September 21, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French reflects on the nature of risk perception, safety, and willpower in both personal and professional settings. He recounts a personal incident where he injured himself with a chainsaw while cleaning his yard, emphasizing how easy it is to misjudge or downgrade risks during seemingly routine tasks. Despite his safety expertise, a lapse in focus and precaution led to an injury.
Dr. French explains that willpower and focus are finite resources. When individuals are continuously engaged in high-risk tasks, their focus tends to diminish once the perceived danger is lower. This can lead to mistakes, as in his case, where he thought the hazardous part of the task was over but ended up getting hurt during cleanup.
He explores how similar scenarios occur in workplace environments. Employees may maintain focus during high-risk activities but become complacent during lower-risk tasks. This is why it's crucial for leaders to implement layers of protection, such as engineering solutions, personal protective equipment (PPE), and administrative controls. He highlights the Swiss cheese model, which visualizes how multiple safety measures can prevent accidents, though each may have weaknesses.
Ultimately, the podcast advocates for taking small breaks to refocus and ensuring proper planning before moving to new tasks. Dr. French's personal story serves as a reminder that even safety professionals are not immune to lapses, reinforcing the importance of maintaining a vigilant approach to risk management.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
This week on the leading and learning through
safety podcast, continuing thediscussion about risk and how
that can happen with just asimple slip of the mind. I'm
living proof of that, and I wantto talk more about that this
week on the podcast. You mark,welcome to the leading and
(00:34):
learning through safety podcast.
Your host is Dr Mark French,Mark's passion is helping
organizations motivate theirteams. This podcast is focused
on bringing out the best inleadership through creating
strong values, learningopportunities, teamwork and
(00:55):
safety. Nothing is moreimportant than protecting your
people. Safety creates anenvironment for empathy,
innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French. YouMusic. Welcome to the leading
(01:24):
and learning through safetypodcast. Or as someone suggested
to me, I should change the titleto the bleeding and learning
through safety podcast afterlast week's story that I told
that I want to continue talkingabout this week. It's amazing
how something that can happen toyou makes such a profound
(01:47):
impact. I'm being sarcastic,because the difference between
major surgery and minor surgeryis that minor surgery happens to
other people. Major surgeryhappens to you?
It's all about perspective,right?
But I appreciated the commentlast week about it very punny
(02:09):
and always, always love a goodpun.
So let's get started. Last week,I told the story about how I had
made a mistake and was cleaningup the yard. Got done with all
the work, burnt my leg on mychainsaw, and then when I pulled
it back, cut my leg enough thatI used some amazing zipper strip
(02:35):
things. So again, steri stripswork, but these work so much
better. You can find them on alot of different places, and
they work great. But what itreally showed is that every day
we talk about risk in ourworkplace, as leaders and as
safety people, we talk aboutrisk. We want to help people
(02:58):
understand how to avoid big andsmall, whatever it is some level
of risk.
There's some really greatstudies out there, even when we
start with the AmericanPsychological Association and
just simple things about itemslike willpower, self control,
(03:24):
that it's a limited resource. Itis not something that you can
infinitely pull on. And in theworkplace, I think there's,
there's an intent to say that,Oh yeah, for the eight hours
that you're in that workposition or doing that work, you
should be focused. You should beengaged in the workplace. Every
(03:46):
minute of that time that you'rethere, except for your breaks
and lunches, you should beengaged. That's so much easier
said than done and not reallypossible. And that's why there's
layers of protection. That's whywe, at first, we want to
engineer it, eliminate it,substitute out the hazard,
because we know if we only relyon Hey, just don't get hurt, be
(04:09):
safe, don't put your hand there.
That only can work for as longas there is the willpower to
continue it. When thinking aboutwillpower, when thinking about
having to stay focused andcontinually perform that's
difficult in even some simplesettings, I think about
(04:30):
sometimes, if I'm able to stayfocused and on task for a 30
minute meeting, that is notrequiring a lot of physicality,
not requiring me to worry aboutlife and death and safety and
harm, when truly what I need tobe doing is taking notes and
focusing on a meeting. Do I losefocus there? Oh yeah, working in
the yard was the perfect exampleof that, of where I knew what I
(04:54):
needed to do. I.
