July 16, 2024 • 18 mins
What happens when unsafe practices become the norm in your lab? Join us as we reflect on the tragic Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and how it unveiled the concept of "normalized deviance" — where organizations become desensitized to risky behaviors. We share our own memories of that devastating day and draw parallels to everyday lab environments, stressing the grave dangers of neglecting personal protective equipment (PPE) and bypassing engineering controls. By highlighting shocking examples, such as lab workers suffering severe chemical burns from washing with microchem, we aim to raise awareness about this critical issue and advocate for proactive safety measures to prevent such catastrophic outcomes.
Promoting a robust safety culture goes beyond just following protocols; it requires open communication and consistent vigilance. We discuss how external audits can unearth normalized unsafe practices and the importance of creating an environment where safety concerns can be voiced without fear of retribution. Through the touching story of a father's daily calls to his children, we underscore the power of consistent communication in personal and professional spheres. Tune in to hear how these lessons can fortify your lab's safety and foster stronger, enduring connections with your colleagues and community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Lab Safety Gurus Podcast.
I'm Dan Scungio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Sean Kaufman, and together we're providing
safety insights for thoseworking in laboratory settings,
doing safety together SeanKaufman.
Hey Dan, it's been a while.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm doing great.
How are you?
Good, good, Good.
I have a question for you.
Do you remember where you werewhen the Space Shuttle
Challenger disaster occurred?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Seventh grade English class and a gentleman walked in
from the principal's office Hisname was Steven and he said the
shuttle just blew up and theteacher actually yelled at him.
I mean literally yelled at him,and told him to go back to the
principal's office.
His name was Steven and he saidthe shuttle just blew up and
the teacher actually yelled athim.
I mean literally yelled at himand told him to go back to the
principal's office.
He's like I'm serious.
He started to cry, I'm serious.
And she turned on the TV.
And literally, at the momentshe turned on the TV, it was
(00:55):
blowing up and, yeah, we weredismissed from class.
We were dismissed from school.
Actually, we were sent homeearly that day.
Yeah, I do remember.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I was in high school.
I guess you're just a young pup.
I was in my senior year of highschool and we were not.
School was out.
I don't remember the reason.
We were setting up for a bandconcert, though.
I was at school and we werearranging the chairs and we had
a big concert coming up and wewere setting up for it.
(01:24):
It was going to be that eveningand some kid came in and said
this face should have looked.
We all thought he was kiddingand then we all went to the TV
there and saw it.
I remember it very vividly.
You know, when that happened,they did a lot of studying about
why this happened.
How did this happen?
We all know there were problemswith the O-rings about why this
(01:45):
happened.
How did this happen?
We all know there were problemswith the O-rings.
But they did a study and therewas a lady named Diane Vaughn
and she coined the phrasenormalized deviance when she was
doing the study about whathappened with NASA and the
Challenger shuttle disaster andshe said that there's a
phenomenon that occurs whenpeople within an organization
(02:07):
become so insensitive to deviantpractices that it no longer
feels like it is wrong.
And that's what she saidnormalized deviance is.
You know I've talked about thisfor the past few years regarding
lab safety, because I don'tknow about you, sean, but I see
a lot of normalized deviantbehaviors in the laboratory,
(02:31):
things like not wearing PPE orusing personal electronic
devices or not using engineeringcontrols when you need them and
it's dangerous but it no longerfeels wrong, and so this is one
of the things I've had to learnas a safety officer over the
years.
So we know it doesn't feelwrong.
(02:53):
We also know that the people,when you see somebody doing
something like that in a lab,that they're not doing it on
purpose or with an evil intent.
We have to remember how itfeels to them in some situations
, and so their intentions arenot bad, but the results are
potentially disastrous.
(03:13):
That's what scares me the mostabout normalized deviance.
And we do have lab accidents, wehave lab explosions, we have
lab exposures, all kinds of labissues that occur.
Of course, a lot of them aren'treported.
