S11Ep12 Getting SafeStart into BBS

With a 50-year history, it's hard to think about how little people know about implementing BBS properly. In this episode, Danny and Shayne glean insights on blending SafeStart solutions and behavior-based safety to create a positive safety culture at your workplace. 

Host: Danny Smith
Guest: Shayne Arnaud 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Safe Start Concepts in BBS Processes

Danny Smith 0:07

Welcome back to Safe Talk with Safe Start I'm Danny Smith and today a question that we get from time to time is how do we integrate the Safe Start concepts into our BBS processes , and that question has , well , really a lot of facets to it . So I thought it would be smart to have a friend of mine join us here , and that is our consultant , Shayne Arnaud . And Shayne has been around Safe Start well , really back to the beginning , and maybe even before the beginning , I guess , you could say , and Shayne really has a ton of experience with BBS . So first of all , Shayne , welcome back to the podcast with us .

Shayne Arnaud 0:44

Thanks for the invitation , Danny .

Danny Smith 0:45

Always look forward to our chats Me too , you know , and I figured it's time to call in the big guns , if you will , with this one . I love talking about BBS because I think it's something that it's still out there in industry . We hear a lot of clients who have their own existing BBS programs in place . Sometimes they're working well , sometimes they're not working so well , and so I think us having a chat about this and how you can integrate those Safe Start concepts into that is really really something that is applicable for a lot of folks . So we'll dive into this a little bit . So let's start on kind of the I guess it is kind of the negative side of things here . What are some signs for you that BBS isn't , maybe hasn't been delivered as well as it should , or maybe needs to be revitalized at a facility , you name it ? What some of the things that are kind of warning signs I guess you could say ?

Shayne Arnaud 1:37

Well , Danny , I shouldn't be too glib to start this off , but I think one of the first signs is that people have a certain tone in their voice when they talk about BBS , you know so .

Shayne Arnaud 1:46

I think we need to define right off the bat what it means and what it doesn't mean . And that , done properly , it is the furthest thing from you know , from the negative insinuation that people have . But yeah , it could be anything . You know from just a gut feeling that somebody has , whether it be an employee union or non union or a manager , that things just don't seem to be legit and so the observations just aren't getting done . Cards are handed in but there's no value to them , right , for a myriad of reasons .

Shayne Arnaud 2:16

I'm sure a sign that something is askew is having to prop up the process with unrealistic quotas . I'll put that word in there . Unrealistic quotas or too many incentives . I think it's one thing to maybe go to those . If things are dropping off a little bit , you know much like you have to change the playbook , call an audible , but initially I think people should have enough trust in the system , if we give them reason to , so that we can start with no incentives . Because if you start with incentives and then things start flagging , well then you got to go bigger , right , sure ?

Danny Smith 2:48

Yeah , and you know I've , like you , I've probably heard the horror stories as well as people with the big spreadsheet . You know well we haven't done a BBS observation with this employee this past quarter , you know , and so they're going around trying to make sure they're hitting everyone and they get so bogged down in those details and the quotas , like you said , or perhaps it's the incentives , that they missed the bigger picture , right . So you know , it's kind of like Larry used to say in Safe Track , our BBS observation process . It's , it's a good use of everybody's time , but not not if you're just trying to prop up additional processes or don't have the processes in place that you're going to be supporting with the process . So let's talk a little bit about how BBS really gets started in an organization and that really kind of starts , I guess , with kind of the old corporate mandate versus the sole site making the decision to own that themselves , and I can see the advantages and disadvantages to both of those right .

Shayne Arnaud 3:45

Sure , and you know , let's get , let's , let's establish something with the audience here that sometimes we're going to go backwards before we go forwards , just as you and I have done . And I think it's important to suggest that . You know , one of the things that people were told initially is that if you're just looking at your incident rate , as in things that are , you know , downstream , things that are happened , you're not getting the full picture . We should be , you know , looking at signs before the events happen . Ironically , a lot of times people only went to BBS once the damage was done , and sometimes the damage was done because of deliberate behavior , and we have to mention that when we started this back in 90 , while Larry was doing it before I was , but let's say back in 96 and 98 , there was still a fair heap of negativity attached to safety . They were still doling out the punishments . Would you agree ?

Shayne Arnaud 4:32

Absolutely , yeah , yeah , and so we had to establish right off the bat . You had to sort of wake the slate clean and you have to establish with people that we weren't just doing this because of what happened last week . We we knew a long time coming , that we'd had some close calls and things could have turned out differently . So if it's a corporate mandate , you know there's a sense that we have to do it . If they're putting it on us , and even if we think it is unnecessary for whatever reason , they're still going to make us do it .