How to do it. I knew probablywhat I needed to wear to do it
the absolute safest way. Andinstead, I got done with the
major tasks and was doing thesimple tasks that only should
have been simple and easy to do.
And yet, I pick up a chainsawthat's still hot, I touch it to
(05:18):
my leg on accident, and I pullit away because Ouch, it's hot,
and suddenly I have a cut, andnot an insignificant cut. I'm
looking at it right now of whereit's healing and it's itching,
and it could have been so muchworse.
And I think about the impact ithad on my family. I think about
(05:41):
the impact it had on myreputation. I think about the
impact it had with my sonwatching me do it that way. And
I think about the impact oftelling the story now and
sharing that story of how I madethat mistake in consciously
deciding that I was going to dothat end clean up work in that
(06:04):
manner, with more cooler clotheson so I could avoid some of the
heat that was outside. I made aconscious choice to do it that
way, and that choice led,ultimately to the injury. Now,
fortunately, this was not again,a significant life changing
event. There are significantlife changing events that happen
(06:26):
every day in workplaces aroundthe world, and there are leaders
who look at those people and go,well, they should have just done
the right thing. They shouldhave been safe. They shouldn't
have done that. I told them tobe safe, and that's the answer,
and that doesn't work.
(06:46):
And I am proof positive of howthat doesn't work. There's
some really interesting studies.
When I was doing some researchyears ago on injuries and where
they occur and perceptions ofrisk, I came across a whole body
of literature that tested somesimilar impacts and people's
opinions and their outcome ofrisk, like, what did they feel
(07:11):
about the risk they were taking,and how did they downgraded? How
did they become comfortable withit? And one of the interesting
findings, it's not a surprisingfinding, but it's an interesting
finding, is that in high hazardwork, when the person was
working on the items that werelife and death, like super
(07:33):
understandably high hazard,working on a roof, very high up,
or working around dangerousmaterials, they were focused
more than when they downgradedto maybe still dangerous work,
but not as dangerous of work. Wethink about steel plants. I
think about logging. I thinkabout chemical industries, where
(07:55):
there's some processes andprocedures that you know have,
except you're going to followthe very letter checkbox by
checkbox, because the hazard issignificant and you know it, and
you completely understand thatthe risk could be high if it's
not done the way it should bedone.
(08:16):
But then when you move toanother task that still has
risk, because it's still in thattype of industry where there is
risk that there is a significantdrop in focus and willpower and
personal just attention to it,because you've now got to let
(08:37):
that rest. It's like using amuscle and you go, heavy lift,
heavy lift. Doing lots of work.
You need to rest afterward. Oryou just get done sprinting,
you've got to catch your breath.
So there's a dip rather than asustained process. It goes up
and down. It has ups and downs.
And when you're up, you'rereally focused, and when you're
in those ups and downs arerelative. I hope I'm kind of
(08:59):
making sense here, that in avery easy place of work, the ups
and downs are minor. They're thethey're very narrow.
And when in bigger industriesthat have more risk, like high
risk industry, the ups and downsare big, like you can go from
(09:23):
working on something that's verydangerous into the maybe the
office environment of like acontrol room, and then you go
back out into the field, whereyou go back to your control
room. The dips are big. But whatthey found is the perception of
that risk even extends furtherin those cases, that the higher
the risk when you came off ofthat and you go back in, your
(09:45):
downgraded risk is significantlymore, because it's like a rest
period for your mind. It's arest period for the willpower. I
felt that firsthand in a veryreal way two weeks ago.
Let me talk more about thisperception of risk coming up on
the second half of the leadingand learning through safety
(10:08):
podcast. You are listening tothe leading and learning through
safety podcast with Dr MarkFrench
dsda Consulting. Learn you leadothers. The Myers, Briggs Type
Indicator is an amazing tool.
