As all Subscribers shallbe aware by now, on Oc-tober 31st 2009 I wasriding my bicycle to workwhen I was struck frombehind by a motor vehi-cle. Twenty four plus(24+) fractures later and aTitanium shoulder hasbeen a bit of a shock. Asa result I have been “offthe tools” now for six (6)months. In that time theworld has turned.Whilst many politicians indifferent countries havedone all they can to avoidusing the R word(recession), those of us atthe pointy end have seenthings deteriorating forsome time. The purposeof this discussion is toexplore some of the likelyimpacts of the currentsituation on safe work-place behaviours.The most immediate im-pact is going to be rapidretraction of spendingwithin all aspects of busi-ness operations. That isto be expected. The“order book”, and incomestreams, for many busi-nesses are taking un-precedented hits. Itstands to reason thatthere must be a response,or the business shall fail.We have already seensome very well knownbusinesses throughoutthe world fall over. Manyof these were thought tobe bastions of their mar-ket space. Clearly not!My concern here thoughis strategies to determinewhere to carve up busi-ness expenses are verypoorly defined. What weare seeing is sector man-agers being told “youneed to reduce your costsby 15%” etc. There israrely any science associ-ated with these “cuts”.What I am hearing is thatsome sector managersare telling their direct re-ports to cut by 20% etc. Inother words they are try-ing to build “fat” into thecuts.This is resulting in bur-geoning unemployment,and that is always sad!Not an easy place to befor anyone! The “correct”people are not alwaysretrenched by the way.Not when the bias fordecision making is cost-cutting; rather than opera-tional need.Another area that is tak-ing a huge hit appears tobe anything to do with“training and develop-ment”. Not all that surpris-ing, it is so easy! Unfortu-nately it similarly demon-strates a sizable lack ofvision for what is requiredin harsh times!There are some big busi-nesses taking this path.Such short sighted deci-sion making continues toreinforce, to me anyway,the lack of relationshipbetween the number onthe boot/trunk of theBMW and the leadershipacumen of the driver.Why do I offer such aprovocative comment?Here’s Why!
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Leading Safety in a Global Recession
Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety?
What a debate!TransformationalSafety.Commaintains a presence withinmany of the global safetynetworks. One of those isthe ListServ maintained bythe University of Vermont.This is a safety community ofseveral thousand, from allcorners of the globe. Thereare some serious safety pro-fessionals who lurk aroundthis ListServ. If you are notpart of the ListServ con-sider joining. Anyway oneof the most intriguing dis-cussions for some time hasbeen around the questionof “common sense” and itsapplication to workplacehealth & safety. There issome very thought provok-ing stuff here so I havedecided to share some ofthat material with Trans-forming Safety subscribers.For the purposes of pri-vacy I have removed theauthors reference fromthese thoughts. If you findyour own comments hereI express my own thanksto all who take the time toadd value to the safety journey of we all who livewithin this “safety world”.
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Special points of interest:
Read how David is travelling after his near- fatal accident on 31st October last year
Common-sense is dangerous. Read the“thoughts” of some leading safety guys.
Come on a brief journey of pain and recoverywith David G Broadbent
David is presenting the Keynote Addresses at the Safety Institute of Australia Conferencesin Brisbane and Sydney (Australia) for 2009
Leading Safety in a Global Recession
1
Common Sense: is there any such thing in Safety
1
David G Broadbent’s road to recovery 9On the tools again! 11
Inside this issue:
T R A N S F O R M A T I O N A L S A F E T Y . C O M
Volume 5 Issue 2
APRIL 2009
VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2
I think those who state there is no suchthing as common sense are continuing thepattern of making excuses for people.Granted, you take someone out of the jun-gle and they probably will not know what atoilet is or how to use it. But for the majorityof us, with similar social, cultural back-grounds we do have a common sense.Remember those things we learned in kin-dergarten?For a long time, educators have told stu-dents not to pre-judge anyone.That the outside appearance may not re-flect the inner person. To avoid stereo-types. Then several years ago, there wasan article in a Psychological Journal statingwe should listen to our "gut feelings" or"first impressions." That this warning sys-tem goes back to the old days of our firstencounter with a tyrannosaurus and oururge to run from it.That it is instinctual and a form of self de-fense.Yes, some things must be learned. But Iwill bet, that with the exception of thosewho cannot feel, that the majority of us over18 years of age, including that person freshout of the jungle, all know that a hot surfacewill burn. Or if you hit your hand with ahammer it is going to hurt. Or that standingin front of a moving object will ultimatelyhurt when it hits you.To deny common sense is to imply that weall have to be told everything by someonesmarter. Give us a little credit. There arebasic instinctual things that we all have andbasic things that we all learn as we grow upthat give us a common understanding, acommonality, a common sense.To deny common sense is to deny ourcommon humanity. (Ooooooo! Thatsounds good!!).Don't get me wrong in my first statement.Yes, of course, we still have a responsibilityto educate and demonstrate information--tocontinue to teach workers how to do thingscorrectly and safely. But, the basis of eve-rything we teach is an assumption of afundamental understanding, a commonsense.My two cents. Common, everyone, it iscommon sense.Nice try...name one thing you know withoutlearning it. Wait, if it's so common thissense you speak of feel free to make aLONG list of all those common sensethings we all know.By the way, if a wood duck is hatched in aT Rex den it will imprint on it as itsMother...until it gets eaten by Mom! So Iguess even T Rex's aren't on your list asthose things we should ALL know. We learnour sense of danger and what is safe bywatching. It's a learned behaviour which
