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Well what do we under-stand by culture. It isoften a misunderstoodword, so for the purposesof our journey we had bet-ter work out a definition wecan live with.

The noted social anthro-pologistJamesSpradleygives anelegantlysuccinctdefinition ofculture, inwhich everyword iscarefullychosen.

Culture is the acquiredknowledge people useto interpret experienceand generate behaviour

Those of you who mayhave done some investi-gation into BehaviouralBased Safety (BBS)should have a close lookat this; in other words thinkabout how this definition

acts as a feeder for the

antecedents within BBS.Enough of that, lets getback to our cultural jour-ney.

Many people ask me:

Why should we spendtime on this cultural*&^%). My response is

quite simple; yet ex-tremely complex.

Culture is why we dowhat we do!

Bucketfuls of businessesspend time creating andpromoting bucketfuls ofsafety policy and proce-dures. In many jurisdic-tions this is a regulatedrequirement so it needs to

be done if you don't want

to find yourself reachingfor the cheque book.Nonetheless there islimited evidence sup-porting the view thatnice bright safety proce-dures means a niceclean safer workplace.

Traditionalsafety hasprimarily fo-cused on whatare some-times calkedthe 3 Es ofsafety; Educa-tion, Engi-neering, andEnforcement.

What we have seenthough is that despitethis intense focus suchhas not resulted in anysignificant impact onaccident statistics orworkers compensationcosts within manyglobal jurisdictions.

Regulator's too recog-nise the value that

(Continued on page 3)

Safety Culture: A Journey Begins

Travelling around China with David (Part II)In the inaugural edition Iintroduced you to myarrivals confusion andsome aspects of tableetiquette.

This time I am going tospend some time remi-

niscing about some ofthe early morning walksI took around the outerareas of Beijing.

What becomes veryevident is the curiouslooks you receive. Athome I am very usedto being a member ofthe cultural majority. Ifsomeone is staring atme at home I amquickly checking tosee that everything isin its place. In the ar-

eas that I was wander-ing I would frequentlywalk for an hour andnot see another Cau-casian. Indeed I amnot sure the residentssaw many either if thenumber of stares isanything to go by.


Special points of interest:

David Broadbent confirms his position as aninternational authority on the interactionbetween leadership behaviour and safetyoutcomes.

Travel around China with David; take an-other look at the humble Cricket.

Developing a proactive safety culture within

your business is quite achievable when youimplement the principles of TransformationalSafety.

Leadership in a Crisis demands some veryspecific behaviours. David begins the jour-ney of crisis management in the midst oforganisational trauma.

Safety Culture: A Journey Begins 1

Travelling around China with David 1

Safety Procedures: What Works Best? 3

Safety Leadership in a Crisis: A Managers Worst

Nightmare

5

Fire-fighting: Why it Actually Makes Things Worse 5

Some Thoughts on Intellectual Property (IP) 6

Inside this issue:

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Volume 1 Issue 2

OCTOBER 2005

TransformationalSafety.ComInternational Contact Details

Oceania: +61 - 2 - 49343653

United States: +1 - 562 - 2392561

Europe: +44 - 020 - 711931675

Asia: +852 - 8175-7801


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VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

Once you get past this strangesensation, whilst also gaining anappreciation for something wedon't often think about. The sur-roundings become more focused.

The first thing I noticed was thepace of the morning. Everybody isrushing and there is huge variancein the modes of travel. It is not atall uncommon to see several 7Series BMWs and a couple ofAudi 8s pushing their way througha multitude of pushbikes that ap-pear extremely well used. Add tothat the unlimited supply of peoplewalking as well and you find someof what would appear to be themost hazardous streets around.

One morning I found myself walk-ing toward a middleaged gentlemansquatting down be-side a blanket on theside of the road. Thisintrigued me from adistance so beingforever the tourist Ihad to try and have apeek. As I camecloser I began to

make out what waslaid out on the blan-ket. There was theodd bike chain, arange of quite rustedscrews and variousnuts bolts, a bucket ofwater and various spanners. Ittook a few moments for the pennyto drop. I had stumbled upon thecorner road service for pushbikes.As I continued my walk it becameevident every kilometre or so

somebody else had a similar blan-ket laid out.

