Dr John Green is a Safety II Champion and Director HSE for the Battersea Power Station Development (UK). Back in 1988, he was also part of the Cullen Inquiry that was tasked with working out what caused the Piper Alpha incident. At the HASANZ 2018 conference, I got to hear Green present a keynote speech and attended his Master Class.
What was the Piper Alpha Incident?
For those that don’t know, Piper Alpha was a North Sea oil production platform. An explosion, followed by a catastrophic fire saw 167 people die. The 61 survivors were the people that didn’t follow the rules and muster in the crew accommodation as they had been taught. The systemic failures behind this incident saw changes to the offshore platform design, revision of crew handover procedures, a formalised permit to work system, changes to isolation and lockout procedures and a myriad of other improvements.
What is Safety II
When Green, isn’t off climbing mountains like Mt Cook/Aoraki, he likes to disrupt things. In fact, he teamed up with the king of safety disruption (Sidney Dekker) and created ‘Safety Differently’. This is based on Safety II philosophies. Anyone that knows me well will understand how much this appeals my ideals (I’m always asking why? And I don’t like emperors being naked).
Safety I, has a massive branding issue and is ‘Not SEXY’. It focuses on compliance and control through traditional safety protocols (risk management, auditing, accident investigation and LTIF data collection). The key challenge is that the traditional data does not predict a fatality, nor does ‘managing deficits. Safety II focuses on the many things that go right in a workplace i.e. a people’s ability to complete a task under varying conditions.
This doesn’t mean that we need to forget the lessons of the past or stop doing basic safety. According to Green, we “need to stop investing in indicators that resemble an asymptote graph where investment with no return makes no sense.” (i.e. no matter what you do, the line on the graph is never going to reach zero) and start investing in positive initiatives.
What is the answer?
According to Green, it’s time to accept that our worksites are full of complex interdependent systems and ‘old school’ linear thinking is not going to work when it comes to keeping people safe. We also need to acknowledge that our organisations are full of people that have a diverse range of talents (talents that may never be seen at work).
The key ideas are as follows:
- People are the solution not the problem
- People create success far more than they are involved in failure.
- There is a gap between work as planned and work as it happens. We need to analyse the gap, work out what are the critical risks that occur in the real world and how we are going to manage them.
- Safety is not about the absence of accidents it’s about the presence of positives.
- Safety is about focusing on what people are getting right and working on how they can keep ‘getting it right’.
- Getting curious about what is going on and the interdependent relationships that occur on a worksite is key to safe work.
- Safety is an ethical responsibility, not a bureaucratic activity.
- We need to make sure that our organisations have a fair and just culture and be sure that everyone goes home safe and retires healthy
- Let’s set up the system so the ethical choice is the best choice
What was the key learning form Piper Alpha?
I asked Green what he thought the key lesson was from the Piper Alpha incident and he responded that people need to know their craft. Basically, everyone involved in a safety critical environment needs to be capable of doing their job safety.
I guess this means it’s not about being able to demonstrate a certain behaviour or skill on a given day, it’s been able to reliably repeat the skill. Whether it be designing a production platform, managing a shift handover or completing routine maintenance.
What are your thoughts?
Have you heard of John Green? What do you think of Safety II? Do you think it is just another fad or will it be the safety cultural change that we need in NZ?
Have a safe and productive week.
SB
More information on Dr John Green
LAING O’ROURKE’S JOHN GREEN: TURNING THE SAFETY APPROACH UPSIDE DOWN
YouTube Video: Dr John Green, Director HSEQ, Laing O´Rourke