Problem is that it can be easilymisinterpreted. Dr Mark French
(10:29):
is MBTI certified and ready tohelp you discover your inner
strengths. The MBTI assessmentcan help with team building,
stress management,communication, conflict
management and so much more,individual and group sessions
are available to help youdiscover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
(10:51):
consulting.comand welcome back to the second
half of the leading and learningthrough safety podcasts.
So again, a couple of weeks ago,doing some work outside, and I'm
running a chainsaw. I am cuttingdown some larger ish brush and
some smaller trees, cleaning upthe yard, and then chopping
(11:14):
those pieces up so I couldactually haul them and into a
pilethat is hazardous work. There is
no doubt that operating. There'snothing about a chainsaw that
you look at and go, Oh, that'sperfectly safe. Just go crazy
with it. No, that's why it's thething of horror films. It's the
logging industry is verydangerous for a lot of reasons,
(11:36):
not just the chainsaw part, buta chainsaw, inherently, when you
look at that and you run one,you understand danger. Now
there's still certain amount oftraining and reading and
preparation that needs to bedone to assure you use it the
right way. And along with PPE,yes, there is that. And then
(11:57):
what happened for me? I'mgetting tired. I'm getting hot.
It's getting later in the day.
I'm thinking about lunch ordinner or whatever. I put it
down. I'm done with the brush,cutting. The big risk, the
significant risk, has ended forme, or so I think. And then I
(12:19):
get ready for the cleanup phase,which includes me changing into
some shorts and a T shirt towhere I'm a little bit more
comfortable out there working,because I'm already tired, I'm
already hot, ready to take abreak and but yet I really don't
want to leave pieces of brushand stuff just laying in the
yard. Got to put up my tools.
Clean up after with a cleanupphase of any good home project,
(12:45):
and that's when it happens.
If I had been still wearingpants, wouldn't
have burnt my leg, probablywouldn't have cut myself as bad
either if the burn had actuallybeen felt. I wasn't I was
reckless. Very much so to letthat piece of the motor in the
chain be so close to an exposedpiece of my body, I downgraded
(13:10):
the risk. My willpower hadexhausted. My focus on the safe
practices were no longer there,and I ended up hurt,
fortunately, again, notsignificant, but hurt. Let's
think about our workplace, ourorganizational environment.
This happens every day,willpower and focus and risk,
(13:34):
and this is where it's importantthat we see this as leaders. We
see the opportunity to correctit, to engineer it, to remove
it, to substitute it, that wecannot just rely on someone
changing the way they do thework, or just putting on PPE, is
that a piece of the puzzle?
Yeah, the Swiss cheese model, tome, is the most easily visual
(13:57):
representation of that risk isyou put so many every piece of
risk reduction you put intoplace has some form of a hole in
it, unless you completelyeliminate it, and then you're
not even worried about the Jesusanymore. But all the other
phases have, whether small holesor big holes, or many holes,
(14:20):
there's opportunity for the riskto reach the person. And the
more pieces you put into place,you hope that they never align
up and the risk reaches theperson. In this case, with me,
there was two pieces of thatfocus and PPE. I lost both
(14:40):
in the workplace, the focuspart, the administrative and PPE
part, can align in various partsof the day, depending on so many
factors. And one of thosefactors is, where is the what is
my perception of the risk? Is itexceptionally high? Where I have
the perception that's high?
Okay, or is it something lower?
And if those tasks, and ofcourse, I'm getting very
(15:05):
theoretical, because inpractice, can we always plan to
have, like a gradual up and downof risk and work maybe, maybe
not. And so when we come off ofone into something else, how
much do we downgrade theperception of that risk? Because
if I go from something extremelydangerous to something less
(15:26):
dangerous, my perception isexpanded. It is more i over
exaggerate that perception ofrisk. Same thing would happen if
someone was really mean? You goto one store and you're buying
something and the clerk is justkind of rude, just
(15:48):
I just not a very good personabout being friendly. You go to
the next store and they're notexceptionally friendly, but
they're better than the personyou just saw. Your perception
most likely is something thatthat person was amazing, such a
wonderful person. And it goesthe opposite way too. If you
meet, if you're eating at arestaurant and the server is
(16:11):
just exceptional, you go toanother restaurant and they're
good, but they're notexceptional. You may walk quick.