Coming around a corner mysenses were invaded by a cacoph-ony of sounds coming from withina grove of trees. I peered in asbest I could and was unable tomake out the source of thesesounds. It just sounded like awarm summers evening in Austra-lia listening to the rhythms of theCicadas. I was just about to giveup and the first zephyr of a breezearrived and shifted a few leaves of

(Continued from page 1)

one of the nearer trees. Hanging inthe branches was a small handmade cage of sorts. The construc-tion appeared to be some type ofcane? Anyway my auditory inva-

sion appeared to be emanating, atleast in part, from within that con-struction. I just had to know more!Having identified the source I de-cided to venture deeper into thegrove. Almost immediately itopened up like something youwould see in the movies. Insidewas a fairly spacious grass areawhich was surrounded by thisdense thicket of trees. Hangingamongst all of the lower brancheswere many dozens of these cane

cages within which were impris-oned crickets. My earlier

thoughts of the Cicada were closeto the mark as they are both fromthe same family.

Anyway at the base of the grovewere a couple of Chinese gentle-men doing a brisk trade running(not walking) from branch tobranch collecting the little cagesand then selling them to otherswho had arrived.

It seems that the Cricket is recog-nised as Chinas first insect andthey have been symbols of luck forthousands of years. The ChineseCricket are prized pets as well asbeing highly sought after asfighters. Yes you read that cor-rectly; there is a very large indus-

try built on the Chinese FightingCricket! In Ningyang County (in

East Chinas Shandong Province)a Cricket sold for 18,000Yuen; i.eapprox US$2000. This is a phe-nomenal amount of money in any-body's language and particularly

so in China, where this could feedmultiple families for a year. TheCricket market in Ningyang is re-ported to exceed US$12,000,000annually. Add to that the ChineseCricket Research Centre and theannual professional fighting circuitassociated with the Tai MountainClimbing Festival and you get asmall appreciation of the valueplaced on these little creatureswithin China. Certainly a far cryfrom the less than esteemed posi-

tion enjoyed by the Cicada withinAustralia and many other so-calledadvanced countries.

Anyway coming back tothe grove for a moment;one of the gentlemannoticed me having acurious peek from be-hind the trunk of a largetree. He immediatelygenerated a huge smile(not that he wasn't smil-ing in the first place),

reached up to thebranch above his headwithdraw a cage andcame across to where Iwas, I thought, dis-creetly hidden. I am not

sure whether he was trying to sellor give me one of his crickets. Dur-ing these early sojourns my Chi-nese was quite limited (Im afraid itstill is) although I did know enoughof the language to respectfully de-cline his offer. I think between my

gestures toward a nearby Hoteland my Chinese attempts at NoThanks we managed to under-stand the dilemma.

In all of my contacts with people inChina the genuine friendliness ofthe population is an experience initself.

Make sure you read next edition ofSafety Matters to find out aboutmy tour of the Forbidden City, TheGreat Wall; not to be missed.

Page 2

Travelling around China with David (cont)


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VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

are also going to have to deter-mine what method you shall use tomeasure value) I am going tosuggest we need to think aboutthem a little bit differently.

Firstly we need to deal with thefirfe that good procedures meansminimal injury. Unfortunately thatis not the case at all. There are allsorts of reasons why a companyhas safety procedures. It is just

possible they may be an externalindicator of an underlying effectivesafety culture. Alternately, it mightjust be that you have been finedfor not having them so you nowhave them. Existence of safetyprocedures does not in itself iden-tify the reasons why they exist. It isthese reasons which most signifi-cantly contribute to the safety jour-ney that the business is needing totravel.

So the first step to effective safety

procedures, arguably more impor-tant than much of the content, is

the why do we have them in thefirst place.

Notwithstanding this we must alsoacknowledge that in many jurisdic-tions throughout the world safetyprocedures are mandated by regu-lation. Therefore if you do not wishto pay up in fines etc they are arequirement. We have thus deter-mined that safety procedures actu-ally are not a voluntary creation at

all, are they?OK, so what makes the most ef-fective safety procedures.

They need to be accurate: Withinthe procedure you are outlininghow you want the business to ap-proach particular hazards etc in amanner that you believe shall re-sult in a business outcome asclose to being free of risk as ispossible. They need to be prag-matic; i.e. there is no point in hav-


Earlier within this edition of SafetyMatters we speak about the ubiq-uitous safety procedure. We allhave them (or we should), theycome in all sorts of shapes andsizes.

The first question to ask is why dowe have safety procedures at all.There are a number of responseswe might come up with:-

1. It is the right thing to do

2. We have to or well get fined

3. Everyone else has them

4. Keeps the Union off our back

5. Itll be cheaper in the long run

6. How else will the worker bees knowwhat to do

7. It is part of an integrated safety man-agement system

8. Really don't know; they've just alwaysbeen there

I have to tell you I have heard allof the above and generally morethan once.

