Future consequence blindness and deep causes - what more can very senior managers do? This Safety Moment was taken from an e-mail received by Walt Rosenbusch from Dr. Bill Robb of Safety Improvers.
Sometimes we complete a job and make it safe, we don't think far enough into the future. Is what I am doing today going to hurt people in six months, a year or even two years down the line? Similarly, when investigating an accident to ensure it does not happen again, we often miss some deep root causes that were put in place months or years ago. Perhaps very senior managers (VSMs) could help safety even more if they were aware of future consequence blindness. For example:
1. If a VSM is so anxious to win a contract that they cut their company's bid to the bone, perhaps cutting down-time allowed for maintenance, are they not setting up their people for accidents, months and years ahead?
2. If a VSM looking is to hire a contractor, are they sure their contract people are not trying to be "too smart" and pressing the contractor to make cuts that will eventually put their people under unreasonable pressure, resulting in an accident, bad reputation, and project delays?
3. If a VSM allows their rig or ship to leave the shipyard or allow a new plant in a factory to start up knowing that things are not right and hoping to finish off work "during the first voyage", or "when the plant is up and running", are they setting up their people on that rig, ship or factory for failure and accidents?
4. If a VSM is worried about shareholders' complaints about the short-term share price, are they conscious of the pressure they may inadvertently - by the things they say and their body language - put on their people to "hurry up"?
5. If a VSM keeps telling people at the coal face "how much this operation is costing every hour", are they contradicting the message that everyone has the right and duty to stop any job if they are worried about safety? Will that contradiction inhibit people stopping jobs that they think are unsafe?
6. If a VSM does not ensure that their middle managers are doing what is required to keep systems and procedures up to date, keep morale up, and ensure pay scales are competitive, are they not "planting" a cause that will eventually grow into accidents because some people may not care or become angry or because they don't have enough of the right people to do the work safely and efficiently?
Of course these are all hypothetical scenarios – most VSMs would never allow these things to happen!