Food Safety: Who is in Control? Would you believe nobody?

August 30th, 2010

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eggWith the recent outbreak of salmonella poisoning caused by egg contamination, it raises the debate yet again, “Who’s in Control of our food safety?” I was appalled, but not surprised, to read the recent USA Today article outlining the numerous violations Austin businessman “Jack” DeCoster has racked up over the past 16 years.  Dating back as far as 1994 and as recent as June 2010, he has been cited and fined for environmental, health, and safety violations that include such things as hog manure runoff into waterways, exposure to harmful bacteria, unguarded machinery, employee discrimination and immigration violations and abuse. For a repeat offender with such a rap sheet, how does the FDA and the USDA let this guy remain in business?  The chain of accountability needs to extend to the governing bodies that are in place to keep the American people safe, which includes Congress.  Fines alone obviously don’t improve compliance.  Attempts by the government to change behavior in this and many other situations involving safety and financial misdoings are woefully inadequate.  The shame is that knowledge and technology are available to radically improve them.

You can expect more from me on this topic as it proves to be a reoccurring issue among business and the government agencies charged in overseeing them.  Until then, I thought it helpful to link you to a couple of past articles on the topic:

Food Safety, Product Safety, and Public Protection: The Critical Role of Behavior by Cloyd Hyten  – A look at the issues that arise even when company leadership is diligent about employee and public safety.

NUTS! When Leadership Abandons Ethics in the Name of Profit by Cindy Ashworth and Darnell Lattal – An examination of the peanut contamination from 2009 and the role behavior plays in the domino effect of this crisis and has the public questioning our confidence in corporations to insure food safety.

Behavior Based Safety, Leadership

Creating a Culture of Safe Habits Begins with Identifying the Best Pinpoints: Hazard-driven Behavior Pinpointing in BBS

August 23rd, 2010

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42-17261190Guest post by Cloyd Hyten,
Senior Consultant, ADI

 

All of the talk lately has been focused on ‘what went wrong’ to create what turned out to be disastrous work environments in the case of BP’s Deepwater Horizon well explosion in the Gulf and the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in West Virginia. For the last several decades, many companies have turned to Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) systems to enhance their safety culture and reduce incidents and injuries.  When these systems are designed and functioning well, evidence shows that they are quite effective in improving safe habits, communication of safety concerns, and the resulting safety outcomes (see Turnbeaugh, T. 2010, March. Improving business outcomes: Behavior-based safety techniques can influence organizational performance. Professional Safety, 55(3), 41-49). But there are many factors that can reduce the effectiveness of BBS systems, and they can pop up early in implementation or many years into the process.  One of the key elements to an effective process is identifying sound behavior pinpoints.

BBS Systems are only as good as the behaviors targeted for improvement.  A common problem in BBS implementation occurs when participants select behaviors just because they are easy to observe (e.g., wearing safety glasses), or because they are easy choices in that failing to behave won’t draw management fire (e.g., keeping ladders properly stored).  This may mean that participants are avoiding the more serious behaviors – those that would help them be truly safer in their jobs – just to quickly generate behavior pinpoints to start working on.  Such practices might be acceptable in the first round of behavior pinpointing as a step in learning to observe fellow workers and give feedback to them, but if participants don’t quickly move on to more serious behaviors the entire process is at risk of being trivialized.

Hazard-driven pinpointing:  To pick behaviors worthy of everyone’s time and effort, the pinpointing process must start with the hazards present in the job.  Safety professionals together with workers from each functional area need to identify the most serious risks to personal safety or to process safety.  Many companies already do some form of Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) which identifies hazards and control measures that can be taken to eliminate or mitigate those risks.  Recent and thorough JHAs can supply the hazard lists for each job.  In the absence of a JHA, incident and near-miss data can reveal at least some of the more likely risks.  Of course, incident data tells you what has happened, not what might happen, and typical incident records tend to skew toward the more common but less severe injuries (e.g., strains and sprains).  Examining only incident data won’t reveal the less likely but potentially catastrophic risks (e.g. fires, explosions, leaks of harmful chemicals).

