Tss Newsletter 04-09

Leading Safety in a Global Recession Volume 5 Issue 2

TRANSFORMATIONALSAFETY.COM

APRIL 2009

As all Subscribers shall be aware by now, on October 31st 2009 I was riding my bicycle to work when I was struck from behind by a motor vehicle. Twenty four plus (24+) fractures later and a Titanium shoulder has been a bit of a shock. As a result I have been “off the tools” now for six (6) months. In that time the world has turned.

“order book”, and income streams, for many businesses are taking unprecedented hits. It stands to reason that there must be a response, or the business shall fail. We have already seen some very well known businesses throughout the world fall over. Many of these were thought to be bastions of their market space. Clearly not!

Whilst many politicians in different countries have done all they can to avoid using the R word (recession), those of us at the pointy end have seen things deteriorating for some time. The purpose of this discussion is to explore some of the likely impacts of the current situation on safe workplace behaviours.

My concern here though is strategies to determine where to carve up business expenses are very poorly defined. What we are seeing is sector managers being told “you need to reduce your costs by 15%” etc. There is rarely any science associated with these “cuts”. What I am hearing is that some sector managers are telling their direct reports to cut by 20% etc. In other words they are trying to build “fat” into the cuts.

The most immediate impact is going to be rapid retraction of spending within all aspects of business operations. That is to be expected. The

This is resulting in bur-

geoning unemployment, and that is always sad! Not an easy place to be for anyone! The “correct” people are not always retrenched by the way. Not when the bias for decision making is costcutting; rather than operational need. Another area that is taking a huge hit appears to be anything to do with “training and development”. Not all that surprising, it is so easy! Unfortunately it similarly demonstrates a sizable lack of vision for what is required in harsh times! There are some big businesses taking this path. Such short sighted decision making continues to reinforce, to me anyway, the lack of relationship between the number on the boot/trunk of the BMW and the leadership acumen of the driver. Why do I offer such a provocative comment? Here’s Why! (Continued on page 3)

Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety? What a debate! TransformationalSafety.Com maintains a presence within many of the global safety networks. One of those is the ListServ maintained by the University of Vermont. This is a safety community of several thousand, from all corners of the globe. There are some serious safety professionals who lurk around this ListServ. If you are not

part of the ListServ consider joining. Anyway one of the most intriguing discussions for some time has been around the question of “common sense” and its application to workplace health & safety. There is some very thought provoking stuff here so I have decided to share some of that material with Transforming Safety subscribers.

For the purposes of privacy I have removed the authors reference from these thoughts. If you find your own comments here I express my own thanks to all who take the time to add value to the safety journey of we all who live within this “safety world”.

(Continued on page 2)

Inside this issue: Special points of interest: Leading Safety in a Global Recession

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Common Sense: is there any such thing in Safety

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David G Broadbent’s road to recovery

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On the tools again!

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Read how David is travelling after his nearfatal accident on 31st October last year

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Common-sense is dangerous. Read the “thoughts” of some leading safety guys.

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Come on a brief journey of pain and recovery with David G Broadbent

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David is presenting the Keynote Addresses at the Safety Institute of Australia Conferences in Brisbane and Sydney (Australia) for 2009

Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety? (cont) (Continued from page 1) I think those who state there is no such thing as common sense are continuing the pattern of making excuses for people. Granted, you take someone out of the jungle and they probably will not know what a toilet is or how to use it. But for the majority of us, with similar social, cultural backgrounds we do have a common sense. Remember those things we learned in kindergarten? For a long time, educators have told students not to pre-judge anyone. That the outside appearance may not reflect the inner person. To avoid stereotypes. Then several years ago, there was an article in a Psychological Journal stating we should listen to our "gut feelings" or "first impressions." That this warning system goes back to the old days of our first encounter with a tyrannosaurus and our urge to run from it. That it is instinctual and a form of self defense. Yes, some things must be learned. But I will bet, that with the exception of those who cannot feel, that the majority of us over 18 years of age, including that person fresh out of the jungle, all know that a hot surface will burn. Or if you hit your hand with a hammer it is going to hurt. Or that standing in front of a moving object will ultimately hurt when it hits you. To deny common sense is to imply that we all have to be told everything by someone smarter. Give us a little credit. There are basic instinctual things that we all have and basic things that we all learn as we grow up that give us a common understanding, a commonality, a common sense. To deny common sense is to deny our common humanity. (Ooooooo! That sounds good!!). Don't get me wrong in my first statement. Yes, of course, we still have a responsibility to educate and demonstrate information--to continue to teach workers how to do things correctly and safely. But, the basis of everything we teach is an assumption of a fundamental understanding, a common sense. My two cents. Common, everyone, it is common sense.

Nice try...name one thing you know without learning it. Wait, if it's so common this sense you speak of feel free to make a LONG list of all those common sense things we all know. By the way, if a wood duck is hatched in a T Rex den it will imprint on it as its Mother...until it gets eaten by Mom! So I guess even T Rex's aren't on your list as those things we should ALL know. We learn our sense of danger and what is safe by watching. It's a learned behaviour which VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

things are good and which things are bad.

enough.

If human beings know things by instinct -and it's reasonable to suppose we might, as animals generally do -- it's experimentally difficult to prove. The suckling action would seem to be a prime candidate, but somehow my distant memory is that it wasn't universally agreed even that suckling is instinct.

Where I work, we sometimes hire city kids fresh out of college, expecting them to somehow intuitively know how to drive a four-wheel drive vehicle in the mud, or launch a boat off a trailer into a raging river, or gather biological or chemical samples in some unique environments - and then we express surprise when they fail, sometimes spectacularly. Common sense fails them because they are ignorant (and I really do mean that in the nice way). And whose fault is that?

For present purposes, it matters not a whit. Common sense would include any instinctual knowledge, but primarily it refers to the vast body of knowledge that we learn just from the experience of living in the world and which does not require any sort of training as such. It would not be difficult at all to compile a long list, but it would take time. And if you can't see it for yourself, nobody owes it to you to compile a list. Nobody in fact teaches us to walk or talk, though an adult may hold us in a walking position and support us as we learn the skill. Or not. We walk the same way in either case. And once we do, we know that we must keep our legs underneath us while walking, if we wish to continue walking. And as we gain size and weight, we learn that it's quite uncomfortable and unpleasant to hit the floor or the ground in a fall. Very early in that process, we learn that falling a greater distance to the floor or ground, hurts more. We learn that colliding with an object very rapidly is very unpleasant, and we soon build on that knowledge to an understanding that there's a limit beyond which we don't want to go. We learn that we can see something better by getting closer to it. We learn that we can grip an object with a hand, then that we can sequentially grip and pull and then very soon we know how to climb. The scope of common sense is very broad, far broader than the scope of what any of us have learned through training.

