Snakes Bite
March 18th, 2004 by Hal
Work Injury Free
- Why do people work at the edge of safety?
- Why do smart people take crazy risks?
- Is there such a disregard for ones life and others' lives?
- Is construction just a tough guys' business?
I don't think any of those questions are answerable from a rational perspective. At one very safe construction firm a person was recently observed working without fall protection. He knew what to do. His life had been saved just a few years earlier when the fall protection worked. Yet here he was working without fall protection alongside of another person working without fall protection on a day their foreman was absent.
People do what they do, just as they always have done.
This is unacceptable. And it happened. And it will happen with someone else someplace else in the future. We cannot understand this as a rational act. At what time will we face squarely that people are just not rational? Not that we are always not rational. We aren't. But we are capable of doing what is not rational. If you want to understand this just look at Martha Stewart. That woman was on top of the world when she traded her stock (with less than 1% of her net worth at stake). She was offered a plea bargain but declined it. She is now convicted of four counts of obstructing justice and lying. This woman's pride, arrogance, and obstinacy brought her down. And Martha was just doing what Martha does and had always done.
This is the lesson. People do what they do, just as they always have done. We will not succeed changing that with behavioral-based approaches. It's not that they are devious. No. They are just doing what they do. I'm reminded of a great story in David Schmaltz' book The Blind Men and the Elephant, Mastering Project Work. David tells the story of a man who befriends a snake. After the man treats the snake quite well, and contrary to all assurances the snake makes to the man that he won't bite, the snake bites. And the man is surprised! That's what snakes do. It doesn't matter what behavioral approaches one takes, the snake will bite. But the world is not only composed of snakes.
That is all that is going on here with safety. Some people will work not tied off when they have an opportunity to do so. No behavioral motivationist acts will change that. And we can't let that get in the way of keeping people safe on our projects. How? By not having those people in our employ, by not leaving a work site unsupervised, and by designing work practices that absolutely shield people from work that is not ready to be started and finished. Anything less will result in workers doing what they do and injuring themselves and others in the process. Lest we forget, snakes bite.
Related Posts
- No related posts
March 19th, 2004 at 2:03 pm
This is a great piece, Hal. Sites are full of the snake-trusting behavior you describe. And it is not just on sites. How many people do you see mowing their lawns with safety glasses and proper gloves on? How many friends you know that had a cut or laceration on the fingers/hand because of a home remodeling project? Is cutting corners intrinsic to our nature as human beings? I think the problem is in the remote possibility we always associate with the occurrence of the accident/injury.
Best regards,
Tariq
March 19th, 2004 at 2:46 pm
Hal, you have really hit a big issue here. We expect people to be responsible for themselves, yet they choose to take risks. You said it and we all know it! Anyone will to work in construction is a risk taker. However, we of sound mind in Management cannot allow the rest of a Project or our companies to be put at risk by an employee that elects to be macho. So we do as you note, de-select the employee or have constant supervision. But I have alternative -
Educate the designers and Customers about designing construction, yes construction safety into the final product. Designers typically have no idea of dangers of excavating a trench, nor working in a confined space, nor fall hazards. They ignorantly follow cookie cutter standards because they don’t take risks. They only focus on safety factors in the final product performance.
Maybe we should put the designers in the trench during pipe laying, down in the confined space, or up on the transmission tower checking connections during construction. I bet they begin becoming innovative and creative in their designs. And for those designers that would object stating that it would be cost prohibitive. . . .
Well you know the come back for that question. We are now compelled to design environmentally responsibly. Why can’t we, who have a robotic soil sampler on Mars, design for construction safety?
March 19th, 2004 at 3:33 pm
Hal,
I’ve seen some successes, individual by individual, in changing behaviors by changing values. It is the core values that a person holds that drives the behaviors that eventually put them at risk. On a larger project, you can’t expect the workers you really need to let go to readily identify themselves. You need to work this issue in the forefront of cause.
Sometimes, you can learn a lot by poking around someone’s values.
March 21st, 2004 at 1:22 am
So, Hal, you are proposing such a two-strike rule to get the nonconformers off the dangerous job site?
Fascinating.
Is anyone else doing this?
March 21st, 2004 at 3:34 am
Joe,
I know of two-strike rules in a number of settings. Drug use in the workplace is one. Another is the misuse of company computers (spam, pormo, etc.). The rules go a long way to curb behavior.
But the big thing is not hiring them in the first place. Improved screening might help. Testing might also work. I don’t know.
Just get these people off your worksite.
Then there’s the shielding workers from starting tasks that are not ready to be finished. This is the big opportunity. The Danish studies indicates there’s at least a 50% improvement opportunity.
March 27th, 2004 at 5:59 pm
Why, indeed! I suspect that managers are not the only ones satisficing. I have a posting queued for exploriing the satisficing paradigm as a better way of understanding how to improve safety.