Hazard controls:  Once a list of hazards has been identified, participants need to examine existing control strategies.  If the hazard can be eliminated entirely through job or equipment redesign, and it is practical to do so, this should be the first choice.  If the hazard cannot be eliminated, other controls must be in place such as warning systems, interlocks, permitting procedures, equipment guards, special tools, personal protective equipment (PPE), safe job procedures, etc. It is crucial to realize that each of these controls relies on the behavior of operators and/or maintenance people to function properly and reduce the risk of an incident.  Therefore, the final safety control strategy must include personal protective behavior (PPB) as a component. 

PPBs:   To maximize safety, workers will need to do things; things like, but not limited to:

  • Heed warning systems
  • Use proper tools properly
  • Follow safe procedures without taking risky shortcuts
  • Wear PPE
  • Ask for help when lifting heavy or awkward objects
  • Do safety scans before starting the job
  • Repair equipment critical to safety in a timely manner

BBS participants should select serious hazards to address and the critical behaviors necessary to make safety controls effective and reduce the risk of injury or incident.  Identifying hazards first can prevent falling into the trap of picking behaviors that won’t truly improve safety.  Hazard-driven pinpointing will take more time than simply asking, “Anybody have ideas for our next behavior?” but the payoff will come in a more robust BBS process that can lead to meaningful improvements in safety.

Behavior Based Safety, feedback

Managing the Albert Haynesworths

August 20th, 2010

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With the new NFL season upon us, I had the opportunity to write an article for the Washington Post about how Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan has so far bucked the prevailing trend in managing football prima donnas, in particular with superstar nose tackle Albert Haynesworth.　Using the NFL and Shanahan as an example, I introduce how business leaders can learn a positive lesson for bringing star talent onto their team. I hope you enjoy reading the article as much as I did writing it.

Go to article…

Consequences, Leadership, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement, punishment

Fostering Creativity in the Workplace

August 9th, 2010

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creativityI read an article recently (ABC News) that reported on what the magical number of emails a person can “stand” a day before they feel overloaded: 50 emails! That is not the number they receive, only the number before they feel stressed. With an estimated 1.6 billion people globally using email, I have to ask, “What effect do all these emails have on productivity and performance, or more critical to a company’s bottom line, on creativity?”   While we certainly could not conduct business without email today, the promise of increased efficiency and creativity is in many cases unrealized.  While most emails seem distracting to organizational objectives, the opportunity to increase creativity is large.

Let me first clear up the myth that creativity is something that some people have and others do not; while most people think that some people are more genetically predisposed to creativity than others are, creativity is behavior, and as such it can be increased or decreased like any other behavior.  Email has tremendous potential to increase creativity but unless managers understand the science of behavior it can be more of a punisher than a reinforcer of creativity.

Here are a few tips for how you might approach creativity in an email dominated world.

  • Reinforce all ideas: Any behavior that indicates a person is thinking about how to do a job better or how to find a new or improved product or service should be reinforced. An idea that  seems trivial or outrageous may be the father to one that generates a more efficient process, product or service.  Email gives a manager many opportunities to increase behavior aimed at leading an organization and “thinking outside the box.”
  • Remove obstacles that are punishing or penalizing creativity: It has been proven that the shorter the time between the submission of an idea and the acknowledgement of the submission, the more willing employees will be to offer up suggestions or share their ideas. By responding quickly, you reinforce their efforts to think creatively.  Equally important is that the process for doing so not be cumbersome. The easier you make it to get an idea into the system, the higher the number of suggestion you will get.  Email automatically documents suggestions for improvement and speeds action; both increase participation in idea generation.
  • Form unlikely teams: Step away from traditional work groups and engage your employees to work with employees outside the usual distribution lists. By forming diverse teams, you will increase the opportunities and discover new ways to solve problems.  Changing teams with email is as simple as changing the distribution list.
  • Train performers to fluency: When employees are fluent (automatic, non-hesitant responding) in their jobs, they have more cognitive time to consider alternative ways to accomplish job objectives.  Most organizations train employees in such a way that fluency is not attained until they have been on the job for months or even years. Computer technology can produce fluency in days or weeks.
  • Look to unlikely people:  Robert Epstein, a prominent creativity researcher, says, “All behavior is equally creative.”  I agree.  We never do the same thing in exactly the same way twice – creating potentially creative variance.   This means that everyone has tremendous creative potential when properly managed.  When organizations think that only certain people have creative ability, most of the potential for change is lost and involvement is diminished considerably.    