I wanted to wait and let this conversation die, hoping I wouldn't be tempted to put my two cents' worth in, but here goes. Those of us who have been around a while have possibly been exposed to the concept of "informed consent" - when a surgeon or other medical practitioner offers a patient a mini-educational seminar about alternative treatments, for some or all of which common sense alone is not an adequate judge. Just as the human body's liver does not have an enzyme in its template library to digest chlorinated biphenyls, the naive human does not have in his/her library of innate "common sense" any behaviors to deal properly with ionizing radiation, shocksensitive explosives, invisible fan blades, any number of chronic and acute hazards of chemicals or other hazards never before experienced or even heard of. I have used the term "informed common sense" or "educated common sense" for these situations where native "common sense" is not

I have read a number of these posts and I saw a few that touched on this, but I am not sure it was said very plain. It is not common sense versus training or learned behavior. Rather, it is a complex relationship of these with a risk/reward profile and other factors. Common sense can be overcome by training and rewards. I believe the individuals that built the first skyscrapers are proof of this. For many of the complex tasks that we do, we rely on our common sense and training and understand that there are risks and rewards for our actions. Many of us exceed the speed limit when we drive. Why? There is a common understanding that increased speed equals increased risk to ourselves and others. However, we have learned through repeated events that we can handle the excess speed without "too much risk" to ourselves and others. And maybe the reward of saving a few minutes is worth the added risk. Some of us do not exceed the speed limit when we drive. Why? We have the same understanding that increased speed equals increased risk to ourselves and others. However, our experiences may have taught us that the risks are "too high." And the reward of saving a few minutes is not worth the added risk. The bottom line for me is that this is a complex relationship of common sense, training, risk, rewards, and many other factors. To argue one factor versus another in any given situation would be blinding yourself to the full story.

At the risk of starting yet another string (then again, what risk? this is all about discussion and exchange, right??), here's a thought on the common sense question. I skimmed over a few of the messages in the last string, avoiding the detail (it's easy to see there are two strong sides to the issue without reading all the dirty details). So here's my nickel's worth (yeah, I think it's worth more than two-cents :) Consider this: would you think that it is (Continued on page 6) Page 2

Leading Safety in a Global Recession (cont.) (Continued from page 1)

If your business is going through a tough time, as we all are at the moment, and you are forced to significantly reduce your workforce; what shall your remaining workforce be doing. The evidence is suggesting that the majority of businesses are continuing to try and “produce” at the same or a marginally less rate. By reducing the “costs” they are reducing the “unit cost”, which may or may not allow them to reduce the sale cost; whilst still maintaining margin. This is all well and good. Where though does the primary system pressure fall? Not on the mechanistic processes generally, as they appear to be operating at about the same, or slightly less rates. It is clearly placed upon the human elements within the equation. The above observations have a significant impact upon the likely safety outcomes that shall begin to be seen. For a start, people are not silly. They know they are working within operations under pressure. Many have seen friends and colleagues, of many years, find themselves without employment. They may already be vicariously experiencing some of the very real impacts of these outcomes. Watching, from the sidelines, they see kids not able to play their sports, houses going on the market (sometimes repossessed), once seemingly strong relationships fail, and in rare cases suicide. Make no mistake these are some of the very real outcomes from the corporate need to adjust operations, in the current climate.

selves scarce. They do not want to do anything to be “seen”. They believe that in the current climate being seen is tantamount to showing yourself to the next round of lay-offs. They may well allow processes to continue that are unsafe because correcting them would require “identification” and might label them as a “problem”. In extreme cases they will disappear and go and do something else. The second broad category of response has been labelled “The Producers”. These bods think they know what the “bosses” want, and they are the ones to deliver. They shall make themself appear to be highly productive and the worth of two of their peers. When the tough decisions have to be made they believe they shall be retained because of the amount that they are able to produce. What is scary here is what these people are willing to do in order to be seen as a “Producer”. Shortcuts are one of the most insidious things that occur in our workplaces and they occur at every level.

Consider this though! Some of the worlds largest companies have recently implemented global bans on various forms of “spending”. Many companies have cancelled all training (other than regulatory required— or at least that's what their suppliers have been told), others have implemented global travel bans, some others have implemented global delays on all CAPEX spending above a certain amount. Can you see an issue here? Where is the basis for these decisions? Where is the risk-based decision making evidenced? On the one hand, the organisation is forever asking their people to apply their mind in a risk based approach to all tasks they perform at the pointy end of the operation. Which is appropriate, by the way. On the other hand, what is their current experience. When the going gets tough though, what they see is the leaders in the organisation doing exactly the opposite of what they are expected to do. They experience the business taking all sorts of corporate shortcuts, which directly effect their ability to perform their own work. To place a ban on all travel demonstrates a knee-jerk reaction to an unexpected event. This style of response does not take into account the individual requirements that may be associated with that travel, the context in which it may have been required etc. What it shows, very loudly, is a willingness on the part of the business to apply a very simplistic linear method of thinking, to a very complex process.

So what shall your people do if they are required to operate in a stressed work environment. Remember, they can see the downside of being “out the door”. It stands to reason that the psycho-behavioural response is likely to follow one of two (2) paths. Firstly there shall be the “head down and hide” approach. These are “The Hiders”. There shall be people who believe that if they just get on with things and do not “rock the boat” then they shall survive. If things become evident that might bring them into the “light” they shall invariably obfuscate, dodge, and make them-

likely to be disciplined. Occupational shortcuts are often dangerous things, and there always needs to be an appropriate organisational response.

