Safety Moment - The Power of Weak Signals in Safety Management

Show Transcript

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Hi everybody and welcome to the Pre-Accident Investigation Safety Moment.

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I'm your host, Todd Conklin. So have you ever crossed a street?

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I'm sure you have. That's kind of a dumb question.

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Have you ever gone to a street corner and pushed the crosswalk button?

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Now that button's got a name. Actually, the official name for that in traffic

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safety parlance is a BEG button.

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B-E-G button. BEG button. Have you ever crossed a street, pushed that BEG button,

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started to cross, and the little indicator on the other side,

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the walking man and the stopping man, started flashing well before you could

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even get halfway across the street.

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In fact, it would be impossible for a normal person walking a normal speed to

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ever officially cross the street based upon the timing of that signal.

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That problem is called signal strength.

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And in human factors, we need to make sure that the signals we send our workers,

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in fact, align with the tasks the worker has to do.

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One of the ways to identify poor signal strength is to listen for weak signals.

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Listen for ways people tell you that the process causes them some kind of operational pain.

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Your job, like a doctor, is to go out and diagnose problems before they become events. fence.

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And one of the ways to do that, because it's impossible to predict the future,

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we can't do that worth a crap.

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But one of the ways to do that is to look for weak signals that indicate bad signal strength.

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A door that you can't tell if you push or pull is bad signal strength.

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A sign, open valve slowly, is bad signal strength.

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All of those are weak signals that potentially help us understand that there's

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a problem in the system, and if we can identify that problem before it has consequence,

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then that allows us the ability to actually make the system stronger.

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And when the system's stronger, the system's safer.

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Your job as a manager, as a leader in your organization, is to listen to the

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workers and ask them where the signal strength is not correct.

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Where are those weak signals in the system.

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And when they help you identify them, your commitment to them is to make it better.

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That's the safety moment for today. I hope you've enjoyed it.

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It's the power of weak signals.

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Have as much fun as you possibly can. Learn something new every single day.

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And for goodness sakes, be smart.

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Music.