In the final analysis, when creativity is understood as behavior that all can exhibit, it can be increased many times its current rates.  Modern technology, including email, increases that ability.

Additional Resources:
Bringing Out the Best in People, Aubrey C. Daniels, Ph.D.
“Generativity Theory“, Robert Epstein, Ph.D., (chapter from) Encyclopedia of Creativity, Pritzker & Runco, Academic Press (1999).

Creativity, Positive Reinforcement, feedback

OOPS #10: The Budget Process

August 5th, 2010

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P31

Managers learn the budget game quickly or they don’t survive.  Ask for more than you need in the hope that you will get just what you need.  Learn why this wastes time and money and what to do instead.

 


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Goals, Podcasts

Employees have spoken…fear and failed leadership prove disastrous in safety

July 26th, 2010

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Guest post by Judy Agnew.

oil-spillFinally, we hear the truth! In a July 21st  NY Times article, “Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety” results of a confidential survey completed by employees in the weeks before the rig exploded are unveiled. Most alarmingly, safety concerns of workers on the rig included: fear of reporting mistakes, observed unsafe behavior, unreliable and unsafe equipment and poor decision making. A spokesperson for Transocean is also cited as saying “the Deepwater Horizon had seven consecutive years without a single lost-time incident or major environmental event”. How can an organization hail low or zero incidents when their corporate culture is one of fear and unsafe practices?

As someone who has consulted with companies large and small about their behavior-based safety practices, I can tell you that this issue, although mostly unintentional, is present to some degree in many organizations. When senior leaders focus on incident rate as their primary measure of safety they will never really know how safe their organizations are. Is it a fluke that this rig had seven years without an incident and then had an incident leading to 11 deaths and the most devastating and catastrophic oil spill in history? No. There were plenty of predictors, many of them highlighted in the report. All of them pointing to poor safety leadership. Based on my expertise with the science of behavior and in working in these environments, I offer a scientific perspective to the concerns that were revealed:

Fear of reporting mistakes
Organizations can never achieve safety excellence if they have a culture of fear. The survey showed that rig employees feared reporting mistakes or other problems. The fear undoubtedly came from senior leaderships’ use of negative reinforcement and punishment (one worker was quoted as saying “The company is always using fear tactics”). The side effect of this strategy is that mistakes, near misses and other problems are not brought forth to be corrected, they are hidden like a ticking time bomb, that in this case ignited.

Unsafe behavior
Employees stated that company plans were not carried out properly and they “often saw unsafe behavior on the rig”. It appears they had a behavior-based safety process in place but it was being pencil-whipped at least some of the time. What was leadership doing to ensure the integrity of the system? Just having a system in place isn’t enough; the system needs to demonstrate impact.

Equipment/maintenance problems
Workers reported equipment reliability problems, failure to inspect on a regular basis, and a huge backlog of maintenance jobs undone. Maintaining a safe physical environment is one of the most important roles of leadership in safety but clearly it was not a priority in this case.

This article is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the genesis of this disaster as it highlights the danger of the approach many senior leaders take to safety: focus on production and let incident rate be your barometer of when the focus needs to shift to safety. The question is, are you safe by accident? I urge you to take steps now to strengthen your safety leadership.

Judy Agnew is Vice President of Safety Solutions for Aubrey Daniels International and co-author with Aubrey C. Daniels of an upcoming book on safety leadership.

Behavior Based Safety, Leadership, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement

Words, Just Words

June 30th, 2010

2 Comments »

wordsI was asked the following question on the blog: “People talk about the difference between transactional and transformational leadership behaviours. Is this something you could blog about, the associated behaviours and the different sources and applications of consequences?”

My raw and unscientific response to this type of leadership literature (transactional vs. transformational) is that it is a lot of academic gobble-de-goop.  In my experience all that changes when people read these books is the way they talk about leadership.  As President Obama might comment, “Words, just words.”

