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| | Guess What Behavior Led to 84% Fewer Workplace Accidents
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| Learning to be vulnerable at work decreases workplace accidents.
I'll admit it, this story had me scratching my head. I've spent a lot of time working with companies in tough safety environments. When I think of safety programs I think of systematic, uncompromising, and exact safety measures. I think of the men and women I've met in manufacturing, or those who move freight in warehouses and over the road, or who working on oil rigs or a hundred other dangerous jobs. They often spend up to the first 20 minutes of their day in a safety meeting reviewing the same procedures day in and day out trying to avoid workplace accidents.
Their jobs are dangerous. These safety procedures (and following them every time, especially when you don't want to) are how you get home with all the parts you had when you left. Or how you get home at all.
But a recent study concludes that, when it comes to workplace accidents, it may be even more important to spend some time just being human. Consider this example.
You probably know that oil rigs are one of the most dangerous places to work on the planet. A recent NPR article spoke with Tommy Chreene, who remembered when he first started work on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico at the age of 15. It wasn't out of the norm to see a man die on the job. One man, Chreene recalled, accidentally kicked a handle while exiting the platform. Unfortunately that handle held a large pipe in place. When the handle moved the tension in the pipe was released and it caught the man's ankle.
"'In about three seconds, it spun him around 80 times,' Chreene says. A few feet from the man was a post, and 'his head was hitting that post like a rotten tomato.'"
According to Chreene, he and his coworkers had about 15 minutes to grieve the loss of their friend before they had to get back to work. "I mean, that hole cost a lot of money," Chreene says.
An unusual approach to reduce workplace accidents.
Fast forward to 1997. Shell began construction on the world's deepest offshore well to date. Ursa would cost $1.45 billion and would stand 48 stories tall. At the time, nothing compared to the magnitude of this project.
Rick Fox was one of the men responsible for Ursa's success. Having seen rigs in action and knowing that this rig was going to be exploring water deeper than any ever had, Fox knew things needed to change if he was to ensure the safety of the platform and the men who operated on it.
He began working with Claire Nuer, a leadership consultant and Holocaust survivor, on ensuring safety in such a dangerous environment. Fox was just beginning to discuss technical details like drilling schedules and man rotations when Nuer stopped him. She believed that the primary focus should be on "how the men dealt with their feelings." I don't know how many oil rig workers you've met. But you can probably guess that opening up about their feelings isn't high on their "favorite things to do" list. During the construction of Ursa, Fox put over one hundred of Shell's oil rig workers through Nuer and others' training programs. The purpose: get these men to open up to one another. They did...
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