We'd just achieved a three year Safety record: Zero RIDDOR's. To celebrate the achievement we shut the site down on the following Friday and took a long weekend. The journey to that long weekend went like this:
There was a thump as the undercarriage of the small turbo prop plane bumped down on the runway. The pilot applied reverse thrust hard to hold us from becoming airborne again in the gusty cross wind. We were momentarily thrown forward in our seats. We’d all braced ourselves in readiness though and the stewardess had made sure our cabin bags were securely stowed. We’d been warned by the pilot about the landing procedure and to ready ourselves for the landing. We were safely on the ground at Aberdeen airport.
I was in Aberdeen to visit contacts in the offshore oil industry to learn more about Behavioural Safety and Incident Free Operation. I was doing well – our landing had given me my first demonstration of Behavioural Safety’s power. The landing of that small plane in those gusty conditions had all the classic Behavioural Safety elements. The pilot had explained the situation, the hazards, the action plan for a safe landing and our role in it. We passengers had taken responsibility for our actions and done up our belts, stowed our bags and braced ourselves as requested; or we’d done our best to. I’d needed a bit of feedback from my neighbour that my bag would impede an emergency exit and then some more from the stewardess about my braced position. That constructive challenge and willingness to look out for each other is another element of Behavioural Safety; so is being prepared to take the constructive challenge on board.
The taxi sped through wide tree lined streets of well kept, dignified, slightly austere grey stone buildings. Outside were Porsche’s, Range Rovers, Astons by the score; the trappings of wealth. It was like driving through Mayfair. I said as much to the taxi driver. “You wait” he said. I saw what he meant as the taxi dropped me off outside the address of my first appointment. A slender all glass building, rose out of the elegant plaza like a silver fountain. Aberdeen was enjoying the fruits of the oil wealth flowing in from the stormy North Sea.
Settled in an all glass office with a panoramic view of the city I sat drinking coffee with one of the contacts I’d come to visit. Alex and I talked naturally and freely about the Safety journeys of our companies and the challenges we faced. We hadn’t met before. We were just two people sharing common challenges and solutions we’d tried. Alex told his story with a heartfelt passion and a glint in his eye. His operation had just completed a year in the North Sea that would have been completely Incident Free were it not for a paper cut sustained refilling the office printer. The paper cut had happened right at the end of the year. Alex was frustrated about the accident but proud that the culture of reporting all accidents and near misses was so deeply embedded that it had been reported. He and the team would learn from the accident and achieve Incident Free next year.
Three light bulbs clicked on simultaneously in my head:
Light bulb One – Alex has achieved an Incident Free Operation even in an environment as inherently hazardous as offshore oil.
Light bulb Two – Alex made it happen with his heartfelt passion and the gleam in his eye. He led, he inspired others to believe, follow and (if it came to it) to comply
Light bulb Three – Alex is the key ingredient in this operation becoming Incident Free. He’s surrounded by an impressive building and an array of processes but it’s him that’s making it happen.
I visited another contact. The smell of money was still very much in the air of the wide corridors and softly lit rooms. These were successful businesses in a very profitable industry that historically had a chequered record on safety. Sam explained that the frontier culture of North Sea exploration attracted risk takers in the Board Rooms and on the rigs. Changing that culture from the top had been a key element in the journey towards Incident Free Operation. Change from the top was essential. Permission had to be given for any employee to stop an operation if it was unsafe. This was literal permission. The CEO stood in front of employees and explained that’s what he wanted them to do. Then he gave them a card repeating that they not only had permission to stop an unsafe act but that they were required to. On the front was the requirement to Act Safe. On the back of the card was his personal phone number. Employees were to call that number day or night if they were impeded by Line Managers or anyone else in Acting Safe.
I pictured the CEO as a man with a heartfelt passion and a gleam in his eye. The key to making it happen. All three light bulb elements were there again.
I came back from that trip inspired. Incident Free operation was possible. Like Continuous Improvement; Safety was about organisational culture. Leadership and clear permission to the team were one essential part of that culture. The second was, as on the aeroplane, making constructive peer to peer challenge the way the company worked.
My challenge was to turn the inspiration from my Aberdeen trip into action. I needed more believers. The highest risk area of the site was run by a team of 100. We’d start with them. Workshops were run to understand the team’s Safety concerns, their view of the priority that Safety was given by managers and what part the team itself played in ensuring a Safe Operation. The team were also taken through the psychology of risk and the effects of familiarity on risk perception. They role played giving and receiving constructive challenge. We screened a DVD about Meerkats watching out for each other. The combination struck a chord.
Action teams were set up to tackle the Safety concerns raised by the team. As a result a line remodel that had gone in the previous year was reversed. Smaller but no less significant line changes followed to improve Safety. The team could see that they really could make a difference to their own Safety.
Safety Champions were trained and, together with Managers, praised or constructively challenged behaviours. Our British reserve makes praise and constructive challenge the hardest skill to practice. But just as our training workshop showed us that familiarity with a hazard dulls our perception of its risk; so practice in praising and challenging reduces the embarrassment felt! “Good, Bad, Ugly” forms were introduced to help. A simple A4 page split into three to capture what’s seen as a work area is walked. They seem to help de- personalise the feedback
The final element in cementing Behavioural Safety as a team behaviour was the Team Day on which the site team constructed the site and zone vision and objectives. (See Employee Engagement - A Success Story Post).
That is the journey that took us from 19 RIDDORS in 2004 to three Zero RIDDOR free years from 2009. It’s a milestone on the way to Alex’s Incident Free operation in Aberdeen. The journey continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment