Dysfunctional Practices: That Kill Your Safety Culture (and What to Do About Them)
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A man finds himself on the top step of a stepladder; a woman removes the guard to her machine; a worker is not wearing her safety glasses in the plant; a roustabout uses the wrong-sized clamp instead of retrieving the right tool from the supply truck; a supervisor teaches a new worker to take shortcuts; a mechanic climbs on top of an active machine to find the oil leak.
Why do these folks do these things? Is it because they are stupid? One tendency is to blame workers for safety errors and label their personal failings as the cause of the error. Labeling does not solve problems that cause error and, frankly, it may all be an illusion of human perception leading us to false conclusions. Our human tendencies result in interactions that hurt the safety of our workers and the effectiveness of the systems we put in place to protect them.
These tendencies build dysfunctional management practices that create fear associated with your safety programs. I want to teach you a better way to analyze the behaviors of your employees to understand why they were put in a position to take the risk in the first place. Your system may be perfectly designed to promote risks and create safety traps. By analyzing the context of behavior we can discover ways to change your system to optimize safe behavior and reduce injury. This book presents new ideas and methods using stories we can all relate to.
Human behavior is at the crux of your safety program. Physics and chemistry create hazards ready to be released when things go wrong. Human behavior happens right before that release. Therefore, we look at the behavior associated with the resulting injury and blame the person as the root cause. We label the person “stupid” and feel we have solved the problem. We haven’t. Instead, a dysfunctional practice creeps into our safety management system blinding us from finding the true root causes of at-risk behavior. If our goal is to create a safety culture in which workers are engaged with situational awareness, peer coaching, and reporting, we will fail. Our offensive labeling will create avoidance of the very engagement we desperately need from our workers.
We can’t fix people, let’s not be that pompous. But we can change behavior…we know how; there is a science behind it. Behavior is not a static variable of study. Behavior is a dynamic variable, reacting with each passing moment along predictable paths, like water in a river, but always ready and able to jump its banks and forge new paths.
We will discover that behavior is neutral, not good or bad, right or wrong. We will learn that for every safe behavior you want from your workers, there are a plethora of competing alternative behaviors that can put them at risk. This book is for managers who seek to shape their safety culture to drive out fear and engage their workforce as they drive out risk.
11 reviews for Dysfunctional Practices: That Kill Your Safety Culture (and What to Do About Them)
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BetterTalent4All –
Focused Intent, Broad Application; An Essential Review of Principles, Solutions, and Experiences
There is nothing more important than the safety and well-being of our people, and this book addresses essential solutions that may be applied across multiple industries. I am extremely appreciative of this body of work.As a reader, I am pleased to admit it has application beyond safety and professional development. It is not a stretch for me to say that I consider any improvement of my understanding and application of key behavioral science principles tends to improve my life beyond that which I apply at work. I doubt it is the author’s intention, but the book caused me to reflect upon my own behaviors as a parent. I must admit I sometimes fall into the trap of âfishingâ for “What are you, stupid?” behavior beyond the workplace. My children deserve a better household culture than the one their parent has been creating.On a related note, I highly recommend supplementing this learning experience with an opportunity to hear from the author in one of his many ongoing professional presentations. I have found his personal stories to be quite impactful and compelling. This is one of the first books Iâve read in which I heard the authorâs voice in my head instead of my own.Do not hesitate to read this book. I recommend it to my colleagues and peers any time I have an opportunity to do so.
Howard Spencer –
A must read for all Safety people
This book is spot on!!
Bill Baehr –
It’s about risk management
The basics of this book apply to any endeavor that involves risk. One of the most important points is to look into minor accidents that only require a band aid as information that can lead to discoveries of risk dangerous or problem areas. It’s the difference between a safety culture and a danger culture. Safety culture is non-accepting of risks and is working to eliminate risks and a danger culture accepts risks as “normal” because sh*t happens.
Brent –
Great book for Safety Professionals and Leaders in any Role!
Great book for safety professionals or others in any leadership position to read. Puts into perspective the work that one in a position of leadership can do to make a truly positive safety culture.
David Jason Welch –
Loved the discusson about labels and getting to the root …
Loved the discusson about labels and getting to the root cause. This book will be a great addition to our Total Safety Culture team reading/listening. Narration on audio was great, and would love to hear Dr. Ludwig narrate his next book!
Matthis Piel –
Good book.
Good book.
Timothy C Welsh –
A must read
Interesting read for those who work in industry compliance.
Tracy Downey!!!!!& –
Amazing book! This is a must read!
About the Author:Dr. Timothy Ludwig is a Distinguished Graduate Professor at Appalachian State University, teaching Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Human Resources Management.  Dr. Ludwig founded and directs the Appalachian Safety Summit and is the safety-doc.com website author/administrator.  Dr. Ludwig also serves on the Board of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, as well as Cambridge Centerâs Commission for the Accreditation of Behavioral Safety Programs.About the Book:  The full and official book title may not be appropriate to include in this review.  Yet, it is a raw, bold, and honest reflection of our workforce.  We like to believe our EQ is exceptional and that we have BBS (behavioral-based safety) down.  Afterall, a weekly documented crew member JHA with corrective action taken envelopes BBS â Right?  Dysfunctional Practices humorously illustrates how far off corporations are from effectively implementing a behavioral model.  Having heard superintendents say they nip bad behavior in the bud by name calling the mocked âdeviant,â we are faced squarely with the COMPLETE brash book title, What Are You #### Stupid?!?.  Dysfunctional Practices that Kill your Safety Culture describes scientifically substantiated behavioral concepts in a jovial and light-hearted way.  While theoretically easy to apply, Dr. Ludwig clearly lays out the difficult-to-achieve behavior identification and favorable consequences derived from positive reinforcement.  Lessons from the Book:  The greatest âAh Hahâ I had when reading Dysfunctional Practices was the described ease of safety culture creation through positively reinforcing communication. Makes sense⦠After all, what is culture other than the people and conversations that define it.  I enjoyed seeing the ABCâs at work in the bookâs practical examples (i.e., Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence).  The other impactful take-away is that, for an otherwise unlazy person, I am profoundly lazy in identifying behaviors.  Drilling down to the Doing rather than Being verbs when capturing behavior was another enlightening practice.
JO –
Totally recommend it! Iâve already put some of his suggestions to the test and Iâm finding our workers are really responding well.
Amulya –
I have recently had the experience of sailing onboard a LPG tanker, and working in the engine room of the ship. Everything mentioned in this book was so relatable to the challenges we face onboard.I had a lot of insights and a better understanding on the subject of safety, but the reason I really loved the book was it’s ideas on ‘labelling’ , working onboard I have had first hand experience on how this impacts work and safety.Would recommend this to everyone working in an industrial (high risk) setup.
SELINA –
really enjoy reading the ISO Standards and how they are completely different in each organisation, they need to be more thorough and many gaps i have found by reading this novel.