I once read that an effective accountability system should have the following elements:
- Established standards in the form of company policies, procedures or rules that clearly convey standards of performance in safety and health to all employees.
- Resources to meet the standards, such as a safe and healthful workplace, effective training and adequate oversight of work operations.
- A measurement system that specifies acceptable performance.
- Consequences that are both positive and negative.
- Application of the above at all levels.
But the element of personal accountability was missing from that list. The only way an organization can achieve zero injuries is to promote personal accountability so everyone in the organization accepts the ownership necessary to achieve the desired results.
For example, I recently cut my finger while cutting vegetables. It was a small cut but it bled profusely and I had to administer first aid. Then the blame game began in my mind. It was the dogs' fault because they barked and distracted me. Looking back, it was my mother's fault because she never taught me proper cutting techniques. In today's way of thinking, it was likely the government's fault. They should pass a law requiring all home cooks to wear cut-proof gloves or just outlaw knives altogether. In reality, it was my fault, and I took ownership of the incident and learned from it.
During my years working in safety, I've observed how people tend to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, mistakes, accidents or problems. Just the other day, I heard someone say, "It was the safety man's job to make us work safely!" People tend to rely on external resources. They tend to get stuck in habits that keep them from having to make decisions on their own. It's easier not to accept guilt. That old saying "we learn from our mistakes" is true. We really do learn from our mistakes, and we learn by taking responsibility for our actions. When we hold ourselves accountable, we remember and are less likely to make the same mistakes. As long as I own my mistake and learn from it, it allows me to be more careful next time and either wear some cut-proof gloves or pay more attention to my hand/ knife placement. Learning from that ki tchen incident makes me accept responsibility and take corrective actions in the future.
Several years ago, there was a TV commercial that showed two people riding an escalator in an empty office building. The escalator suddenly stopped, leaving the two stranded between the first and second floors. Both quickly became irritated. They immediately complained the breakdown was making them late for work. They then began screaming for help. Finally, they sat on the escalator and waited for it to start again.
That commercial clearly illustrates how people can view accountability as something that happens to them when things go wrong. Accountability triggers your natural "fight or flight" instinct. Since fighting is out of the question in the workplace, "flight" takes over and we begin to find someone or something to blame. By doing this, we unconsciously reinforce our flight instinct and blame, deny or minimize the situation in which we find ourselves. Accountability requires us to report, explain, justify, and be answerable or responsible.
When good safety practices are clearly defined and assigned, everyone wins and everyone is accountable at some point in the process.
Whether one is cutting vegetables or on an escalator that suddenly stops, we are all accountable for our actions and our reactions. Like those people on the escalator, we can sit down and wait for someone to come along and help, or we can recognize an escalator is nothing more than moving stairs that lead us to safety and the next level when we walk up them. The definition of personal accountability is "making personal choices to rise above one's circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results." In other words, see it, own it, solve it and do it. Personal accountability should not -- and cannot -- be a thing of the past.
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