Good Day,
“The passengers aboard KLM Flight 4805 didn’t know it, but they were in the hands of one of the most experienced and accomplished pilots in the world.”
That’s how the first chapter of SWAY The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman begins www.swaybook.com
The story unfolds about one of the worst airline disasters in history. If you are a safety professional you should read the book. Here’s a truth that took me years to discover. If you want to reduce accident causing behavior you should read books and articles about what causes humans to make decisions, especially those that delve into the irrational (dangerous, risky, stupid, etc.) choices that we so often make. Why? Because it will help you understand and thus be better able to come up with preventive measures that reduce the root cause of risky behavior. This is especially true if your safety and health program is advanced.
We all realize that how employees behave makes the biggest difference in eliminating (or causing) accidents. What we got to do now is go to the next level and figure out what causes people to behave the way they do. It’s tougher for sure. I can observe you behaving a certain way and write it down on a card but I can’t observe how you are thinking or what is going on inside the anger creating ventral area of your prefrontal cortex. But that’s where the trouble begins.
I’ll post more on this subject. In fact I’m working on a cool talk entitled STAY SHARP that includes practical ways to help employees (and yourself) better control irrational behavior causing stimulus that leads to risky behavior.
What do you think? Tell me. I love the attention.
‘till next time.
Richard
