Page 22 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2018

RISK MANAGEMENT
Eliminating “wrong” choices as much as possible is the essence of the process thinking principles. Solely relying on human behavior for success is failure assured in most situations.
outcome is fundamentally the result of a process. For example, in process thinking, all work-related outcomes are the result of their processes, planned or unplanned. The idea is that if an unexpected outcome occurs, it is because this outcome was a resulting option from the process that generated it.
Process thinking asks “how” and “what” and not “why.” “How” and “what” questions lead to sustainable process changes and op- portunities for improvement. “Why” questions by themselves lead to fault finding and correction of symptoms and not causes.
Process thinking is a method to evaluate complex systems in simpler ways. It is not about why the outcome happened, but rather about changing the process that led to it. This method inherently causes changes to occur at the beginning, at the forefront of what led to the unexpected outcome, versus trying to modify the out- come itself.
As an example, let’s consider a serious injury on a tall job and off a small ladder. Traditional approaches will ask, “Why did this hap- pen?” several times until inevitably it leads to disciplinary action or other human behavior intervention. The “why” method typi- cally starts at the event, works its way backward, and focuses on the
worker. The process thinking approach asks, “How did this hap- pen?” at the onset of the project. It analyzes the start of the event and works its way forward until the fault in the process is identi- fied and corrected. Processes are much simpler to change than hu- man behavior. In this example, a larger ladder than available was needed. The worker decided to use the smaller one for a myriad of reasons. By fixing the process so only the taller ladder is available at the job site, where feasible, the worker does not have a choice but to use the “right” ladder for the job. Eliminating “wrong” choices as much as possible is the essence of the process thinking principles. Solely relying on human behavior for success is failure assured in most situations.
Process thinking helps you fill the gap between your plan on paper and your plan in action. It helps identify hidden risks so controls can be designed and implemented, action can be taken, and desired outcomes can be accurately predicted. A process al- ways produces varying degrees of success by design, yet we tend to focus on the outputs when unexpected results occur. The fact is that unexpected results are nothing more than options that came to fruition from poorly designed processes.
Leaders who accept accountability for the outcomes (desirable or not) of the processes they influence are better positioned to see and realize the opportunities for advancement of their mission. Fo- cusing away from completely relying on human behavior for suc- cess and designing in performance assurances leads to innovation, safety culture improvement, and predictable results.
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