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#101: Why EHS Isn’t Just Morally Right, But Good Business Too
139 Plays1 year ago
Even though everyone understands that safety in the workplace is important, it can still be tough for decision-makers to get on board with making necessary, and lasting, changes. It’s easy to conduct an incident investigation and put a fix in place, but what about working to prevent incidents instead of just responding to them? Join Jill as she chats with Carla Davis-Madgett, who stumbled into a 38-year-long career as an EHS professional after recognizing her strengths and personal values; capturing the hearts and minds of leadership in order to create a continuous dialogue.
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Transcript
Introduction to Carla Davis-Magit
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome back. This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded January 26th, 2023. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer. My guest today is Carla Davis-Magit, an HSC professional in the 38th year of her career, which has spanned the refinery, chemical, oil, gas, and aerospace industries with global responsibility.
00:00:34
Speaker
Carla is a chemical engineer and has a master's degree in project management. Carla joins us today from Houston. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Jill. Well, I'm so happy to have you here and thrilled that I was able to connect with
The Journey to Process Safety
00:00:52
Speaker
you. You and I met at a conference, a verdantics conference a couple months ago where you keynoted the event. And I just loved hearing from you and really appreciate your willingness to come on the podcast.
00:01:04
Speaker
Thank you. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. Thank you. You're welcome. So Carla, where does your HSC story begin? How far back in the way back machine do we go? So I, you know, out of the 38 year career, my HSC career started back in around 2000 and probably six or seven.
00:01:28
Speaker
Um, where I actually, I, you know, I, I chose to not pursue a degree in HSC. Um, I chose not, I didn't want a profession in HSC. Um, and, um, but I, but I was actually convinced from a person who I have a lot of respect for who has been, who was my vice president and now my personal friend and mentor to pursue a role in process safety.
00:01:54
Speaker
And it started because back in when I was working for BP, when the ERP systems were coming into Vogue, I actually was a global planner at the time for chemicals. And I started working to support that role and supported about three manufacturing sites, one in Belgium, one, we were building one in Canada and one in Texas.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I was asked at the time to take on a project to build the work processes for the ERP system that was getting ready to be put in place for planning. So went on a project, did that work, and then started getting involved in work processes.
00:02:41
Speaker
started working in work processes for manufacturing sites because at that time the ERP systems were coming into play to support maintenance and production operations and that sort of thing so supported that. And then I got recruited by Shell because Shell was going on a journey
00:02:58
Speaker
to put in work processes to improve their process safety performance. They had some pretty significant incidents and the person that actually hired me became a zealot. He was a protege of Michael Hammer and he started really studying the impact of work processes and how it could make improve and build consistency, build repeatability, and ultimately,
00:03:27
Speaker
be able to predict when work was being done well and when it was not being done well so that we could start building some asset integrity processes to support things like inspection, maintenance, operation, metallurgy, process control, those sorts of things.
00:03:50
Speaker
Um, and I did that work working at the Norco manufacturing complex. And I did that for about four years, but I was not in HSC. I was actually a manufacturing ops excellence manager. And so I got a tap on the shoulder from this person who recruited me into
Solving Complex Safety Challenges
00:04:08
Speaker
shell. Uh, and he said, Carl, I saw this job and I thought of you.
00:04:13
Speaker
And, cause I was actually applying for another job. I wanted this capital manager job. I thought, oh, it'd be cool to be a venture capitalist. And this job was for process safety assurance. And I looked at the job and I was like, yeah, I don't want anything like that. That's not my thing. I don't want safety. So I told him, I said, I don't want it. Now it was a promotion. I said, I don't want the job. I'm not interested.
00:04:39
Speaker
And what did you think safety was, Carla? I thought safety at that time was building programs, putting up banners, doing behavioral safety slogans, and putting things on coffee mugs. And I was like, that's not me. I'm a problem solver. And I don't want to do that kind of thing. And so then a friend of mine who he had kind of assigned to be my personal buddy,
00:05:09
Speaker
called me to Port Arthur to have a conversation. And he was, you know, trying to talk me up about the job and I told him, I said, I'm not going to take it. I don't want it.
00:05:19
Speaker
And he told me, go talk to this other gentleman. He'll give you a feel for this capital planning job that you want. He said, I really, Carla, it's not you. I just don't think it's you. He said, that's not your personality. And I was like, how are you going to tell me what is my personality? I don't want a process safety job.
00:05:40
Speaker
So finally we went round and round. And I said, I came to the conclusion that the decision had already been made. And so I said, do I have a vote on this? And he said, no. I said, OK, well, then you should have said it from the beginning. I would go ahead and take the job.
00:05:57
Speaker
And the role was actually put in place, this is right after BP Macondo because they had set up these process safety assurance roles for Shell where you would go around and do assessments around the globe and understand if they had production stability and if their processes are in place.
00:06:16
Speaker
And, and then you will go in work directly with the people and help them fix it. Now, my background, I tend to be a person I love ambiguity. I love complex problems. I love, you know, when in my own personal life I love puzzles I love murder mysteries, because I love solving stuff.
