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Train of Thought: Where’s the trade-off

INNOVATE, BUT DON’T MAKE A MISTAKE!
Imagine I want to create a business with a culture of innovation to stay ahead of the pack and to continue to provide value to shareholders. However, in order to achieve this, I can’t then attempt to implement a contradictory ethos based on  risk avoidance and the minimalisation of error. The two ideologies are completely incompatible.

Ask an innovator. Ask them how many mistakes they make until they find an ideal solution. Innovators see risk as an opportunity rather than something to be avoided, and they are typically quite tolerant of mistakes. They understand that it is part of the game they play.

IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT, YOU AREN’T LOOKING HARD ENOUGH
We’ve heard it before, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Well, in safety this is true for any change; everything you do has a trade-off somewhere else. Nothing happens in isolation within an organisation.

For example, if you are seeking to maintain an error-free workplace (zero harm), then you can’t in turn promote innovation as a core value. If you are unable to idenitify the trade-off associated with what you are changing, you just aren’t looking hard enough.

TIME, RISK, QUALITY, LANGUAGE, DRIVING, & SHIFTWORK
Trade-offs are everywhere, and I’m not writing about them in the hope that once you see  them, you can eradicate them. What I am however saying is at least be aware of them and then use this knowledge to make an informed decision.

Here are some examples of trade-offs I have experienced:

  • The more information you attempt to collect on a form (e.g. a Hazard Report Form), the more likely it is that people will resist filling it out. So you can either have less information and more reporting, or more information and less reporting.
  • People have a general level of risk tolerance that they are comfortable with. Therefore if you alter an individual’s environment to reduce their risk, they will adjust their behaviour in such a way that brings the risk level back up. This is called Risk Homeostasis and there is a famous study done with taxi drivers in Berlin (Google “Berlin Taxi Experiment” for further information).
  • Setting KPIs for an activity (e.g. safety observations) often impacts on the resultant quality. When busy people feel pressured to complete their observations in order to meet their KPIs, they are more likely to just do it, for the sake of doing it . As a result, quality suffers to meet the numbers. Of course, the opposite would mean that you might not get as many observations, but they would be of a better quality.
  • When a leader consistently says in their reports, “Don’t come to me with problems unless you have a solution as well,” it has a trade-off. While well-meaning, what if they don’t have a solution? What happens if it is urgent and they don’t have the time to come up with a solution? What if they just want an answer for once? Therefore the trade-off to this well-meaning motivational statement could be that employees don’t bring problems to their boss when maybe they should.
  • We choose to drive cars to save time and that puts us at risk.
  • We operate under shift-work arrangements to increase productivity and we know that shift workers are at a higher risk for lifestyle-related diseases.

Safety-DaveI MAKE TRADE-OFFS, BUT NOT MY STAFF…
Another view on trade-offs is the concept that everyone (and by this I mean everyone, at all levels, in all parts of the business) makes them, and the interesting part is whether everyone actually thinks that this is the case. I’m used to hearing leadership teams complain about the workload that they have to get through, and when I enquire whether or not they ever get it all done, they just laugh.

What is fascinating is when I ask leaders whether they believe that their frontline workforce has to make trade-offs. They often have to think (and sometimes quite a lot) about it as it is most likely not something that they have actively thought about before. Eventually they respond with an, “I suppose so…”.

When I ask them if these staff are making trade-offs in the way that the leader would want them to, this again is often met with silence. My favourite response is “I don’t know” because it shows a level of humility and opens up the next process which is, “Great, let’s go find out”. Of course, the only way to work this out is to have a conversation.

FINAL WORD
Trade-offs exist everywhere. If you can’t see them, then you just aren’t looking hard enough. You can’t make them go away, all you can do is identify  them and then make a decision as to whether the potential benefits outweight the risks involved. To pretend that when we roll out a new policy or program that the only impacts are the ones we intend is in itself dangerous, and of course, will inevitably have its own trade-offs.


trade-offs exist everywhere. If you can’t see them, then you just aren’t looking hard enough.


Dave Whitefield
DIRECTOR
PEOPLE & RISK

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