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things are good and which things are bad.If human beings know things by instinct --and it's reasonable to suppose we might,as animals generally do -- it's experimen-tally difficult to prove. The suckling actionwould seem to be a prime candidate, butsomehow my distant memory is that it was-n't universally agreed even that suckling isinstinct.For present purposes, it matters not awhit. Common sense would include anyinstinctual knowledge, but primarily it refersto the vast body of knowledge that we learn just from the experience of living in theworld and which does not require any sortof training as such. It would not be difficultat all to compile a long list, but it would taketime. And if you can't see it for yourself,nobody owes it to you to compile alist. Nobody in fact teaches us to walk ortalk, though an adult may hold us in a walk-ing position and support us as we learn theskill. Or not. We walk the same way ineither case. And once we do, we know thatwe must keep our legs underneath us whilewalking, if we wish to continue walking.And as we gain size and weight, we learnthat it's quite uncomfortable and unpleasantto hit the floor or the ground in a fall. Veryearly in that process, we learn that falling agreater distance to the floor or ground,hurts more.We learn that colliding with an object veryrapidly is very unpleasant, and we soonbuild on that knowledge to an understand-ing that there's a limit beyond which wedon't want to go.We learn that we can see something betterby getting closer to it. We learn that we cangrip an object with a hand, then that we cansequentially grip and pull and then verysoon we know how to climb. The scope ofcommon sense is very broad, far broaderthan the scope of what any of us havelearned through training.I wanted to wait and let this conversationdie, hoping I wouldn't be tempted to put mytwo cents' worth in, but here goes.Those of us who have been around a whilehave possibly been exposed to the conceptof "informed consent" - when a surgeon orother medical practitioner offers a patient amini-educational seminar about alternativetreatments, for some or all of which com-mon sense alone is not an adequate judge.Just as the human body's liver does nothave an enzyme in its template library todigest chlorinated biphenyls, the naivehuman does not have in his/her library ofinnate "common sense" any behaviors todeal properly with ionizing radiation, shock-sensitive explosives, invisible fan blades,any number of chronic and acute hazardsof chemicals or other hazards never beforeexperienced or even heard of. I have usedthe term "informed common sense" or"educated common sense" for these situa-tions where native "common sense" is notenough.Where I work, we sometimes hire city kidsfresh out of college, expecting them tosomehow intuitively know how to drive afour-wheel drive vehicle in the mud, orlaunch a boat off a trailer into a raging river,or gather biological or chemical samples insome unique environments - and then weexpress surprise when they fail, sometimesspectacularly. Common sense fails thembecause they are ignorant (and I really domean that in the nice way). And whosefault is that?I have read a number of these posts and Isaw a few that touched on this, but I am notsure it was said very plain.It is not common sense versus training orlearned behavior. Rather, it is a complexrelationship of these with a risk/rewardprofile and other factors.Common sense can be overcome by train-ing and rewards. I believe the individualsthat built the first skyscrapers are proof ofthis.For many of the complex tasks that we do,we rely on our common sense and trainingand understand that there are risks andrewards for our actions.Many of us exceed the speed limit whenwe drive. Why? There is a common un-derstanding that increased speed equalsincreased risk to ourselves and others.However, we have learned through re-peated events that we can handle the ex-cess speed without "too much risk" to our-selves and others. And maybe the rewardof saving a few minutes is worth the addedrisk.Some of us do not exceed the speed limitwhen we drive. Why? We have the sameunderstanding that increased speed equalsincreased risk to ourselves and others.However, our experiences may have taughtus that the risks are "too high." And thereward of saving a few minutes is not worththe added risk.The bottom line for me is that this is a com-plex relationship of common sense, train-ing, risk, rewards, and many other factors.To argue one factor versus another in anygiven situation would be blinding yourself tothe full story.At the risk of starting yet another string(then again, what risk? this is all aboutdiscussion and exchange, right??), here's athought on the common sense question. Iskimmed over a few of the messages in thelast string, avoiding the detail (it's easy tosee there are two strong sides to the issuewithout reading all the dirty details).So here's my nickel's worth (yeah, I thinkit's worth more than two-cents :)Consider this: would you think that it is
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Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety?
