Earlier in his career, Greg Kiihne spent a few years working in Germany prior to taking on his role as director of process safety for BASF.
Upon his return to the U.S., when asked the difference between living in Germany and living in the U.S., he recognized a specific culture vulnerability that could be applied not only on a personal level but also on a professional level.
"What I saw in Germany specifically is there's very much a culture of personal responsibility: 'What's my role in society?'" Kiihne observed. "We kind of laugh at the fact that they have signs up that say, 'Don't cross on red.' It may be midnight, but you stand there waiting for the crosswalk to turn green because that's all part of playing your role in society in the bigger picture. You've got to be a good example."
Conversely, Kiihne noted, a culture of personal rights is more pervasive in the U.S. "We say, 'Oh, we can do whatever we want as long as we're not hurting anyone else,'" he said.
In a presentation titled "Understanding the Connection Between Culture and Safety, Environmental and Financial Performance," at the Operational Excellence in Energy, Chemicals and Resources Summit held recently in Houston, Kiihne expressed the need for companies trying to drive a culture of operational excellence to promote a sense of personal responsibility.
"Personal responsibility [is] for my own behavior and then also watching out for my colleague -- stopping him if he's doing something wrong or thanking him if he's doing something right that helps keep me safe -- as well," Kiihne cited as examples of personal responsibility.
"It's a hurdle that we have to overcome, I think," Kiihne continued. "In the states, I won't necessarily say it's getting worse, but with higher and higher turnover that we're seeing at some of our sites, we have less time or we're trying to change the behaviors of more people. So that's what I see as one of the rising challenges from the standpoint of setting the culture in a facility."
Core values and feedback
Kiihne further noted that a company's core values set the moral compass for its culture.
"It's easy for a company to define core values, but for them to be effective, you have to live the core values," he said. "Not only must the leadership not violate the core values, but they must demonstrate them and they must be visible and reinforced as core values."
Kiihne said BASF has used a behavior- based safety program for several years.
"We do employee peer-to-peer observation involving operators or contractors, but then also leadership-to-employee on safety contacts," he said.
The program was initially rolled out with a focus on occupational safety.
"What we're starting to understand is that, because it's focused on behaviors, you can use that to drive culture change for anything -- process safety, whether it's quality or any other aspect of operational excellence -- not just occupational safety."
In the program, the safety contact is "basically going out and observing behaviors," reinforcing the good behaviors, and then "commenting on the ones you don't want to see," Kiihne said.
"Get out into the field and see what the workers are actually doing and then give them some immediate feedback -- not punitive feedback, but just feedback in terms of how they should be doing something different," Kiihne concluded. "And then the peer part of that is also reinforcing that when leadership is not around."
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