You know lab incidents andacquired infections and things
like that are all underreported,but they're happening and there
(03:34):
is potential right now in thiscountry in our labs, of even
worse things happening andthat's pretty scary to me.
But it's been normalized.
It's such a bad thing, and so Iwanted to bring this up to you.
Because you understand humanbehavior better than anybody.
I know why does this happen andwhat can we do about it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
It's a good question.
I you know, when we talk aboutlaboratories, I'm very familiar
with the normalized deviance.
I like to call them normalizednonconformances because you know
they're normalizednon-conformities, and I think
you know.
If you break that word up intotwo, let's talk about what
normalizing is.
Anybody, dan, of course youknow I'm sure you've been on an
(04:16):
airplane recently.
So let's talk a little bitabout the process of normalizing
.
You know, the only two times youreally get an idea of how fast
you're going on a plane and I'mtalking about feeling how fast
you go is when you take off andwhen you land.
But before you land youactually have normalized.
The environment is normal.
You don't think you're going300, 400 miles an hour, you
(04:39):
don't even think that.
But when the tires hit thatground and for the first time
when you go to land, you get asense of just how fast you were
going.
So normalizing is just a it's ahuman element.
It's it's it's adapting to theenvironment, um, it's, it's
really, in essence, going alongwith the flow.
If you stuck your head out thewindow, obviously you would know
(05:00):
real fast how fast you weregoing.
Um, so I think it's human, it'sjust part of human nature to
assimilate, to adapt and toreally try to normalize yourself
within a particular environment.
Now comes the question is theenvironment producing habits of
(05:22):
excellence, or is theenvironment producing some
habits that may increase overallrisk and have just accepted
those because, well, either a,they know no better or b, they
don't have any other perspective.
Um, so yeah, go ahead, go aheadyeah, this is.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
This is the other part about normalized deviance
that bothers me because becauseit's an unintentional acceptance
of a lower standard.
If it is indeed the culture,let's say, we got a new person
walking into the lab and theyjust see people doing those
things and that is the culture.
So they begin conforming tothat culture.
We are automatically working ina lower standard, and that's.
(06:03):
I don't like that forlaboratory either.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
No, I don't.
And you know, one thing that isfrustrating as a consultant,
dan and I know you are as wellis sometimes consultants are
seen as seagulls.
You know, they swoop in, theycrap and then they fly away and
they've just left a lot of crapbehind and there's negative
connotation to that.
But this is important.
I think people need to hear it.
(06:26):
I'll give you an example ofnormalized deviance or
normalized nonconformities, inmy opinion.
I went and I did.
I like to do the gloat germexercises and that means that I
get to see people's hands.
I'm not going to say I get tosee them intimately, but I'm
looking at their hands.
Well, I went to a laboratoryonce and everyone's hands not
only were they severely cracked,but intimately, but I, you know
, I'm looking at their hands.
Well, I went to a laboratoryonce and everyone's hands not
only were they severely cracked,but they were chemically burned
(06:48):
.
Like you can see under thewhite light, there are chemical
burns on their skin, everysingle person in the lab.
And so I asked them.
I said what are you doing?
They were washing their handsin microchem, dan.
What?
Yes, in microchem.
It was the norm of that lab andthere were six to seven people
that for six, seven months hadbeen literally dipping their
(07:12):
hands in microchem, their nakedhands, in microchem, to
disinfect their skin.
And so sometimes, when you bringa consultant in from the
outside, I'm not promoting,please.
No, I, we do this podcast andI'm not promoting.
Please know we do this podcast,dan, and I do it for free.
We're not, you know, we don'twant to self-promote, although
it would be nice to get calls.
But the point I'm trying to getat is that sometimes bringing
(07:34):
somebody in from the outsidewill actually help you identify
things that your staff or yourculture has readily accepted as
normal.
They've normalized it, but it'snot something that's decreasing
risk.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
In fact, it's increasing your overall risk.
