Many well-intended companies are drowning in a sea of rules, cardinal rules, complicated procedures, and high dollar “quick fixes.” The result is often a prohibitively expensive and overly complex workplace, where getting anything done “by the book” (including safety management) … Read More
safety improvement
Don’t Get Stuck in Hindsight Bias – Best Practices in Incident Investigations
“How could they have been so stupid?” “Why didn’t they show more common sense?” “They should have seen it coming.” “The cause was clearly human error.” “Why didn’t they just follow the procedures?” “This accident was clearly preventable.” Do these … Read More
Beyond Compliance: Using Performance-Based Assessments to Drive Continuous Improvement
For almost 20 years of my career, I led assessment teams and assessment organizations for both commercial nuclear and defense nuclear facilities. Along the way I learned to value the power of work observations in assessing safety performance, as well … Read More
The Importance of Periodic Performance-Based Assessments (PBA)
Are We Safe Yet? How Do You Know? How do you know your company is safe? You should already have some clues beyond your OSHA injury rates and other lagging indicators. A lack of recent (reported) injuries is a demonstrably … Read More
Look, Listen and Learn: The Path to Effective Management Observations
For some, the term “observation,” as typically used in safety, has a negative connotation. It is often associated with checklists and a search for “bad behaviors” in need of correction. Clumsily conducted worker-focused observations/inspections can easily appear patronizing and leave … Read More
Are Your Corrective Actions Really Fixing Your Problems?
Many highly successful companies are actively looking for trouble and are pleased when they find it. These companies know that you can’t improve if you don’t know what to improve. They establish various work feedback loops, encourage their managers to … Read More
