What Does "Good" Safety Look Like?
In his ground-breaking book “Sapiens”, Yuval Noah Harari explains how humans evolved to become the most dominant species on earth because of our ability to imagine myths and stories. Imagination enabled us to communicate with each other on a mass level. Hence societies were born and the emergence of values and cultures. Ideally, safety values would create safe-work cultures. Except when we say “safety”, no one can imagine what it really means? Instead, we’ll talk about what it’s NOT. For instance, we’ll often say safety is having no incidents, no accidents, no hazardous conditions or no injuries. For sure there’s “good” housekeeping or wearing the “right” PPE. But what does that really mean? Is it a safety value, quality value or an instruction? Or all of the above! If being safe is “not” having an incident or accident, well that’s a pretty broad characterisation. Yet, even the Cambridge dictionary describes it that way: “Safety is not being in danger or put at risk”. So how do we articulate what “good” looks like when we unwittingly communicate safety in terms of what we “don’t” want? The answer is to focus on mindset and attitude, and not focus on things over which we have no control.
Harari shows us many examples of how imagination, myths and stories create culture. Some are good, others not so much. Think dictatorships or racism. Even workplaces are prone to dogma. We can create good safety by not painting vivid pictures of what’s bad and what to avoid. We can inspire staff and contractors to create a vision of what good looks like. Something they can see in their mind’s eye, that gets their juices flowing. Perhaps it’s why workforces don’t fully buy into our safety systems. They struggle to SEE it. Instead they perceive safety as hampering the progress of their activities.
That’s where a “Safety Mission” comes in. By facilitating workers to create their own version of “good” into an affirmation, they communicate safety in terms of what they imagine it looks like. On their terms, not ours. Something they’ll believe in and trust because THEY own it. I’ve facilitated hundreds of Safety Mission processes where even the roughest toughest work crews will protect and embody their declaration because it was drawn from deep within their own value systems. Then we reinforce their vision daily in the pre-shift meeting. By encouraging their imagination, we allow them to create the dream of what a great place to work at, would look and feel like. A definition of what good safety looks like—according to them.
Here’s a Safety Mission I’ve picked at random:
“We create a workplace that values quality, openness and comradeship. Through open communication, trust, and accountability.”
Notice they didn’t mention “safety”. By living their mission, they know that safety will take care of itself. Learn how to conduct the Safety Mission process step-by-step here: