Ah so you're working to achieve or keep zero accidents. Zero. Nil.
Diddly-squat! After a good time I learned this zero goal is not only unreal, it can be your enemy. Promoting zero accident may be causing accidents if you got a little curious and want to know more, stay there I'm going to talk about the New View, or Beyond Zero Safety Hello, my name is Rafael Santos I work with safety since 2007 I'm passionate about promoting healthy and safe environments where I work and this New View thing started for me when a friend and mentor introduced me to HOP (Human and Organizational performance), I then found Safety Differently and Safety II plus a lot of people who thought the same way, several theories and many cool tools to apply in everyday work.
The New View for me is an evolution of the classic view on safety that we have been doing so far evolution is an important word in this context, at least for me I'm going to borrow a little on how Simon Sinek talks about evolution and Revolution. There is a cool episode of his podcast where he discusses the difference Revolutions represent a break, a big change. And they are somewhat unpredictable.
Think of what revolutions come to your mind at that moment Now evolutions lead us to think of it as a natural step, an improvement to what we've been doing. And that's what the New View proposes. Well, let me talk a bit about this New View.
And I like to explain it through some pillars that I see in common among all theories The first is science. It's incredible to think that much of what we apply in safety to date have no scientific basis it's like a doctor prescribing a drug that has not been approved by the FDA Or as if an engineer built a building using materials that are not proven to support that building in expected conditions of winds, temperature, etc. I'm sure you don't know many colleagues who have studied Heinrich's work Heinrich who?
! It was in Heinrich's work that the accident and near misses triangle first appeared By the way, what he said in his work is not exactlu that I was told about the triangle. And this is made worst by the fact that, in Brazil, our training as safety professionals does not encourage us to look, to seek, to read, to interpret and understand scientific work Much less bring the learnings to our daily practice.
And it seems that this is not a regional problem. Even on the Safety of Work podcast, David Provan and Drw Rae did an episode teaching professionals how to look for scientific work. Another Pillar is understanding the real work.
How many times have you seen a safety professional (Which might have been you! ) point out an accident risk because a procedure was not being followed? The New View shows there are variations between the prescribed work the one written in the policy or procedures standards and the actual work, which is done all the time in front lines, on the streets, on the shop floor.
These variations happen all the time and they are what allow your organization to succeed every, or almost every day strictly following the rules could be the ruin of your business And if your business is not safety consultancy, safety is not your end product. Workers solve problems. The classic way of thinking about safety sees people as a weak link, as accident causes.
The New View proposes that people solve problems all the time, every day. This gives us a different look on that shortcut, that adaptation. Instead of punishing, we need to understand people and promote an environment in which they can carry out their work successfully Promoting success, by the way, is the last Pilar I want to talk about today As mentioned at the beginning, the classic view of safety still sees the objective as being zero accidents.
Let's imagine a car factory working the same way Their goal is: not making deffective cars. Sounds weird, doesn't it? The goal should be making more cars, or making better, more beautiful, more powerful cars, anyway… I myself have promoted a lot that we should be asking ouselves every day “What can go wrong?
” after learning about the new View, I changed and today I ask myself How can we promote success? How can we make it work? It's a much more fun way to work, right?
These are the four pillars that help me explain the New View, at least in a very summarized way. I created Beyond Zero out of a desire to share what I learned over time and continue to learn more from colleagues in safety or colleagues from other areas like operations, logistics, retail. If you have any questions or if you just disagree with something I said, write a comment below, let's continue the conversation And you can also add me on Linkedin and we keep talking there And as Bugs Bunny would say: that's all folks!
Feel free to share this with that apprentice who just started in the area, a colleague of yours to whom you want to introduce the New View, with your boss. And until then, big hug, take care and don't forget to have fun.