I know that just wasn't so good.
It's perception. And we expandit, we exaggerate it. Human
nature perfectly normal. We dothe same thing with risk. And so
my perception of the risk when Iwas fully done cleaning up the
(16:32):
yard was way low.
And we will see that happen inour workplace, that's where
reminding people of the risk,putting systems in place,
putting engineering practices inplace, having good leadership of
following up with, hey, maybe wetake a little break here after
(16:52):
the really hard thing, ratherthan jumping into the next less
hard thing that still has somekind of significant risk to it.
Maybe that's where we do takethat five minutes, sit down,
grab our breath, grab our focusback. Think about what we're
about to be doing and goforward. You've heard the take
(17:13):
five minutes. Take two minutesand think about the next task.
In the long scope of things, itfeels like a long time when
you're doing it, but in the realscope of the work, it's not it's
you take that moment to bringyour focus back, let your Okay.
We've done that. Let's now thinkabout what happens next. How do
(17:35):
we plan that? In that we putthat planning phase like a JSA
for the next task, reviewingwhere the risk is and what we're
going to do to mitigate therisk. I'm proof positive right
here. I am the proof sittinghere right now that even someone
exceptionally trained in safetycan embarrassingly do something
(17:58):
really silly. And did I mean todo it? Did I want to get hurt?
Of course, not. No one wantsthat. And yet it happened,
because it can happen, becausewe as individuals, we as human
beings, are the most complex andmost wonderful part of any work
(18:19):
ecosystem, because we canproblem solve, but we can also
do some things that we're not soproud of afterward, and we learn
from it, and we go forward fromit, and we hope that we can
not have so much harm that wecan't learn from it. There's the
important part making sure thatwe reduce that risk, we control
(18:39):
that risk, so that we can beable to share the good and the
bad with each other. Thanks forjoining me on this episode of
the bleeding and learningthrough safety podcast. And
until next time we chat, staysafe. You.
(19:02):
Music. Thank you for listeningto the leading and learning
through safety podcast. Morecontent is available online at
www dot tsda consulting.comall the opinions expressed on
the podcast are solelyattributed to the individual and
not affiliated with any businessentity. This podcast is for
(19:24):
informational and entertainmentpurposes. It is not a substitute
for proper policy, appropriatetraining or legal advice you
music.
(19:55):
This has been the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
This week on the leading and learning through
safety podcast, continuing thediscussion about risk and how
that can happen with just asimple slip of the mind. I'm
living proof of that, and I wantto talk more about that this
week on the podcast. You mark,welcome to the leading and
(00:34):
learning through safety podcast.
Your host is Dr Mark French,Mark's passion is helping
organizations motivate theirteams. This podcast is focused
on bringing out the best inleadership through creating
strong values, learningopportunities, teamwork and
(00:55):
safety. Nothing is moreimportant than protecting your
people. Safety creates anenvironment for empathy,
innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French. YouMusic. Welcome to the leading
(01:24):
and learning through safetypodcast. Or as someone suggested
to me, I should change the titleto the bleeding and learning
through safety podcast afterlast week's story that I told
that I want to continue talkingabout this week. It's amazing
how something that can happen toyou makes such a profound
(01:47):
impact. I'm being sarcastic,because the difference between
major surgery and minor surgeryis that minor surgery happens to
other people. Major surgeryhappens to you?
It's all about perspective,right?
But I appreciated the commentlast week about it very punny
(02:09):
and always, always love a goodpun.
