• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Gabrielle Carlton / Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?

Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?

May 26, 2023 by Gabrielle Carlton Leave a Comment

Originally posted on October 27, 2014 @ 9:52 AM

Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?

clip_image002

I had the privilege last weekend to be with a family grieving for one of their family members, Margaret, in ICU. I was sitting with them beside her as she fought for her life. At first I found myself being an observer. I sat back and took it all in. I watched the staff do their thing. It was their world and I was just a visitor.

It’s a workplace. It’s quite mundane really. Well so it seemed for them. It’s just like any other job, there are many machines, there’s lots of paperwork, measures, numbers and checks. Sometimes there are even double checks. And then there’s managing the fatigue of a long 12 hour shift.

It didn’t take me long to ask questions to know more. To understand more and to get a sense of how Margaret’s nurse, Steph, makes sense of her working world.

This is a person who understands her world. She’s been a nurse for 30 years and in ICU for 10. As much as her experience, knowledge and skills are an advantage or some may say an asset it can also become a risk. When you understand One Brain Three MindsTM then you understand how we make decisions. You can then start to understand more how Steph can easily be working in ‘Mind 3’ a majority of the time. She’s reliant on ‘gut instinct’ and ‘automaticity’. In other words she’s heavily reliant on her unconscious mind to make decisions and judgements for her.

How to manage it all?? How does she manage this risk?

I asked her more questions because that’s what I do. I know there are processes because I saw her following protocols. I wanted to know how she made decisions on the job. How she managed working on automatic or becoming complacent because she’s on autopilot.

She said one thing that stood out for me. She said in ICU some nurses are process driven and some nurses are patient driven! Steph stated that she knows there are processes to follow but she will always focus on her patient.

She gets a sense of how her patients are going by observing them not the machines. She said she ‘just knows’. It’s just a ‘thing’ (thanks James Ellis) that some of them have. Steph said not all nurses have it but she says it’s a critical part of care in ICU.

This told me a lot.

clip_image004This says she understands how easy it is to get caught in process. Focussing only on process can be difficult to see the bigger picture. Things can get missed. Steph understands that although the nature of the job is repetitious and mundane the mere fact that she has a human being responding differently to her mundane world makes it a dynamic work environment.

So in the world of Weick and understanding High Reliability Organisations we know that when there are plans and processes we can easily become fixated and biased into thinking that they will prevail. This is the critical nature of resilience and adaptability. ICU nurses adapt quickly because they don’t always get so caught up in process.

When we talk with the people around us we learn how people perceive risk and understand their work environment. More importantly it allows us to understand how people manage their world and the risks

I learnt a lot over those days I sat with this family. One very important thing that we can learn from ICU staff is that they understand their world is complex when dealing with people and they never lose sight of that. The processes and protocols are there for a reason but they know that it’s also critical to get to ‘know’ the people they are dealing with to fully understand and manage their work environment. Adapting is knowing and understanding that a fixation on process doesn’t allow a person to learn and deal with risk.

GABRIELLE CARLTON

M | 0407 220 094

E | gabrielle@resilyence

W | www.resilyence.com

L | http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellecarlton

F | https://www.facebook.com/Resilyence

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Gabrielle
Gabrielle Carlton

Gabrielle Carlton

Director & Principal Consultant at Resylience
Gabrielle Carlton

Latest posts by Gabrielle Carlton (see all)

  • Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus? - May 26, 2023
  • What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination? - May 11, 2023
  • Stand Behind The Yellow Line – Do Engineering Controls Affect Risk? - December 15, 2022
  • The Art of Humble Inquiry as a Pathway to Safety Improvement - September 1, 2022
  • The Different Levels of Wrongness! - August 15, 2022
Gabrielle Carlton
Gabrielle Carlton is a specialist in human factors in risk and safety. Gabrielle provides training, advice, coaching and mentoring for leaders and managers. Gabrielle has well over 10 years experience as an advisor and consultant to industry as well as a strong personal background across a range of industries including: electrical generation & distribution, aged and disability in large residential facilities, construction, property management, rail, manufacturing, government bodies and corporations. Gabrielle is able to use her expertise in analysis, training, organisation psychology, research, systems auditing and human behaviour to serve a wide range of needs. She has conducted a Probability Risk Analysis (PRA) using Resylience's methodology Culture and Organisation Modelling in Risk (COMIR). This work was conducted with National power generation companies. Gabrielle has developed and delivered a range of risk and safety leadership consultancies to Tier 1 organisations in Australia.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Gabrielle Carlton, Safety systems, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: automaticity, instinct, people, process, weick