Shayne Arnaud 4:59

So some of those things could be we were , let's say , your division was hauled in and told to do BBS because my division had three sloppy incidents and so you got the president's award last year . You're doing well , but meanwhile you're told that well , we don't want to single the other guys out , so we're going to make you do it as well . So that leaves us our taste in people's mouth . I think another thing that used to happen is , as was told to me I'm sure you heard the same thing is they they that , with more than a hint of disgust or irony , they'd say , yep , we were told to do it by corporate , but then it's coming out of our budget , yes , so that didn't go over too too too well . And the other thing is gosh knows why , but sometimes some of the people that they would pick to be in charge of it weren't really bought in from the start . So , yeah , we had major holes in the boat before we left the harbor .

Danny Smith 5:46

Yeah , absolutely yeah , and and I think that's a great way to put it you know , and kind of , regardless of which boat you're in and hopefully you don't have too many holes in it I really encourage everybody just to take a step back and think about how you're doing your , your BBS programs and really I know you were talking about behavioral based safety . I guess that kind of is out there , but you know , so many times it devolves into kind of pointing the fingers or blaming folks and things like that , and that's not really what we're looking at with this and we'll get more into that a bit later , I'm sure . But you know , regardless of where you're out of this , you really need to just kind of take that step back and recall what we're doing here and that is focusing in on human factors and the human factors that are causing some of the behaviors . You know , I remember talking with Gary Higbee about this in the past , one of our previous senior consultants who's retired now , G ary , talking about how you know , it's so easy for BBS programs just to become a checkbox , just to become a blame game exercise , and that's not what it's intended to do .

Danny Smith 6:52

It can really really be something that accentuates performance , safety, quality , you name it by coming back and looking at things kind of like what we do with the you know SafeF actor , which is our introductory process for some clients go through for safe , for human factors . We're really just educate folks on what human factors are all about and then give them some real practical tools to begin . You know , looking at things with the human factors lens , if you will and that's kind of what we're doing with BBS observations as well is we want to just come out there and not , as Gary used to say , just look for the okay , well , the person's not wearing their PPE and we're going to call that a behavioral . You know something with with human behavior ? Yeah , it kind of is , but in more cases than not it could be other things , some human factors , that are causing them to do that as well .

Shayne Arnaud 7:41

Right , absolutely and and I love this term SafeF actor , you know , because it speaks to so many things , don't speak to what the initiative is really all about , and so I think that gets people's curiosity . You're up right off the bat . It partially answers it . Okay , we're looking at safety , we're looking at the factors behind when things go wrong , and really I only just to step back before we go forward yet again . I only really answered the first part of your question last time with regards to when corporate mandates that we do it .

Shayne Arnaud 8:09

But you just touched on something that allows me to circle back . Dare I use that sentence ? It's so used on dependent programs on Sunday morning , that phrase . But a lot of times when an individual unit says , okay , corporate's not mandating this on us , but we know we've got some problems , okay , so we need to get after them . Well , that might be the safety department , but meanwhile production knows that corporate's also given them a certain amount of quotas to do in terms of production numbers , what not ? And so right off the bat , you get a little bit of a conflict in that 9am , you know , Monday morning meeting , sure , yeah , and so , and so you know either way , whether it's corporate or or whether it's just led within the individual business unit . It takes a fair bit of straightening out and alignment before we can launch this thing .

Danny Smith 8:56

So yeah , I think that's true ,

Feedback in Behavior-Based Safety

Danny Smith 8:58

yeah .

Shayne Arnaud 8:58

So something else I want to touch on here . In terms of you and I both know it , we go in there to let's say , work with SafeStart or Safe Lead , what have you . And then we , for perchance , we see a card on the table . We ask the question hey , do you folks do any BBS here ? And they'll say , well , we do and we don't . And I said , what do you mean ? They say , well , we thought it was a good idea , but we didn't want to necessarily spend the money . We're being frugal . You got constraints on budget so we made up our own .

Shayne Arnaud 9:27

And that's when things can really really get off the track . I mean , there is a 50 year history of BBS or observation feedback . So one could say you don't get that kind of track record unless it's a proven tool . Well , what does that mean ? Because for a lot of people they stand by BBS and corporate says whether you liked it or not , it has helped us and it's up to us to get the thing back on the rails and make sure it keeps helping us . Freshen it up what's that expression I think I heard you use once blue skies or evergreen or something . So yeah , we have to do something to bring it into the new . But deviating with no advice from those who've done it before is a dangerous thing .