Yeah, where I work as afull-time lab safety officer, we
have outside groups come in anddo audits CAP audits, the
College of American Pathologyand they come and they do a full
audit of all our labs every twoyears and I like that.
I want those outside eyescoming in looking at things,
because I know that this is myhome base and I may not be able
(08:26):
to see things because of mynormalized deviance or my
acceptance of what goes on hereevery day.
So, yeah, absolutely, havingthat set of outside eyes looking
in is, if you can arrange thatsomehow, whether by a consultant
or other, means you should dothat.
You should have somebody comefrom another hospital or another
lab and come in and take a looklike that.
Yeah, I agree.
So now we got to turn it around.
Right, we've got to turn itaround.
We've got a problem, we knowthere's some normalized deviance
(08:46):
and so this is terminology Iuse, sean, but I like to say we
need to normalize safety and Ithink there's some specific ways
to do that because wedefinitely need to turn it
around if we're seeing thosepractices in our labs and again
there are lots of reasons forthose things happening but we
have to get past that.
We have to move past that andmake it possible to practices in
our labs and again, there arelots of reasons for those things
(09:07):
happening.
But we have to get past that.
We have to move past that andmake it possible to normalize
safety.
One thing we need to do to helpthat happen is to be able to
talk about our problems openly,transparently, without any sort
of retribution or problems.
We need to bring up our safetyissues, our safety events, and
we need to be talking about them.
(09:28):
I think that's one of thebiggest reasons we get
normalized deviance.
You know people think safety isboring and oh, I don't want to
go over biosafety again, orchemical safety, blah, blah,
blah.
No, we have to go over itconstantly.
We have to repeat the topicsand we have to really talk about
the consequences of unsafebehaviors.
I really don't think we talkabout them enough because I
(09:50):
don't think people understandwhat those consequences can be.
So we sort of have to normalizesafety by talking about
consequences and talking aboutthe failures we have in our own
labs and be able to talk aboutthose openly, without any sort
of kind of retribution.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
No, and I agree, dan, and one of the things that I
find frustrating in thisindustry is this construct that
safety is boring and it's not,and I think I don't ever want to
promote this increasedaggression and projecting what
safety is.
But listen, safety isresponsible for keeping promises
(10:31):
, promises that you've made.
If you're working in alaboratory, you've made a
promise to go home safely at theend of every day to see your
family, to go to the ones thatlove you the most, to see your
family, to go to the ones thatlove you the most.
You've made a promise to thoseyou work with that you're going
to do things to make sure thatnot only do you stay safe, but
they stay safe as well.
You've made a promise for thecommunity in which you're
(10:53):
working in, whether it's ahospital or it's a research lab
in the middle of a neighborhoodor whatever it is.
You've made a promise tocontain what you're working with
and keep it in the lab, notmaking other people sick.
And if you are working withagents that can make animals
sick or plants, you've made apromise to keep the community
safe and the environment as well.
These are huge promises, andthose promises to keep those
(11:16):
promises.
It's going to require, like yousaid, not only excellence in
behavior, but when hiccups dooccur and when mistakes do
happen, we've got to learn fromthem and be in a process of
continuous improvement, notfailure frozen in time, which is
that normalized deviance.
You're going to have tocontinuously improve and make
(11:37):
sure that the promises that youmade to yourself, your loved
ones, the families, thecommunities, the environment
you're going to have to makechanges to make sure that those
promises are fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that philosophy, becauseit helps you to think not only
about your coworkers, but aboutyour loved ones and whoever's at
home that you care about aswell.
That's what we should bethinking about.
And so you know, we need tobring safety Obviously.
It needs to be in ourorientation when we bring new
people on board.
It needs to be part of theimmediate training.
(12:10):
You don't wait.
I can't tell you how many labsI've walked into and I've talked
to some people who are newer.
They've been there maybe amonth or two and they still
haven't completed their safetyeducation for that lab.
What that's crazy talk.
That needs to be one of thefirst things we do.
