Implying that safety is common sense relegates it to those areas in our life which don’t require much thought or close attention. We know otherwise. When we treat safety as common sense we make it a mindless act. Scott Geller, in one of his presentations, mentioned the concept of doing something mindfully. That seems to me to be the solution - mindfulness is just the opposite of common sense as a mindless behavior.

A couple of factors effect something appearing to be common sense. The first is perspective. Usually when we do an incident analysis after someone has been injured or a close call is reported we are looking back on the behavior, condition or event. From this viewpoint looking into the past we can often see things which are obvious to us that weren’t as obvious to the people involved.

As with many things in life, hindsight is 20/20. With the advantage of hindsight things often seem clear because they are not clouded by the pressures and stress of the everyday workplace.

A second factor that effects common sense is that common sense changes over time. I remember a safety meeting at which I made a presentation four years ago. At this annual safety kickoff they had an employee who was retiring and had worked for the company since high school. They asked him to compare how safety was then and now. He told us about his first week on the job and how someone in the machine shop he worked in hit their thumb with a hammer. The thumb swelled and the person in charge of the machine shop knew what to do. He declared that the pressure must be released. Common sense, right? Well, let’s see. They took the person with the swollen thumb over to the drill press. Slowly, the small drill bored through the thumbnail when common sense reared its ugly head. You see it was common sense to relieve the pressure and even common sense to drill a hole to do so. However the person at the controls of the drill press didn’t have the common sense to realize the difference in density between a thumbnail and the tissue behind it. As the drill passed through the nail it quickly went through the flesh behind it until it went right through the thumb. The storyteller made it clear that this common sense solution did relieve the pressure but of course now a visit to the doctor to solve a bigger injury was the result.

When I tell this story, people anticipate the ending and laughter breaks out. They aren’t making fun of the person injured rather, they are laughing at how foolish the action taken appears. As we can see common sense prior to approaching the drill press changed as the drill did its work. But now common sense has changed so much that it seems foolish.

So the next time someone tells you safety is common sense ask them “when”. This ought to get them thinking and after all safety is something we must think about if we expect to act safely. Safety deserves more than common sense; it deserves mindfulness.

If you’re looking for someone who can get your employees thinking about safety consider having me come to your location and do my presentation, “Ensure Your Safety”. It is designed to help employees take personal responsibility for their own safety. For more information call Toll Free 1-800-588-9419 or 1(209)-745-9419, and talk with Diane Weiss.

Keep working safe.
More to come next week.
John Drebinger

For more information call our Institute Director, Sandie Gilbert at 209-747-2770 or call our office at 800-745-9419.

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