I have been thinking aboutsafety programs and how we can help our people save lives, money, resources and quality..
Some people think of people as basically good and wonder what it is that "causes" them to behave as savages or barbarians or animals.
They think that something must have happened that triggered this aberrant behavior, someone must be to blame.
Others consider the state of nature to be Hobbesian: nasty, violent and brutish; and these people wonder: How is it that civilization can come to pass? These people are never surprised by the brutal behavior of people, as they consider that to be the state of nature.
I started thinking about safety in that way.
I wondered if we are "Safety seeking" by nature, or if we must somehow be motivated to raise our state of being to appreciate and understand all that Safety might do for us.
My gut tells me that in most/many cases, especially when we are dealing directly with laws of nature, that we instinctivelyare safe, but that events/pressures conspire to move us away from the heightened sense of self preservation.
Things like: too many things to do and not enough time to do it.
Not enough resources to afford proper maintenance;So many tasks that we lack the mental edge to remain focused on complex task behavior and are beaten into a state of semi-consciousness where we drift, unaware, into safety.
If you believe that, I think you come up with different assessments of what can/should be doneand you are probably less judgmental than if you think we must be enticed into safe behavior.
I would make an exception for complicated task behavior where the consequences are not immediately and obviously knowable.
Like, operating a circular saw without training on it, and never having seen just how fast it can jump out of your hands if it hits a know in the wood.
So, for learned behaviors, perhaps the "Safe or Unsafe by Nature" discussion no longer applies.
And, as life becomes more complicated, not less, the more complex the examination of root causes of unsafe behavior becomes.
Looking at safety reports coming out of Iraq, the units made an effort to perform root cause analysis to see just what was the contributing factors to decide if it was a question of motivation or whether it was resourcing or stubbornness or mental tiredness that was the deep problem so they could act accordingly.
It behooves us as managers and leaders to look with care at our own unique situation to come up with a strategy that will make a difference.