Producers shall model there own decision-making based upon what they deem to be acceptable to the business. They are prone toward the shortcut as it seemingly allows for a more efficient outcome. If the Producers' shortcut is identified they are

The next time they are confronted with a challenge, why not take some form of shortcut. After all, that's what they are experiencing within the current culture of the business. Of equal concern are the global bans on training and development. Organisations hopefully are providing at least minimum standards of training (often determined by regu(Continued on page 4)

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Leading Safety in a Global Recession (cont.) (Continued from page 3)

larity authorities), although we know that quite a few are not even maintaining that level. This should be very frightening! What we are seeing is the human elements of the operational process being required to operate under greater strain. This alone shall increase the likelihood of higher error rates. When we then remove the supplementary support that is available to support those human elements, we find significant failure events increasing. It is therefore a highly dangerous position to take when one “assumes” that training and development are “optional extras”. Of course, in times of financial crisis, there are programs that might be considered the “cream on the cake”. It would be unreasonable to suggest that we should be maintaining those in the wake of what our organisations are currently confronting. Such would be irresponsible in the extreme, and result in far greater numbers of employees finding themselves without safe and meaningful work. Having said the majority of organisations, who would appear to be applying these generic training and development bans, are not spending any time identifying what is the “cream”. It's “training”; so we can do without that. Here’s the dilemma. As the stress and strain on human beings increases, the level of support, encouragement, and other elements increases. This observation is actually not rocket science. If you consider different periods within your own life, you shall quickly draw similar conclusions. Training and development programs, properly targeted and implemented by appropriately qualified and professional service providers, have the advantage of providing that level of support within times of intense “strain”. They also act as buffer toward error and add a level of “continuation” and “normalisation” to the remaining workforce. Again I shall make the point that the provision of training, particularly safety related training, proVOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

vided to reach minimum standards defined by the regulators, is critically dangerous. This is a difficult enough issue at the best of times. When we are confronting the worst of times (in many peoples memory) it becomes even more tragic. There is little doubt in my mind that our workplaces are currently confronting some of the most significant challenges for many a year. This is made all the more so by somewhat ineffective safety leadership. The damage that the current circumstances, and particularly organisational responses to it, shall likely impart to underlying safety cultures could be highly hazardous. This damage may well be longstanding. Let me present this situation from a slightly different perspective. There are many businesses around the world who have embraced an approach to safety which has become known as Behavioural Based Safety (BBS). Whilst BBS is a highly simplistic approach to safety management, it has shown itself to have merit and value within many operations. The BBS approach is extremely heavily focused upon worker performance, employee observation and error rates. In short BBS pretty much places little emphasis upon the internationally recognized Hierarchy of Control, and sees the behaviour of the individual worker as the key element within all accident causation. The DuPont organisation is on record as suggesting that approximately 98% of accidents are a consequence of human error. Many safety professionals find such an absolute statement irresponsible and misleading. Nonetheless it remains attractive to business leaders as it “appears” to minimise the complexities of the workplace to “errors made by workers”. Long time subscribers to Transforming Safety shall well be aware that TransformationalSafety.Com does not subscribe to that view. For the purposes of this exploration though let us assume that the “employee” is the single biggest contributor to accident causation within your workplace (you don’t know how hard it was for me to say that!). That being the case, then anything that is done, or indeed not

done, within the business that is likely to affect the performance of “employees” within this equation, is only going to directly impact on the accidents occurring within your workplace. The same may be said with reference to quality errors and all sorts of other performance metrics (where the employee is involved). It is clear that as a business leader who is genuinely concerned about achieving a “zero injury” workplace; you cannot achieve that aspirational goal whilst you are applying generic cost control measures to a very complex organisational process. There can be no doubt that many businesses are confronting challenges around credibility, far exceeding those that existed anyway. The single biggest error that businesses make is purporting to locate “Safety” as their “No 1 Priority”. My issue with this sort of approach is that everybody knows that “priorities change dependant upon this circumstances and context within which they find themselves competing”. When we conduct Transformational Safety Culture Reviews we regularly hear this observation. At the present time the actions that are consistently being demonstrated by the majority of business leaders have clearly demonstrated that “workplace safety” has slipped within their priorities. Using the argument that “employees are the key contributor to accident causation”, then it is clear that investment in employee related safety programs should actually increase during times of “strain” not decrease as is being practiced Other powerful examples of this enveloping situation surround the World Engineering Congress held in Bangkok, Thailand. I was asked to conduct a Transformational Safety Leadership Workshop at that forum, billed as the largest single meeting of Engineers anywhere in the World (that in itself is a frightening thought). Flyers were printed, flights booked, etc., when we were advised that the Congress had been cancelled. Further investigation determined that the Congress had indeed not been cancelled. The “workplace safety” component of the Congress had been cancelled. Not because there were not good speakers; the speaker list read like a “who’s (Continued on page 5) Page 4

Leading Leading Safety Safety in in a a Global Global Recession Recession (cont.) (cont.) (Continued from page 4)

who” in the world of occupational health and safety. The primary reason was that businesses were unwilling/unable to send delegates to attend the Safety Stream. I am sure you are already ahead of me, all other streams of the World Engineering Congress were able to proceed. Within Australia another leading organisation had an excellent program. This was an annual forum where all the businesses to whom they contracted came together and shared Best Practice with regard to safety. That forum has been cancelled. This is a common story. A major petrochemical safety conference in Australia has, at this stage, reduced their programme by half. Some of the countries largest petrochemical producers have said they shall not be sending delegates, or if they do it shall be a minuscule contingent. The above are what we call “lighthouse” events. They are the beacons against which people gain knowledge and best practice toward improving safety in their workplaces. When people see this happening at the “lighthouse” level they certainly know that things are not well at the operational level. What we are seeing, over and over again, is that safety is not even taking a backseat at the moment; it is in the trailer. Some companies are actually forgetting safety is part of the journey. What distresses me is that these attitudes are going to contribute to greater injures and fatalities in our workplaces. I have spent a lot of time this Edition highlight the challenges being confronted. As you can see they are significant and have the potential to damage an organisations culture for years to come. So the key question is what can be done to minimise the impact of these events. I have to acknowledge that our safety programs are going to have to take a “hit”. What we are compelled to do though is ensure that the funds that we have available are appropriately targeted. That means organisations are now in a place where it is a corporate requirement to ensure VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

that what they are doing is based upon sound “evidence based practice”. Anything less is irresponsible toward their stakeholders and/or shareholders. I am sorry to say that a large amount of what is being promoted has little “evidence” behind it. Sadly there are significant numbers of “safety consultants” who, in my own view, spend much of their time providing messages that their client base wants to hear. This might be good for business, and make people “feel good”. It does not do a lot for the real world of safety though. So what evidence based interventions can safety leaders pursue in a time of extreme challenge, strain, and turmoil? Well we have acknowledged that availability of resources has been severely compromised. So, as suggested above, we have to strategically target any intervention/s to provide maximum ROI. In short we need to target the safety leadership competencies of first and mid-level supervision - senior leaders need to be familiar with the constructs and provide absolute support. I would encourage all readers to review prior Editions of Transforming Safety, read the Conference Presentations at www.transformationalsafety.com, or just Google “safety leadership” and “outcomes”. In other words do some research, do not just take my word for it. What we know, from the peer reviewed safety journal databases, is that consistent safety leadership has the single biggest influence on the variance associated with safety outcomes than any other intervention. The reason is that consistent safety leadership has an experiential impact at the “relationship” level, and subsequently has a measurable influence on all associated safety interactions. In other words consistent safety leadership is the glue which holds all of these different safety focused interventions together. By the way, did I mention there is a huge amount of literature that also shows a direct relationship with productivity increases as well. Now here's the kicker! Productivity increases without the increased exposure to injury rates. Why? Be-