00:06:36
Speaker
And this is part of your, this is part of your personal trade. This is my personal trade, the messier the better, right? So, and even in my personal life, I took on some of the more complex problems because I love to figure stuff out. And you know, sometimes I'm good at it. And when I'm looking at movies, many times I'm not. But, and so when, so when I took the job, and here's, this is a job where I had to go in and within two to three weeks,
00:07:04
Speaker
I had to go in, I would travel all over the world, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, the United States, Canada, and I would have to go in and within two to three weeks, I would have to understand what was broken, and I would have to convince people who sometimes didn't realize it that they had problems that needed to be fixed, and then I'd have to work with them to come up with solutions.
00:07:34
Speaker
So Carla, when you were, so three weeks, that's moving. That's moving. That is moving. And so did you lean into your background in project management? I'm just thinking of the tools that you use and you have personal traits like the messier, the better. But when you looked at it and went, okay.
00:07:54
Speaker
I see the issues like what was your approach in the tools that you use to try to make some sort of sense out of there were tools in place that that were built into the process is for this right so we are we use the standard set of tools and it gave you the baseline it told you what were the fundamental basics that needed to be in place.
00:08:17
Speaker
that was essentially the definition of good, right?
Engaging Leadership in Safety Solutions
00:08:22
Speaker
But what I learned from, if I compare the first two to three assessments to the last two to three, what I learned is that that too was the foundation to get you off the ground. Cause that was, you had to do that within like the first two to three days, right? But the magic came when you got the leaders engaged.
00:08:44
Speaker
they had to be a part of the solution they had to own it they had to feel that it was there were issues they had to come have a really good feel for what that risk could translate into that was where the skill came in and that's where how so it started where to me what i learned over the course of these that it was very important to get that leader involved i remember
00:09:11
Speaker
one of the assessments I did, because I would always have a meeting with that leader to get their understanding of what they thought was actually happening.
00:09:21
Speaker
Right. And then I would go out in the field to validate if that was the case. And I was talking to a one gentleman and I started going through and telling them some of the things I was going to look at their operation, their production systems. I was going to look at their maintenance systems, inspection systems, their corrosion metallurgy system, process control. And so he said, is this free?
00:09:43
Speaker
I said, yeah, he is free to you. And he sat back and he looked on his whiteboard. He started writing things on the board and started telling me all the things he wanted me to look at and all the things he thought was broken. And when I had meetings where I would check in with them to kind of give them an update on where I was.
00:10:04
Speaker
he would challenge me, you're not going deep enough. And that was what I learned was the success of getting that leader to the place where they once saw the value in it. And then I built a reputation for being able to do it. So then people knew I could do it. So then towards the end, people knew what I was coming to do. And I got leadership involvement and leadership support.
00:10:34
Speaker
There was one I did in the North Sea because they had some issues and the leader said, I want to understand what
00:10:44
Speaker
He said, I do a lot of things. I want to understand what am I missing? What am I blind to? So that gave me something to work with, is what was blocking his view, right? And so I went into the facility, spent four nights offshore in the North Sea, was scared to death, because I had this image of the deadliest catch, which was not the truth, and walked around with people, started looking at their systems. And at the end,
00:11:14
Speaker
I started learning how to craft the message to tell the story. So what I did is I took these slides. And on the back page, I listed all the things that you should do to have a stable management system. And then I took these clouds.
00:11:40
Speaker
And the clouds were all the things they were doing under the guise of mitigating risk. And they were actually causing the blindness.
00:11:55
Speaker
because what was happening is they were going in and doing a lot of work to try to, let's say they had a maintenance process that they had to put in place because the equipment needed repair, but they didn't have the time or money to repair it. So they put in this interim mitigation, right?
00:12:13
Speaker
Well, it turns out that interim mitigation turned out to be more operator surveillance or more inspection. They had so many of those things in place that if you added up all the hours, they would not, there weren't enough people.
00:12:30
Speaker
on the platform to do all the work so what happened is it wasn't being done so it became the risk mitigation became a risk and i started i started putting all those clouds on so then i said i'm going to show you why you're blind and as i started i started with the to show him what you know the base what you should do with the management system and i started hitting the um
00:12:55
Speaker
the PowerPoint presentation or the down button and the cloud would pop up. And by the time we got done, everything was clouded and he could see nothing. And he paused and the room was silent for probably, it felt for everybody, it was probably about a minute.
00:13:16
Speaker
And he got it, right? That to me was the magic that transpired. And I'll tell you this, it was the coolest job I ever had. It sounds like it. Loved it. And it sounds like you had really
00:13:36
Speaker
you know, willing participants. Yes. I mean, maybe that wasn't always the case, but it sounds like these managers you were working with were, you know, like willing to ask you those probing questions. Absolutely. Like where are my blind spots? Where are my blind spots? Dig, dig deeper, Carla. Yeah.