So to get your safety proceduresgiving you maximum value (you

Safety Culture provides. For exam-ple in the State of Montana, in theUnited States, we find a piece oflegislation called the Safety CultureAct. The Act encourages workers

and employers to come together tocreate and implement a workplacesafety philosophy. It is the intent ofthe Act to raise workplace safety toa pre-eminent position in the mindsof all Montana's workers and em-ployers.

I have to say I have lost count of thenumber of times senior managershave said to me:-

we have been investing in safety for sometime, we regularly have our safety audits,and we still see people getting hurt falling

off the ladder. To make matters worse theydid not lash the ladder and it also fell andhit somebody else on the head. They knowbetter, theyre always having safety train-ing

This is the nub of the challenge con-fronted by so many trying to maketheir workplaces safer. It comesdown again to why do people dowhat they do. So lets talk more spe-


cifically about beginning the journeytoward a proactive best practicesafety culture.

The very first thing we need to getour head around is the question ofpriorities. In business we are foreveraccosted by various priorities andwe feel good when we promote ourapproach to safety as giving it thehighest priority. Sounds good does itnot! We are saying that safety in ourbusiness has a higher priority thanproduction, quality, build etc. I amgoing to suggest to you that maybethis is not quite as good as itsounds.

Consider for a moment what areyour core values. In my case thevalues I have based my personaland business life on are honesty,integrity, loyaltyand trust. When itcomes to values these are prettyintransigent. In other words they arefundamental beliefs about who weare and the way we believe thingsshould be.

I am hoping you are seeing here the

difference between a Value and aPriority. Priorities by their very na-ture are able to be varied dependantupon circumstances. As indicatedpreviously priorities are always com-

peting for placement, resources etc.On more than one occasion I haveseen business temporarily allowproduction to become a greater pri-ority than safety with dire results.That manager had to visit a homeand tell a family their loved onewould never be returning home. Incontrast to this, having Safety as acore value means that nothing canshift it. This is far more than a playon words. It is about loudly, consis-tently, and assertively demonstratingfrom the top of the business, and

throughout all its levels, that safetyis an intransigent value within theorganisation. It is not something weconsciously have to think about. It isabout who we are.

I recall visiting one work site inwhich a telephone call came through


Page 3

Safety Procedures:What works best?

Safety Culture: A Journey Begins (Cont)


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VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

safety officer was heard comment-ing upon how such an absence wasgoing to effect the months statsand that he was attempting to havethe absence reversed. The focus

was entirely upon statistics!

What do these two examples tell

from a senior production foreman.The basis of the discussion waswhether a particular injury neededto be reported to the Head Contrac-tor; whilst this may seem important,and is, at no time during that con-

versation did I hear any mention ofhow the employee may have beenfaring etc. The focus was entirelyupon reporting!

In another instance I witnessed asenior safety officer have to excusehimself from a meeting to visit alocal medical practitioner. An em-ployee had suffered a serioussprained ankle and the medicalpractitioner had prescribed com-pression, elevation and three (3)days absence from work (an appro-

priate treatment, I would havethought). The trigger here was theabsence from work. This companies

(Continued from page 3) you about the underlying safety cul-ture in operation within these work-places.

Let me come right back to the ques-tion of values; the foundations ofculture. An organisations culture,

and indeed its safety culture, are noteasily quantified; you cannotdownload them from the Internet.However, you can see traces of it,and you can feel it when you entersome workplaces, wander aroundand see behaviour in action. Theprevious examples are samples ofjust some of the insights that areinadvertently provided into Culture.

In the next edition I shall exploresome pragmatic strategies for devel-oping a powerful values driven

safety culture that is well groundedin contemporary safety theory.

Page 4

Safety Culture: A Journey Begins (Cont)

Safety Procedures: (cont)What works best?

ing the most attractive proce-dure on the planet if it is socomplex to deliver that whenemployees do understand the

myriad of procedural require-ments they elect to not followthe procedure. Whilst theremay well need to be a level ofcomplexity to ensure that allbases are covered; the actualapplication demands a level ofsimplicity. Whilst this may beone of our goals it is not alwayspossible. In such circum-stances we need to considerapplying a communication prin-ciple called chunking.

Chunking was first put forwardin the 1950s by a Harvard psy-chologist named George A.Miller. He published a landmarkjournal article entitled "TheMagical Number Seven, Plus orMinus Two". Miller studiedshort term memory. For exam-ple, how many numbers peoplecould be reliably expected toremember a few minutes afterhaving been told these num-bers only once. The answer

was: "The Magical NumberSeven, Plus or Minus Two".


Millers concept goes beyond num-bers. For example, most of us canremember about seven recentlylearned chunks of similarly classi-

fied data. Keep these points inmind when you are presentinginformation to other people.