Here is a sample from a web article by Iain Hay titled, Transformational Leadership: Characteristics and Criticisms.  

“Transformational leaders elevate people from low levels of need, focused on survival (following Maslow’s hierarchy), to higher levels (Kelly, 2003; Yukl, 1989).”

“They may also motivate followers to transcend their own interests for some other collective purpose (Feinberg, Ostroff & Burke, 2005, p. 471) but typically help followers satisfy as many of their individual human needs as possible, appealing notably to higher order needs (e.g. to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy).”

“Transformational leaders are said to engender trust, admiration, loyalty and respect amongst their followers (Barbuto, 2005, p. 28).”

“This form of leadership requires that leaders engage with followers as ‘whole’ people, rather than simply as an ‘employee’ for example. In effect, transformational leaders emphasize the actualization of followers (Rice, 1993)”

In my 40 plus years of working with executives and managers, I have not heard one refer to these concepts or this literature.  Consultants and trainers may talk about them but everyday managers don’t.  The reason is at the heart of the “Ask Aubrey” question.  The associated behaviors and different applications of consequences cannot easily be determined from these theories and literature.  What would you tell someone to do to “engage followers as ‘whole people’”?  How would a leader measure movement from a transactional leader to a transformational one?  It can’t be done with these descriptions. These are labels—attribution after the fact, words looking for a home.

In the book, Measure of a Leader, James Daniels and I moved away from theory to specifying measures of leadership in a way that would allow one to track leadership effectiveness from day to day.  Our experience is that if someone can’t answer the question, “What would that look like?” or “What would I see you doing?,” instruction in these concepts is a waste of time.  Once we stop looking for “transformational leadership” and start observing actions, we discover measureable and repeatable patterns of behavior. 

While I understand the intent of the books on transformational leadership by Burns and Bass[i][ii],too much is left to the imagination of the practitioner for implementation.  It has been said that the devil is in the details.  The problem here is that there are no details.

 

[i] Burns, J.M, (1978), Leadership, N.Y, Harper and Raw.
[ii]  Bass, B. M, (1985), Leadership and Performance, N.Y. Free Press.  

Measure of a Leader

Ask Aubrey, Leadership

Paying for Good Behavior?

June 29th, 2010

1 Comment »

NBC had a segment on Today called, Paying for Good Behavior. Jane Chatzky, Matt Lauer and the companies discussed need to have a better understanding of positive reinforcement. Money can certainly be a motivator under some circumstances. Whether it is the most effective or efficient in the cases discussed is the issue. In some of the cases they are a waste of money and time and in others they create more problems than they solve. Would anyone start smoking so that they could get money for stopping?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Behavior 101, Consequences, Incentives, Positive Reinforcement

Should Performance be Measured Daily?

June 22nd, 2010

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Measurement Video SnapshotA recently published book on the topic of annual performance reviews was brought to my attention this week.  It’s getting quite a bit of press and while I haven’t read it, from one of the articles I have seen, it still lacks a ‘prescription’ for what to do instead.  I took to my Flip Video camera to share my views on why and when to measure employee performance.  The value is not just for the organization but should benefit the performer as well.  The benefit to the employee is misunderstood and consequently overlooked when considering a measurement system. 

I have said many times that the best job you will ever have is one where you know at the end of the day how well you performed.  Most employees don’t have such a job now but with increased ability to measure performance through modern technology, managers can, and should, provide them. Organizations need to drastically change the method and frequency by which they measure employee performance.  Measurement allows performers to see the small improvements that occur over time and in doing so, it allows managers many more opportunities to provide positive reinforcement.  Annual performance appraisals have never been successful at getting more of the behavior an organization needs and they certainly don’t provide any opportunities to provide positive reinforcement to your employees in a meaningful and productive way.  If you are accountable for the performance of others, you really ought to consider attending  Designing a Performance Measurement System  led by Dr. Bill Abernathy.

Since there is much to be said on the subject of effective performance measurement, I would suggest that you take a look at my blog post from earlier this month. It is a podcast on Oops! #3: Performance Appraisals. 

