannot hide the truth because untruths will eventually be revealed. Let us be ethical in all we do; you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. The upper management approach of Aaron's organization of hiding injuries was living in denial. Their solution to injuries was to send injured workers to Employee Relations (ER) for a multi‐month review to see if punishment was warranted. This was truly counterproductive in many ways. Rather than focusing on what we all can do to eliminate a similar event from happening in the future, there were no reports of lessons learned, or issues resolved by searching out and identifying the actual blame. Additionally, the union and management both came to the same tragedy enabling conclusion – which was a lack of support for safety, and a lip service only approach to an understaffed safety department, eliminates trust and credibility. This denial approach only adds to the problem culture which continues to deliver the next series of painful injuries. Additionally, even if things do improve, beware, the lack of trust legacy hangs on for years. Our hourly and salaried people do not forget or forgive easily. Aaron has noticed that when there is an injury or mistake, there is always a contingent of the employees, at all levels, who immediately go back to the old paradigm of blame and shame. This included the ER function which was comfortable with the search for blame, and the potential for punishment. Change does not come easily.
The classic control, passive aggressive, old school challenges normally exist in these situations, and in other departments as well. Aaron's solution needs to not become angry, vindictive, or to go behind management's back. Rather, Aaron will have to persevere in upholding his values and his responsibility to do the right things that are effective in helping to resolve the safety and interpersonal issues. A part of this approach will require him to carry on a dialogue with the new incoming chief executive officer (CEO) and his staff. Aaron must use this method if he is to get them to support his desired approach to develop root cause solutions and a subsequent culture that includes a sustainable safety excellence commitment dedicated to significantly reducing injuries and associated incidents. It is no surprise that about 90% of these injuries happen in the operations group. As a result, Aaron will need to develop a solid adult‐to‐adult relationship with the operations hourly and salaried leadership personnel. Considering the history of the company, making such a turnaround in relationship excellence will not come easily. You will need slow and steady perseverance, Aaron.
After the funeral, Aaron is back at work and pulls out a report written by “the Doc,” a consultant he hired to interview more than 100 hourly and salaried personnel in Aaron's organization of more than 1000 employees. The report refers to honest one‐on‐one input from the whole range of hourly through salaried employees who discussed their organization's safety and morale truths with the Doc. The employees did not rip and tear during the process, but they were brutally honest in their confidential comments. Aaron hurts as he reads and digests these painfully honest and ugly facts that he and others shared as inputs about their sick safety culture.
Aaron sits at his desk head in hand with disturbing thoughts going through his brain that: nothing is good, just another day/set of injuries to read and evaluate with no support for himself being the safety manager. Aaron is the leader of a small safety department which has a ½ administrative assistant time allocation, one safety resource up from the ranks, and two safety trainers, one of whom is on the ropes for his poor performance in other departments that got him transferred (hidden) to safety.
What kind of day lies ahead? Good = no injuries, or bad = one or more injuries. Aaron is up from the ranks. He knows the people requiring his injury investigations, and it mentally and physically pains him to do so. The company has been in business for more than 70 years and is one of the top 25 in the North American continent when measured by sales volume. For these same 25 entities they are 12th in size, but number 24 in injury rate with only an independent offshore business operation being worse.
As typical to industry, management gets paid on results for cost, customer service, and uptime. The company has had no fatalities or disabling injuries for quite a few years. As a result, the just retired CEO left a weak safety department and associated weak safety culture. They are complacent and multiple years behind what industry leaders are doing to prevent injuries. The safety Recordable Injury Frequency (RIF) has been greater than 10 for more than a decade. The former CEO's legacy approach for an injury was: a quick injury investigation; a secret report sent to Employee Relations (ER); followed by a secret and