Danny Smith 10:10

It really is and it's one of those . You know , I have seen someone drive a car . Doesn't mean I can drive a car right , and maybe that's not a great analogy because most people do drive cars , but you get the idea . Those homegrown processes , if you will , there sometimes are some big issues there and sometimes it's a lot of different things . Let's talk about that a little bit . What some of the things you've seen out there with the kind of the homegrown processes , the processes where somebody saw a BBS program , maybe saw a card at another company , maybe implemented another process at another company and thinks , okay , well , let's do this and it's easy , here's the card , go out there and do it . You know , be fruitful and multiply , kind of thing . What's some of the crazier things you've seen out there ?

Shayne Arnaud 10:56

Yeah , well , let me start with the word that Americans and Canadians don't use all that often . The Brit seems to use it , but I love it Gobsmacked . I have been truly gobsmacked sometimes when I ask so what are you doing for behavior-based safety ? And they show me , they tell me so some of the crazy things that I've seen in you know 25 years now . I'll start with by far the most baffling thing I've seen is where the company just does the observation .

Shayne Arnaud 11:19

End of the process no feedback or any interaction with the person being observed . You know , and maybe that's the fault of some people took us to literally when we called it an observation process or BBS and we forgot to include feedback . Should be noted at this point that we most often refer to it as observation feedback these days , as opposed to you know , to see the old term . So no feedback or any interaction with the person being observed might as well not have been done at all . Okay , so the feedback portion of the process is where what most of the improvement takes place .

Observation and Communication in Workplace

Shayne Arnaud 11:54

I know , if you told me not to do something and I'm 30 feet away and you whistle and I turn and you gave me a look , then you and I don't have to communicate too too much , but that in and of itself is a form of communication , right ? So yeah , just observing and then handing in a card , that's not a good way to go .

Danny Smith 12:12

It almost feels big brotherish , it doesn't it ? If that's all that's happening , or kind of like the , dare I say , the safety cop , you know , and that's not what you're going for with this at all , true , true .

Shayne Arnaud 12:21

And you know , just to get off script for a second , I used to use this , as you know , with just the ground level troops were not , when they were initially being introduced , to , to , to , to BBS , and I would say them well , look at it this way . I said the need to actually go up and , if not full- blown , ask permission of somebody , to at least say hey , good morning Danny , how things doing . If you don't mind , if you got a minute , you know I'm going to watch you for a couple minutes and ask you some good questions , because I really don't know too much about what you're doing . So I'm not the expert here . But you know , start off on a friendly , non offensive note .

Shayne Arnaud 12:54

But my example to people was , if I just walked into , let's say , your favorite diner and you're sitting at one end of the counter and I'm 30 feet away and I'm just staring you down , no , hi , good morning . I just wanted to look at what you're eating and want to see if that's worth working . I'm just staring you down from 30 feet away . How comfortable is that ? Yeah , great point , you know so . So I said yeah , you're probably thinking I better have known you in high school or something , because this is weird . So I said so let's start off by saying , yep , just want to watch .

Shayne Arnaud 13:20

And I think you know some people used to say , well , he's my employee and I don't have to ask him permission . I thought you don't have to , but I think it's a polite thing , I think it's a constructive thing to do . Sure , so a couple other things here just before I tail off on this . As far as the quotas and the deadlines thing , some people say that you know there's a huge difference . I would say , well , in semantics there is , but the counterfeit observations sometimes get done because the quotas are too high .

Danny Smith 13:49

Right .

Shayne Arnaud 13:50

Or the net broaching . Yes , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . And you know , Larry used to do a really funny bit on that , where he talked about somebody walking around with a multicolored pen and was astute enough to have foxy enough to to write one of the observations in green , one in red , one in blue , one in black , etc . And you know , rumple some of them , step on them and such . So yeah , quotas are a weird thing to do . And then we have the idea that observers have to come up with a prescribed number of near misses per week .

Shayne Arnaud 14:16

Have you seen that one ? Oh , yes , absolutely , and I'm thinking so what happens , if you know ? If you're telling me I got to find five a week and there were only truly two near misses , then I've got to fabricate , and that's not a good thing , right ? More importantly , though , you'll see people that'll argue and they go no , if you look hard enough , there's always five near misses , and I think I'm not buying it . Anyway , two problems here . One is that an unsafe condition or an action is is called a near miss , and I think it's a little different . And the other is , of course , what if nothing actually happened . As I just mentioned , I don't think this is the place for creating events that never happened , right ? I mean , I've seen more than one thing that really concerns me , and that's the amount of training observers are given . I think that has to be the biggest deal of all . Oh sure , yeah .

Shayne Arnaud 15:02

Apart from yeah , misnames and no communication , whatnot ? People just think , well , how difficult can this be ? We don't need to call in the big guns , let's just tell our people to what's your expression ? Go forth and multiply , do some .

