Learning from Normal Work

Q. What do you get when you cross a field leadership conversation with a micro investigation / mini learning team activity?

A: A Learning from Normal Work (LNM) activity

A lot of us do things called variously; Field Leadership, Felt Leadership, In-The-Field Leadership, Visible Safety Leadership et cetera. The idea is to engage with our workers as they do their work. The purposes vary a bit but are generally about helping people create safe work and be the safest they can be.

Also a lot of us do investigations when things go wrong. There are many ways of doing this and the one that is pretty close to what I am talking about is called Learning Teams. If you want really get your head around learning teams talk with, read, or listen to Todd Conklin.

Not many of us do investigations when nothing has gone wrong. And not many of us use a positive leadership interaction in the field as the basis for an investigation. This is exactly what I am proposing here today … Let me explain:

The other day I was helping a bunch of people get better at workplace safety incident investigations. We were talking about leadership roles within investigations and the fact that leadership conversations before an incident should be the same as leadership conversations after an incident – attempting to understand differences between how the work is being done and how we think it is being done. It got me thinking.

I have spoken previously about the importance of the need to understand how work is normally done being an essential component of doing an investigation, Extending this idea into our normal day-to-day activities as a leader is where I want to focus the conversation today. 

Before we do that, especially for those of you who do not have any kind of Field Leadership process, it is worth going over what a Field Leadership activity might look like. 

Overall, a Field Leadership Program is all about getting our leaders out into the field and undertaking verifications, observations and engaging activities for the purposes of identifying whether the way we think the work is being done matches the way it is actually being done. This occurs at a number of levels and the primary driver is the creation and improvement of “safe work”, rather than the finding and correcting of “unsafe work” and “un-safe conditions”. One such process is called a PTO (Planned Task Observation):

Planned Task Observations:

The why – To identify and understand how work is actually done out there through conversations, so that we can learn and share when our people have identified better ways to do the work and, over time, to align the Work-as-Done with the Work-As-Intended / Prescribed and maximising the likelihood of getting it right rather than minimising the likelihood of getting it wrong.

The How – A procedure is reviewed prior to the observation. It is then taken into the field and a conversation started with a crew, exploring how they are actually doing a task. Many topics may be covered during the conversation in order to get a sense of the level of understanding of the crew as to the control of risks et cetera and whether they do, or do not align with the requirements of the procedure. Examples of the sorts of topic covered in PTOs could include:

·      What must go right, to get the job done safely

·      What might go wrong

·      What they have to keep an eye in the environment of the task. What they focus on.

·      What level of Situational Awareness is needed, and on what, specifically.

·      What do you normally do when something unexpected happens?

·      Whether they have plans for what to do if it all turns south.

·      If any drift has occurred over time in the practice or the procedure. Whether they have always done the task the way it is being done today.

·      What they think about the procedures.

·      What could happen, or has happened in the past that may influence their ability to follow the procedure.

·      What we could do to make the procedure more accurate (if it is not)

·      Discussion about any anomalies in the workplace that do not appear to have been there before. – Anything that stands out as different.

·      How they built their mental model of the task prior to starting it. (hazard, risk control, SIMOPs et cetera)

·      What usually goes right here, what has gone well in the past

·      Assumptions by the crew about how the work is being conducted as compared to how we think it is.

·      What trigger steps there are (irrevocable actions) and what they do prior to doing them

·      What critical steps there are and what they do prior to doing them

·      Level of understanding of the responsibilities and activities of the team members for the task.

·      How stable their work normally is – routine or does it require a high level of improvisation

·      What is in the line-of-fire that can bite them.

·      What is going on in relation to critical controls that they should be considering, especially if there are some in the procedure of interest.

·      If they had to describe what they are doing and how they are controlling risk, what would they say?

·      What if…?

·      What will happen to them and the team if they do not control the risks.

NOTE: The intent of these topics is to raise the level of conversation, through which it can be established whether the procedure has been followed, and more importantly why, and /or why not. Of course, this is just a quick brain dump of engagement conversation topics possibilities. The intent is that these are not a set of questions but rather a conversation. 

When we do a PTO and discover a part of a task that is being undertaken in a way that differs from what is outlined in the procedure or work instruction, we would conventionally do one of two things: One is to tell the worker to change their behaviour and the other is to change the procedure to match the way the work is being done. I suggest that there is a third way that will better help to create safe work going forward. It is to undertake a micro-investigation - a mini-learning team -  based on what we have observed and only make changes after that. 

Let’s work through an example.  You have decided to explore some scaffold construction work and have grabbed the scaffold procedure and had a look through it prior to going into the field. You have decided to focus on the controls scaffolders are using as they erect scaffold. You plan to look out for foot plates, harness use, particularly attachment points and how the scaffolders ensure no unauthorised people access the scaffolding during construction. You trot off into the field armed with the scaffolding procedure and start chatting with a work team building some scaffold. You notice that they have a piece of danger tape across the entrance but you recall that the procedure requires a drop bar to be installed rather than danger tape and so you start asking the scaffolders about this. They say that they quite often use danger tape as it is easier to duck under when they are going in and out of the scaffold as they are building it. Rather than making a big fuss about it and telling them to put a drop bar in, you decide to visit some other scaffolding erection going on to see what Work-As-Normal is – how others secure their scaffold entrances during construction. Over the next day or so, you visit five scaffold construction crews at work on the shutdown.  Three out of the five had used danger tape, one had used a drop bar and one simply had the scaffold tag removed from it’s holder as the control to prevent unwanted personnel from entering the scaffold.

The following morning you hold the scaffold crews back after the morning pre-start meeting for thirty minutes and run a mini learning team activity. The intent is to explore and understand the variability amongst the crews as to how they secure scaffold entrances during construction. The format is a conversation with participation, hopefully, by all present to explore their level of understanding of what the normal practice is and more importantly why it is what it is. It turns out during the conversation that you are the only business that they do work for that requires drop bars and all other companies only require danger tape or just leaving the scaffold tag out of its holder as a control to prevent unwanted people from accessing the scaffold as it is being built. They are simply not used to installing a drop bar – they forget to do it.

You then move the conversation into what they think can be done about it and what good practice would look like. The unanimous voice is a request for you to change the procedure as danger tape is, in their opinion, just as effective a control as a drop bar is. You understand their wish for simplicity and alignment with other companies and agree with their request. You walk away from the conversation agreeing to change the procedure and allow tape to be used in lieu of a drop bar. A half hour conversation has resulted in a more accurate procedure, effective buy-in by those who control the risks (the scaffolders) and less of a gap between Work-As-Done and Work-As-Intended. Everybody is happy.

Even when you are simply being out and about engaging with the workforce, you can do an LNM (Learning from Normal Work) activity. Next time you find a discrepancy between Work-As-Done and Work-As-Intended, rather than extolling the virtues of following procedures, strive to understand why the work is being done the way it is being done. See what you can learn from Work-As-Normal.