Page 24 - Occupational Health & Safety, January/February 2019

PREVENTING ERRORS
Production vs. Safety: The Truth Behind the Myth
Next time you find yourself rushing, ask yourself if it was really because of circumstances beyond your control or another’s unexpected action.
BY LARRY WILSON
Have you ever noticed that, compared to when you were nine years old, the “quality” of your rationalizations has improved dra- matically?
When your teenage son tells you that the lawn is not cut because he was worried the noise might frighten the cat, you might well remember saying something equally flimsy to your parents as an excuse.
But you make excuses, too. Have you ever told a cop who caught you speeding that some imaginary misunderstanding pushed the pedal to the metal? And it worked, as you later boast to your friends, be- cause he let you off with just a warning.
(Imagine if you told the truth: “Officer, the reason I’m speeding is because I wanted to get there faster and, to be honest, I don’t really ever do the speed lim- it.” Not likely!)
Consider the difference: Excuses when we were young rarely worked, now they often seem to do the trick. It’s as though our excuses went through some sort of evolutionary process and the ones that didn’t work simply died off. Only the good ones, the ones that worked, survived.
I’ve been a behavior-based safety consultant for 33 years. I have made more than 5,000 safety obser- vations at refineries, pulp and paper mills, railroads, shipyards, pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies, oil rigs, construction sites, assembly op- erations, manufacturing sites, utility companies, head office buildings and national research facilities: that is only a sample.
Far and away, the number one excuse for safety lapses that I hear is, “for production.”
Really? Funny I didn’t see you actually running instead of walking “for production.” (But let’s face it, running all the time is hard work, especially if it’s part of everyday operations!) How long does it really take to put a seat belt on when you’re driving a fork truck? Three whole seconds? How long does it take to put a fall arrest harness on? Longer than three seconds, but if a million dollars was riding on it, could you have it on in just a few minutes?
True, there are tasks, such as shoring a trench, that take time. And sometimes it can take longer than three seconds to properly lock something out and tag it. Fill- ing out a confined space permit and checking for lower explosive limits and certain gases can, and should, take longer than three seconds, too. That is reality.
But imagine if we heard the truth about what was
really caused by production and what was actually caused by, say, poor planning? When I started out, a long-haired young man new on the job, I’d hear things like, “It would be a pain in the butt always putting it on and taking it off, because I have to get off the truck every time I need to check a label.” Or “I didn’t want to walk all the way back to the tool crib to get the right size cutting wheel so I just took the guard off.”
Imagine if I had said: “But that’s not what you told your supervisor?”
“Are you nuts?” my teammate would respond. “Of course not. I told him I was doing it for production.”
What’s really interesting is that even the smartest scientist won’t have better excuses than this; we have all evolved through learning what excuses work bet- ter than others. But if you hear enough people say- ing they are doing it for production, it’s likely that, as a safety professional, you draw the conclusion that the subtext is supervisors pushing production over safety. Sure, I’ve met a few supervisors who are too pushy, “whipping” people like the galley slaves of old.
What are the real reasons? Why do you and I rush when we know better?
But experience has taught me that this is not really what is making people rush. So what are the real rea- sons? Why do you and I rush when we know better?
We know rushing is bad for us, as is proven by the fact that nobody plans to rush. Imagine saying to a colleague before a trip: “Let’s not go to the airport un- til 30 minutes ahead of our flight time so we can plead with everybody in the security line to let us go ahead, then sprint down the hallway in our business clothes and dress shoes so we can be the last people on the plane. That way, we can sit, soaked in our own sweat, while the plane starts pulling away from the gate.”
No. Nobody plans to rush because it’s a waste of energy, stressful, and, unless you like sitting in your own sweat, uncomfortable.
But what if, halfway to the airport, you realize that you have forgotten your laptop? Now how fast will you be driving? Now you will indeed find yourself begging strangers to let you butt in ahead of the line, before careering over to the gate.
So poor planning will cause you or other people to rush. But often the situation is a little more complex, and here is where our excuse-making talents come in.
18 Occupational Health & Safety | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
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