Safety Speaker Insight – Lack of Negative Results or Consequences Makes Deviation Normal

Safety Speaker Insight – Lack of Negative Results or Consequences Makes Deviation Normal

For years in my presentation, “Ensure Your Safety” as a safety speaker I have taught people that shortcuts violate our normal learning system. Normally, you take an action, which results in a reaction. For instance, your mom probably told you not to touch the stove. Most kids are curious and touch the stove anyway and get a small burn. The burn teaches them not to do that again. The negative result or consequence of violating mom’s safety policy was immediate and the brain learns a valuable lesson.

The challenge with short cuts is they violate this learning system. You take a shortcut and nothing bad happens. The result is incorrect learning. You have learned it’s ok to violate the safety procedure and take the shortcut. The shortcut now becomes the accepted behavior or action. This fools our mind into thinking the deviant action is safe.

Shortcuts Become The Norm (We’ve Always Done It That Way)

When experienced workers continue to take shortcuts, new employees copy that behavior. If someone asks if that’s the safest way to do it the answer often is, “We’ve always done it that way.” Just because it hasn’t paid off with a negative result doesn’t mean someone will ultimately pay the price eventually.

Lucky? Maybe Not

Luck may not be that lucky. It would have been better for all of us if the first time we chose to deviate from a safety procedure something bad happened. That would teach us the correct lesson. In the real world, it doesn’t happen that way.

We can be fooled into accepting less than the best for ourselves even if no one is watching. We must be smart enough to avoid the trap. It is better to remind ourselves of what might happen, the “what if.” If we keep the “what if” in mind we will make better choices.

Solutions For Your Safety Challenges

When you need solutions for your safety challenges give Diane Weiss a call at 209-745-9419 and bring safety speaker John Drebinger to your site to discover injury-preventing solutions. You can email her at diane@drebinger.com

Until next week,

I’ll be, “Watching Out For Everyone’s Safety™”

Safety Speaker John Drebinger

© 2017 John Drebinger Presentations

Permission to use granted when credited and contact information included. www.drebinger.com +1 209.745.9419