cause the consistent safety leadership acts as a “buffer” to that entropic effect, due to the positive relationship effects. This is not “rocket science” people. It is the application of “known” psycho-behavioural experimental psychology to the global safety community. Incidentally when we talk about consistent safety leadership, we are talking about a very specific approach to Safety Leadership. We are talking about Transformational Safety® Leadership (TSL). TSL has been developed around the worlds foremost outcome oriented leadership model; specifically the approach taken by the late Professor Bernie Bass and Professor Bruce Avolio. That approach to transformational leadership has become known as the Full Range Leadership Model (FRLM). TSL shares a synergistic relationship with the FRLM, and as such, is able to leverage much of the research base relating behaviours to outcomes. In these particularly trying times the value that consistently applying TSL competencies to the various operations within the workplace is significantly magnified. Indeed, with the level of rationalisation that is currently occurring, I would suggest that to do anything other than integrate evidence based safety leadership competencies within operations is bordering upon being irresponsible. At this point I shall conclude by telling a true story, that I suspect is far from unique. A year or so ago I was asked to give a presentation to a group of senior leaders within a large nationally recognised organisation. The nature of the “song ‘n dance” was to be about “leadership”. That was fortunate, I happen to know more than a little bit about that subject and the various impacts it has upon business outcome etc. Anyway after the introductions I asked the room (12 very senior bods) what approach or method of leadership they each applied with their direct reports. Would you believe we had a few that did acknowledge using a strategic approach to leadership that they picked up during studies (MBA etc) they happened to all be using structurally different approaches by the way. We also had a few that said they had (Continued on page 6) Page 5

Leading Safety in a Global Recession (cont.) (Continued from page 5)

developed their own style. Then there were others who suggested they did what felt right at the time. That one I call the “pinball” approach to leadership; entirely random and confusing for direct reports etc. The point here is that the leaders of the business did not apply any strategy to how the business was led. There were almost twelve (12) different approaches to leadership, all being seen to be coming from the “engine room”. Such leads to significant levels of confusion and randomness within the business. It is counter-productive to operations at all levels. People within the business, e.g. middle managers and supervisors, model their own leadership behaviours based upon what they experience from their own leaders. This haphazard approach to structural leadership within the business contributes to failures within quality systems, decision making etc at all levels. Direct reports make decisions, not based upon sound principles; they make them based upon how they think the “leader” is going to react/respond. This then contributes to different decisions depend-

ant upon different leaders. People work out who and how to deal with different leadership. This then becomes a focus of attention, rather than the sound forward momentum of the business itself. We all know this stuff happens! Businesses survive in spite of it. Imagine though, how well a business could perform, even now, if they actually confronted these issues. If you would like to read a study of some of these challenges read Jim Collins seminal work “Good to Great”. Having made those points it is absolutely critical that organisations deal with the cancer of entropic interaction within their businesses. We know that systems, if left unattended, are prone toward system failure. When we provide confusion around leadership, we then add further infection to the disease itself. When it comes to safe operations within the business, we find that shortcuts are being taken, incorrect decisions are being reached, etc and the factors that contribute to many of those outcomes can well be, and often is, a failure of safety leadership.

within this period, when we know system failures are going to be more prevalent, you must consider applying consistent safety leadership to your strategic armoury. I recommend you take the time to explore Transformational Safety Leadership (TSL) as the model of choice to achieve greater stability , consistency, and resilience within your organisation. Right now is the right time! Right now is when organisations’ exposures to injury and disaster scenarios are actually increasing! Right now is when organisations need to be doing something to reduce the likelihood of these things happening. To just stop spending on safety, training, and employee development is NOT the way to lead a business through the tough times. To just cancel ALL travel is not the way to lead through the tough times. To lead safety through the global recession we must have leaders who are going to consistently demonstrate transformational safety leadership competencies. There are just so few!

Therefore if you wish to lead safely

Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety? (cont) (Continued from page 2) "common sense" to leave a room that is filled with the odor of propane? (odorized, retail grade propane). If you smelled propane in your workspace, would you investigate the source? If you discovered a continuous leak, would you leave the space until the leak was fixed? Would you consider it "common sense" in the American culture (or any other developed country) to leave that area until the problem was corrected? If you disagree that common sense is a learned response , you might be interested in this video. http://www.chemsafety.gov/index.cfm?folder =video_archive&page=index#

It was shown recently at a safety meeting I attended, and my first thought was "for anyone who thinks 'common sense' is common, here's proof that it isn't." That is, if you consider it "common sense" to evacuate an area filled with a stinky, flammable gas, then what happened to these folks? Why VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

didn't they have the common sense to evacuate? Because it's not as common as you think...it really is a learned response.

bine blade fatigue cracking and certainly would not know how to establish a blade safety inspection procedure or replacement criteria. Maybe we could put him in charge of space shuttle safety?

It seems that most of this discussion, interesting as it may be, has been about how people acquire common sense and whether common sense is critical to safety. So, here's my two cents worth:

I get paid presumably because I have some technical expertise to offer, not to tell people that sticking their hand on a red-hot surface will result in a burn. And I don't expect people to use their common sense to write lockout procedures or set up a laboratory for a research project. Common sense won't get you through your first day in a whole lot of workplaces, including some where I have worked.

I do not want to fly in a plane, ride in an automobile or take a cruise on a ship, etc., unless it and particularly its safety systems, have been designed by highly trained and educated engineers and craftspeople. Common sense is not good enough. I don't want to work in research or production utilizing hazardous chemicals or processes unless the project or system has been designed by people who are technically trained and educated in the use of those materials and processes. Plain old common sense won't cut it for me. I want the kind of technical expertise that my uncle who managed to live through a lifetime of jobs from logging to construction just doesn't have. He has never even heard of tur-

So, I guess I don't really care if people are born with common sense or acquire it from life's experience. From a safety perspective it is irrelevant because it is not sufficient for anything but the simplest of tasks with minimal and obvious hazards. For the rest, I'll use job hazard analysis by trained/educated people and the usual hierarchy of hazard controls.

