Ask yourself: Are we doing everything we can to adequately support our teams, or are we looking to assign blame when things don’t go right?
We have all heard the buzzwords “finding your why,” “human performance” and the like. While not new, here is a simple perspective that many may not have considered.
Fallibility
Humans are fallible. Merriam-Webster defines “fallible” as 1. Liable to be erroneous, and 2. Capable of making a mistake. Yes, that is right. Everyone is subject to making a mistake, but if by a stroke of luck, that mistake may not result in an event (such as a plant shutdown, injury, vehicle collision, etc.).
How do we protect against fallibility? Simple: We use specific tools and procedures that ensure everyone is following the exact steps required systematically and concisely. These tools include but are not limited to job hazard analysis, daily and post-break tailboard meetings, walking the site and asking action questions to ensure an understanding of what is expected, and, most importantly, a daily close-out meeting.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
Each of us probably remembers a day when our fallibility got the best of us, and an error occurred that resulted in a negative event. But how many of us can remember this event occurring, the senior leadership participating in the event review (root cause) meeting, and that same leadership accepting a large part of the responsibility for the occurrence?
Did you know 84 to 96 percent of all error events are directly related to organizational (“It’s the way we do things around here”), programmatic (incorrect programs that were most likely written by a committee who never stepped foot inside the facility) and process (the procedure is outdated and requires a deeper dive review) issues?
As leadership, we must step up and accept responsibility for error events, no matter how minor, because the difference in a minor event and catastrophic one is merely being in the wrong place at the right time — luck.
By now you’re probably thinking, “We can never eliminate all events,” “We would never fall victim to this type of situation because our employees are trained to take action against the precursors that lead to these error events” or, my personal favorite, “We have never experienced a significant event.”
You are probably all correct, but the next time you’re in the field, try asking the employees how their activities are going and if they have experienced any recent near-hits. Just be mindful of what you are asking for.
Training is the biggest problem
We all brag about our training programs and show statistics like KPIs indicating we do more training than the next company. Then we brag about how this is the reason our employees have not had any error events. Then, if events start piling up, we attempt to defend our cause by saying, “We are placing all the employees involved in the event through additional training, and we will perform field verifications to ensure they understand the training this time.”
That’s great, but consider this: 1. Most serious error events involve experienced and well-trained employees; 2. If we are doing all the training we profess to be doing, then more training isn’t going to help; and 3. People are fallible, so how is training going to prevent the employee from making a mistake?
Think about it: If the worker was trained three months ago on proper lock-out/tag-out/try-out and today a critical step in the process was not followed, will sitting through six hours of retraining solve the problem? I think not.
We need to engage the involved workers and inquire as to why the event occurred, leaving no question unanswered. Then, we should step back and ask ourselves, “Did I contribute to this event? How could I have helped prevent the event? What am I going to do differently in the future?”
The answer may surprise us.
As we continue through 2019, we need to remind ourselves that workers come in wanting to do a good job, and human error is a product of a deeper organizational issue. It is our responsibility as leaders to find those issues and repair them before something happens.
For more information, visit www.shermco.com/sto or call (888) SHERMCO [743-7626].