“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” — Lyndon B. Johnson Many of the lessons we learn in life are learned when we are children. The one I remember most vividly is learning to ride a bike. I was a stubborn child. I refused to wear any safety [...]
“Preparation through education is less costly than learning through tragedy.”— Max Mayfield Have you ever been at the scene of a disaster? For most, the answer is probably no which makes it impossible for us to comprehend the level of chaos, confusion, and fear. If you’re not among those who have witnessed devastation first-hand, consider [...]
“We are here to build the house.” — Cheryl Strayed Millennials have garnered a bad reputation. So much so that the word “millennial”, itself, is often intended as an insult. How one generation has become the target of so much criticism and negativity is a mystery. Millennials are no different than every other generation – [...]
“The power of one man or one woman doing the right thing for the right reason, at the right time, is the greatest influence in our society.” — Jack Kemp What would you do if you witnessed an unsafe or prohibited act? Would you intervene or report it to someone who could intervene? Ethical obligations [...]
“It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.” — W. Edwards Deming When I began working for Bluefield Process Safety four years ago, I was prepared to abandon my passion of psychology to pursue another – safety. What I didn’t know is that, often, [...]
“A bad system will beat a good person every time.” -W.E. Deming According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 40 million American workers quit their jobs in 2018. That’s almost 27% of the workforce. Furthermore, a 2019 survey revealed that 75% of employees in the U.S. do not stay at their jobs for more [...]
“We must accept human error as inevitable - and design around that fact.” — Donald Berwick The idea of human error and its contribution to industrial incidents has been the center of debate in recent years. If you’ve been part of more than one incident investigation, you’ve probably experienced an incident being attributed to human [...]
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — H.K.Williams On July 18, 2019, two people were injured after a chemical fire broke out at Diamond Chemical Company in East Rutherford, New Jersey. At least one of the chemicals involved in the fire was chlorine, which is poisonous, especially as a gas. When it [...]
“I did everything right. I don’t understand why it happened.”— Aleksandr Akimov, Chernobyl engineer You’ve probably heard of the new HBO miniseries, Chernobyl. The show is a fairly accurate retelling of the events preceding and immediately follow the nuclear disaster that occurred in Pripyat, Ukraine on April 26, 1986. Like any dramatized television production, it [...]
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” — Dale Carnegie Perfect lives don’t exist. We’ve all experienced loss, misfortune or pain. No one is a stranger to emotional stress. And emotional stress affects work performance, particularly safety. A study conducted by the U.K. Royal [...]