First ... dogs and barking. I was just home on leave and we have Grandkids who live down (Continued on page 7) Page 6

Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety? (cont) (Continued from page 6) automatically connect up to give us some basic judgment are as close as you can come to being born with any sense whatsoever ... everything else is learned and there is no "common" sense because everyone's experience is different. Personalities ... anyone with more than one child knows that everyone of their kids are entirely different people. Each of us may have stood in the line and had our talents passed out to us before we were born ... but undoubtedly the children of an all-American athlete are likely to be natural athletes by the physical attributes they'll have inherited ... but then may have no interest in throwing a football and would far rather work on a puzzle or spend some time with their stamp collection or reading a good book. My Dad is not only 10 inches shorter than I am but never tossed a ball around much while growing up while year round sports was all I lived for as a youth and as an adult he counted pills and pounded paste in prescriptions while I carried a gun and drove around aggressively looking for trouble makers. His Dad was even of smaller stature and seldom left his doctors office .... either downtown or within the home.

stairs with their parents. Sarah, not quite age 3, was standing in our kitchen and was pointing and shaking her finger and really giving Haken the business and telling him to hush up and go and lay day and behave himself. Haken is a 125 pound German Shepherd and she had to tilt her head up just a little bit to look him in the eye and let him know she meant business. It was a hoot! None of the grandchildren experience any fear or apprehension when the dogs bark ... we also have an English Mastiff and Sarah has a Husky in her family. She learned to discipline them all by watching her parents and grandparents. Second ... falling trees. I met a guy when I was living on the economy in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1969, and this youngster was on his way from Barrow (where he grew up and where there are no trees and he'd never seen a live tree before in his lifetime ... except, of course, on the Tube which was probably a rare experience back in remote Alaska 40 years ago) to report to physical exam at Fort Wainwright as he'd been drafted in the Military Service. He was dumbfound or awestruck to see trees really growing out of the ground. For him he would likely have had no "common sense" whatsoever about how far he needed to stand back to not get hit if the tree fell over. I wonder to this day how it went for him overseas ... namely ... in Vietnam ... with his broad sweeping "common sense" but strong sense of patriotic duty. Every year there are accidents in the forest with people harvesting their own wood and experience trees that fall the wrong way than they had intended. Or ... better yet ... a breeze causes a giant pine to slip off the stump and the axeman is unable to get out of the way when suddenly there are several tons of tree overhead that presses the trunk downward through their leg/foot and possibly even through their torso into the ground within a fraction of a second due to gravity . An Unsafe Condition? An Unsafe Act? or a Lack of Common Sense? Third ... bullets. Two years ago at Bagram Air Field, in Afghanistan, we had an incident that illustrates my position about "common sense" which is that it doesn't exist at birth and is only common to two persons who have had identical upbringing and life's experiences. To wit: A young man working as a wheeled vehicle mechanic (he worked on HUMVEE tactical autos) and had been there for nearly two years and demonstrated himself to be a solid and capable employee ... found a 60 caliber bullet in a vehicle he was servicing.. He'd been taught that all munitions and rounds and ordinance be dealt with by informing the supervisor and/or depositing them in a special "Alibi Box" desigVOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

nated for just such purpose ... this training is well documented ... so when he failed to take that action he violated a SOP and committed an "unsafe act" as I will illustrate which will also demonstrate that he lacked what we who are raised in the States around guns and especially in the West (I'm from the high mountains of Utah) would regard as "common sense." He took the round and mounted it in a vise and then he placed the business end of a punch directly over the primer and struck the punch hard with a hammer! Yes, it exploded and a great deal of energy was released with a loud frightening bang ... some of our recent prior military workers had immediate reaction to start checking themselves to see if they'd been hit ... but luckily no one was injured and the mechanic only sustained some minor wounds where he was struck with small pieces of shrapnel that blew off from around the rim of the casing. This young man had been raised in India and had no clue how a bullet functions. He'd thought he was going to get a nice souvenir to send home or to hang on his lanyard as he perceived the brass plated primer and the brass jacketed bullet to be one piece and was going to remove it from the shell so he could pocket it. He knew how a gun operated ... it was loaded with a round and the trigger squeezed so that the bullet would come out of the end of the barrel ... but no idea what the connection was between the primer and the round itself. Fourth ... Ancestors. Jung theorized that we are products of our ancestors experiences and I believe those neurons that

Opinion: We came into this life with nearly nothing but the legacy of our ancestors and the instinct to suck and swallow ... nearly everything else we had to learn including not pooping in your pants. Those of us who have been reading and sharing ideas on this thread ... or who have attended a workshop or seminar where it was discussed ... can built lots of definition and description about what we mean when we say "common sense" but when anyone in the general populations speaks of it is after they have learned of someone doing something that to them was obviously stupid and so they comment ... "what, didn't that person have any common sense whatsoever" ... or "everyone knows that! it is just common sense." I aint buying it and will not make excuses for people from making mistakes either... they will be identified and trained and hopefully that occurs before they are seriously injured ... and if they repeat then repeat the mistake it is then that they'll catch the full weight of sanction. But standing under a falling tree, smacking a bullet with a hammer and punch, or driving over someone on a forklift are all still unsafe acts.

The previous comments demonstrate some excellent thinking in regard to common-sense. We hear it used all the time when systems failure occurs. Things like “if only he showed some common sense” etc. (Continued on page 8) Page 7

Common Sense: Is there any such thing in Safety? (cont) (Continued from page 7)

Common-sense, like many aspects of safety, is frequently misunderstood. I would suggest that reliance upon common sense is fraught with danger. Consider referring to Transforming Safety (Vol 4, No 2) - where we review the existence of shortcutting cultures. Certainly not common-sense, I would have thought. If you want to develop a “common sense” for your business, it is about developing a “commonality” with respect to the culture that operates under the surface of your business. If there is such a thing as “commonsense”, it is about shared understandings beliefs, etc which have developed over time. They have developed as a product of intrinsic and extrinsic processes. They have developed as a product of overt and covert processes. They have developed as a product of things we still can’t put our finger on. This thing called “common-sense” is very deeply grounded within cultural histories though. Consider how many words you know for the collection of frozen particles that fall from the sky. I come from a culture that is largely desert, except for the coastal fringes where the majority of the population resides. My vocabulary for the above consists of: Hail  Snow  Ice  Powder, & that’s it I’m afraid.