Danny Smith 15:13

Yeah , yeah , you know I mean to think that you're going to get somebody . And you know again , I guess I'm taking a step back here . You know , if you think about what you said a moment ago , you know , if you're just going out and you're only doing an observation but you're not doing feedback , well , maybe you can teach somebody how to do that in a few minutes and just say here's the card and here's what I want you to check off on it , but that's , that's not really getting you anything . What you really want is that communication process .

Danny Smith 15:46

And you know , I think in our society today and I'm not want to sound like the guy who walked up hill in the snow both ways , you know , back when I was , whatever , you know , but it I see it , not just with younger generation folks , with older generation folks as well we just can't communicate . You know , we , we , we don't communicate as well as we think we do . We probably never have . And certainly I think we see that in the workplace , where people just don't take the time to learn and focus in on how to communicate and how to communicate properly . And that's really key when it comes to a BBS process , because we want that to be , you know , a positive interaction , a positive discussion and not just a one-way conversation as well , and it takes some time to train people how to do that , and that's a big part of what an observation feedback process and training people for an observation feedback process is all about , right .

Shayne Arnaud 16:45

Absolutely . Yeah , I mean picking the right people from the beginning , the ones that want to be involved , and then really it takes some time for you or I or whoever's in there , to convince them of the following . You'll get somebody to say , well , I was voluntold to do this , and so I want one question answered first , are we just looking for things to blame people on ? I say no , no , no .

Shayne Arnaud 17:09

In a lot of cases we're going to , let's say , pick a name out of a hat , as opposed to going around looking for something negative and just dogging people with . You know , he's got one glove off for two minutes , otherwise he's the perfect employee all day long . I said we want to find a lot of positive behavior , and the same guy that has worried that we're going to victimize people , well , all of a sudden say well , that's a waste of time going out and talking to people who are doing things safely . And I thought no , and so I'm not going to elaborate on that . But there's a favorite of discussion and reorienting that we have to do with people to make them realize that going out and talking with people who are working safely is where it's at Absolutely .

Danny Smith 17:46

I remember I was doing some safe , some SafeT rack training again , our BBS observation feedback process . I was doing some training with a client one day and there was one of the people we were training to observe quite obviously had some previous interaction , shall we say , with the person he had chosen to observe and I think he had chosen this just to be the time to bring out the hammer once again . And of course , I didn't know this , going into this and I'm standing back watching him do this observation . And Shayne , it was so funny because , well , funny is not the right word . It was sad because the gentleman , after he watched the person work , after asking permission , watching him work for a few minutes , and there were a couple of minor things that you know .

Danny Smith 18:30

I saw him , you know , with some some awkward positioning with his body and things like that , some reaching and just some things that you know could really have a good conversation about . But by and large , as is the case most of the time , you know 90% of what the guy was doing in his work was solid , but this the observer looked at him and he said you're working with toothpick in your mouth , not supposed to have that out here in the first place . Besides , if you bump into something , you're going to jam that right through your tongue or the side of your cheek and just berate the guy about the toothpick , you know , and it's one of those that didn't want to step in , but it's like , okay , yeah , I really got to step in or this whole process is going to get a bad name here , you know . So I kind of stepped in and said , you know , complimented the gentleman on some of the things that he was doing while he was working . It was that was going to get a good job of doing it . And he said , hey , thank you for your time , and kind of got the observer , if you will , out of the way there quickly and we had a conversation after that .

Danny Smith 19:27

I think he ended up not being an observer for that company in the long run after we made some more recommendations there . But I'll never forget the toothpick deal , you know , and it was just a blame game thing for him and he was looking for a way just to get at this person . And that's not what we're trying to do . We want to bring it back to these human factors , right , and that's something that I think we can do , especially with S afeS tart , is bring it back to those four states the rushing, frustration , fatigue , complacency and some of the risk that than can cause for us right .

Shayne Arnaud 20:00

That's right . That's right . And just a quick aside , I'm never going to look at the toothpick the same way again after you telling me about that . Absolutely , next time I go to use one , I'm going to be , I'm going to be thinking to be more polite and respectful , period . But yeah , I had a feeling you'd , you know you'd lead me there , because this is the thrust of this discussion here is not to talk just about behavior based safety and isolation .

Shayne Arnaud 20:21

But we're where can we , you know , insert SafeS tart the states , the errors , the CERTs , and that's a big part of it . And the thing I like about it , of course , going back to the very beginning , is that most of the time when we get into those states , it wasn't our idea of fun to end up rushed and frustrated and tired , yeah . And so we're starting this whole thing right off of the bat of trying to help each other with inadvertent mistakes and advertent behavior , unintentional , right , non- deliberate , etc . And so , in S afeT rack , our , our observation feedback process , at the very top of the card you'll see initial actions , which simply means what can you see as you approach a person you want to observe . So , depending on the amount of rushing , frustration and fatigue you see , you may want to suspend the observation right off the bat . You know , lend a helping hand if you can .

