The Problem with Safety
Part of the latest no punches pulled article by Phil La Duke – READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE
Excerpt:
Last week’s post that asked why Heinrich’s Pyramid was so popular across all industry segments despite being largely discredited by many in the safety industry angered up some of your blood. I don’t mind, if I didn’t get some of you cantankerous old coots’ blood moving some of you would be declared legally dead. I’m not complaining; anytime anyone challenges any of the cherished charms and totems of BBS one is likely to get blowback. So great is the backlash from the zealous and paranoid torch-and-pitchfork crowd that I know of at least three safety journalists who won’t touch the subject. But in the froth and fury to spew forth on on-line threads one persistent argument kept coming up: are injuries causes by multiple causes or by a single root cause. The answer is “yes”.
Before joining the glamorous and sexy world of safety I spent half my career in performance improvement—both human performance improvement and process improvement—and in the course of my duties I taught problem solving. Problems, you see, can’t be neatly wrapped up in one neat little box.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE
So What?
Think of all the good that we could be doing instead of arguing about whether injuries are caused by systems or behaviors, multiple causes or a single root cause, or whether a hair-brained pyramid has “at least some useful parts” and concentrated on using a tool-box approach to injury reduction? As the great Peter Drucker said, “the most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.”
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below