Safety Walkarounds - Context matters

I was reminded this morning of a visit I made to a vessel in 2017. The purpose of my visit was to assist a shipping company in improving safety. It was the safest vessel in the fleet that I chose to visit. The management was quite curious as to why I chose this vessel, but it was an easy choice - if you can help improve the best ship, then imagine what the worst could become.

As soon as I arrived, I was taken to the Masters' office. Upon shaking my hand, he said, "So you're here to conduct an audit.". To which I replied "No sorry there must be some sort of mistake. I am here to find out why this vessel is the best performer in the fleet as we are hoping to share your secrets with others". The master looked immediately relieved with what I had said. He then asked me "where would you like to start?". I said "Why don't you show me around and we can talk on the way".

So we headed off for a tour of the vessel. Eventually we got to the deck and we walked across to where some of the crew were painting. I immediately noticed one of the crew on the wrong side of the hand rails near a hawse pipe. The master walked ahead, spoke to the crew member and told him to get back on the other side of the hand rail.

By the time I caught up with the master he was now past the area where the crew member was painting. I asked him "what did you say to him?" to which he replied "you shouldn't be standing there, get back over this side". I asked the master was he going to follow up on this later to which he replied "I'll mention it to the Bosun". I asked the master "Why was the crew member standing on that side?" to which he replied "No idea". So I asked "Don't you think we should find out?". After some discussion he agreed to let me take the lead in finding out why the crew member was standing on the wrong side of the hand rail.

I approached the crew member cautiously. I was about twice the size of them, a stranger onboard and had the master with me. This alone can be very intimidating for a member of the crew. Always be aware of the impact you have when you approach anyone.

I said "Good morning, how are you?" to which they replied "Very well thank you, sir". "Great", I said, "I'm Malcolm and I'm just getting a tour of the vessel from the master and I was really interested in what you were doing when the master spoke to you". He said "Oh. I was painting the deck on the other side of the hand rail". So I asked "Are you allowed to paint on the other side of the handrails?". To which he replied "yes as long as we are careful". "Ok", I said, "So how do you know you're being careful enough?". He then replied "as long as I don't fall down the hawse pipe then I am being careful enough". So I asked "And what would happen if you did fall down the Hawse pipe?" and he replied "My crew mates would rescue me". So I replied "That's great but how would they know you've fallen down the pipe and do you think you'd survive the fall if you hit the side of the vessel on the way down?". He then looked rather concerned and a bit puzzled.

I could have stopped my questioning at this point but I decided to keep going in order to maximise the learnings. So, I asked the master to bring over another crew member who was painting nearby. Following introductions and an explanation of the situation, I asked him "Were you aware your crew mate was working on the wrong side of the hand rail?". He acknowledged and also agreed that he would not have noticed for sometime if he fell down the pipe. So we then discussed how difficult it was to retrieve someone who has fallen overboard especially as the vessel was not carrying cargo so very high in the water.

To cut a very long story short, we had a great discussion about how hard it would be if a crew member was lost overboard and did not survive simply because they had chosen (and others let them) work on the wrong side of the hand rails without additional controls. In fact, before I departed the vessel 2 days later all of the crew thanked me individually for the many interactions we had during my visit and how they were always going to challenge unsafe practices. When I presented my findings to the management team back in the office I was told "We need to learn to talk to our people like you do!".

There's no magic in what I have described above but I'm constantly amazed that a lot of people are unable to have a positive impact on those around them. One of the keys to this type of interaction is the HOP principle "Context matters". In other words don't just tell someone to follow the rules but rather find out why they are not following them. If you don't understand their reasons (context) for their behaviour then you are very unlikely to influence them changing it!