Shayne Arnaud 21:14

If it's a union environment that says you can't touch my tools or anything , then at the very least I can just remind the person , if he's already gone through SafeS tart , of where he's at .

Shayne Arnaud 21:24

It's just like okay , you said you got no time here . Danny , it seems that you're in a heck of a rush , maybe frustrated , so I'll leave you be . But before I leave you be , I will remind you of two things , and that's eyes and mind , right , right , and that , if I can insert this as well , a lot of times people have the notion that positive reinforcement is just an atta boy , and positive reinforcement , from a psychologist standpoint , is adding to the reinforcement as opposed to taking away . And so ultimately , we see , the ultimate goal , of course , is to have our eyes and mind focused once we know the job and how to do it , and how to follow the rules and procedures , etc . But the thing is , if we can be asking questions that are laying no blame , no stress and coming in the back door , if you will , on helping the person stay focused or get refocused , then we've done huge things there .

Danny Smith 22:14

Absolutely , and part of the time is just asking questions , right ? Just some thought provoking questions and getting them to take a step back themselves , and it gives them a bit of a mental reset as well , right , and that like kind of what you're talking about . You know , even if you , even if you come to them and say , hey , it looks like you're in a dead rush . I'd love to do an observation right now . Do you have time ? And they say , no , not really , I'm slammed right now .

Danny Smith 22:34

And you at least have a way to raise their awareness level If I can talk properly here without sounding like a bug's bunny , but you know you have raised their awareness level . Don't try to say that fast , by the way . You raise that , or they're they're at least thinking about it . You raise their risk consciousness up a bit there , and that's a value too , right ? So I think the big thing is just asking some really good questions to get people thinking some themselves . And you know , talk us , talk us through a little bit more about some of the things we do , particularly with our process with SafeTrack , just to get those conversations started .

Integrating SafeStart and BBS Methods

Shayne Arnaud 23:15

Well , we provide 88 questions designed to get the conversation going . And and again , I'm always reluctant to mention his name , his name , rather , I included Larry and name there and I came up with lame . That's not a good sign , anything , anything , anything . But he put these 88 questions together at a time when he was starting out in this field . He knew he was going to be talking to all sorts of different job categorizations , different trades , which he knew nothing about . And so he thought well , first off , I don't want to look silly , you know , by asking a dumb question . But more importantly , he didn't want to be asking questions again about that deliberate behavior which brings things to a dead stop and gets people saying how dare you , you know , sort of question me .

Shayne Arnaud 24:00

But the other thing within our questions and I know nobody's seen it so you can't possibly know what I'm referring to , but I encourage you all to look it up it's I think they're there for you know , for the taking on within our website , and that is this is just that the questions were meant to stay as far away from potential conflict as possible , because if we're trying to do good , we cannot be getting somebody upset and stressed , and so I'm teaching those are showing people those questions . I make sure that we don't look at this list and suggest that some of the questions are redundant or too much like one of the others , because I go , hey , if we're going to keep this thing going , this process , for years , we need to look for the nuance and variation within these things . Right , so I may have asked you a question which sounds a little bit like the one week for , but it's a different time , you're in a different mood , different space , and so you may come up with a different answer .

Danny Smith 24:52

Yeah , exactly , yeah , and that's the thing is not as though we're sending people out with a list of 88 questions . You have to ask it one time . No , no .

Danny Smith 25:00

Yeah, we're just giving you the list and saying , hey , kind of pick , pick one , that worked for today , that's really what you're looking for there , and you may go out there thinking it's one thing and as you start talking to a person it may remind you of another question or something . Again , it comes back to conversations . You know , to me I think the idea of a behvior-based observation observation and our process of Rate Your State , which we use in conjunction with SafeS tart is those two are very much aligned . In fact , I remember Gary Higbee often saying that he felt was one of the truest forms of a behavioral-based observation . That was that really out there . What do you think about that ? What are you thinking about is how Rate Your State of merge the gap a little bit there as well between the two processes 100% agree .

Shayne Arnaud 25:47

Let's take a small place , for example . So you've only got 40 , 60 , 80 , 100 people . You've only got so many job descriptions , so many tasks and that one . You know everybody , you know the jobs . You haven't done them all , but you know more or less the stuff about it . We need to be able to move this forward all the time , like you know , like a team moving the ball down the field , and so observations , let's say from month six to 12 , or in year three or four , should not look and sound and feel like the ones that we did when we started , right and so and I think they're less intrusive , to be sure , and just , I want to back this up by saying that one of the bigger not going to mention names here , but one of the bigger behavior based safety firms that started in the late 80s , they're now out of the game . In one sense they're very much involved , but even the founder of that firm realizes things have changed . In a workplace , People are a lot safer . I think , attitudes are a lot better . You know for the most part , and so it's time to move along .

