Premium On Safety - Issue 14, 2014 - 6

SmS CoRNER

Safety Culture...
your environment with a discerning eye to
identify and rectify them.
People
It's the 'people' arena that presents the
majority of safety opportunities: opportunities to avoid a safety infraction, mitigate
safety risks, and even create a safety hazard situation. Sure, we can see when someone is acting in an unsafe manner (texting
and walking; texting and driving; walking
and talking on the phone; driving and talking on the phone; doing too many things at
one time; driving a tug with no help; juggling
papers, coffee, cell phone, and a conversation with the person behind them). We may
even be alert enough to catch ourselves
before we do something unsafe. Visible
words and actions are the tip of the iceberg;
it's the other two elements that are below
the surface where safe or unsafe behaviors
actually begin.
Separating the 'people' portion into two
distinct areas-yourself and others-provides
us with two possibly very different perspectives. Although there are many overlaps, raising your awareness of what you are thinking
and feeling is easier (easier, not necessarily
easy) than knowing or projecting what someone else is thinking and feeling. We judge
ourselves by our intentions and we judge
others by their behaviors.
The real reason you act the way you do
is the same reason others act the way they
do. The two elements behind every action
are thinking and feeling. Your thinking and
your emotions (what you are feeling) influence each other, and those two (combined)
shape what you say and what you do.
THINK

FEEL

SAy
& DO

You can act without consciously thinking;
for example, when you drive to work your
mind is not attentive to each and every
action (moving your foot from the gas to the
brake). You can also act without consciously
thinking by immediately hitting the 'reply all'
as a reaction to a (perceived) insulting or
professionally attacking email message.
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(continued from page 5)

Yourself
Your mental state affects your behaviors.
To clarify, your mental state is the combination of what you are thinking and what you
are feeling. Your thoughts fuel your feelings (you think about a recent argument or
strong disagreement and you begin to feel
angrier or more frustrated). The more you
think about the event, the stronger your
feelings become. The stronger your feelings,
the more intensely and longer you mentally
rehash the event. You see where this is
going, don't you?
As much as you believe you can multitask (thinking about the event and continuing to work at your peak), you are
deceiving yourself. Your brain cannot hold
two thoughts at the exact same time. You
cannot read a manual to comprehend and
remember and simultaneously listen to a
conversation. You will miss pieces of each.
Have you ever turned down the radio when
you were lost or when you were mentally trying to solve a problem? How about talk on
the phone and watch a cliffhanger TV show
or the end of a very close sports game?
Back to your mental state: your mind generating your thoughts is your single greatest
contributor to safety-both in mitigating
risks and creating hazards. If you cannot
manage your thoughts, your actions will
spin horribly out of control.
We will address two of the most common:
distractions and complacency.
Distractions are those unconscious
thoughts that creep into your mind when you
are either complacent (see below) or overloaded with work. NBAA's Safety Committee
defines distractions as "Too much to do without enough time, tools, or resources leads to
the inability to focus on what really matters,
often precluding appropriate assessment
of risk as well as proper threat and error
management." Because you cannot multitask (see above), your mind will gravitate
toward action, excitement, or survival. In the
case of work overload, it's the latter ("after
I complete this task I need to....", "I can't
forget to....") holding in your mind what you
need to do, which ultimately affects your
employment. In the case of avoiding complacency (see below), your mind will look for
action-anything moving will do (any "bright
shiny object"). Distractions can also be of
a personal nature: family member situa-

tion, financial concerns, even job security or
professional reputation. These distractions
can be the most damaging because they are
the least likely to be discussed with others.
These damaging distractions can consistently and urgently pull your focus away from
your current task without you being consciously aware of it.
Complacency is a situation where a
person, satisfied with their performance,
is unaware of any action or behavior that
could produce a lapse in safety. As it
happens in any position, you must identify these instances and proactively take
steps to counter this deadening approach.
Complacency is an attitude and begins
in your mind-you make the assumptions
that you do not need to be completely and
mentally involved in the task at hand, that
you have performed the task countless
times and you could 'do it in your sleep.'
Your mind needs to be engaged, and when
it is not focused on your present situation,
it will wander and keep itself occupied (see
distractions above). The result? Startle and
possible safety infractions.
Other people
Ascertaining the intentions of others
is difficult; we usually don't have insights
into their rationale. We have all witnessed
someone who (in our minds) has overreacted. These behaviors are not monitored
by a safety mindset and are not considered
unsafe. It's not unsafe when someone is
visibly agitated, impatient or overly frustrated? It's not unsafe when someone is worried, concerned or otherwise preoccupied?
It's not unsafe when someone is so angry
that they stomp around and cannot be reasoned with? Why are these behaviors not
discussed in the context of 'safety'?
Dealing with potentially unsafe behaviors
may not be pleasant and may be awkward
or uncomfortable. Not dealing with them
can be disastrous or have other severe consequences.
Questions to ask
Some questions about your safety culture:
* Leader self-awareness is the absolute
first step of safety culture. If you-as
the director, chief pilot, supervisor, or
another person in authority-do not
believe the flight department can
achieve a high level of safety, it will
not happen.
(continued on page 7)

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