Shortcuts and the human propensity to search for them and to use them is an artifact of our evolutionary heritage.  The brain is conditioned to search for ways to complete a task more effectively, efficiently and productively.  This evolutionary adaptation was to conserve energy in the brain and energy in the body because energy conservation regularly meant survival; especially when you didn't know when your next meal was going to be or where it was coming from.  This biological process is wonderful as it works behind the scenes to drive efficiency in all we do, but it doesn’t come without risk in our industrial work environments.

We all understnad the need to execute work the right way in the right sequence using the right tools.  Many of our work processes and procedures have been developed over time to prevent incidents from happening and to prevent people from getting hurt.  Many processes and procedures have been developed because someone else got hurt and the procedure is a means to correct the work eecution and prevent similar accidents from happening.  But unfortunately, if our work processes are not the most efficient (and most of them are not) our brains will automatically search for a shortcut and communicate this alternative process to our consciousness for implementation.  This is often done without a critical review of the risks as our brains are preoccupied with efficiency rather than risk.  And this shortcut can further get reinforced when nothing bad happens when it is implemented; either from a risk perspective or from a supervisory action-correction perspective.

From a supervision perspective, this is why procedure reinforcement and a discussion about surtcuts is so important as part of the toolbox talk and work planning sessions - to reinforce control over our natural biological tendencies to take shortcuts.  Although this may feel repetitious in nature, it needs to be to push back on our evolutionary adaptations.

"If an accident is the result of an individual taking a shortcut, it is unlikely that it occurred the first time the shortcut was taken.  It is more likley that shortcutting has been going on for months, perhaps years.  A good manager would have spotted it and stopped [corrected] it.  If he does not, then when the incident occurs, he shares the responsibility for it, legally and morally, even though he is not on site at the time.”  Tony Muschara