It all started for me when I was asked to speak at the 1994 ASSE PDC on how values impacted safety performance. That led to research and a talk that prompted a publisher’s representative to recruit me to write a book.
In 1995, Government Institutes published Values-Driven Safety. While some people who read it from various disciplines – that included some accomplished safety professionals – were very complimentary, the ideas failed to gain traction. I inquired of my supporters why that was so. They all gave me essentially the same answer: “You are ten years ahead of your time.” As it turns out, it appears that they were insightful; but, in hindsight, it was probably twenty years instead of ten.
While it was about five years after the book was published that the National Safety Council magazine featured culture as being important to the practice of loss prevention, not much really happened except that almost everyone selling safety ideas and services started adding the word culture to their marketing materials while doing very little to change their products or services. This would seem to be disingenuous but is ironically legitimate; because, everything you do in an organization affects the culture. The question is whether that change is positive or negative and if positive whether it is the best or most efficient and effective way to achieve the improvement. Without measurement, you’ll never know…except anecdotally.
Reflecting on the compulsion leaders have for metrics, I concluded that without a viable and defensible culture measurement methodology the potential for ideas about the importance of culture would be unlikely to go beyond discussions and lack sustainability.
During visits to New Zealand and Australia in 2001 and 2002, involving seminars in various cities around both countries, my suspicions were confirmed. An article published in Occupational Hazards entitled, “It’s The Culture Stupid”, triggered off those visits. It was reprinted in Safeguard Magazine in New Zealand and led to an invitation for me to keynote their annual safety meeting and then to seminars in New Zealand and Australia. Market research following the seminars suggested some good feelings toward America and my approach to safety culture as well. Seminar attendees were amused by me and my ideas, but there was consternation over how to implement the ideas within their environment. They needed a roadmap or “cookbook” to apply the thinking.
That led me to create the Values-driven Safety Applications Manual (VDSAM). It incorporated measurement as well as detailed explanations of the theory and practice. However, some aspects of it were cumbersome, including the critical data collection and display of results (the culture profile). We have largely overcome those shortcomings or difficulties.
More to come.
In 1995, Government Institutes published Values-Driven Safety. While some people who read it from various disciplines – that included some accomplished safety professionals – were very complimentary, the ideas failed to gain traction. I inquired of my supporters why that was so. They all gave me essentially the same answer: “You are ten years ahead of your time.” As it turns out, it appears that they were insightful; but, in hindsight, it was probably twenty years instead of ten.
While it was about five years after the book was published that the National Safety Council magazine featured culture as being important to the practice of loss prevention, not much really happened except that almost everyone selling safety ideas and services started adding the word culture to their marketing materials while doing very little to change their products or services. This would seem to be disingenuous but is ironically legitimate; because, everything you do in an organization affects the culture. The question is whether that change is positive or negative and if positive whether it is the best or most efficient and effective way to achieve the improvement. Without measurement, you’ll never know…except anecdotally.
Reflecting on the compulsion leaders have for metrics, I concluded that without a viable and defensible culture measurement methodology the potential for ideas about the importance of culture would be unlikely to go beyond discussions and lack sustainability.
During visits to New Zealand and Australia in 2001 and 2002, involving seminars in various cities around both countries, my suspicions were confirmed. An article published in Occupational Hazards entitled, “It’s The Culture Stupid”, triggered off those visits. It was reprinted in Safeguard Magazine in New Zealand and led to an invitation for me to keynote their annual safety meeting and then to seminars in New Zealand and Australia. Market research following the seminars suggested some good feelings toward America and my approach to safety culture as well. Seminar attendees were amused by me and my ideas, but there was consternation over how to implement the ideas within their environment. They needed a roadmap or “cookbook” to apply the thinking.
That led me to create the Values-driven Safety Applications Manual (VDSAM). It incorporated measurement as well as detailed explanations of the theory and practice. However, some aspects of it were cumbersome, including the critical data collection and display of results (the culture profile). We have largely overcome those shortcomings or difficulties.
More to come.