Does Zero Accidents Imply Safety Excellence? 2 of 2 (Concluding part)

                                                                        Does Zero Accidents Imply Safety Excellence? 2 of 2 (Concluding part)

Process Indicators – Too much of safety is an attempt to manage with only lagging indicators. Many organizations are attempting to develop leading indicators for safety in an effort to become more proactive.

This direction toward more metrics is generally good, but limited in itself. It is not simply more metrics, but better ones that are needed. Lagging indicators are basically “accountability” metrics. They tell if an organization is doing better, worse, or about the same. They do not tell show how to improve; this is the purpose of process indicators. If a firm has a strategy that involves process to produce results, it can measure how well it is working the processes then see if they are impacting the lagging indicators. In other words, you can measure if you are working your plans and measure whether or not your plans are working.

Excellence is not just about producing results; good process metrics can help understand how good results are produced.

Culture – If approached correctly, a safety culture can be the sustainability tool of excellence. Culture not only influences its member’s decisions and practices in the here and now, it impacts individual habits and the decisions and practices of future members as well be it an organization or a society.

It can truly become “the way we do things around here” and “what we do when no one is watching.” These common practices can be maintained through generations with little outside management necessary. However, without an overall safety strategy that is well understood by the culture and without process metrics to help the culture continuously measure and improve, most safety cultures fail to reach, much less sustain, excellent safety performance.

My approaches to improving safety culture focuses on the characteristics of the culture rather than the capabilities. Excellent safety cultures are “can-do” cultures with the vision and tools for continuous improvement. They have a strategy and metrics to keep on track and develop the characteristics of success as a by-product rather than a precursor of performance

The desires to achieve safety excellence must first develop a deep understanding of what excellence is, this is called “profound knowledge.” It is not only a performance goal, but a definition of what excellence is and a process to achieve the goal. It must also have process metrics that facilitate understanding of how excellence is achieved.

Finally, excellence cannot be defined simply in terms of short-term results. The definition of excellence cannot inadvertently include results produced by luck and normal variation. Truly excellent safety organizations don’t just get to zero; they know exactly how to duplicate and improve their success.

Now that you know, don’t just do it for doing sake, not because they say you should do it so, not because someone is watching, but do it because of your determination to achieve zero accident through excellence

Safety is not absence of accident, it is the ability to take proactive stand toward prevention of accident.

Thank you