Am I barking up the wrong tree?

This weekend while sewing Christmas presents for the kids I watched Dark Waters (the excitement of a safety and loss prevention engineer). In the film it becomes apparent that despite knowing the risks to human health the company continued to produce the compound used in the manufacture of Teflon, poisoning local water supplies, residents and actually accumulating this chemical in 99% of humans on this planet. I thought to myself is what I am doing really going to make a difference when we as a human race are doing things like what is discussed in this movie or what David Attenborough speaks about in his recent publications? Even down to the Failure to Learn Masterclass we had this month which was on Macondo it is apparent that we fail to learn. Time and time again senior leaders, engineers and managers manage risk completely blind to the safety or environmental consequences. They are managing their bottom line not their ability to influence our likelihood of going home or their ability to change the future of this planet. Let's be clear it is not because they want to kill people or the planet it is just because they are blind to the facts or extent of the impact of their financially based decisions which have an impact on safety and environment.

Despite the very clear link between poor process safety management and poor financial performance as discussed in the last article we seem unable to change this mindset or perception of risk to be broader than schedule and cost. How can we change this bias when we look at the word risk to see all the types of risk we are trying to manage not only the ones we feel most comfortable managing?

Striving to be a good earth occupant I want to know that what I am doing is actually contributing to this crisis we are facing and actually reducing the likelihood (or eliminating the potential) that we will poison ourselves, our descendants or our planet in the way we have done since the start of the industrial revolution. So I had a bit of time to reflect on myself and my contribution to understand if I am part of the problem and my mission to improve process safety is pointless (i.e. I am saving a few people at each site so that they can just die from another activity we are doing elsewhere which will mean their food supply dries up or their water is polluted) or if there is a chance that I can make a difference.

Personally I can make positive decisions about where to source food etc. which can drive positive behaviours however it is professionally that I am wanting to make sure I am making a difference. Below I have documented what I believe my mission will achieve if I can reach enough people.

Improve Process Safety

This month I have embarked on a mission to embed learning in everyone I meet (mostly virtually). This is something I have done for as long as I can remember. I recall coming home telling my mother that she had the pot handles the wrong way on the stove which could increase the chance that someone bumped them on the way past burning themselves with hot water as I had learnt about home safety at school. Now with the virtual nature of everyones daily lives I have the opportunity to positively influence the safety behaviour of many more people. I have been very actively doing this on LinkedIn since about this time last year and now I have developed a structured way of doing this to embed learnings. So how will this help with the issues we face now in the world.

Change is not immediate

Regardless of what we want to achieve change will not happen immediately. Whether it is changing to different more sustainable feedstocks or changing waste management practices it will take some time. Which means that until that happens we need to manage the risks we are taking effectively and efficiently. Also this means that we will have new risks to manage which may result in harm we have not yet foreseen. I can help with this. By spreading awareness of good process safety management techniques (i.e. risk management techniques) with the diligence I apply to my own work of ensuring all categories are assessed we can make sure that this period will result in a positive change for our planet and society whilst managing the financial risk.

Risk is inherent in every activity

Everything we do carries a risk. Even getting out of bed. Therefore my efforts on providing you the tools to effectively identify hazards, assess the risk and form plans to manage those will be useful regardless of where life takes you. If you implement this at work then we can have the biggest impact collectively at reducing our negative impact on this world and society.

Aging workforce

The pandemic has actually exacerbated the aging workforce problem we have in high hazard industries (particularly oil and gas) as many people accept voluntary redundancy in relatively quickly drafted manpower reduction plans. This means that those people have not had the time to impart some of their key skills to the next generation who actually will be doing those jobs right now (not in a few years time). This means there is an acute need for skills such as mine for a few reasons:

1. To help educate the next generation on these key practices in risk management
2. To try and change the thought processes of the leaders of tomorrow to incorporate a more robust risk management into decision making
3. To help organisations before (and unfortunately after) major incidents to ensure that their structure (from organisational architecture to physical arrangements on site), their knowledge (from competence of individuals to the documents used to support those individuals) to their practices (PTW, MOC etc.) are actually fit for the future to systematically manage risks.

During my career I have developed a large network which I have actively worked to expand this year. So if I can't help you I'm sure I will know someone who can and I'll put you in touch.

Now is the time to put our best foot forward

There is no better time than now to invest in ourselves and our employees by learning how to learn. I don't mean learning from books but actually learning from the mistakes we are making at site now before we become the next Texas City explosion and learning from the mistakes of others so we are not talking about another big ammonium nitrate explosion in 5 years time.

Join me in the coming months by signing up to my newsletter, joining us for our process safety forums, or by joining us for our masterclasses. If you have specific needs or gaps get in touch any time for support either in the form of training, coaching or technical and process safety services. Let's improve together.