If you come from a culture that has far more brutal winters etc., then I have no doubt you have a much larger snow vocabulary. Take the test? See how many words you can come up with. It has been said that the Eskimo’s have words for this phenomena that number in the hundreds. Makes my four (4) pretty poor indeed. Take that a step or two further and we can be reasonably certain that if I happened to be vacationing in Australia’s winter wonderland amongst the snow capped peaks, and became lost; I am probably done for. My level of common-sense as regards survival in the “snow” is probably closely correlated to the number of words in my vocabulary. Not all that promising.

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Yes, this is a very simplistic example, which is supported by many of the comments etc from amongst the ListServ members. I am sure you can think of many areas where you might think that you have “common-sense”. Spend some time really trying to work out where that “understanding” came from. For the most part, I suspect you will conclude that it came from learnt behaviours. If we wish to delve a little deeper I am going to suggest that this thing we like to call “common-sense” might be also tending toward what might be regarded as something akin to “instinct”. The moment I use that language, large numbers of you are likely thinking things like:  “Of course we can’t reply upon in-

stincts to keep us safe”.  “Birds know where to fly to, people

don’t”.  ...........................................

Most of us have no issue accepting that any instinct that might remain within the human genome is very small indeed. Whilst the newly born honey-bee is able to interpret the intricacies of the “dance” in order to calculate the location of a food source, the human baby would be said to have retained the instinct to suckle. Effective communication between human mother-baby takes a lot longer. What this tells us, and there are numerous examples, is that instinct has no place within the safety equation. I would put it to you, in much the same way, common-sense belongs somewhere similar. Allow me to return to a comment made a little earlier. We do know, and this is borne out by bucketloads of empirical research from within the academic safety community, that there are commonalities predictive of effective and safe workplaces. This is not “common-sense” at all. It is about “common-understandings” though. About “how we do things around here”. This comes from the world of cultural research, or more particularly in regard to this discussion, the world of “safety culture”.

When we analyse an organisations Safety Culture, what we are doing is exploring the extent that workplace has commonality of belief, and following on from that behaviour, with respect to those predictive understandings that we would like to see within that workplace. Why do we really want to do this? We want to do this because failure to understand and appropriately address those things that we “know" may contribute to a random approach to events within a workplace, is at the very minimum irresponsible. Our research into the predictive elements around Safety Culture identifies seventeen (17) areas where we want to develop “common-understandings”. These are:1.

Communication

2.

Personal Priority/Need for Safety

3.

Supportive Environment

4.

Priority of Safety

5.

Competence

6.

Personal Appreciation of Risk

7.

Managing Change

8.

Work Environment

9.

Co-operation

10.

Involvement

11.

Safe Behaviours

12.

Systems Compliance

13.

Management Commitment

14.

Shared Values

15.

Management Style

16.

Safety Rules

17.

Accidents& Incidents

Now let me tell you, this thing we hear talked about called “common-sense” shall not get you anywhere near optimal performance in any of these areas. They all take consolidated development, implementation, and integration; with ongoing and consistent proactive reinforcement. The real trick is knowing where the business sits against these parameters. That is where the Transformational Safety Culture Assessment can give real clarify to these often abstract understandings. So maybe it is about time to apply some real common-sense to how you operate the workplace safety system. Find out about the commonalities of understanding and behaviour within your business. Anything less just would not make sense

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David G Broadbent's Accident and the Road to Recovery On Friday October 31st 2008, I was participating in my regular morning exercise program. As a very keen cyclist I would regularly get up early, dress up in the yellow lycra, jump on the Shogun Team Issue road bike and pump out a few K’s. Generally I would do at least 30-40 although on some occasions, if I was really keen, I’d kick out somewhere around the hundred. For the trivia buffs amongst you there is a term in Cycling called a Centurion. When you are a Centurion that means you have ridden 100 Km’s. This is quite an achievement in cycling circles and I was really quite chuffed the first time I achieved this milestone….until someone told me that it is a term which originated from the US. Are you ahead of me? Yep….. It is actually 100 miles. Don’t know what the term is for “not quite a Centurion”. On this particular morning I had arranged to pick up some monogrammed shirts to be used in Conferences I was conducting the following week in Johannesburg and Capetown. At the last minute I decided I would incorporate a 90K bike ride into the pick-up. At around 7:20 am I was happily cycling toward Newcastle, about 25k’s from home, and decided it might be good to just call into Macca’s for a skim milk cappuccino. Whilst moving toward a right hand turn I heard a “skid”. That is ALL I heard! My mind had time to construct only one thought! Oh Shit! Where did that come from? How long does it take to say that silently in your head. Literally a second. Go on, have a go………Maybe two at the very most. So what is the timeframe between becoming aware that something bad is about to happen, and potentially not being here any more. Not long is it? Anyway as soon as my mind hit the question mark, the car hit me! I am fully aware of pretty much all that happened. At the literal point of impact I was unconscious for a second or two. I say that because I still actually recall being struck, though my next memory is of being airborne. I was looking toward my left arm and instincVOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

tively knew that some significant damage had been done. The arm was in a very unnatural state and I knew it was broken. The only conscious thought, was more of a lament. One word. “Anne” – the name of my much loved wife. At some point I would have obviously hit the ground. Clearly that knocked all the wind out of me.

Solicitor came to our home and after introductions were made began to ask a few questions about the accident. Quite micro stuff, such as which way I was laying on the roads etc. As it turned out, I had also delayed his trip to work that morning, although in this case he actually drove past quite slowly and managed to have quite a “good look”.

I recall laying on the roadway, flat on my stomach, with my left arm out in front of my body. My head was laying on the road looking also toward the left hand side. There was no pain, which I found curious, as part of me somewhere knew “things are not good”. I found myself staring at my left hand fingers, as they were only about six inches from my face. I just kept “wiggling” the fingers and was experiencing a profound level of confusion. “How could my fingers be working on command, when my left arm is stuffed – I think I used a different word”? I recall actually working through the fingers, one by one, just watching them do as they were told. At around this time I became aware I was a bit short of breath?

Anyway these bods are chatting about getting me to the side of the road. I have worked in the health system long enough to know DON’T MOVE. Somehow I managed to find enough breath to express firmly “don’t move me and wait for the ambulance!” Had to say this a few times and it seemed the message got through as that discussion seemed to cease. All sorts of things are being said around me and I have “zoned out”. Staring at and wiggling my fingers again and knowing that there is something seriously wrong with the chest. At this stage not enough insight to put that bit together. That came later.