And I know, sean, that you'vetalked about this before, but
safety needs to be written intoour procedures as well.
(12:32):
So if I have to have a writtenprocedure for how to run a CBC
on a patient, for example andmaybe you know I need to pop the
top of the tube and look forclots there should be a step in
there talking about using faceprotection before that happens,
so that it's you know the safetyis in all of your procedures,
(12:54):
woven in like a thread, so thatwe've normalized safety in all
aspects of the lab.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well, I think safety should also be in performance
reviews.
I'm sorry, I think a specificmetric should be included in
performance reviews.
Dan, if I were to ask, if Iwere to think where my
(13:30):
understanding of my greatestchallenge in normalized dev
involved in the screening,hiring, sometimes removal of
individuals that pose certainrisks to laboratory environments
.
These aren't normal jobs.
These are jobs that aretechnical.
They require individuals thatcan assimilate to the
(13:52):
environments in which they workin.
And when you hire someone andthat person is not a fit, if
that person is not properlymitigated or controlled, it can
destroy a lab culture almost ona weekly basis, and I just see
that.
I think it's sad.
I think HR needs to getinvolved.
(14:13):
It's not just a sit back.
Let's hire someone, screensomebody, hire them and put them
in the lab and keep our fingerscrossed.
I really think there's some bigissues when we talk about how
do we get the right people inthe lab to fit into the culture
and to make sure that what we'vedone in the lab to maintain a
culture of safety is preservedis preserved, and how we hire
(14:35):
and bring somebody on board andtrain them, like you said, with
safety that matters.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
We have to establish priorities and expectations
right away.
Yep, absolutely, and I have toagree with you as a former
manager of a lab.
Yeah, hr doesn't speak the samelanguage necessarily as people
in the lab, and so it's reallyup to lab leadership to be
enforcing that safety andmaintaining it in the way that
the lab needs, because you can'texpect those outside
departments like HR tounderstand it the same way.
(15:05):
Yeah, so we have to be tellingsafety stories.
Start every meeting, everyhuddle with a safety story.
Talk about positive things thathappened, but if something went
wrong, talk about those too.
When you get to the point inyour lab when you can talk about
near misses, you're in greatshape when it comes to talking
about safety stories and errors,and your culture is getting
(15:28):
better and better all the time,if you can get to that point.
So make safety fun.
Use safety eyes pictures.
Have some games around labsafety.
When you can do it, do whateveryou can to promote lab safety
in your department.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Hey, dan, I want to talk about one last thing.
I know we're running out oftime, but I want to talk about
one last thing, one of thethings that I mean when you said
normalizing deviance.
I have a story.
It's a personal one, it's afamily story.
You know, I love my family very, very much my children and my
(16:01):
parents and I think you knowthat I've always loved them very
, very much.
But one thing that I did overthree years ago is I would talk
to my brother maybe once everytwo to three months.
I talked to my parents once aweek, maybe once every two weeks
, and my kids are gone, and Iwould talk to my kids maybe once
every three to four days.
(16:23):
And three years ago, a gentlemanhis name is Jim died and I went
to his funeral.
I don't like funerals, dan, Ireally don't, but I went to his
funeral because I liked him atremendous amount.
I respected him.
He was just a wonderful humanbeing and his three children got
up during his eulogy and histhree kids, they said all
(16:44):
together, each and every one ofthem talked about it.
They said you know, the onething I'm going to miss most
about my dad is that, no matterwhere he was in the world, no
matter what he was doing, everysingle day he called us and no
matter if it was in the world,no matter what he was doing,
every single day he called usand no matter if it was a
15-second phone call or a30-second phone call.
He always let us know that heloved them and that he checked
(17:05):
in with us every day.
And I left that day, dan.
I left that day just flooredand changed something three
years ago, floored and changedsomething three years ago.
And I now talk to my parentsand I talk to my kids and I talk
to my brother every single day.
And in making that simplechange, and just making that
simple change, the relationshipsthat I've had with my family
(17:28):
have grown and strengthened inways I could have never imagined
.