(cont)
VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2
If your business is going through atough time, as we all are at the mo-ment, and you are forced to signifi-cantly reduce your workforce; whatshall your remaining workforce bedoing. The evidence is suggestingthat the majority of businesses arecontinuing to try and “produce” atthe same or a marginally less rate.By reducing the “costs” they arereducing the “unit cost”, which mayor may not allow them to reduce thesale cost; whilst still maintainingmargin. This is all well and good.Where though does the primary sys-tem pressure fall? Not on themechanistic processes generally, asthey appear to be operating at aboutthe same, or slightly less rates. It isclearly placed upon the human ele-ments within the equation.The above observations have a sig-nificant impact upon the likely safetyoutcomes that shall begin to beseen.For a start, people are not silly. Theyknow they are working within opera-tions under pressure. Many haveseen friends and colleagues, ofmany years, find themselves withoutemployment. They may already bevicariously experiencing some of thevery real impacts of these outcomes.Watching, from the sidelines, theysee kids not able to play their sports,houses going on the market(sometimes repossessed), onceseemingly strong relationships fail,and in rare cases suicide. Make nomistake these are some of the veryreal outcomes from the corporateneed to adjust operations, in thecurrent climate.So what shall your people do if theyare required to operate in a stressedwork environment. Remember, theycan see the downside of being “outthe door”. It stands to reason thatthe psycho-behavioural response islikely to follow one of two (2) paths.Firstly there shall be the “head downand hide” approach. These are “TheHiders”. There shall be people whobelieve that if they just get on withthings and do not “rock the boat”then they shall survive. If things be-come evident that might bring theminto the “light” they shall invariablyobfuscate, dodge, and make them-
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selves scarce.They do notwant to do any-thing to be“seen”. Theybelieve that inthe currentclimate beingseen is tanta-mount to show-ing yourself tothe next round of lay-offs. They maywell allow processes to continue thatare unsafe because correcting themwould require “identification” andmight label them as a “problem”. Inextreme cases they will disappearand go and do something else.The second broad category of re-sponse has been labelled “The Pro-ducers”. These bods think theyknow what the “bosses” want, andthey are the ones to deliver. Theyshall make themself appear to behighly productive and the worth oftwo of their peers. When the toughdecisions have to be made they be-lieve they shall be retained becauseof the amount that they are able toproduce. What is scary here is whatthese people are willing to do in or-der to be seen as a “Producer”.Shortcuts are one of the most insidi-ous things that occur in our work-places and they occur at every level.Producers shall model there owndecision-making based upon whatthey deem to be acceptable to thebusiness. They are prone toward theshortcut as it seemingly allows for amore efficient outcome. If the Pro-ducers' shortcut is identified they arelikely to be disciplined. Occupationalshortcuts are often dangerousthings, and there always needs tobe an appropriate organisationalresponse.Consider this though! Some of theworlds largest companies have re-cently implemented global bans onvarious forms of “spending”. Manycompanies have cancelled all train-ing (other than regulatory required—or at least that's what their suppliershave been told), others have imple-mented global travel bans, someothers have implemented globaldelays on all CAPEX spendingabove a certain amount.Can you see an issue here? Whereis the basis for these decisions?Where is the risk-based decisionmaking evidenced? On the onehand, the organisation is foreverasking their people to apply theirmind in a risk based approach to alltasks they perform at the pointy endof the operation. Which is appropri-ate, by the way. On the other hand,what is their current experience.When the going gets tough though,what they see is the leaders in theorganisation doing exactly the oppo-site of what they are expected to do.They experience the business takingall sorts of corporate shortcuts,which directly effect their ability toperform their own work.To place a ban on all travel demon-strates a knee-jerk reaction to anunexpected event. This style of re-sponse does not take into accountthe individual requirements that maybe associated with that travel, thecontext in which it may have beenrequired etc. What it shows, veryloudly, is a willingness on the part ofthe business to apply a very simplis-tic linear method of thinking, to avery complex process.The next time they are confrontedwith a challenge, why not take someform of shortcut. After all, that's whatthey are experiencing within the cur-rent culture of the business.Of equal concern are the globalbans on training and development.Organisations hopefully are provid-ing at least minimum standards oftraining (often determined by regu-
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Leading Safety in a Global Recession (cont.)
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TSS Newsletter 04-09
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