00:13:52
Speaker
It made me realize, so I had to apologize to my boss and the one that I fought because he was right. He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself and part of it was I wanted what was popular. Those old jobs were really popular.
00:14:14
Speaker
and seen as the ones that pushed your career, right? What I realized is you have to find what a job that aligns with your traits and your skills and your value systems. Because when you do, magic happens.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, Karla, talk a little bit more about that. I mean, so our listeners, you know, are they thinking like,
00:14:45
Speaker
Okay, she's talking about personality traits and values. And people listening may be wondering, hmm, wonder what mine are. I wonder what she's talking about. Do you wanna talk about some of those personality traits and how it's informed your work and what your values are? And you've had a 38 year career and how those traits and values become, I'm guessing, more and more crystal as you work. When I mentor,
00:15:15
Speaker
a lot of people over my career. And one of the things that I started with is that, you know, we sit down. I said, you know, let's. Let's take work out of the equation. I don't want. Let's not talk about work. Let's talk about you. You know, you you've just hit the lottery. So money is not an issue. What what do you want to do? What makes you happy?
00:15:46
Speaker
And when you sit back and you think about it, you have to think about, that's it, think about when you're being entertained, when you're talking to friends, what provides energy? Because at the end of the day, we all have a limited amount of energy. And if you put energy into what you don't enjoy, it takes away from the energy that you do enjoy, because we only have so much.
00:16:13
Speaker
So I said, what is it? So I said, let's start with me. And that's when I said, you know, I have to reflect on it. If I, you know, what what make provides energy and that is, you know, when I'm going to the movies with my sister and my niece, because we do things together, they love rom coms and that drives the energy out of me. I just don't enjoy it. But a murder mystery.
00:16:36
Speaker
I'm sitting on the edge of my seat. Why? Because I like things to understand how things are muckied up and how things unravel. When you think about what I do for personal enjoyment, I love to work with puzzles. I do this, I have this adult coloring where
00:16:57
Speaker
I take this blank canvas and I stare at it and try to figure out how to turn it into something that creates beauty. So I've been studying how colors turn into shadows and how the leaves on the tree start with it being dark at the core and they end up light at the end because they're trying to get to the sunlight. That stimulates me. So you gotta start thinking about what is it
00:17:27
Speaker
gives you energy. But the other thing you also have to think about that a lot of people don't is what just takes away energy? Because, you know, there will always be people who try to put things on you and try to help you be something,
Aligning Career with Personal Values
00:17:48
Speaker
right? And so you gotta be able to know that that doesn't create energy for you so that you can say no.
00:17:54
Speaker
Right, energy vampires. Oh, I love that, energy vampires. And so, for me, working on a spreadsheet or having to do some sort of daily structured monotonous task is energy draining and I feel exhausted.
00:18:17
Speaker
But when I sit down and do my adult calling, this was my entertainment. I learned this through COVID. I gotta find something to do besides binge watch television, because there was nothing else to do, because you couldn't go anywhere. I would lose the day. I would look around and find out it at nightfall, because I was working on it and it consumed me, because I loved the end result.
00:18:43
Speaker
And so that's why you have to start really thinking about what creates energy and what is the energy vampire. I love that term. And then,
00:18:55
Speaker
you can start talking about. Okay, now what does that mean? So one young lady said, I love teaching. I love working with children. I would be a teacher with young people. And I said, well, why do you love that? She said, well, I love to see people grow and I love to see the light in people's eyes. I said, okay, now let's bring it back to work. Can you do that at work? Can you help people grow? Can you help people see the light in their eyes?
00:19:24
Speaker
And then you can start mapping out a profession. And a profession is not the same as a role, right? I had a boss who I had a lot of respect for said, Carla, you can make a job anything you wanted. So he said, if you have a good boss and a good support system, you can morph that role into and leverage your skill sets.
00:19:53
Speaker
So if you're in a job where you, let's say you have to work with people to develop a specific task, well, you can bring new ideas into that room and you can help people grow and understand those ideas and those people can, you can see the light in their eyes.
00:20:12
Speaker
And that's the key. Yeah, it's beautiful. That's beautiful. I think about those traits for me. I've taken the strengths finder assessment. I don't know if you've ever taken that, Carla. It's through Gallup. No, never. It's this assessment that
00:20:30
Speaker
tells you what your top five natural strengths are like you were born with. So when you're talking about the energy, that's what I'm thinking about the things that energize me to do and to lean into those and away from the things like you're saying, take your energy away. You know, so like one of my top five strengths is something called individualization, meaning I like to learn unique things about individuals and remember them.
00:20:56
Speaker
and also communication is another one of my top five. And so what do I love? What gives me energy? Collecting people's stories. So what am I doing here? I've got a podcast, right? So Carly, you also talked about values. How do you think about that in terms of your career and decisions that you make? So you know, it values, some people think that values is
00:21:27
Speaker
the difference between right and wrong, and it is. But there are levels of gray, right? So sometimes you're thinking, well, my values, they're ethical, I'm ethical. Therefore, our values are aligned. For that, yes. But there are other values. So let's say that you're, so you have to think about,
00:21:55
Speaker
Um, you know, the value of speed and taking action and driving things with, with, with and not being a procrastinator or, um, or somebody who values, um, ideas of others.
