When Scott Willis, HSE manager for Phillips 66's Borger Refinery, delivered his recent presentation, "2,000-Year- Old Proven Method of Institutionalizing Lessons Learned," he led the talk by telling the tragic story of Pastor Steve.
In 2018, Pastor Steve and his wife, Sheri, celebrated their first wedding anniversary with an Alaskan cruise. On one of the cruise's day excursions, the 14-person canoe in which Pastor Steve and his wife were riding capsized. After selflessly rushing to save his wife, the cold water and currents overtook the exhausted Pastor Steve, and he lost his life.
"Pastor Steve was a devoted husband and a father of two ⦠he was also my brother and my best friend," Willis said. Choked up by recounting the details of that painful memory, he added, "That's the first time I've told that story."
After a moment, Willis continued. "Steve put his life in the hands of others and trusted them to know what they're doing, similar to the way we do with new hires and people who are new to our industry."
The lessons of Willis' poignant story were twofold. First, storytelling is undeniably effective at institutionalizing lessons learned. Second, it is critical for all workers on-site, even the new arrivals, to feel empowered to speak up, express their concerns and use stop-work authority to avoid tragedy.
Not only was the canoeing company publicly criticized by 10 former employees for its safety practices, but Pastor Steve's wife also reported that "things didn't feel right that morning."
Like the vacationing couple, new hires don't arrive on-site with an understanding of the site's dangers, and standard safety orientation, training, materials and methods do not always resonate with them long term. That's why personal storytelling is so important and effective for safety training.
"When a worker shares his account and passion about a safety incident, it builds tribal knowledge," Willis said. The transmission of institutional knowledge from more experienced on-site workers to new arrivals has the effect of not only conveying specific risks, but that knowledge also empowers them to be more proactive about actively preventing the same mistakes that occurred in past incidents.
New arrivals on a jobsite often feel like outsiders and may fear being perceived by others as "stirring up trouble" by speaking up, which makes them reluctant to elevate their concerns and exercise stop-work authority. "The consequences [of those feelings] can be fatal," he said. Storytelling helps to overcome those fears by pairing the sharing of institutional knowledge with the storyteller's passion.
In addition to relying on the site's workers to provide their personal testimonials in person at orientations and trainings, safety personnel must also document the firsthand knowledge by collecting written and videotaped accounts of the witnesses, as well as by recording pictures and any other available information about the specific on-site location and corrective action recommendations. Doing so preserves the incident's information and the storyteller's passion so the knowledge can be shared even after the witness/storyteller no longer works at the site.
"No matter how good you think your culture is about stop-work, there are people out there who you have not yet touched," Willis said. "Whether their personality is meek and they don't feel comfortable stepping up or they're new to their craft, there are people on the jobsite who do not feel empowered to stop work."
These people, he said, may not retain information from reading a bulletin or by listening to a standard safety talk. Willis then asked the audience to recall the story he told at the beginning of his presentation.
"Can you name the person who lost his life earlier in my talk, how I was related to him or what happened? So, why are you able to recall that information? You didn't know Steve, and you didn't know he was my brother unless you personally knew me," Willis said. "Storytelling is 2,000 years old; we've been doing this since the beginning of time. This is how you can change the culture at your site and impart the lessons learned in a way that workers will remember."
