Crucial Confrontations^TM Safety

What is keeping your company from moving its incident rate to zero? If you're like most companies, you're already using JSA, Behavior Based Safety and/or STOPTM programs; but like most companies, these valuable programs aren't working as well as they could because they aren't being carried out in the field as well as they should. That's where Crucial Confrontations Safety Improvement comes in. It's the missing piece in your company's safety strategy.  

Train your employees to effectively hold each other accountable to your safety expectations, stick to your safety programs and genuinely motivate each other to work safely and you will finally see the results that you have been wanting.  

Results Obtained
We've used these tools to significantly increase safety performance across many organizations. Click here to see an example of results at an offshore drilling company.  

Silent Danger:
The Five Crucial Confrontations of a Safety Culture VitalSmarts has discovered that when workers use the phrase, "It was an accident waiting to happen" to describe a workplace safety incident, their words are true more often than not. The ugly secret behind most workplace injuries is that someone was aware of the threat well in advance, but was either unwilling or unable to speak up.  

Our research has discovered five workplace threats that are especially likely to become "undiscussables":  

• "Get 'er done": These are rush jobs that seem to justify shortcuts.
• "I think I can": These are demands that push a person beyond their skill level.
• "Just this once": These are special cases that seem to allow exceptions to safe practices.
• "This is overboard": There are extra precautions that are seen as excessive.
• "I'm a team player": These are threats that people accept as a part of their job.
 

A whopping 93 percent of the 1,300 employees we surveyed had at least one member of their work group who regularly created one of these five "accidents waiting to happen." In fact, 46 percent were aware of an injury or death that was caused by one of these five undiscussables.  

But here is the finding that is really troubling. When employees see one of these five situations, only one in four percent speak up. Failure to speak up and correct unsafe conditions allows the conditions to continue despite inevitable injury.  

These results suggest that employees don't need more training on safety audits or safety practices. They already see and recognize the threats. And it's not that they don't care. What we're seeing isn't bystander apathy; it's more like bystander agony. Employees described themselves as "holding their breath," "feeling tortured as they watched," and "not able to watch" as their coworkers put themselves and others in danger. But they didn't speak up. In many cases, they don't think it's their role, they don't know how, or they are afraid of retaliation.  

Safety will always require individual vigilance and initiative, but nobody can be vigilant and proactive all the time. So safety demands that people look out for each other, remind each other, and hold each other accountable. Accountability is the "operating system" that underlies all of our safety programs.  

Our Presenter
Mike Allen spent 16 years in the oil and gas industry reaching the position of Corporate Director of Quality and Training for North America's largest well servicing company.  A Master Certified Trainer in Crucial Confrontations, Mike is a change leader in the safety industry, having been a feature presenter for the International Association of Drilling Contractors, Texas Worker's Compensation and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Some of Mike's safety clients include Schlumberger, Conoco Phillips, Monsanto, Pride International, BP, Key Energy Services, Stallion Oilfield Services, the Southern Gas Association and Lee County Electric Co-op.  

Program Overview
Mike Allen has developed a customized Safety Toolkit that specifically targets how to move incident rates to zero. This toolkit includes a customized discussion of safety issues within the organization and safety practice scenarios for Crucial Confrontations.  
Click here for an overview of Crucial Confrontations Safety Training.



Safety and Accountability
When accountability serves as the operating system for safety programs, accountability becomes a driver for higher performance in every operational area. Click here to see how accountability for safety also drives better operational performance.

For More Information: Contact Ashley Burns at 403.616.1363 or Ashley@leadershipsmarts.ca.