00:22:14
Speaker
or values helping to leverage all the talent in the room, right? You have to think about all those values and how it can help you along. So earlier in my career, my thinking was the big values, right? Ethics, you know,
00:22:37
Speaker
compliance with the law, all those things, that's table stakes. You also have to think about the value of your group, your organization, and what, and I learned a lot of this in that audit role, and their ability to want to get to the end result. I've had some assurance jobs where I literally gave people the truth
00:23:07
Speaker
And they knew the truth. But they took it and used it in a different way. And they used it in a different way. And so I think you have to think about that it's not just about good and bad. It's about how people leverage. And one of the things that I did is I said, at this point, I have to recognize that my role is maybe not to be transformative,
00:23:36
Speaker
But my role is to communicate the truth because this person is not a transformer, right? And so that value system is not there. So I think it's really being aligned and understanding what you value versus the traditional value systems that people think about.
00:24:00
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. And for you, it's exposing the truth. And maybe that means just letting it sit. Right. You know, like you've you've shown a light on it. And then what's the next person's role after you've exposed exactly. And my role, you know, I value transformation. I value change. I value. But some people don't. Some people value steady as you go. Keep the wheel cranking. Yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
Does that mean that my values are good and theirs are bad? No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Carly, you were taking us on this journey of your careers and where you ended up and the people that you were working with and continuing on with your career if you'd like. What have you learned about environmental health and safety, the HSE role? Why HSE for you?
00:24:56
Speaker
And what do you believe it is? So I would say, I'm actually doing a presentation at a conference similar to the one at Verdantics. So I was preparing for it. And it's been helpful for this. Back in 1970, the death rate was 18 per 100,000 employees. That was 1970. In 2008, 2007,
00:25:25
Speaker
It was 3.8 deaths per 100,000. In 2020, it was 3.4. So let's think about that. There's been a significant improvement since 1970 and 2007. And it's been fairly flat.
00:25:56
Speaker
in the last 16 years. And so, you know, I've been on a diet journey. And on this diet journey, which has been very helpful in the last month, I have been doing the same thing over and over again. I have, you know, because I'm trying to find this magical diet that will allow me to have snickers and eat popcorn.
00:26:23
Speaker
and have a couple glasses of wine here and there and get on the scale and lose weight. And I get so frustrated when it doesn't happen. And at the end of the day, I realized, you know what? Is it the diet or is it me? And I realized I had to change. Now I read about it. I can quote every diet under the sun. It's not about knowledge.
Addressing Workplace Safety Statistics
00:26:50
Speaker
It's about action. And when I look at our stats, if industry wants to change, and remember, let's talk about value systems. What do you want, right? It's all about what you want. If they really want to make the next step change, the function has to change.
00:27:13
Speaker
It's not saying that the function is bad, because the function, the work that has been done from 1970 to 2007 has been profound. Significant improvement, all the management system work, all the policies, procedures, all of that has been very, very successful. But it's not gonna get us to the next level. And so then you have to ask yourself, what is?
00:27:43
Speaker
And that's what has been very intriguing for me, because when I started digging deeper in some of the work that's being done, and it talked about what was the biggest sources of injuries, it talked about things like biological gender,
00:28:04
Speaker
And not saying women or men are stronger versus the other is matching the job with the people's abilities, body composition, health, physical fitness, anatomy, skill level, psychological factors. All of these have been the biggest risk factors that they have proven have caused the injuries. But guess what we're looking at? We're going back and we're looking at near misses,
00:28:35
Speaker
percent inspection, number of behavioral based safety observations, training. So think about why people are getting injured and think about what we're doing and think about the stats.
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah, and Carla, are you suggesting looking more at fitting the person to the job? Well, I think, you know, when I, the company that I just left, I was doing one of my walks and it was the most interesting thing. The team had this application and the application, because we had a lot of problems with slip trips and falls.
00:29:19
Speaker
And the team started doing a study and found out that a lot of the issues, because many of the people working were moving into the 50 year range of age, and a lot of their issues when they started studying their balance,
00:29:40
Speaker
they weren't balanced in how they walk because of, for whatever reason, their muscles were atrophying because they weren't using them, right? And so they said, you know what, people are slipping and falling because they're not balanced.
