Safety Culture

By Terry McSween, Ph. D.

Note: This article was initially written for another publication, but was never published. However, we are including it here because we think the information has value and practical application for our readers. —Terry McSween.

Maurice Bazinet, Scott Cook, Chevron Canada Resources and Terry E. McSween, Ph.D., Quality Safety Edge

In previous research published in Professional Safety magazine (“Behavioral Safety in a Refinery,” August 2009), we showed the importance of supervisors participating in observations during the initial implementation phase of a behavioral safety process (the Chevron Accident Reduction Environment (CARE) process).

By Jerry Pounds

Jerry Pounds is Senior Vice President-International at Quality Safety Edge and publishes a blog on positive leadership.

Leadership gurus have made a fortune defining what leadership is because most men and women aspire to be identified as representative of the elevated stature associated with being a “leader.” Leaders have followers: leaders are purportedly charismatic and transformational. Managers have subordinates: managers are transactional and influence through the authority provided them.

A large, sophisticated safety department and a strong concern for operational safety at one of Canada’s major utilities were not enough to avert several fatalities or avoid multiple major injuries—one resulting in a double amputation. “They were under serious regulatory pressure to bring their incident rate down, but they had really done everything they could do, except for the behavioral approach,” says Grainne Matthews, Quality Safety Edge (QSE) behavioral safety consultant.

“Think of looking at the U. S. map and in your mind go from Houston up through Louisiana, to the right through Mississippi, through the middle of Tennessee, part of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and up to New York. That was the pipeline when we started out,” says Anthony “Corky” Carter, certified safety professional and principal safety representative.