I thought talking to themrandomly every once in a while
was normal, and then I heard andI saw something from the
outside and I made that changeand, wow, did it have a huge
difference?
So I think normalized devianceis something that we experience
not only at the workplace buteven at home.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And it's something we should definitely consider.
That is.
That's a lesson for everyone,sean.
I love that, love that.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
We are the Lab Safety Gurus Dan Scungio and Sean
Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Thank you for letting us do lab safety together.
Welcome to the Lab Safety Gurus Podcast.
I'm Dan Scungio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Sean Kaufman, and together we're providing
safety insights for thoseworking in laboratory settings,
doing safety together SeanKaufman.
Hey Dan, it's been a while.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm doing great.
How are you?
Good, good, Good.
I have a question for you.
Do you remember where you werewhen the Space Shuttle
Challenger disaster occurred?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Seventh grade English class and a gentleman walked in
from the principal's office Hisname was Steven and he said the
shuttle just blew up and theteacher actually yelled at him.
I mean literally yelled at him,and told him to go back to the
principal's office.
His name was Steven and he saidthe shuttle just blew up and
the teacher actually yelled athim.
I mean literally yelled at himand told him to go back to the
principal's office.
He's like I'm serious.
He started to cry, I'm serious.
And she turned on the TV.
And literally, at the momentshe turned on the TV, it was
(00:55):
blowing up and, yeah, we weredismissed from class.
We were dismissed from school.
Actually, we were sent homeearly that day.
Yeah, I do remember.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I was in high school.
I guess you're just a young pup.
I was in my senior year of highschool and we were not.
School was out.
I don't remember the reason.
We were setting up for a bandconcert, though.
I was at school and we werearranging the chairs and we had
a big concert coming up and wewere setting up for it.
(01:24):
It was going to be that eveningand some kid came in and said
this face should have looked.
We all thought he was kiddingand then we all went to the TV
there and saw it.
I remember it very vividly.
You know, when that happened,they did a lot of studying about
why this happened.
How did this happen?
We all know there were problemswith the O-rings about why this
(01:45):
happened.
How did this happen?
We all know there were problemswith the O-rings.
But they did a study and therewas a lady named Diane Vaughn
and she coined the phrasenormalized deviance when she was
doing the study about whathappened with NASA and the
Challenger shuttle disaster andshe said that there's a
phenomenon that occurs whenpeople within an organization
(02:07):
become so insensitive to deviantpractices that it no longer
feels like it is wrong.
And that's what she saidnormalized deviance is.
You know I've talked about thisfor the past few years regarding
lab safety, because I don'tknow about you, sean, but I see
a lot of normalized deviantbehaviors in the laboratory,
(02:31):
things like not wearing PPE orusing personal electronic
devices or not using engineeringcontrols when you need them and
it's dangerous but it no longerfeels wrong, and so this is one
of the things I've had to learnas a safety officer over the
years.
So we know it doesn't feelwrong.
(02:53):
We also know that the people,when you see somebody doing
something like that in a lab,that they're not doing it on
purpose or with an evil intent.
We have to remember how itfeels to them in some situations
, and so their intentions arenot bad, but the results are
potentially disastrous.
(03:13):
That's what scares me the mostabout normalized deviance.
And we do have lab accidents, wehave lab explosions, we have
lab exposures, all kinds of labissues that occur.
Of course, a lot of them aren'treported.
You know lab incidents andacquired infections and things
like that are all underreported,but they're happening and there
(03:34):
is potential right now in thiscountry in our labs, of even
worse things happening andthat's pretty scary to me.
But it's been normalized.
It's such a bad thing, and so Iwanted to bring this up to you.
Because you understand humanbehavior better than anybody.
I know why does this happen andwhat can we do about it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
It's a good question.
I you know, when we talk aboutlaboratories, I'm very familiar
with the normalized deviance.
