Measuring Safety Excellence: A Practical Framework

What one measurement would provide the greatest insight and facilitate performance and cultural transformation?

• By Shawn M. Galloway
• Oct 01, 2012

Hearing the scores before watching Olympic competitions provides an interesting perspective. Being in the United States at the time of the London 2012 Olympics, the results are known hours before the events are broadcasted. Viewers know who won prior to watching their performance. This vantage point moves the viewer beyond results to understanding what performance contributed to it. We must think the same way with our safety measurement systems.

In last month’s column, “Zero Incident Goals Motivate Risk-Taking, Not Excellence,” I urged readers to evolve beyond zero-based goals and initiatives. This doesn’t mean setting your goal as beyond zero, because that is too vague. Let me be clear: Of course zero incidents and injuries should be a goal in safety. It just should not be the goal. Once you achieve zero incidents or injuries, your measurements no longer provide insight as to how to get better. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework to measure safety excellence that is not only practical but internally implementable, as well.

Injury data measurements will move from prescriptive to descriptive to pointless and, eventually, demotivating and misdirecting. Excellence is achieved when successful performance is continuously repeated, unprompted, producing predictable positive results. How predictable are your results based on your measurement systems? If you achieve success, do your measurements tell you why, or even the difference in luck or purposeful intent?

Of course we want no injuries, but remember, this is a negatively defined goal that motivates failing less. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to exist that currently does not, or at least not consistently today? Like watching an Olympic event after knowing the winner, what performance would you observe that would give you a sense of confidence that great results should be expected? To get started, gather a representation of the culture and collaboratively answer these questions:

What does safety excellence mean? Clarity and alignment of this question first cannot be stressed enough. If you ask 10 different people in your organization for this definition, you will receive 15 different answers. Create a definition most believe in. If some do not share your goal, how can you influence their beliefs?

1. What would excellence look like?
2. What performance would you see from executives, managers, supervisors, employees, and contractors if you had reached your definition of safety excellence?
3. How will you measure or gather insight into whether these individuals’ performance is aligned with your vision or definition of safety excellence?
4. What activities or initiatives need to be deployed to create competency or structure for the desired performance to exist?
5. How will you measure the impact these activities and new performance have on results?

It is important to first know where you are and have a clear understanding of the ( continue reading . . . )