All information should be presented in

small digestible units.

A digestible unit of information contains

no more than nine separate items ofinformation.

Research suggests that human beings

can understand and remember nomore than seven plus or minus twoitems of information at a time. Thisphenomenon is called the "chunking

limit". Further, as the complexity of theinformation increases the chunking limitdecreases.

By chunking information the author

improves the reader's comprehensionand ability to access and retrieve theinformation

Chunking is arguably the mosteffective approach to the genera-tion of all of your safety proce-dures.

At this stage go back and have a

look at your safety procedures. Doyou have more than nine bulletpoints anywhere. If you do then I

suggest you re-evaluate how youare presenting this information andapply the chunking principles. Re-member there is really no magic

associated with the number seven(7); it is a research validated princi-ple, so there is actually some solidscience behind it!

It may be that you recognise thatyour safety procedures need to bereviewed. If you are going to havethem, and we have determined thatin most juris-dictions in theworld, youmust havethem by law,

then surely itis in your in-terest to en-sure they ac-tually addvalue to yourcorporate ex-istence.

Should you require assistance inchunking your safety proceduresthen feel free to contact Transfor-mationalSafety.Com.

In almost all cases this service isable to be provided remotely to anylocation in the World.


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VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

reactive tosafety situa-tions. Theycertainlycome outand assistin the reso-lution of theincident,and mayactually bequite good at it, although once re-solved they crawl back into the shell.

So whats wrong with this I hear yousaying. Well for a start as a safetyleader within the business you shouldbe setting the benchmark againstwhich your followers are likely tomodel their own behaviour (I actuallypromote the view that we are allsafety leaders in our workplaces).

If your primary style, i.e. the one yourfollowers observe most consistently is

When I ask your people who you mostresemble when it comes to leadingsafety within your workplace what re-sponse am I likely to receive.

Oh them, you can never find them,particularly when something goeswrong, or

Oh them, yeah when something goeswrong they put-in but once the situa-tions over they seem to disappearagain

If the first snippet sounds like a reason-able facsimile of you then you arelucky you don't work for me. I wouldprobably take a leaf out of Jim Collinswatershed book Good to Great andassist you off the bus.

In this instance though we are thinkingabout the style of fire fighting. Fire-fighting is one of the key Transforma-tional Safety descriptors and refers tothe leader who is seen as being very

one of fire-fighting then how can youexpect your business to have any formof proactive safety management sys-tem. What you will end up with is anentirely reactive program which waitsfor things to happen before anything isdone. Unfortunately with the improve-ments to engineering practices withinthe realm of safety it is not uncommonfor that incident to be a serious one.All because the key safety leaders arefire-fighters. You then find yourselffacing one of your worst nightmares.

I am not suggesting you are seen asthe safety policeman; this actually hasminimal advantage; though certainlyan improvement on fire fighting. In factmany line management safety profes-sionals bemoan the fact that they areseen as the local safety policemen. Ifthis is the case then there is great

value in implementing The Transfor-mational Safety System within suchworkplaces.

Page 5

Fire-fighting: Why it actually makes things worse!

Safety Leadership in a Crisis:A Managers Worst Nightmare!

You are a Manager and you aregoing about your every day workand fulfilling the many and variedresponsibilities that come with the job. At times you might even thinkthis is all a bit mundane and repeti-

tive. Well things are about tochange! You are about to bethrown into one of the nightmaresof almost all workplaces. Guesswhat? Youre probably in neckdeep.

So there you are sitting at yourdesk, or you might be wanderingaround the Office or Plant whentragedy strikes your workplace:-

An employee is heard scream-ing and someone tells you one ofyour staff has been run over and

killed!

The fire alarm goes off; you man-

age to get out, and you find thatthree of your people are trappedinside. They are all burnt with onefatally!

An LPG gas bottle explodes and

you have people lying injured allaround it!

You have just found out one of your

longest serving employees hascommitted suicide; left a note andin it said he was finding work toodifficult!

A disgruntled employee storms into

your workplace, shoots one of yourpeople, and runs off!

One of your people is involved in an

horrific motor vehicle accident, they areOK but the other people are all dead!

A stunned employee walks into the

work area and says they were as-

saulted whilst coming to work!

In the first instance, your responses tosuch tragic situations will more thanlikely be automatic. You will notify theappropriate emergency services pro-viders (Ambulance, Fire, Police) andtake whatever actions are deemednecessary to preserve life and safety.