The curiosities came to an end when I started to hear quite loud voices around me. The most intruding was some guy, in what seemed like a quite frantic voice at the time, saying “hurry, we have to get him off the road”. There then began a bit of a debate as to this; with the majority seeming to side with “removal”. It just so happens that at that time of the day there are lots and lots of commuters doing the run between Maitland and Newcastle. We would be talking tens of thousands. It is actually the most direct route between these two centres. Even today, six months down the track, when local people become aware of the accident, there are exclamations of “was that you”. It seems everybody was complaining about it. They were all late for work! The number of people I know who actually “saw” me laying on the road, without knowing who it was, at the time is staggering. My wife’s hairdresser was visibly upset when he found out it was me; he had seen ma laying there. Another case was when I had to instruct a Solicitor, as it want to happen in situations like this. The

Again I was drawn out of my Zone by hearing one word “Anne”. It seems that somebody on the side of the road had decided to take at a look at my bicycle. Clearly on the frame is the image (ICE 0411252534 – Anne). For those of you who are unfamiliar this means; In Case of Emergency. Somebody on the side of the road was about to use my ICE number. All I could think of was I did not want Anne getting this sort of news from a stranger on the side of the road. I pretty much thought there was no “good news” here. Again I managed to puff out an instruction not to ring Anne; but to ring my sister-in-law, Leanne (who just happens to be a Nurse). This was done and the Nephew – Isaac, answered the phone. It seemed Leanne was having a shower. Isaac knocked on the door and said to his mother “Uncle David’s on the Phone”. Apparently the response was something like “Is it important , I’m having a Shower”. Isaac came back and told me this (remember I’m lying on the side of the road with some guy holding the phone to my head – that head is filling up with endorphins). I told him something (Continued on page 10)

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David G Broadbent's Accident and the Road to Recovery (cont) (Continued from page 9)

like “It is pretty f…ing important and give her the phone”. Isaac (who is about 15) marched straight into the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain, and said “He said its f…ing important”. Mission accomplished – and I was stuffed. By now at least one penny had dropped – there was something very seriously wrong with my lungs – finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. Who knows how much time has passed. I am back in the Zone – wiggling the fingers. Ambo’s have arrived and the helmet comes off, the mobile phone is located etc. There are some chats amongst the Ambo’s about getting the Chopper. Clearly they are in a hurry to get me off their hands. It is decided that “lights and sirens” could do the job in ten minutes or so. Somewhere during this confab there is the usual chat about drugs. It seems the drug of choice is Medazolan. Known to be a quality muscle relaxant/analgesic and also have an amnesic effect. A pretty good combination given these circumstances. There is though a small group of patients who have an opposite effect. It improves memory and increases vigilance. Guess which prize I won! For me that is about the time I was transferred to the Gurney and the lights went out. So far, my friends you have, at least to some small degree, vicariously experienced some of what was happening to me as I lay on the side of the road, knowing I had been seriously injured. At this point unsure how much? The next memory though is one that shall be with me forever. Not because it was particularly good or bad, or even painful (though is most certainly was!). More to the point it demonstrated a level of compassion that was exceptional beyond belief. With all that is going on in a major trauma centre, the fact that a medical doctor bothered, shall forever touch my Heart. Oh, and I should mention by this time I am unconscious (or am I). I was still aware, and could hear, what was happen-

ing around me. Despite the eyes being closed, not talking or moving. You hear about those awful situations where patients say they were awake during operations. That’s all I was thinking about. I was wanting to tell the attendings; “Hey, I’m here”. I could not even blink an eyelid! Anyway I clearly recall a youngish male doctor lean down beside my head and whisper something to me. What he said was “I have no idea whether you can hear me or not. What I have to do now is going to hurt a bit. I’m sorry but we have to do this now and cant wait for the drugs to kick in”. Well, he was sure right about that. I then experienced the most intense pain of my life, and I could not even blink an eyelid! What was happening? It may be that some of you might be ahead of the Story. The attending was cutting into my chest wall, and then with his fingers separating the muscles, and finally inserting a tube all the way though to the bottom of the left lung. Boy, did it hurt! That young guy did not have to say what he said. To all intensive purposes I was way past caring. Seemingly unconscious. At about that time the “fog” began to envelope me; that fog being pharmaceutically induced. The fog fiveten minutes earlier would have been helpful. The remainder of the day is pretty much lost. It is interrupted by visits from my wife, and other members of the family. Apart from Anne, everybody else is lost in the fog somewhere. At this point I have no real awareness of how bad things are, or are yet to become. Having been directly involved in the applied injury management field for much of my clinical career, I did have an awareness that things were “bad”. One of my first conscious fears was that I was going to become a “rehab client”. That fear remains today. I am the first to admit that may not necessarily be highly rational; nonetheless very “real”. Fortunately for me, as an accredited injury management provider, I have sustained the highest successful RTW rates of any jurisdiction around the world. So I suppose I know how this world spins.

Anyway, let us move on! Some time early Saturday morning I became aware of someone leaning over the bed talking to me. As it turned out, this was an Orthopaedic Surgeon (Dr Smith) whose first words to me were “look at what you’ve done to yourself now”. Oh, the power of first impressions. This guy had some ground to make up – I had not done this to myself. It had been done by a car travelling at over 70km/hr. This orthopod then went on to say that the damage was significant, and whilst he would try to save the shoulder, he may have to replace it. As far gone as I might have been, I knew that this was an outcome that would not be great. Here’s where things got real interesting. I asked him if he could get a hold of Dr Jones for me. He looked surprised and asked how I knew Dr Jones? The response I gave was that we shared patients in the past. Dr Jones is a highly regarded orthopaedic surgeon. This guy then went on to tell me that he’d trained Dr Jones. Bit of a mistake. My understanding, be it right or wrong, was that Dr Jones had received much of his training in some of the large US teaching hospitals. At about this point I was getting quite concerned about this guy, and asked for a phone. I am told I was quite adamant on this point. I proceeded to ring Anne at home and ask her to open my database and supply two phone numbers. These were for a couple of emergency service workers who were known to me. One of these (Fred), had recovered from shoulder surgery himself. Anyway I rang Fred and before I’d said a dozen words he was on his way to the Hospital. I like to think under “lights and sirens”, but I suspect not. Fred stands at about 6’5’’ and can be a little imposing. In an emergency services uniform, with all the bells and whistles, the effect is even greater. I am told that Fred walked in to the cubicle, took one look at my inflated left shoulder, and then looked at Dr Smith and said “..and who might you be”. Response was “I’m the Orthopaedic Surgeon”. Apparently a bit of a chat ensued which culminated in a question of sorts. “Are you a shoulder specialist”. Re(Continued on page 11)

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David G Broadbent's Accident and the Road to Recovery (cont) (Continued from page 10)

sponse: “No, I’m a general orthopaedic specialist”. “This guy clearly needs a Shoulder Specialist. Can you arrange that?” Conversation over. Despite all that had happened in the previous twenty four hours this was when the Good Lord decided to smile. It just so happened at that time there was a regional orthopaedics specialist conference occurring somewhere in the Hospital. Apparently Dr Smith entered the Conference and offered me up on a Plate. A quick glance at the X-Rays and the queue quickly shrunk. That is how I became introduced to an exceptional orthopaedic shoulder specialist, Dr Ed Bateman. I suppose now might be the best time, there is never a good time by the way, to share with you the extent of the injuries.

