Leadership Regrets by Safety Speaker John Drebinger

In last week’s newsletter, I told a story of an employee directing traffic at a fast-food restaurant opening. As a safety speaker I thought about that incident. It made me think about the thoughts of the managers at the local store and even at the corporate office if he had been hit and injured while in the path of one of the hundreds of cars arriving at the restaurant.

Imagine the following scenario…

A driver approaches the restaurant looking for the entrance to the drive-through. In the process, the driver is posting their excitement while “checking in” on Facebook. Not seeing the employee directing traffic, they roll forward not expecting a person to be standing in the middle of the road. This expectation was even calculated as they decided to type on their smartphone while rolling forward.

The employee steps back, preparing to direct the next car not expecting the oncoming vehicle to be out of its lane due to the driver’s distracted state. The distracted driver’s car hits the employee throwing them to the ground. The driver hears the impact and by the time they realize what has happened, they have rolled the front of the car over the employee.

Both lives have changed forever. Even if the employee recovers from their injuries, there will likely be changes in their abilities. So who is going to regret this incident and who will feel responsible?

Obviously, the driver of the vehicle will have regrets. The people I was thinking of would be the leadership of the fast-food chain that put an untrained young man at risk. As with many tasks, people often don’t realize the skill, training and experience necessary to do a job safely. I’m sure the store manager who sent the employee out to direct traffic didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m sure the marketing executives who promoted the opening hadn’t considered the need for professional help in directing traffic. I’m also confident the corporate leaders never thought something like this could happen.

When all the investigations are over it wouldn’t surprise me if all those people realized they could have prevented an injury. For the rest of their lives, they will have to live with the regret of creating a situation that allowed for the potential injury of a young worker. No matter where the legal responsibility falls, there are people who after an incident, will realize they either caused the incident or they could have prevented it by their actions.

What a contrast of emotions, feeling great because your business is doing so well that you continue to open new locations on a regular basis. The other emotion, realizing because you had not considered the effects of a well-meaning manager, sending a young employee out into the street to make it safer for the arriving customers.

Take some time to discuss with all departments of your organization the importance of viewing every situation from a safety perspective. Such a viewpoint can allow people to see potential consequences and avoid an injury.

Yours in Service,
John Drebinger