THE HUMAN BRAIN & SAFETY

I would like to know more about how the human brain works so I can apply that to safety, a few examples of things I do not understand follow.

A fortune is spent on safety signs in industry but I have formed the view it is money largely wasted. Signs may be noticed for awhile but with time they fade into the background and are probably ineffective.

One morning I was sitting at a red light, the green arrow came on and I drove through the intersection against the red light. Since then I have started to do this a few times but stopped myself in time. I have noticed others doing the same thing.

With one job when my boss used to brief me on a major job the company wanted me to do he would give me all the theory, all the justification, all the political clap trap etc..I am sitting there wishing he would get to the point. What I wanted to know was what the issue was and what they wanted me to do about it so I could get on with it.

The X organisation swims and drowns in its bureaucracy. Management loves detailed, wordy policy and procedure for everything they do. If you want to find out how to do something you are too exhausted to do it after you have worn yourself out reading the paperwork. They have never heard of the word succinct.

The differences between how men and women think can contribute to poor interpersonal relationships and safety in the workplace.

A Harvard professor I worked with says ‘If it is not face to face it is not communication” It never ceases to amaze me how receivers often get a storey different to a senders intention with e-mails.

Selective attention is sometimes a problem where people focus on the things you do not want them to and ignore the things you do want them to focus on.

Years ago I helped a large open-cut mine introduce the idea of self-directed work teams. There was much research into the advantages and methods, publicity campaigns, meetings, budgeting, strategies, and so on.

I helped a H.R. manager discuss the new ideas with some haultruck drivers and he emphasised the fact they would have control over their own destiny. The H.R. manager left and I finished off the presentation.

The blokes said to me “We do not want self-directed work teams and we are quite happy taking orders from our supervisor, he is a good bloke and we respect him, most of the time he is right and if we think he is wrong we tell him and he listens to us, we do not need all this crap!” This was in big contrast to giving power to the workers the unions were pushing for.

When I did my Bachelor of Education we spent a lot of time talking about the various learning styles people utilise. In these days of one style fits all it is very difficult to design learning programs that fit everybody.

There are such a variety of personality types in the workforce I sometimes wonder how we achieve anything at all.

Having Bi-Polar Disorder myself I am very aware of how your psychological state can effect your productivity and safety.

During my time with one employer people used to tell me my boss used to feel threatened by me, I never noticed this myself but if this was true I can only put it down to the fact he used to stuff about whereas I got on with the job. One year I got the highest % pay rise in the company because of my successful  implementation of a major project. He did not get a pay rise at all because he stuffed up a project by doing it the way he thought it should be done without talking to the people up the sharp end. My pay rise was a source of tension for awhile.

I get a real thrill out of questioning the status quo, others are just content to go with the flow, used to get into trouble quite frequently when I was working for X organisation

When I first started with X organisation the senior safety bloke explained to me that an important part of my job was to fill out a safety management plan for every job that was started. They had a template and if you had confined space work you included the confined space stuff from the template in the plan, if you had trenching you included the trenching stuff from the template in the plan and so on. I thought this was probably fair enough. An excavator hit a powerline on a job where the senior safety bloke had filled out the safety plan. I go out to investigate and as usual find many essential factors. I asked the excavator if he had seen the overhead powerline section of the safety plan and had he been briefed on powerline safety. No to both questions, of course brings in issues of how effective procedural controls would have been in any case. It turns out once the safety plan was developed it was filed in the office and not discussed with the workers. Did not make a lot of sense to me.

The safety people used to fill out the safety plans in the office. I had a riot on my hands when I said I would not fill out a safety plan until I walked the job and inspected it with the Project manager, supervisor and a couple of workers.

Sometimes what we are bought up with influences our ability to accept change. Early up when with Y organisation I timed a visit to a road construction job for smoko so I could talk to the blokes. A whole pile of utes turn up with blokes in the back. I go along to the senior management meeting and tell them everybody in a vehicle must have a proper seat and a seat belt. I am told not to expect anything more because most of the workers are off farms and used to riding in the back of utes. Besides said the C.E.O.(God in these regional councils)we would have to buy more utes! With uncharacteristic respect for the lofty company I am in I tell them to buy more utes.

Some people whinge & bitch about the smallest thing others put up with a lot.

I have been fortunate to work with 2 excellent leaders in my time, never worked so hard but was very pleased to be part of it. Only very few people are good leaders although some of it can be taught.

I find the claims of proponents of behaviour-based safety extreme and having little  statistical validation. Some people accept it without question.

Some people re real world people some are into theory.

People persist with and accept outmoded theories without question eg. L.T.I.F.R., Iceberg theory, accident ratio studies.

Some people are into complexity, some people are into simplicity.

Some people are locked into compliance with legislation and cannot accept that compliance with legislation is a minimalist approach to safety.

Some people are great communicators, some people are lousy communicators.

Some people are good time managers and achieve a lot, some people are poor time managers and confuse activity with progress.