First off I suppose you already guessed I had a punctured lung. Next were the fractured ribs – all of them by the way. Some were flailed (broken both sides) and it was one of these that decided to visit my lung. Next was the fractured humerus. This is the big bone in your arm between the elbow and the shoulder capsule – They counted eight fractures here (whilst suspecting more). On top of that is what is called the Upper Tuberosity. Think of this as the ball on the top that sits inside the shoulder socket. This bit had about a half dozen fractures and was sheared off. Next was the fractured clavicle (collar bone) – They counted four fractures there. Next was the fractured scapula (shoulder) – They counted 2-3 here.

All in all, there were more than twentyfour (24+) fractures. They just said they stopped counting after that. Many of these were identified “on the table”. The surgical procedure went on for almost six (6) hours. To put that into some sort of perspective, quadruple bypass surgery often takes less! Having done the “repairs”, Ed Bateman comes to me in recovery and explains what he has done. I retain parts of that conversation only. What stands out was his saying “you’re going to come across a lot of people telling you this is what you need to do for a shoulder; do the opposite. I had to be bit tricky in there, so it’s going to take time”. As it turned out some of the fractures had to be “sewn” in place. There was not enough stable bone to provide a platform for any hardware. See Vol 5 (No 3) to continue with the “road to recovery”.

On the Tools again! Well, It all stopped on October 31st 2008. I went from being quite busy to being quite still in the blink of an eye. Frantic calls were made to South Africa as I was due to present at the Murray & Roberts global safety summit. That was to be only a week after my Accident. Can you believe I was actually asking the Surgeon if I would still be able to go to South Africa. I have been off the tools until April and currently my medical team has agreed to allow me to work part-time. The magic number, at the present time, is sixteen (16) hours week. Let’s face it. That's actually not too bad. Every doctor I have seen in the last six months expresses disbelief that I am actually still alive. Of course the goal is to return to much more than that. During June of 2009 I shall be giving the Keynote Address at the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) Conference at Brisbane.

In July of 2009 I shall be returning to India to further explore the development and integration of The Safety-Net technologies, within one of the Worlds foremost foundry businesses. This intervention may also leverage Quality and Environmental systems as an integrate whole. Toward the end of July the 4th Annual Total Safety Culture Conference shall be held in Sydney, Australia. I have been asked to facilitate a Workshop specifically exploring the competencies around Transformational Safety Leadership. At this forum we shall introduce the NEW TSL360 - a recent development which allows for the most effective self analysis of safety leadership competencies available anywhere in the World. August shall hopefully allow the feet to touch the ground as I continue to invest in active physiotherapy and other forms of treatment to try and regain as much function as possible. At the present time the left shoulder is probably at around ten

percent (10%). So there remains a lot of work to do, and we shall see how much I get back. September shall be me returning to South Africa for a few weeks. There are a few comments I need to make here. The understanding and loyalty of the South African companies has been, and continues to be, exceptional. Only a few weeks after the accident I was speaking with the MD of SAFEmap Africa, who is not only a professional colleague but someone who I consider a friend. He invited both my wife and I to come to South Africa to have some “time-out”. Such was completely unexpected and has been very humbling indeed. Francois, my friend, your kindness and generosity of spirit shall remain with me for as long as I walk this planet. I also have to mention Murray & Roberts in South Africa. My accident severely damaged their arrangements for the global safety summit. When I became aware that I would (Continued on page 12)

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David G Broadbent is presenting an Experiential Workshop at

TransformationalSafety.Com

The 4th Total Safety Culture Conference JULY 31st 2009 SYDNEY, Australia

A Division of Strategic Management Systems Pty Ltd

David shall be speaking about:

Unit 3, 12 Ken Tubman Drive MAITLAND, NSW, 2320 AUSTRALIA

Transforming Safety Leadership within High Reliability Organisations. Come to Sydney and be part of this Event.

Phone: Fax: E-mail: Skype:

61-2-49342351 61-2-49343651 [email protected] d.g.broadbent

WE EXIST TO ASSIST

David's engaging style is sure to educate and entertain. See just one of the comments from David's presentations last year, "I would never have believed anybody could have a room full of passionate South African rugby supporters singing 'Waltzing Matilda' to images of the Wallabies scoring tries; and during the World Cup. UNBELIEVABLE! Truly shows the power of transformational leadership within a training session. Well Done!" To Register Contact: Natalie McLeod [[email protected]]

We’re on the Web at www.transformationalsafety.com

On the Tools again! (cont) (Continued from page 11)

be returning I offered my time again to M&R. Now given I stuffed things up last time (even though it was an accident) I would have understood if the response had been a bit “cool”. Far from it! I shall be spending some time with an M&R during September and am truly looking forward to introducing the constructs of Transformational Safety to one of South Africa’s leading businesses. During the ‘09 South African safari I shall be facilitating Competency Based Safety Conferences in Johannesburg, Capetown, and Durban. If you would further information on the CBS Conferences, let me know and I shall be sure that information is forwarded to you. VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2

October has a week or so away quietly with my wife for the first time since the accident. Toward the end of the month I shall be giving the Keynote Address at the SIA Conference in Sydney (Australia). We have also used the period of my convalescence to redevelop the Website, which now uses a CMS structure. The Transforming Safety distribution list now is approaching three thousand (3000) subscribers. Every time we publish the numbers go up. Many subscribers forward Transforming Safety to friends and colleagues, who then subscribe themselves. Our NEW Transforming

Safety community also continues to grow. During the remainder of 2009 all members of the Transforming Safety community shall receive a twenty five percent (25%) discount on booked services (up to a maximum of $5000—pretty generous we think). We have also created a number of Flyers which summarise some of the discreet services available. They are available via the Website. Feel free to contact me at any time and we shall explore how TransformationalSafety.Com can add value to where your business needs to be.

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