Shayne Arnaud 26:41

So , Rachel State , it's to the point , we don't have to spend five , 10 minutes , you know watching the person , A lot of people . They're on the tools because they like the tools . If they wanted to be on PowerPoint and talking , they might have done that . And so I'm busy doing what I'm doing and , Danny , you feel you know you should get out there and talk to the crew . And you come along and say , hey , bud , Shayne , you know zero to 10 scale , right , Right , your four states . And then , of course , your follow up questions are even more instrumental , because you've hit two birds with one stone . Right , You're observing me , you're getting me , probably freeing me up to want to talk to you a little bit more if I have the time , because you didn't stand there for five minutes . You know , making me feel like a bird on a wire . But yeah , you've put it firmly in my court to allow you to tell you what's going on .

Shayne Arnaud 27:28

And my favorite example of that one day was I said I'll call him Bob and I said , hey , Bob , just doing Rate Your State , have you got a minute ? He said , no , I do not . And he was loud and he was clear and I said OK , all right , all right , I'll be on my way . And he said do you want to know why ? I do not have time . And I said yeah , but you said you don't have time , so you don't have time period , I'll just go . And he said no , no , I've got time to tell you . Well , 15 minutes later , he was still telling me why he had no time . He had basically reinvented the company and all of the processes . I think he changed the product line and I thought , whoa . But it was really clear to me that in some cases people need to talk more than they need to be observed . So asking that question and then the follow- up questions where we talk about what errors could you make and what , what CERT , could keep you from falling into the trap . It's 100 percent valid for sure , oh , absolutely .

Danny Smith 28:24

Yeah , I love it . Sometimes , as you said , sometimes people just want to be heard and even in those times when they'll tell you that they don't , sometimes they will take the time to kind of spill their guts for you . I guess you could say by the way , folks , if you'd like more information specifically on Rate Your State , we did a podcast on that subject back I think it was in May of 2020 . And we'll put a link to that in the show notes , just so you'll have that as well . But really , Shayne back to the idea of integrating SafeStart and your BBS process . And certainly , folks , if you don't have one in place , we'd love to talk to you about SafeTrack as well , if you're interested in that . But let's talk a little bit about just those links We've talked about . You know how the states , errors and specifically the critical error reduction techniques can be brought forward into your BBS observations . Let's talk a little bit about how we can do that and just how effective that can be to help people and why that's effective .

Visualizing Work Processes to Improve Safety

Shayne Arnaud 29:25

Well , I think I'll start by just briefly touching on what I just said , and that is , you know , it has to move along . As we get better at things , we drill down deeper , we start looking for pardon the term again more nuanced things , and so we may reconstruct that card . What I find with some people that are doing both SafeStart and their own behavior based safety is they say , well , we also have two other forms that we have to fill in , and so can we morph them all , can we blend them all into one ? And I think yes , you can . However , there are a few traps that you have to be aware of there , right ? And so that's the first bit I would suggest .

Shayne Arnaud 30:04

And the other thing , of course , is just that if the system , if they are doing something , and it is tired and broken , as long as corporate and as long as their key safety management folks agree , I would say drop it . I would say drop your behavior- based safety initiative . If it's clearly failing . I mean , why keep doing something that's not working and start fresh with Rate Your State and then build back in , you know , build the two of them back up together with something . I mean because sometimes we have to do that , I mean to oversimplify here . I mean you know little ones working with building a card , you know a little house out of a deck of cards and you get so far along and it falls apart and we don't give up . We , you know , we learn from it and we go forward and make it a little bit stronger , right , rebuild it , yeah .

Danny Smith 30:48

Yeah , yeah , I don't want to go back to our childhood here , but the old $6 million man thing right , rebuild it , make it stronger , better , faster , whatever . Yeah , sorry , sorry , boy , that's a 70s flashback for you folks . Sorry about that , and if you don't know what I'm talking about , you can Google it , okay . So , Shayne , before we started , you were telling me about an observation . I've heard you talk about this before . I think it was really interesting . An observation that you did a few years back , where you actually had somebody visualize the work that they were doing . I found that really fascinating . Mind telling us about that real quick .