I like to call them normalizednonconformances because you know
they're normalizednon-conformities, and I think
you know.
If you break that word up intotwo, let's talk about what
normalizing is.
Anybody, dan, of course youknow I'm sure you've been on an
(04:16):
airplane recently.
So let's talk a little bitabout the process of normalizing
.
You know, the only two times youreally get an idea of how fast
you're going on a plane and I'mtalking about feeling how fast
you go is when you take off andwhen you land.
But before you land youactually have normalized.
The environment is normal.
You don't think you're going300, 400 miles an hour, you
(04:39):
don't even think that.
But when the tires hit thatground and for the first time
when you go to land, you get asense of just how fast you were
going.
So normalizing is just a it's ahuman element.
It's it's it's adapting to theenvironment, um, it's, it's
really, in essence, going alongwith the flow.
If you stuck your head out thewindow, obviously you would know
(05:00):
real fast how fast you weregoing.
Um, so I think it's human, it'sjust part of human nature to
assimilate, to adapt and toreally try to normalize yourself
within a particular environment.
Now comes the question is theenvironment producing habits of
(05:22):
excellence, or is theenvironment producing some
habits that may increase overallrisk and have just accepted
those because, well, either a,they know no better or b, they
don't have any other perspective.
Um, so yeah, go ahead, go aheadyeah, this is.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
This is the other part about normalized deviance
that bothers me because becauseit's an unintentional acceptance
of a lower standard.
If it is indeed the culture,let's say, we got a new person
walking into the lab and theyjust see people doing those
things and that is the culture.
So they begin conforming tothat culture.
We are automatically working ina lower standard, and that's.
(06:03):
I don't like that forlaboratory either.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
No, I don't.
And you know, one thing that isfrustrating as a consultant,
dan and I know you are as wellis sometimes consultants are
seen as seagulls.
You know, they swoop in, theycrap and then they fly away and
they've just left a lot of crapbehind and there's negative
connotation to that.
But this is important.
I think people need to hear it.
(06:26):
I'll give you an example ofnormalized deviance or
normalized nonconformities, inmy opinion.
I went and I did.
I like to do the gloat germexercises and that means that I
get to see people's hands.
I'm not going to say I get tosee them intimately, but I'm
looking at their hands.
Well, I went to a laboratoryonce and everyone's hands not
only were they severely cracked,but intimately, but I, you know
, I'm looking at their hands.
Well, I went to a laboratoryonce and everyone's hands not
only were they severely cracked,but they were chemically burned
(06:48):
.
Like you can see under thewhite light, there are chemical
burns on their skin, everysingle person in the lab.
And so I asked them.
I said what are you doing?
They were washing their handsin microchem, dan.
What?
Yes, in microchem.
It was the norm of that lab andthere were six to seven people
that for six, seven months hadbeen literally dipping their
(07:12):
hands in microchem, their nakedhands, in microchem, to
disinfect their skin.
And so sometimes, when you bringa consultant in from the
outside, I'm not promoting,please.
No, I, we do this podcast andI'm not promoting.
Please know we do this podcast,dan, and I do it for free.
We're not, you know, we don'twant to self-promote, although
it would be nice to get calls.
But the point I'm trying to getat is that sometimes bringing
(07:34):
somebody in from the outsidewill actually help you identify
things that your staff or yourculture has readily accepted as
normal.
They've normalized it, but it'snot something that's decreasing
risk.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
In fact, it's increasing your overall risk.
Yeah, where I work as afull-time lab safety officer, we
have outside groups come in anddo audits CAP audits, the
College of American Pathologyand they come and they do a full
audit of all our labs every twoyears and I like that.
I want those outside eyescoming in looking at things,
because I know that this is myhome base and I may not be able
(08:26):
to see things because of mynormalized deviance or my
acceptance of what goes on hereevery day.
So, yeah, absolutely, havingthat set of outside eyes looking
in is, if you can arrange thatsomehow, whether by a consultant
or other, means you should dothat.