So let's get started. Last week,I told the story about how I had
made a mistake and was cleaningup the yard. Got done with all
the work, burnt my leg on mychainsaw, and then when I pulled
it back, cut my leg enough thatI used some amazing zipper strip
(02:35):
things. So again, steri stripswork, but these work so much
better. You can find them on alot of different places, and
they work great. But what itreally showed is that every day
we talk about risk in ourworkplace, as leaders and as
safety people, we talk aboutrisk. We want to help people
(02:58):
understand how to avoid big andsmall, whatever it is some level
of risk.
There's some really greatstudies out there, even when we
start with the AmericanPsychological Association and
just simple things about itemslike willpower, self control,
(03:24):
that it's a limited resource. Itis not something that you can
infinitely pull on. And in theworkplace, I think there's,
there's an intent to say that,Oh yeah, for the eight hours
that you're in that workposition or doing that work, you
should be focused. You should beengaged in the workplace. Every
(03:46):
minute of that time that you'rethere, except for your breaks
and lunches, you should beengaged. That's so much easier
said than done and not reallypossible. And that's why there's
layers of protection. That's whywe, at first, we want to
engineer it, eliminate it,substitute out the hazard,
because we know if we only relyon Hey, just don't get hurt, be
(04:09):
safe, don't put your hand there.
That only can work for as longas there is the willpower to
continue it. When thinking aboutwillpower, when thinking about
having to stay focused andcontinually perform that's
difficult in even some simplesettings, I think about
(04:30):
sometimes, if I'm able to stayfocused and on task for a 30
minute meeting, that is notrequiring a lot of physicality,
not requiring me to worry aboutlife and death and safety and
harm, when truly what I need tobe doing is taking notes and
focusing on a meeting. Do I losefocus there? Oh yeah, working in
the yard was the perfect exampleof that, of where I knew what I
(04:54):
needed to do. I.
How to do it. I knew probablywhat I needed to wear to do it
the absolute safest way. Andinstead, I got done with the
major tasks and was doing thesimple tasks that only should
have been simple and easy to do.
And yet, I pick up a chainsawthat's still hot, I touch it to
(05:18):
my leg on accident, and I pullit away because Ouch, it's hot,
and suddenly I have a cut, andnot an insignificant cut. I'm
looking at it right now of whereit's healing and it's itching,
and it could have been so muchworse.
And I think about the impact ithad on my family. I think about
(05:41):
the impact it had on myreputation. I think about the
impact it had with my sonwatching me do it that way. And
I think about the impact oftelling the story now and
sharing that story of how I madethat mistake in consciously
deciding that I was going to dothat end clean up work in that
(06:04):
manner, with more cooler clotheson so I could avoid some of the
heat that was outside. I made aconscious choice to do it that
way, and that choice led,ultimately to the injury. Now,
fortunately, this was not again,a significant life changing
event. There are significantlife changing events that happen
(06:26):
every day in workplaces aroundthe world, and there are leaders
who look at those people and go,well, they should have just done
the right thing. They shouldhave been safe. They shouldn't
have done that. I told them tobe safe, and that's the answer,
and that doesn't work.
(06:46):
And I am proof positive of howthat doesn't work. There's
some really interesting studies.
When I was doing some researchyears ago on injuries and where
they occur and perceptions ofrisk, I came across a whole body
of literature that tested somesimilar impacts and people's
opinions and their outcome ofrisk, like, what did they feel
(07:11):
about the risk they were taking,and how did they downgraded? How
did they become comfortable withit? And one of the interesting
findings, it's not a surprisingfinding, but it's an interesting
finding, is that in high hazardwork, when the person was
working on the items that werelife and death, like super
(07:33):
understandably high hazard,working on a roof, very high up,
or working around dangerousmaterials, they were focused
more than when they downgradedto maybe still dangerous work,
but not as dangerous of work. Wethink about steel plants. I
think about logging. I thinkabout chemical industries, where
(07:55):
there's some processes andprocedures that you know have,
except you're going to followthe very letter checkbox by
checkbox, because the hazard issignificant and you know it, and
you completely understand thatthe risk could be high if it's
not done the way it should bedone.
