“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 [...]
“As far as fireworks, it's very dangerous. You shouldn't play with them.” – Jason Pierre-Paul An American Tradition In the United States, the 4th of July holds a special place among our many holidays. The mere mention of the date evokes images of American flags, backyard cookouts, blistering heat, and overwhelming patriotism. Above all, however, [...]
“If the government wanted people to drive safely, they’d mandate a spike in the middle of each steering wheel.” — Gordon Tullock We call economics “the dismal science.” Economist Gordon Tullock certainly reinforced that idea when he applied the economic phenomena of risk compensation to driving safety and suggested that we would all drive more [...]
“Safety is a common denominator across all aspects of life...” Doug Bourne After working in a manufacturing environment for 2 years, I have developed a great appreciation for a good safety culture. Adhering to solid safety practices and policies, while irritating at times, kept us all going home at the end of the day in [...]
“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.” George S. Patton, Jr. I intended to begin with “A good plan, well executed, is better than a perfect plan, poorly executed,” but when I checked, that’s not what General Patton said. What he said was “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than [...]
“Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.” — James C. Collins When she was just 21 years old, Candace Carnahan lost her leg in a workplace incident. One day, during her third summer working at a paper mill, Candace took a shortcut that she’d seen everyone else take hundreds of times before. [...]
“Everything is impossible until it is done.” — Robert H. Goddard In 1921, annoyed with ignorant criticism, Robert Goddard published a piece in Scientific American in defense of the potential for travel to the moon. It’s always easier to say something is impossible than to address the potential of it happening. Double Jeopardy When someone [...]
“If your house were burning down and you could take away one thing, what would it be?”…”I’d take the fire.” — Jean Cocteau, interviewed by André Fraigneau The images of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral burning broke my heart. I am grateful that people and organizations around the world have vowed to contribute to the [...]
“It’s not how we make mistakes, but how we correct them that defines us.” — Rachel Wolchin One of the most common recommendations made as a result of incident safety investigations is “improved training,” especially when the investigation concludes that the incident was the result of an error. It is not because training is so [...]
“The failure of a layer of protection to prevent an incident is not the initiating cause of the incident.” The United States just joined much of the world in grounding the Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9. The tipping point was not the crash of Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 into the Java Sea [...]
