Would you agree with me that it is good to be safe on the job?\u00a0 Of course you would!\u00a0 No one wants to be injured…on the job, or anywhere else for that matter.\u00a0 So, why isn’t every work place a safe place to work?<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s because we don’t have enough safety rules.\u00a0 “But,” you say, “we have lots of safety rules.”\u00a0 Well, maybe we don’t have the right rules.\u00a0 If we have all of the right rules, no one will get hurt, right?\u00a0 But, wait a minute… Is everyone always following all of the rules we already have?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 But, why not?<\/p>\n
I guess maybe we have enough of the right rules, but we just don’t enforce them well enough.\u00a0 We need to enforce our safety rules more strictly.\u00a0 Oh, but why should we have to be concerned about that?\u00a0 Why should we have to enforce rules at all?\u00a0 No one wants to be injured?\u00a0 Why wouldn’t everyone just follow the rules?\u00a0 Why do they have to be enforce?<\/p>\n
Finally, we are coming to the crux of the problem.\u00a0 Rules just aren’t the key to good safety, are they?\u00a0 Rules alone will not prevent accidents.\u00a0 Rules can be posted…and talked about…even memorized, but it’s what you do with the rules that will make all the difference.<\/p>\n
Its not that rules are not important.\u00a0 They are important!\u00a0 It’s just that we don’t always follow the rules, even if we know that they are good rules and even if we are in agreement with the end result that the rules are intended to produce.\u00a0 If we did, there would be no need for policemen to give tickets for traffic violations.\u00a0 We just wouldn’t go faster than the speed limit.<\/p>\n
Yes rules are important.\u00a0 We need them to help create safe working areas.\u00a0 If we would just follow them we could prevent many accidents and injuries.\u00a0 But we don’t follow them.\u00a0 So we have to ask, why don’t we follow the rules if they are good and important and will keep us from being injured?<\/p>\n
The answer to this question involves an important topic that we have not considered yet.\u00a0 The reason we don’t follow the rules about safety is that our attitude toward the safety rules is not good.\u00a0 Really, the problem is our attitude toward the whole topic of safety.<\/p>\n
It is true that no one wants to get hurt, but often we don’t really think it could happen to us.\u00a0 We don’t want an eye injury, but those safety glasses are uncomfortable and its hard to see with them because they get fogged up.\u00a0 “And, besides,” we may say, “what’s the big deal.\u00a0 I’m being careful.\u00a0 Nothing is going to happen to my eyes.” But, then it does.<\/p>\n
Yes, our attitude toward safety is just as important… maybe even more important… than the rules.<\/p>\n
So, let’s think for a minute about attitudes.\u00a0 What are attitudes?\u00a0 What kind of attitudes do we want to have?\u00a0 And, how does one go about changing his attitudes, anyway?<\/p>\n
Someone has defined attitudes as habits of thought.\u00a0 The way we habitually think about something is our attitude toward it.\u00a0 We may not be consciously thinking all the time about safety, for example, but what we think when we do think about it will form our safety attitude.<\/p>\n
What do we want our attitudes toward safety to be?<\/p>\n
Well, first let’s say what we don’t want them to be.\u00a0 We don’t want to think that we don’t have to be concerned about safety because we have done the same job before a thousand times.\u00a0 Accidents always happen when we least expect them.\u00a0 After all, if we thought an accident was about to happen, we would do something different to prevent it, right?\u00a0 So, we want to form the habit of thinking that it is always important to be concerned about safety.<\/p>\n
We don’t want to think that accidents just happen to other people.\u00a0 We must realize that we are “the other guy!”\u00a0 Accidents happen to people who do things in an unsafe manner, or those who use unsafe equipment, or those who are around someone else who thinks that safety is not important.\u00a0 We want to form the habit of thinking that we must do the right thing in order to protect ourselves and those around us.<\/p>\n
We definitely do not want to think that we have the ability to quickly react to dangerous situations as they arise.\u00a0 We just do not react that fast!\u00a0 Accidents happen very very quickly.\u00a0 We didn’t know we were going to fall, we just found ourself on the floor.\u00a0 We didn’t mean to have our finger under the blade of that machine…it just happened so quickly we didn’t have time to react.\u00a0 We want to form the habit of thinking ahead so that we can be sure we are working safely at all times, avoiding dangerous situations if at all possible.<\/p>\n
Since attitudes are habits of thinking, the question really is how to change habits.\u00a0 Habits are formed by repitition.\u00a0 The more we do something, the more likely it is that we will do the same thing again the next time a similar situation arises.\u00a0 We get used to doing things in a particular way and we tend to continue doing them that way.\u00a0 If we want to change a habit, we have to deliberately choose to do things in a way that is different from the way we usually do them.\u00a0 Habits of thought, attitudes, are the same way.\u00a0 If we want to develop good attitudes toward safety, we must deliberately choose to think and respond to situations in a way that is consistent with good safety.\u00a0 Maybe we will have to wear safety glasses even if they are uncomfortable and inconvenient because we know there is a good reason for doing so.\u00a0 We choose what we think, and we must choose the right thoughts every time until it becomes a habit.\u00a0 Then we will have developed a “good attitude” toward that aspect of safety.<\/p>\n
Safety rules are never going to be good enough unless we approach them with the attitude that they are important not because they are rules, but because they are right.<\/p>\n
None of us want to be injured, and none of us wants to cause someone else to be injured, so lets work together to form the attitudes, the habits of thought about safety, that will keep us all safe and injury free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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