I am an expert.  I’m an expert at identifying the hazards associated with injury events after the injury has actually occurred!  Just call me Captain Obvious.

It becomes blindingly obvious to everyone involved in an injury event where the hazards exist after the incident has occurred.  People often say things like, “I knew I shouldn’t have put my hand in there,” or, “I didn’t think the load was secured, but I went ahead anyway” or even, “I knew this wasn’t what the procedure says, but I did it this way dozens of times.”  And the cause of incidents is even more striking when people unassociated with the incident review it.  It’s easy to see the mistakes from the safety and security of the lunchroom or the office boardroom, and even more concerning to think that if we were in that situation we wouldn’t have made those same mistakes.  But the world is full of these so-called armchair quarterbacks.  It is easy to second guess everything well after the incident has occurred and the powerpoint slide deck has been prepared that show the breakdown of the mitigation measures, procedures or processes, that directly link to the incident in question.  As the famous Theodore Roosevelt quote begins, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…” 

It is much more difficult and much more challenging to be engaged well before any incident occurs.  To make sure that procedures are followed, PPE is worn, and hazardous conditions are addressed and mitigated well before any potential incident could occur.  But this is the role of supervision and leadership.  To be engaged with our teams and our crews creating an environment in which safety is honoured, where it is ok to stop work to prevent an incident or injury from occurring, or even because there are questions,  and to ensure that processes and procedures are followed so that we can guarantee a successful safety outcome.  Safety is not the absence of an injury, safety is the mindset, behaviours, actions and activities we undertake to assure no-one gets hurt.  And this assurance starts with all of us.  We all need to be thinking about our supervisory duties and obligations to ensure the safety and well-being of those we supervise; we are responsible for them.  And to challenge ourselves to make sure we are fulfilling this obligation.  We need to ask ourselves questions like the following:

• Am I in the field enough?
• When is the last time I participated in a quality FLHA, toolbox talk, safety meeting, or site tour?
• Does my team clearly understand my expectations with respect to safety?
• Am I sending clear messages that I want procedures followed, even if it takes more time and production / revenue suffers?
• As a supervisor, do I model the behaviours that I expect others to adopt?
• When is the last time I actually supervised a job?
• Have I created an environment in which my team members can constructively challenge work, shut-down work, or take the time necessary to do a task correctly, rather than simply quickly?
• Do my team members have all the right PPE?  Do they know how to use it correctly? Does anyone get chastised for using PPE, or peer pressured to conform to method that puts them at risk?
• Are work procedures routinely reviewed to ensure common understanding and the correct usage, rather than simply the transmission of ongoing bad habits from “experienced” hand to “inexperienced” hand.
• Or do I spend more time talking about schedule than I do about how to do a task safely?
• And many others.

One of my greatest learnings as a supervisor is that we cannot assume that everyone knows that safety is first.  And we cannot assume that everyone on a crew knows how to do a job safely, in the correct way, without getting hurt, either.  We often assume that everyone knows that safety is important and we sometimes even defend our actions by saying things like “It goes without saying that safety is first in all that we do…”  My biggest lesson learned, is that we actually have to say it.  We actually have to stand up every day and multiple times a day and reinforce that safety is first in all that we do.  We have to solicit complete understanding from our teams, and they have to know that we have their backs it they pause to ask questions about a job so that they can execute it safely.  And we have to test our team member’s understanding of the job that we have asked them to do.  We cannot simply ask them if they understand because they will invariably say yes.  We must test competence and comprehension of the task, the hazards and the methods to mitigate those hazards.  And this work has to be done every day.  This is one of my greatest lesson learned.

I challenge all of us to reflect on how we are spending our time and think about if we are spending enough time proactively engaged in supervisory activities on a day to day and task to task basis to assure that nobody is getting hurt in our teams and in our business.  And if we have to make a change, to do so.  John C. Maxwell, the author and leadership coach, often says that given a copy of a week’s worth of daily calendars from anyone he can ascertain what a person’s priorities are just by reviewing where they spend their time.  If safety truly is a priority and value for us at Suncor, does your calendar reflect this?  Does mine?  (I think I need to make some changes!).