You should have somebody comefrom another hospital or another
lab and come in and take a looklike that.
Yeah, I agree.
So now we got to turn it around.
Right, we've got to turn itaround.
We've got a problem, we knowthere's some normalized deviance
(08:46):
and so this is terminology Iuse, sean, but I like to say we
need to normalize safety and Ithink there's some specific ways
to do that because wedefinitely need to turn it
around if we're seeing thosepractices in our labs and again
there are lots of reasons forthose things happening but we
have to get past that.
We have to move past that andmake it possible to practices in
our labs and again, there arelots of reasons for those things
(09:07):
happening.
But we have to get past that.
We have to move past that andmake it possible to normalize
safety.
One thing we need to do to helpthat happen is to be able to
talk about our problems openly,transparently, without any sort
of retribution or problems.
We need to bring up our safetyissues, our safety events, and
we need to be talking about them.
(09:28):
I think that's one of thebiggest reasons we get
normalized deviance.
You know people think safety isboring and oh, I don't want to
go over biosafety again, orchemical safety, blah, blah,
blah.
No, we have to go over itconstantly.
We have to repeat the topicsand we have to really talk about
the consequences of unsafebehaviors.
I really don't think we talkabout them enough because I
(09:50):
don't think people understandwhat those consequences can be.
So we sort of have to normalizesafety by talking about
consequences and talking aboutthe failures we have in our own
labs and be able to talk aboutthose openly, without any sort
of kind of retribution.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
No, and I agree, dan, and one of the things that I
find frustrating in thisindustry is this construct that
safety is boring and it's not,and I think I don't ever want to
promote this increasedaggression and projecting what
safety is.
But listen, safety isresponsible for keeping promises
(10:31):
, promises that you've made.
If you're working in alaboratory, you've made a
promise to go home safely at theend of every day to see your
family, to go to the ones thatlove you the most, to see your
family, to go to the ones thatlove you the most.
You've made a promise to thoseyou work with that you're going
to do things to make sure thatnot only do you stay safe, but
they stay safe as well.
You've made a promise for thecommunity in which you're
(10:53):
working in, whether it's ahospital or it's a research lab
in the middle of a neighborhoodor whatever it is.
You've made a promise tocontain what you're working with
and keep it in the lab, notmaking other people sick.
And if you are working withagents that can make animals
sick or plants, you've made apromise to keep the community
safe and the environment as well.
These are huge promises, andthose promises to keep those
(11:16):
promises.
It's going to require, like yousaid, not only excellence in
behavior, but when hiccups dooccur and when mistakes do
happen, we've got to learn fromthem and be in a process of
continuous improvement, notfailure frozen in time, which is
that normalized deviance.
You're going to have tocontinuously improve and make
(11:37):
sure that the promises that youmade to yourself, your loved
ones, the families, thecommunities, the environment
you're going to have to makechanges to make sure that those
promises are fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that philosophy, becauseit helps you to think not only
about your coworkers, but aboutyour loved ones and whoever's at
home that you care about aswell.
That's what we should bethinking about.
And so you know, we need tobring safety Obviously.
It needs to be in ourorientation when we bring new
people on board.
It needs to be part of theimmediate training.
(12:10):
You don't wait.
I can't tell you how many labsI've walked into and I've talked
to some people who are newer.
They've been there maybe amonth or two and they still
haven't completed their safetyeducation for that lab.
What that's crazy talk.
That needs to be one of thefirst things we do.
And I know, sean, that you'vetalked about this before, but
safety needs to be written intoour procedures as well.
(12:32):
So if I have to have a writtenprocedure for how to run a CBC
on a patient, for example andmaybe you know I need to pop the
top of the tube and look forclots there should be a step in
there talking about using faceprotection before that happens,
so that it's you know the safetyis in all of your procedures,
(12:54):
woven in like a thread, so thatwe've normalized safety in all
aspects of the lab.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well, I think safety should also be in performance
reviews.