00:29:55
Speaker
So they, this app actually showed how people could, what was the areas that needed to focus on. And then they would give people various exercises to help balance them more so they could walk better and not fall. Matter of fact, I'm actually doing some of that right now, every three times a week for me. Cause I was thinking, Oh my gosh, you know what? I got to think about myself, but think about that and, and how,
00:30:22
Speaker
powerful that is because the main causes of workplace injuries is overexertion and slip trips and falls, distractions, housekeeping, cutting corners. So picture now somebody saying, you know what? This is not saying that people age is bad or good. This is saying we have to live with the fact that as we get older, we have to do different things to keep our muscles intact.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah, you know, when I think about that, Carla, when I see, oh, you know, like take an example of a roofer. And I just said that with my Minnesota accent. I know everybody. And you think about, you know, a young
00:31:09
Speaker
fit person who's able to throw a bundle of shingles on their shoulder and climb up the ladder like a monkey and do that and do that and do that. And they do it because they're young, their body's not worn out yet, right? But how fast will that young, agile body wear out doing that over and over and over again? And just because they can,
00:31:38
Speaker
doesn't mean they should, right? Absolutely. And we should be doing that work smarter from the get go. Instead of wearing these beautiful bodies out and having people atrophy, as you said, later in life or too early for their young life. You know, I think this is part of the job of, you know, this is part of our life's work, Carla.
00:32:06
Speaker
And you know, the other part of it is when you find a task that is really putting a damper on a person's body, you have to ask yourself,
00:32:20
Speaker
should that task be done differently? Right, right. And I think you have a story about the guy with the sander, did you want to talk about it? Yeah. So I was watching a gentleman who, because a lot of the injuries in my former place of employment were ergonomic. And so one day, I went out, because I lived out in the field, because I believe that's important. And I started watching. First, I was talking to a gentleman who was a sander.
00:32:49
Speaker
And we were talking about his job. And so I said, let me ask you a question. When you're out there doing the sanding work, about how long does it take before you start to hurt? And he laughed. He said, it happens immediately. He said, but let me explain to you. He said, I'll start working. And the pain starts immediately. I do it for eight hours.
00:33:20
Speaker
I go home and nurse myself. I come back and I do it again for eight more hours and this can go on for three weeks. So that just resonated with me. I thought, goodness gracious. So then I was out and I was watching a person who was actually doing similar work and he had this device and he was using these repetitive hand motions.
00:33:47
Speaker
And I thought to myself, if that person has to do that work consistently every day, he is going to have an ergonomic injury because that is what's causing it. So the answer should be, should I figure out how to
00:34:07
Speaker
Help him or should I try to change the job? And these are the types of things that I think are the next way that will get us from that 3.8 to that 3.4. And as I was going through it, the power of it is,
00:34:24
Speaker
data, getting a far better understanding of the data, making sure that the data fits the job. I hear so much about leading indicators. And when I was talking to a group of people and everybody had, they have these, somebody went out and did this big, huge study on all these leading indicators and they came back with this huge list.
00:34:49
Speaker
And all the leaders were so excited because they said, oh, this is the big answer, right? We're gonna do this leading indicators versus lagging. And I started looking at the leading indicators and compared it to what people, individual places. And I thought, yes, that's true. If that leading indicator is applicable to that job, it's not the standard set. And let's go back to my diet. I was thinking about this yesterday.
00:35:18
Speaker
So for me, a good leading indicator, what the standard leading indicators for diet is how much exercise you do, if you log all your food, if you stay within a certain amount of calories, if you drink water, the lagging indicator is getting on the scale. However, for me, a woman at my age,
00:35:45
Speaker
that one of the leading indicators was to stay within 1600 calories a day. So I did. But you know what I love? Snickers and popcorn. And I was able to get, keep my calories within 1600 calories a day. And I did have my candy and I did eat my popcorn. And guess what happened? I exercised every day, I drank my water, I logged my food and I gained weight.
00:36:16
Speaker
Why? Because those leading indicators were not applicable to my problem. And my problem is that sugar affects my hormonal system and the hormonal system causes me to have a lot of insulin that kicks in and the insulin stores fat and it makes me gain weight. So what I have to realize is my leading indicator may not be a 17 year old kid's leading indicator.
00:36:43
Speaker
So you can't have all these standard ones and apply it to everybody. You got to find the leading indicator that works for me. It's the same thing now. We've got to start using and now we've got the ability with big data and using data scientists to get very, very surgical about what is the leading indicator that affects the risk of this particular job.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah. So talk about that, Carla, in terms of, you know, you're describing, and I think you've said that you believe we're on the cusp of transformational change, you know, within our work and how we can leverage tech for this change. If someone is listening and thinking, I wonder what she's talking about, like how do I get this data or what sort of tech, what sort of examples could you give from your experience, Carla?
00:37:39
Speaker
I think a lot of companies have the data. I think there's all sorts of systems that they have in place. They have maintenance systems. They have operational systems. They've got safety systems. They have a lot of it. It's how the data will be manipulated. To me, the next wave is to start looking at the correlations between the data. Looking at going through and having someone
00:38:07
Speaker
start looking at the connections between the number of hours a person works versus the number of injuries that person has or looking at the productivity rate or looking at the
00:38:19
Speaker
You know the the resting patterns a lot. It's not to me a Situation where you have to create something new now some smart person out there may create an algorithm that starts doing all this kind of stuff automatically and I and I applaud them because
00:38:37
Speaker
Although I know how to leverage technology, that is something I couldn't do. But you still can do it by having people dig through the data. And then this goes back to roles.