(08:16):
But then when you move toanother task that still has
risk, because it's still in thattype of industry where there is
risk that there is a significantdrop in focus and willpower and
personal just attention to it,because you've now got to let
(08:37):
that rest. It's like using amuscle and you go, heavy lift,
heavy lift. Doing lots of work.
You need to rest afterward. Oryou just get done sprinting,
you've got to catch your breath.
So there's a dip rather than asustained process. It goes up
and down. It has ups and downs.
And when you're up, you'rereally focused, and when you're
in those ups and downs arerelative. I hope I'm kind of
(08:59):
making sense here, that in avery easy place of work, the ups
and downs are minor. They're thethey're very narrow.
And when in bigger industriesthat have more risk, like high
risk industry, the ups and downsare big, like you can go from
(09:23):
working on something that's verydangerous into the maybe the
office environment of like acontrol room, and then you go
back out into the field, whereyou go back to your control
room. The dips are big. But whatthey found is the perception of
that risk even extends furtherin those cases, that the higher
the risk when you came off ofthat and you go back in, your
(09:45):
downgraded risk is significantlymore, because it's like a rest
period for your mind. It's arest period for the willpower. I
felt that firsthand in a veryreal way two weeks ago.
Let me talk more about thisperception of risk coming up on
the second half of the leadingand learning through safety
(10:08):
podcast. You are listening tothe leading and learning through
safety podcast with Dr MarkFrench
dsda Consulting. Learn you leadothers. The Myers, Briggs Type
Indicator is an amazing tool.
Problem is that it can be easilymisinterpreted. Dr Mark French
(10:29):
is MBTI certified and ready tohelp you discover your inner
strengths. The MBTI assessmentcan help with team building,
stress management,communication, conflict
management and so much more,individual and group sessions
are available to help youdiscover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
(10:51):
consulting.comand welcome back to the second
half of the leading and learningthrough safety podcasts.
So again, a couple of weeks ago,doing some work outside, and I'm
running a chainsaw. I am cuttingdown some larger ish brush and
some smaller trees, cleaning upthe yard, and then chopping
(11:14):
those pieces up so I couldactually haul them and into a
pilethat is hazardous work. There is
no doubt that operating. There'snothing about a chainsaw that
you look at and go, Oh, that'sperfectly safe. Just go crazy
with it. No, that's why it's thething of horror films. It's the
logging industry is verydangerous for a lot of reasons,
(11:36):
not just the chainsaw part, buta chainsaw, inherently, when you
look at that and you run one,you understand danger. Now
there's still certain amount oftraining and reading and
preparation that needs to bedone to assure you use it the
right way. And along with PPE,yes, there is that. And then
(11:57):
what happened for me? I'mgetting tired. I'm getting hot.
It's getting later in the day.
I'm thinking about lunch ordinner or whatever. I put it
down. I'm done with the brush,cutting. The big risk, the
significant risk, has ended forme, or so I think. And then I
(12:19):
get ready for the cleanup phase,which includes me changing into
some shorts and a T shirt towhere I'm a little bit more
comfortable out there working,because I'm already tired, I'm
already hot, ready to take abreak and but yet I really don't
want to leave pieces of brushand stuff just laying in the
yard. Got to put up my tools.
Clean up after with a cleanupphase of any good home project,
(12:45):
and that's when it happens.
If I had been still wearingpants, wouldn't
have burnt my leg, probablywouldn't have cut myself as bad
either if the burn had actuallybeen felt. I wasn't I was
reckless. Very much so to letthat piece of the motor in the
chain be so close to an exposedpiece of my body, I downgraded
(13:10):
the risk. My willpower hadexhausted. My focus on the safe
practices were no longer there,and I ended up hurt,
fortunately, again, notsignificant, but hurt. Let's
think about our workplace, ourorganizational environment.
This happens every day,willpower and focus and risk,
(13:34):
and this is where it's importantthat we see this as leaders. We
see the opportunity to correctit, to engineer it, to remove
it, to substitute it, that wecannot just rely on someone
changing the way they do thework, or just putting on PPE, is
that a piece of the puzzle?