At the same time workers compensa-tion legislation may require you tocontact the occupational Health &safety authority in your jurisdiction.Concurrently you may be required to

contact your Insurer and advise themwhat has happened. In addition youmay be expected to contact appropri-ate legal representation, whilst alsocontacting Senior Management.

Already you can see that as the Man-ager a number of time sensitive ex-pectations have landed upon you.Failure to perform these functions maybe costly to you.

Once the emergency services, andinvestigators leave, the hard questionsbegin for you as a Manager:-

How do you ensure that the right mes-

sages are conveyed to your employ-

ees and their families regarding what hashappened and what may be continuing tooccur; without contributing to rumour,innuendo, and panic?

How do you help your employees recover

from this event, so their personal well-being and professional effectiveness willnot suffer long term effects as a result oftrauma?

How do you get your staff moving again

after employees have suffered from injury, bereavement, or psychologicaltrauma?

How do you make sure that after focus-

sing so hard on your people that youdont ignore your own situation; after allalthough you are a manager you are also

just another member of this workplace?

As Im sure you are thinking about now,there are no easy answers, and eachunique set of circumstances confrontsyou with a unique collection of hurdles.However, there are some general guide-lines to help you jump these success-fully in most situations.

In the next edition we shall provide youwith some of the easier guidelines thatshall assist you navigate the crisis opti-mally. We shall also provide access toexcerpts the E-book Managing Trau-matic Events inside your Business; aninternationally recognised trauma man-agement system developed by the crea-tor of TransformationalSafety.Com


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Level 1, 464 High Street,MAITLAND, NSW, 2320

P.O. Box 250,MAITLAND, NSW, 2320

AUSTRALIA

Some terms are also protected byTrademark:-

Transformational Safety

The Transformational Safety Im-

provement System The Transformational Safety Sur-

vey

The Integrated Safety Culture Sur-vey

That is not to say we take a hard-nosed approach to IP. In actual factwe are often the opposite. As long asour IP is appropriately acknowledged,and permission sought, we are gener-ally happy for anyone to use our mate-rial. In almost all cases we are happyto provide a release for publication etc.

In this time of almost unlimited accessto information it is actually in all of our

A recent situa-tion where theintellectual prop-erty (IP) ofTransformation-

alSafety.Comwas claimed without permissionhas caused us much grief. Apartfrom the ethical dilemma surround-ing such actions by third parties(sadly ethics appears to be a plas-tic concept for some), there arealso very structured legal frame-works which exist to protect the IPof original works.

By nature and condition all workproduced and published by Trans-formationalSafety.Com and/or itsagents, is protected by interna-tional copyright.

interests to be familiar with the con-cepts behind copyright and intellectualproperty.

As a service to the global communitythe University of Minnesota maintain a

FREE public access program exploringthese constructs in a simple, yet con-structive, form. I would encourage youto have a peek at these resources. Theweb link is

http://www.research.umn.edu/intellectualproperty/

Have you noticed the copyright infringementon this page?

The IP image is original work and the au-thors have asserted their rights and thus thework requires acknowledgement.. The ap-propriate acknowledgement is:-

2005 Caroline Kent & Manda Lo

Telephone: 61-2-49343653

Facsimile: 61-2-49343651

Mobile: 0411-252534

Email/MSN: [email protected]

Skype: d.g.broadbent

ICQ: 325496919

YOUR PREFERRED PARTNERSHIP

We Exist to Assist

Were on the Web atwww.transformationalsafety.com

Coming in January 06

Safety Culture: A Journey Continues

Transforming Safety: The barometerof metrics explained.

Safety Leadership in a Crisis: General

Guidelines for Behaviour

A Safety Issue at The Great Wall ofChina

Beware of Some Safety Incentive Programs

The sign at the gate read "4000 HoursWithout a Lost Time Injury". Monetaryawards were given based to employ-ees based on how lon g theyworked without a lost t ime in-jury. What's wrong with that?

Do you want to be the one that causes thenumber on the sign to drop to zero andvoids yoursafety related bonus and thebonuses of those you work with? Ofcourse not, This type of incentive pro-gram encourages employees to fail to re-port injuries.

In the US OSHA recently lev ied a f ine o f $65,000 against USAWaste Management; they had aligned significant cash awards to working peri-ods of time without injury which thus caused employees to hide thei rinjuries. The answer is to change to a totally proactive mentality insteadof a reactive one. Safety mangers need to abandon the age old practice ofrewards based solely on working a period of time without injury, and in-stead base rewards on positive behaviours

Some Ideas include awards for proactive behaviors such a employee safetysuggestions. safety training, and observed safe behaviours.

Some thoughts on Intellectual Property (IP):

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 Page 6

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