Shayne Arnaud 31:26

Yeah , I wish I could say it was my idea , but it was a . A fellow was a musician . He may not have been doing it for all of his living , but he was in a band on the weekends and he obviously read a little bit about some of the you know , more advanced psychological techniques . So , yeah , visualize in your mind . And and the other half of this equation is that this was in minus 25 up in Northern Canada at a gas plant and the fellow operated aboard . But he had to go out and take samples right Of various distillates and hydrocarbons , whatnot , and so he had just finished it and he was .

Shayne Arnaud 31:58

The way he spoke to me was if we'd been buddies for years . But I said hello , you know , I was all keen , wet behind the ears . I was like I'm here to do an observation . I was wondering if you could come up with me and show you what you do . And he just looked at me and he said no . He said I'm not getting dressed up again and going out there and faking what it is that I have to do . He said the other thing is I really do have to be watching the board , whatnot ? Because we're starting something up here . He said , but what I can tell you . He said I can shut my eyes . He said I've done it so many times , I got all the steps memorized . And he said and I can give you three or four variations on a theme of how I do that same , you know , pulling that same sample but if things are slippery , what I do differently , if I'm in a rush , what I do differently .

Shayne Arnaud 32:39

And anyway , he blew me away , he was , he was . He said what I'm telling you I'm doing here now is what I do , but I'm also incorporating , you know , some different circumstances which may call for me doing it differently . And I remember , on a couple of flights , a year or two , three years later , sitting on a flight and I noticed a couple of guys it looked like they were actually playing a fretboard , you know and I thought , wow , that must be what he's doing . You know , he's actually going through the notes , the chords , you know whatnot . And so , yeah , I'm not a psychologist , but I'm sure a lot of people that are more entirely in the know can speak to the effect of all of that .

Shayne Arnaud 33:17

And I think people appreciate it too , because they realize that we're doing it truly in the name of safety , we're not trying to waste their time . It's getting back to Larry's initial point , which is , if it suits all people and it's a useful you know useful time spent , then it's going to go forward . And I daresay if I was to ask you those questions and you told me what you do , and let's , for the fun of it , pretend I won't use you because you wouldn't do this . But let's say Bob again I say hey , Bob , can you tell me how you pull a sample ? And I know that Bob takes shortcuts , but when he tells me what he does he's giving it to me as the book would have him do it . But chances are next time he goes out there he's got this little argument going on in his mind . You know , absolutely yeah .

Danny Smith 34:00

Maybe I should follow the step by step . Maybe I shouldn't know me at that .

Shayne Arnaud 34:03

Yeah , who knows ? I mean it's . You know it's a shot , but it's better than nothing .

Danny Smith 34:06

Yeah , I think it's funny you mentioned , with the guy that was working in the , the minus 25 , minus 30 . Wow , that just hurts my bones but being a southerner , of course it's cooled down here to like 85 or 90 today . So that gives you an idea of where we're at right now . But you know , as you know , I'm a musician as well and so listening to you talk about that , I picked up on that . You mentioned the guy was a musician and that he was visualizing things and the people that you saw on the plane with that as well . You know , it's interesting to me our VP of product development , P andora Bryce . She has a music background as well and actually very accomplished musician . We were going to that right now .

Danny Smith 34:46

But she calls that mental rehearsal and I know for me that's something that I do . I play with a local band some , but I also play some at church and often I'll get the things that we're going to be playing for church for that weekend . I'll get that while I'm out on the road and obviously don't have an instrument with me sitting on a plane , as you were talking about sitting in a hotel room . I'll download the music and be listening to the MP3 and looking at the lead sheet or whatever and , like you said , just kind of visualizing how I'm going to play that and , you know , making little notes on that , even mentally and physically , just about how I'm going to be doing things .

Danny Smith 35:26

And quite often , once I sit down to practice it , it's not really that difficult because I've already kind of figured out how I'm going to do it . And , like you were talking about the guy knowing the steps and walking through the steps , I know how I'm going to do it the right way and I don't have to sit down and try to figure it out . So I guess you could say in that way , it kind of raises my awareness there as well . So just of the music , right . So , anyway , great , great idea there , just having people visualize the job there and it just , it really just raises everybody's awareness of what the right way to do things are , which is what we're trying to do here , right .

Shayne Arnaud 36:00

Yeah , and you know , just I mean this is a rough segue metaphor , but just I know we're close to tying this up . And yeah , Pandora Bryce , who you spoke of , you know , apart from her PhD in education , she is what we or the Brits would call a floutist or floutist , whereas in America the term is more flutist and where we say what we say I don't even know anymore I spent so much time with the says , but do we call it process or process ?

Danny Smith 36:25

I'm not saying they both , depending on whether I'm in the office in Canada or not , right ?