00:38:51
Speaker
How do we leverage the roles in our organization to start focusing on the right things? We are spending a lot of time using the roles to look at incidents that have happened.
00:39:09
Speaker
and we use that in our minds to think that that's gonna help us to solve, we do investigations, we do incident, we should be, use some of those roles, not saying we shouldn't use all of them, to start really thinking about cause and effect and looking in many of, most safety incidents are not related to something in safety.
Enhancing Safety Through Incident Analysis
00:39:39
Speaker
Most safety incidents are related to operations and maintenance. One of the things I did, we kept having all these incidents and it was a weird phenomena because we would always have them in the first quarter of every year. So I asked the team, I said, I want us to do an incident investigation of the incident investigations.
00:40:03
Speaker
And we took, I got a team together and they took all the incidents and picked the top 16 and they said, let's look for some common threads. And they pulled through and you know what they found out? They found out that most of the incidents that happened, 60% happened during maintenance. So is that where you should be trying to fix safety or trying to improve the maintenance and reliability?
00:40:32
Speaker
Right. And the other one was most of the incidents that happened, happened within a split second where someone at the moment that they made the decision went and did not follow the rule. The rule was there. One person actually got injured bypassing the safety device because it fell on his hand and cracked his hand. They knew they were doing it.
00:40:57
Speaker
And then you have to ask yourself, why, why, why are they not doing it? And that's to me where roles that are that we should be focusing on should be looking at data science, leveraging our data scientists, but also psychologists. Talk more about that. And I so I so agree with you it, you know, like you were talking about cause and effect and correlations with data and everywhere you work.
00:41:27
Speaker
it's going to be different. When you're just giving the example about most things happening in the first quarter, in my last role, it was always before a big holiday push.
00:41:39
Speaker
So in that December timeframe is when we started seeing spikes. And why was that? People were getting ready to take time off. They were trying to get things done. They were moving faster. There was less time to accomplish things. And just the speed with which people were working was one of the reasons why people were getting hurt.
00:42:02
Speaker
And looking back in my job with OSHA, every accident, every fatality that I investigated, with the exception of one I can think of right now and over 30 that I investigated, were people working alone.
00:42:18
Speaker
You know, it was like, oh, here's another one. No witnesses. Person working alone. Can't even try to put the story, the puzzle, you know, like you're talking about together. So everywhere we work, you're right. We need to look at these cause and effects and these correlations, but please keep talking about, you know, the HSC as being, you know, including psychology and sociology. You know, so I would say, you know, when you think about what, you know, the, the,
00:42:46
Speaker
The biggest learning for me was what can I do to transfer this uncomfortable feeling that I have when I'm looking at some of this stuff over to the person who is accountable for it.
00:43:06
Speaker
And I remember doing a field walk at one of the sites and I didn't see any operators. And I was like, where are the operators? So I went in and I started talking to the leaders and I said, I said, where are the operators?
Psychology in Safety Culture
00:43:21
Speaker
They said, well, the leader doesn't believe in the operators being out in the field. They only wanted to do it on a limited basis.
00:43:27
Speaker
because they're trying to protect them. In their minds, they thought it was, I was like, yeah, but the operators are the ones that are protecting the asset and themselves. So I was talking to the business leader and they told me, they said, I said, you gotta have operators all around the field.
00:43:48
Speaker
And, um, and, and she said, Oh, you know what? That's one of the reasons why they don't like working with people, um, like yourself, the company that I worked with, because you're always trying to force your thinking on them. So now I reflected on, I said, let me explain to you. I said, I'm in Houston and you're 5,000 miles away.
00:44:12
Speaker
Right now, I said, I am really feeling uncomfortable about what you're doing because I know the risk that it creates. I said, and I'm in Houston. You're there. So what I need to do is help you to understand that you're putting yourself at risk, right?
00:44:33
Speaker
And I want you to help me help you understand that that is a risky proposition. Well, you know, think about what a psychologist and a sociologist can do because it's sometimes it's not about just handing people the algebraic equation.
00:44:49
Speaker
It's getting to the hearts and mind of those people and the psychologists and I think sociologists can help that in that space to take because we have a lot of people who think of world the world using empirical data and how if I just show them that it's right.
00:45:05
Speaker
It's going to convince them. You got it. But that doesn't work all the time. And so I think though, you know, leveraging data scientists, psychologists, sociologists, does it mean that you don't have industrial hygienists, ergonomists? No, that's table stakes.
00:45:25
Speaker
You have to have those things. You have to have safety specialists. But that's right now we've got to realize you want to get from that beyond that 3.4, which we've been hovering at for the last 16 years. We got to do things differently and we can't continue to just keep. I got so tired.
00:45:46
Speaker
of the routine of an incident and do an investigation and then preparing a report. And most of the recommendations either do better training or do a checklist.
