Stop Focusing on Safety Results

Thankfully, almost all discussions these days on safety awards concern motivating safe behaviors and focus on changing conditions that can influence future accidents and injuries.  In fact a well-designed safety award system won’t even focus on the results other than to point toward what can happen when your entire workforce is performing their job functions in a safe manner. 

In a safety summit we attended earlier in the year, a speaker presented a wonderful analogy of how to view your safety culture in relation to the results you want to achieve. It is also a great way to explain leading vs lagging indicators and how to leverage leading indicators to promote a safety culture. His comparison used an example of a football game. Allow us to paraphrase from our memory:

Picture a football game.  When you watch it you focus on the field, on the ebb and flow of the players, the offense and defensive play calling and how the other team reacts to that positioning, down and distance, the field conditions, the weather, etc.  He mentioned that everything that was happening or was influencing the play made up all the leading indicators of the future results that you want.  If you are going to have a good chance to win, the teams and the coaches must continuously adjust their strategies based on all of these factors.

The scoreboard, on the other hand, shows us all the lagging indicators, such as the number of points scored during the game, how many yards were gained or lost in the last play etc. Once points are on the board, they're not coming off. Once the clock runs out, the teams (usually) can’t do anything to change the score.  If you spend all of your time fixated on the score, you won’t be able to manage the game.

The same applies to a safety culture.  The analogy helps us understand why safety programs cannot be driven by lagging indicators.  After the game you can look at the scoreboard and in retrospect say you should have done this or that differently, but it won’t change the outcome. 

But before and during the game you can have your “hazard radar” as well as all the necessary training, communications and behavior based award efforts in place and be in the position to adjust your strategy and control the outcome.

So stop focusing on safety results and focus on and monitor those leading indicators to safe performance.  This is the best way to bring about the behavioral changes that will naturally result in an improvement in lagging indicator performance and a win for your team. 

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