I'm sorry, I think a specificmetric should be included in
performance reviews.
Dan, if I were to ask, if Iwere to think where my
(13:30):
understanding of my greatestchallenge in normalized dev
involved in the screening,hiring, sometimes removal of
individuals that pose certainrisks to laboratory environments
.
These aren't normal jobs.
These are jobs that aretechnical.
They require individuals thatcan assimilate to the
(13:52):
environments in which they workin.
And when you hire someone andthat person is not a fit, if
that person is not properlymitigated or controlled, it can
destroy a lab culture almost ona weekly basis, and I just see
that.
I think it's sad.
I think HR needs to getinvolved.
(14:13):
It's not just a sit back.
Let's hire someone, screensomebody, hire them and put them
in the lab and keep our fingerscrossed.
I really think there's some bigissues when we talk about how
do we get the right people inthe lab to fit into the culture
and to make sure that what we'vedone in the lab to maintain a
culture of safety is preservedis preserved, and how we hire
(14:35):
and bring somebody on board andtrain them, like you said, with
safety that matters.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
We have to establish priorities and expectations
right away.
Yep, absolutely, and I have toagree with you as a former
manager of a lab.
Yeah, hr doesn't speak the samelanguage necessarily as people
in the lab, and so it's reallyup to lab leadership to be
enforcing that safety andmaintaining it in the way that
the lab needs, because you can'texpect those outside
departments like HR tounderstand it the same way.
(15:05):
Yeah, so we have to be tellingsafety stories.
Start every meeting, everyhuddle with a safety story.
Talk about positive things thathappened, but if something went
wrong, talk about those too.
When you get to the point inyour lab when you can talk about
near misses, you're in greatshape when it comes to talking
about safety stories and errors,and your culture is getting
(15:28):
better and better all the time,if you can get to that point.
So make safety fun.
Use safety eyes pictures.
Have some games around labsafety.
When you can do it, do whateveryou can to promote lab safety
in your department.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Hey, dan, I want to talk about one last thing.
I know we're running out oftime, but I want to talk about
one last thing, one of thethings that I mean when you said
normalizing deviance.
I have a story.
It's a personal one, it's afamily story.
You know, I love my family very, very much my children and my
(16:01):
parents and I think you knowthat I've always loved them very
, very much.
But one thing that I did overthree years ago is I would talk
to my brother maybe once everytwo to three months.
I talked to my parents once aweek, maybe once every two weeks
, and my kids are gone, and Iwould talk to my kids maybe once
every three to four days.
(16:23):
And three years ago, a gentlemanhis name is Jim died and I went
to his funeral.
I don't like funerals, dan, Ireally don't, but I went to his
funeral because I liked him atremendous amount.
I respected him.
He was just a wonderful humanbeing and his three children got
up during his eulogy and histhree kids, they said all
(16:44):
together, each and every one ofthem talked about it.
They said you know, the onething I'm going to miss most
about my dad is that, no matterwhere he was in the world, no
matter what he was doing, everysingle day he called us and no
matter if it was in the world,no matter what he was doing,
every single day he called usand no matter if it was a
15-second phone call or a30-second phone call.
He always let us know that heloved them and that he checked
(17:05):
in with us every day.
And I left that day, dan.
I left that day just flooredand changed something three
years ago, floored and changedsomething three years ago.
And I now talk to my parentsand I talk to my kids and I talk
to my brother every single day.
And in making that simplechange, and just making that
simple change, the relationshipsthat I've had with my family
(17:28):
have grown and strengthened inways I could have never imagined
.
I thought talking to themrandomly every once in a while
was normal, and then I heard andI saw something from the
outside and I made that changeand, wow, did it have a huge
difference?
So I think normalized devianceis something that we experience
not only at the workplace buteven at home.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And it's something we should definitely consider.
That is.
That's a lesson for everyone,sean.
I love that, love that.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
We are the Lab Safety Gurus Dan Scungio and Sean
Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Thank you for letting us do lab safety together.
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