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,523 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Chris. on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Pierre Joubert on Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • James on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Admin on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe

The KISS of Death in Safety

Is Your Safety World Too Small?

You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

When Safety (Zero) is Abusive

Hands Up the Best Safety Fraud!

Communicating Professionally in Risk

How NOT to be Professional in Safety

How NOT to do Anything About Culture in Building and Construction

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • What Is Safety?
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • SPoR - Positive, Constructive, Practical, Rational, Visual, Verbal, Social, Relational, Person-Centric, Respectful, Ethical and Real
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity

Recent Posts

  • SPoR – Positive, Constructive, Practical, Rational, Visual, Verbal, Social, Relational, Person-Centric, Respectful, Ethical and Real
  • Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?
  • Anchoring, Framing and Priming Risk
  • What’s Your Agenda in Safety?
  • What is a Safety Reset?
  • The Myth of Neuroscience Safety
  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Beware the Cult of Denial
  • My Story is Better than Yours
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process
  • The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video
  • Safetie
  • You are NOT the Sum of Safety
  • Update on SPoR in India, Brazil and Europe
  • It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Safety at the Margins
  • Research Basics for Safety
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us
  • Researching Within The Safety Echo Chamber
  • Confirmation Bias, Risk and Being Offensive
  • Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk
  • Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging
  • Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • Can There Be Other Valid Worldviews Than Safety?
  • Evaluating Value by the Value of What You Don’t Know
  • Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide
  • No Paradigm Shift with BBS
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Is Your Safety World Too Small?
  • What Does Safety Achieve?
  • In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism
  • We are all equal
  • You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination?
  • iCue Engagement Process
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • For the Monarchists of Safety
  • The Sully Effect
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • Scapegoating and Safety
  • Understanding Habit, Habituation and Change
  • Don’t Mention the War
  • Safety in Design for Who by Who?
  • Beyond ‘What We Do Around Here’
  • Asking the Wrong Questions
  • When Safety (Zero) is Abusive
  • Mandala as a Method for Tackling an Ethic of Risk (a Video)
  • Safety Cosmetics

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

And the Enemy of Safety is? … Humans!

I am a Spreadsheet King

The Allure of Submission

All You Love is Need

The Acts of God and Act of Humans

WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture

Perth Workshops

The Hero Myth in Modern Management

Desensitisation–the by-product of ill-conceived safety initiatives

There is no way I would do that!

Don’t Hold the Hand Rail

There’s a Hole in Your Investigation.

How Risky is Your Safety Spin?

SPoR and Myth

What Can Safety Learn from Barbie

Listening, Learning, Helping and Caring about Risk

In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism

Banning Head Protection is Safer

A Conference with a Difference

What is Your Risk iCue?

No Soft Skills in Safety

I’m 100% Certain About That….

Ten Secrets to Risk and Safety Motivation and Ownership

Safety Can’t Control Nature (or People)

The Link Between Think and Blink

Tensions and Faultiness in Risk

I’m just not that into safety anymore

Essential Preparation for a Safety Job

No Help for Mental Health in Zero

Questioning Skills and Investigations

Safety For the Common Good

Reflection Makes Sense

Tentative at Tooleybuc

Why Some People Never Achieve

The Triarchic Mind, Risk and Safety

The Social Psychology of Distance-Safety

Zero Suicide and the Discourse of Denial

Celebrating 1000 Blogs on Risk

CLLR April 2017 Newsletter–Not Your Usual Safety Newsletter!!

Data Cannot Drive Vision

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,523 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY

x
x