Shayne Arnaud 36:30

Yeah , yeah . So you know , process , process , tomato , tomato . It doesn't matter , as long as we're doing it and doing it the right way

Increasing Safety Awareness and Habits

Shayne Arnaud 36:37

. More importantly , you know , so , yeah , we can't give up on something because people get tired of it . Yeah , no , we just , we just got to find some way to , you know , put some oxygen back into it .

Danny Smith 36:48

Sure , yeah , it's about providing that external stimulus , you know , just raising that awareness . And sometimes you coming up somebody having the conversation , be it a Rate Your State , be it a full blown behavioral observation just the fact that you're having that interaction for a moment can cause people to just take that second and kind of think through what they're doing . And that's really what we're wanting to do . I think another thing here that I'll just go back to we talked about it early on , but I really want to hammer this again is you know it is an observation and feedback process and we talked about that early on . But I think that's really really key . You've got to have the feedback , you got to have the communication I think Larry put it this way in SafeT rack . It's hard to change somebody's behavior just by looking at them , Although sometimes when my wife looks at me I get the message pretty quick . But we'll leave that one alone right now .

Shayne Arnaud 37:45

Hey , you know , I get what you're saying Our spouses can affect our behavior , because , well , there's lots of reasons , but I'll just settle on one , because we're often across the kitchen island from each other , right ? Sure , we're so close to each other that we can catch the raised eyebrow . You know , my wife cooks a meal that feeds six and it's really good , great quality . You know , and I'm on my second , third , helping , and she's giving me the raised eyebrow like stop , and I just think , well , why don't you stop making such good meals ? You know , but that doesn't fly as a rationalization anyway . So not so , though , in most of our work environments where we work in isolation or we need to do this , you know we're 30 feet , 50 feet away , we're five miles away . So , when it comes to this stuff , we need to do this well enough to influence each other . You know as to what is needed to get us home safely . So that includes seeing firsthand what's going on , ie the observation , listening to each other and I mean really listening to each other , free of agendas and then understanding the validity behind the proof . You know the principles of how this . You know the elements within the human factors framework that we use . We have to understand that that is 100% valid in all walks of life . You know and just in my last bit here , Danny , I don't know what else you have , but I touched on this , you touched on this but the key to all of this is raising awareness .

Shayne Arnaud 39:07

Okay , so allow me to bring up something . I heard years ago at a conference in Banff that a well respected psychologist told a really hungry audience they were hungry for answers and he said to be vigilant is to be safety conscious , to be hyper vigilant is to need medication . Well , funny , yeah , possibly even true . We're not suggesting in our line of work and the products that we offer that we can or should be hyper vigilant . No , not that we want to be right , but there's no harm in trying to up the percentage , in the amount of time that we're consciously thinking about what we're doing , and to compliment that , of course , knowing that we're going to fade , we're going to go away .

Shayne Arnaud 39:44

Sometimes we try to work on the other end , which is better habits , and I think better habits comes about through , or positive conversation . I mean , we're all walking around in varying states of complacency , right ? So we need some type of what do they call it , external stimulus . You know , whether it be an observation or Rate Your State . Fact is , post conversation , your safety awareness is up , whereas before safety possibly wasn't even on your radar . Yeah , exactly .

Danny Smith 40:11

I remember many of our listeners have probably seen one of our consultants talk about the complacency continuum and how the further away from the initial exposure to a risk and the initial time you're doing something , the further away from that it is , the easier that it becomes . Becomes for you to be complacent . And you know and one of the things I always recall and again I go back to quoting Gary Higbee again you know , the more interactions you have with folks , the more conversations , more observations , those are all just little touch points where we're trying to bump that awareness back up again , and that's exactly what this does . So all right , folks , that's about our time for today . Thanks so much , Shayne , for being here . Really , really appreciate you being here . If you would tell folks how to get in touch with you .

Shayne Arnaud 40:59

Sure Well , my email most often used mode of communication these days is Shayne spelt with a Y . So that is S hayne , at safe start . com .

Danny Smith 41:10

All right . So that's Shayne . With a " S H Y SH A Y , I can't spell today either . Wow , I'm sorry , S H A Y N E at safe start . com . All right , so they got that right there . Shayne , again , thanks so much for this today . I really appreciate it and for our listeners . Thanks so much for spending part of your day with us today . If you have any questions about this , feel free to reach out . Hope you found this episode helpful and remember to share it with others in your organization . For everyone here at Safe Talk with Safe Start , I'm Danny Smith reminding you . As Shayne said a moment ago , keep working on those safety- related habits . Use these interactions and these conversations that you're having with folks not only to help raise their awareness , but if you're an observer , if you're somebody having the conversation and initiating them , let that be a reminder for you to keep working on things yourself . So thanks for everybody . We'll talk again soon . Have a great day .