00:46:03
Speaker
And I was like, how many checklists are they doing right now? Because if I go back and look at all those reports, they should be doing at least 50, right? And the focus should be on how do we institutionalize practices? How do we change the work? How do we transform and leverage technology to eliminate the risk?
00:46:31
Speaker
That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. I mean, elimination prevention is something that, I mean, Carla, you've worked globally in your job forever. And so I don't know the answer to this. But what I do know about the United States is we're not good at prevention.
Global Safety Practices and Adaptability
00:46:51
Speaker
We are fantastic at running to the fire, at doing a quick fix, of responding to the emergency.
00:47:00
Speaker
But we're not great at prevention, which includes our profession. What did you see when you've worked around the globe? Are there different cultures that are better at prevention or value it in a different way? I don't know if they actually know that they're doing it in prevention. There are some cultures that are very much better at discipline.
00:47:30
Speaker
And predictability, like a lot of the Asian cultures, very structured, you know, very big predictability and routine. And because of that, they have better data.
00:47:45
Speaker
and they can do more in prevention, but I don't know if they're doing it for that reason. And I think that this whole issue of prevention is a moving target, right? It is not, I wish it was, but it's not a straight line because you can do a lot of things to prevent. Let's say you're working and you put in a lot of practices in place to prevent and you're putting in methodical processes where you have to realize
00:48:13
Speaker
anything made by humans, the natural order is for it to break down over time, right?
00:48:21
Speaker
Anything, and our bodies. Our bodies are breaking down over time. Equipment is breaking down over time. And the weather patterns are changing. All these dynamics are changing. So when people put these things in and they build it under the guise that they want it to be a straight line, it's not. And then take the variations of that and add them and multiply them into different things and it creates all different scenarios.
00:48:51
Speaker
And that is to me why your system has to build in adaptability and be able to evolve and learn as these things are changing so it can change. And that's to me where the digitalization comes in. And using technology and being able to sense when the body,
00:49:18
Speaker
changing and the equipment changing are creating this perfect storm for something to happen so that you can intervene versus being able to allow it to just align itself and never touch it again, right? That's why I think you see safety performance go in peaks and valleys because people, I had a boss tell me, every time we'd fix something,
Future of Safety: Challenges and Leadership
00:49:46
Speaker
something breaks. I said, that's called life. It is what it is. And I'm just so frustrated. I said, yeah, but that's called life. There's never going to be a situation where something's not going to break. I said, but what you need to realize is that look at it differently. The things that you're witnessing now,
00:50:12
Speaker
compare them to what you were witnessing before. So I said, when we first started, we had about 15 process safety incidents where I was working. We were down to about two. Well, when we first started having conversations, I was telling him about
00:50:29
Speaker
a couple of gas explosions, burns, significant burns. Towards the end, we were talking about people slipping and tripping and falling. I said it has improved, but you want to never have the conversation. The conversation's gonna continue to happen.
00:50:50
Speaker
And so that's the key. Carly, you've been talking a lot about essentially the future of EHS, HSE, and where you feel like it needs to go to make that change, like you're talking about, so that we can lower and stop hovering around that. What did you say? 3.4, 3.8?
00:51:12
Speaker
3.4 is 2020 fatality rate. Yeah. What other things do you think need to be in place? Do you have more to say about that before we move on to something else? I would just say foundational for all of this is leadership, buy-in, and engagement. That is, to me, where I think there needs to be a dialogue to help leaders understand.
00:51:39
Speaker
And you know, I've learned that sometimes you can't sell it as a moral imperative because most people believe in it and most people know it's the right thing to do. It was like my diet. I knew it was the right thing to do. I know eating chocolate all day is not normal.
00:52:00
Speaker
doesn't matter, right? Um, so you got to figure out what, how do you capture those hearts and minds? And, and there's nothing wrong with linking it to productivity, reliability, and competitive advantage because it is, you know, there, there is, I went through in preparation for this slide presentation and I pulled up on, cause all this is public, right? On Google. And I said, can you give me some charts? Cause I'm trying, I want this presentation to be very interactive.
00:52:27
Speaker
some present charts on the connection between productivity, competitive edge, and safety. 50 of them popped up in all parts of the business. The data's all there. It shows the connection. And we've got to start leveraging it, not feeling ashamed to do it, and start showing people HSC is morally right, but it's good business. Companies that have lower
00:52:58
Speaker
injury rates do better. Why? Because the people who are building the products are healthy. And they can keep their mind on their job when they're healthy. And they can keep their mind on their job. So it's good business and we need to start not feel ashamed of it.
00:53:20
Speaker
And recognize that we have to sell it. I had one of my leaders was a commercial manager. He forced me to speak about EHS in commercial terms. Because that's how his brain was wired. And so I did. And because of that he became a zealot.
00:53:42
Speaker
And I didn't have to push him. He pushed me. Yeah, because he saw the advantage through his lens. He saw the advantage. Yeah. I mean, our default lens as HSE professionals is what you're talking about, the moral imperative, right? That's our default. We think everybody should be like that. That's not where we can stay.