With a system that allows performers to see their accomplishments daily and with managers and supervisors who understand how to deliver positive reinforcement effectively you will be able to create a high performance culture where everyone wins.

Incentives, Performance Appraisal

Drive Me Crazy, Part 2

June 14th, 2010

5 Comments »

2007.APMT Photo Oct 002This Pink thing keeps resurfacing.  He has a new video on YouTube that uses some real neat white board technology that is attracting attention.  Unfortunately, the message on the white board is the same as his book, only the medium is different.  Although there are many things about his speeches and writing that bother me, I will list only a few here.

  1. Pink’s understanding of motivation seems to rely heavily on Edward Deci’s work on intrinsic motivation and Dan Ariely’s study of monetary incentives in India and with college students in the U.S.  I have examined the studies he refers to and there are many methodological problems with them.  As I read them, both authors generalize beyond their data and Pink generalizes even further.  I will not take the time to write about all the problems in the research, but if you are interested make a comment about that and I will be happy to detail them for you later.

    2.  

  2. Although Pink considers IF/THEN rewards “so last century,” he seems to discount them in his own life.  “If you commit to write a book Mr. Pink then we will give you a cash advance.”  “ If you give a speech then we will pay you a speaker’s fee plus expenses.”

    3.  

  3. Pink never met a popular writer that he didn’t like.  He tries to fit them all into “his science “ and overlooks contradictions in his examples.  In his section on The Zen of Compensation (p171), he says, “Paying people the Type I way doesn’t mean paying everyone the same amount.  If Fred has a harder job or contributes more to the organization than you, he deserves a richer deal.”  Excuse me, but isn’t that an IF/THEN?  He states (p.208) that “humans by their nature seek purpose—a cause greater and more enduring than themselves.”  Does he mean all humans or just those who are doing 21st century type work?

    4.  

  4. Pink presents no science of behavior in his books.  Just because a study has an experimental and control group does not make it scientific.  Additionally, a variety of scientific studies does not constitute a science. Pink constantly hedges his bets on his presentation of “the surprising truth about what motivates us.”  He has a section called: Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t work.  Wait a minute.  I thought this was about science.  He divides behavior into two classes, Type I and Type X.  Type I is behavior “fueled by intrinsic desires more than extrinsic ones.”  You can guess that Type X is motivated by extrinsic more than intrinsic ones.  (I will have more to say about extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation in another blog.)  However, he then goes on to say that nobody exhibits only Type I or Type X behavior.  Isn’t science about universal laws?  When does the law of gravity not work?  When does combining two molecules of hydrogen with one molecule of oxygen not produce water?  A science of behavior applies to all behavior everywhere.  Nothing in the book applies to behavior everywhere.

    5.  

  5. Pink evidences no understanding of the concept or practice of positive reinforcement.  Every individual on the face of the earth has a different set of reinforcers.  Behavioral economists assume money is a universal reinforcer.  It is not.  Nothing is a positive reinforcer to everyone.  Everything is a reinforcer to someone.  Can reinforcers be used badly?  You bet.   Do most organizations understand the proper use of rewards and reinforcers (they are different)?  No.  As I have said often, “you don’t always get more of what you reward but you always get more of what you reinforce.”  Positive reinforcement is as reliable in its effects on behavior as is gravity.  Pink is not the only popular business writer that doesn’t understand that fact.

    6.  

  6. And the last thing for today is the one that I find the most offensive.  Inherent in his book is the notion of a class society that I reject.  According to Pink, some people who have routine repetitive jobs are impacted by carrot and stick (inferior rewards) where as people engaged in the important work of the new century (creative work) seek more noble rewards (autonomy, mastery and purpose).  Does he not think that Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who built great civilizations were motivated by noble rewards?  Isn’t everybody.  (I think Pink was in politics too long.)  All you have to do to understand that there are people at the front-line of every organization who are motivated as much by autonomy, mastery and purpose, is to watch Undercover Boss on Sunday night.  These are conditions that are not the province of a few, they are important to all.

There, I feel better now.

Consequences, Motivation

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