Yeah, the Swiss cheese model, tome, is the most easily visual
(13:57):
representation of that risk isyou put so many every piece of
risk reduction you put intoplace has some form of a hole in
it, unless you completelyeliminate it, and then you're
not even worried about the Jesusanymore. But all the other
phases have, whether small holesor big holes, or many holes,
(14:20):
there's opportunity for the riskto reach the person. And the
more pieces you put into place,you hope that they never align
up and the risk reaches theperson. In this case, with me,
there was two pieces of thatfocus and PPE. I lost both
(14:40):
in the workplace, the focuspart, the administrative and PPE
part, can align in various partsof the day, depending on so many
factors. And one of thosefactors is, where is the what is
my perception of the risk? Is itexceptionally high? Where I have
the perception that's high?
Okay, or is it something lower?
And if those tasks, and ofcourse, I'm getting very
(15:05):
theoretical, because inpractice, can we always plan to
have, like a gradual up and downof risk and work maybe, maybe
not. And so when we come off ofone into something else, how
much do we downgrade theperception of that risk? Because
if I go from something extremelydangerous to something less
(15:26):
dangerous, my perception isexpanded. It is more i over
exaggerate that perception ofrisk. Same thing would happen if
someone was really mean? You goto one store and you're buying
something and the clerk is justkind of rude, just
(15:48):
I just not a very good personabout being friendly. You go to
the next store and they're notexceptionally friendly, but
they're better than the personyou just saw. Your perception
most likely is something thatthat person was amazing, such a
wonderful person. And it goesthe opposite way too. If you
meet, if you're eating at arestaurant and the server is
(16:11):
just exceptional, you go toanother restaurant and they're
good, but they're notexceptional. You may walk quick.
I know that just wasn't so good.
It's perception. And we expandit, we exaggerate it. Human
nature perfectly normal. We dothe same thing with risk. And so
my perception of the risk when Iwas fully done cleaning up the
(16:32):
yard was way low.
And we will see that happen inour workplace, that's where
reminding people of the risk,putting systems in place,
putting engineering practices inplace, having good leadership of
following up with, hey, maybe wetake a little break here after
(16:52):
the really hard thing, ratherthan jumping into the next less
hard thing that still has somekind of significant risk to it.
Maybe that's where we do takethat five minutes, sit down,
grab our breath, grab our focusback. Think about what we're
about to be doing and goforward. You've heard the take
(17:13):
five minutes. Take two minutesand think about the next task.
In the long scope of things, itfeels like a long time when
you're doing it, but in the realscope of the work, it's not it's
you take that moment to bringyour focus back, let your Okay.
We've done that. Let's now thinkabout what happens next. How do
(17:35):
we plan that? In that we putthat planning phase like a JSA
for the next task, reviewingwhere the risk is and what we're
going to do to mitigate therisk. I'm proof positive right
here. I am the proof sittinghere right now that even someone
exceptionally trained in safetycan embarrassingly do something
(17:58):
really silly. And did I mean todo it? Did I want to get hurt?
Of course, not. No one wantsthat. And yet it happened,
because it can happen, becausewe as individuals, we as human
beings, are the most complex andmost wonderful part of any work
(18:19):
ecosystem, because we canproblem solve, but we can also
do some things that we're not soproud of afterward, and we learn
from it, and we go forward fromit, and we hope that we can
not have so much harm that wecan't learn from it. There's the
important part making sure thatwe reduce that risk, we control
(18:39):
that risk, so that we can beable to share the good and the
bad with each other. Thanks forjoining me on this episode of
the bleeding and learningthrough safety podcast. And
until next time we chat, staysafe. You.
(19:02):
Music. Thank you for listeningto the leading and learning
through safety podcast. Morecontent is available online at
www dot tsda consulting.comall the opinions expressed on
the podcast are solelyattributed to the individual and
not affiliated with any businessentity. This podcast is for
(19:24):
informational and entertainmentpurposes. It is not a substitute
for proper policy, appropriatetraining or legal advice you
music.
(19:55):
This has been the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
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