SafeStart International innovates and presents the "Paradigm Shifts" series, designed by Larry Wilson, CEO and author of the SafeStart Programme.
This will be a series of 12 provocative short articles designed to provide additional perspective or perhaps, to even change your mind about the way you think about industrial safety, accidental injury causation and the role it also plays on your overall production, quality and customer relations.
In an unprecedented and visionary study, Larry anticipates the most important trends in behavioural safety and points out important changes for a new world, concerning safety at work and human factors.
#1 – Hazards or Human Error?
When you ask people what is more important: hazards or human error you will get many different perspectives. This article explores those perspectives and introduces a new way of thinking about hazards and hazardous energy.
#2 – The 3 Main Sources Of Unexpected Events
In the workplace and to a similar extent at home or on the road, there are only 3 main sources of unexpected events: either the equipment does something unexpectedly, someone else does something unexpectedly or we do something unexpectedly.
#3 – The Third Dimension Of Risk Assessment
This article explores the importance of incorporating human factors into all risk assessments. It also begins to explain the counter-intuitive nature of serious injury causation.
#4 – Skill vs. Luck / Reflexes and SIF’s
This article begins by explaining that what really causes the majority of serious injuries isn’t what we’ve been told. And then by reflecting (once again) on our own personal risk pyramid, the importance of mind on task is discussed.
#5 – Equilibrium: The Progression and Eventual Termination of Safety Judgement and Skill Development
What most people don’t realize is that the number of “defenseless moments” they experience is continuing to go up as they become more complacent over time.
#6- The State To Error Risk Pattern And The Concept Of Self-Triggering
In this episode when you think about all of injuries in the self-area (over 95%), and then think about the four critical errors: eyes not on task, mind not on task, moving into the line of fire and problems with balance,
#7 – The Neuroscience Behind the Critical Error Reduction Techniques
Although the neuroscience has only been possible since FMRI’s were around, or for about half as long as the critical error reduction techniques have been available, it does help to validate the techniques. However, the biggest benefit or the most important benefit the neuroscience really proves, is why the repetition of the concepts and discussing how the injury or close call could have been worse, is so important in terms of improving and strengthening the neural pathways which enables our sub-conscious mind to develop that instant sense of danger when we’re rushing, frustrated or fatigued (critical error reduction technique #2).
#8 – The Complacency Continuum And “When vs. What”
Knowing what actually causes the majority of serious injuries and fatalities is a good start, certainly much better than guessing or assuming that it’s due to a lack of management commitment. However, in order to prevent serious incidents and fatalities we need to know “when”. When will be most likely to make a critical error? This article explores the concept of Anticipating Error™ and provides practical tools for helping you and your employees to Rate Your State™ when in a situation where there is a high risk for making one or more critical errors that could cause a serious injury or expensive mistake.
#9- Critical Decisions – Part 1: Normal Risk vs. Making an Exception
Although there could be many reasons why people take deliberate risks, most people only operate in 2 modes. Either this is what they normally do (not wearing face shield) or today they are making an exception to what they normally do. It’s not really overly complicated. It’s also easy to see what states or combination of them could easily cause someone to “break their own rules”. However, this article will go even further and show how, by slightly extending the application, the same four critical error reduction techniques can be used to prevent making critical decisions that are compromised or negatively influenced by rushing, frustration, fatigue and complacency.
#10 – Critical Decision – Part 2: Deliberate Risk And Error
It’s interesting how most people avoid risk they can’t influence, like people who are afraid to fly but don’t worry about driving to the airport. People tend to underestimate the risk that depends on not making an error. So much so that they will deliberately do things that will take their mind off task, or—as with texting and driving—take their eyes and mind off task at the same time. This article explains the importance of trying to increase mind on task, and provides practical tips for how to do this when the amount of hazardous energy is high enough to cause serious injuries, but has become too common or too familiar like driving 60mph/100kph on highway or working around fork trucks in a manufacturing plant.
#11 – Improving Quality, Production Efficiency And Customer Relations
This article explains how often the four states are involved in all aspects of human error, apart from when people are learning or doing something new. This is another huge paradigm shift for most people. However, once they realize just how many mistakes they make, every day or every week due to the four states, it’s relatively easy to get them to use the same critical error reduction techniques along with other concepts or techniques like fail-safe, double-check, Anticipating Error™ and Rate Your State™ to minimize or prevent making big mistakes that could affect quality, production efficiency or that could cause significant problems with sales or customer relations.
#12 – What Really Causes Rushing and a Different Perspective on Employee Engagement
This article is about how to engage your employees in the process of Anticipating Error™ and Rate Your State™.