00:54:00
Speaker
You know, we have to meet people where they are. And I think this is beautiful what you're saying about being able to show the, what did you say, reliability, productivity, a competitive advantage of safety. Yeah, it's wonderful. Wonderful.
00:54:16
Speaker
Carla, what a great reflection and planting of seeds for the next generation, and particularly the people that listen to this podcast. And I know that you've been reflecting a lot because you're also considering your next career move.
00:54:33
Speaker
And so what does that look like for you? And I'm curious what people might be able to take away from the thought process that you're going through right now if someone else is in the same position.
00:54:48
Speaker
Well, you know, it goes back to kind of, you know, what you value and what interests you, right? And so, you know, I left a role, I was a vice president of a HSC function and I left it because the role was changing and it was becoming a role that was more, you know, junior in nature. And as you get older,
00:55:16
Speaker
time becomes a valuable resource, right? And so I started reflecting on me as an individual. And I said, you know, there's nothing wrong with what they're trying to accomplish, but that's, you know, that's not what I want to do in the later stages of my career.
00:55:35
Speaker
I've been reflective, I've done some travels, I'm getting ready to go on a cruise to South America in February, so I'm enjoying myself, but I've used this time to be reflective and I've spoken to a number of companies. As I'm going through these conversations, we talked about it's not about good value versus bad, it's about your value system versus others.
00:55:59
Speaker
I believe we're on, we have the ability to do something transformational in this space. I think, and, and that is where my focus is going to be. And so, you know, I'm open. I've been talking to a number of companies. I've been very, very open with them about what I, you know, I believe in. I told them I'm not a traditionalist. I'm, I believe in transformation and I'm very comfortable if that's not what you want. I'm okay with that because.
00:56:25
Speaker
You know, this stage of my life, this is about me fulfilling a purpose. And I don't want, I want it to be a good marriage, right? So my sister's been talking to me and I had, and I thought about some of the things you mentioned. And she said, Carla, why don't you do something on your own? Why don't you think about this and build this into something so that you, instead of just helping one company, you can help multiple companies.
00:56:53
Speaker
You know, and I saw it and I pushed it off. Right. And then another person said it. She said, Carla, why aren't you doing this? Why are you trying to limit this to one place? Why aren't you trying to build this? And so and you know, and you keep getting these sound bites. Right. And and then you said something when we were preparing for this. You said, Carla, you mapped out
00:57:16
Speaker
where you want this to go, and I hadn't. And so now I'm thinking about that. So my sister was a VP of marketing for Coca-Cola, and she said, Carla, I'll help you. And so I'm going to, I've worked for 38 years. If I can't do it now, when can you do it? I don't have any kids to put in college.
00:57:38
Speaker
And I thought, you know, she said, if you talked about this, you want to leave a legacy. What better legacy than to put a framework in place that others can use?
00:57:49
Speaker
So I thought, what a cool thing. So that's what I'm going to think about doing. So that, you know, now I'm still open to, you know, if there's something that materializes, but I kept, it is almost like the situation with my diet. I kept having these conversations with people and trying to explain this, you know, what this is. And everybody's trying to pull me back to be the traditionalist.
00:58:13
Speaker
And I thought, I just don't want that. First of all, I don't think it works. But I don't want to do that. And it's not fair to a group of people that do want to do it to take on that kind of role. If that's what you want, that's fine. But that's not me. And so I've really been reflective. And it's been very, very energizing going full circle with our conversation.
00:58:39
Speaker
about it. And it's creating energy. I woke up this morning thinking, gosh, you know what? And I started jotting notes. And I thought, you know, there's something to this. And should I allow myself to just
00:58:54
Speaker
force myself to fit into a groove that other people think is the right thing or should I do what's the right thing for me? So, and it also goes back to, you know, that conversation where other, you should, I was thinking this morning, you really should allow yourself to listen to others. And I'm saying this to Carla right now, right? Because a lot of times we think we know ourselves.
00:59:20
Speaker
And a lot of people know you better than you. And I, and, and so here's another situation where I had this image in my head of what I thought was best. And everybody keeps getting, I'm getting all this popcorn information from people. Carla.
00:59:37
Speaker
think about what you're doing and how you can be a game changer. And I'm just, oh, no, no, no. And I'm steadily working with people and talking to people. And all these sound bites are coming around me and I just won't listen to it. And at the end of the day, I reflected on it. I was like, oh my goodness. They were right.
00:59:59
Speaker
You're noticing, Carla, the universe that keeps tapping you on the shoulder, right? And giving you these nudges and exposing what it sounds like the path you may get on next. And we don't do that unless we have time to reflect, right? Yes. And so you have this wonderful opportunity to be reflective. And you know what, for
01:00:24
Speaker
for all of us. You know if you're listening and you're mired down into the into the the speed with which your career is moving right now and gosh we know so many so many of us right so many of us in our careers are reacting reacting reacting reacting and
01:00:42
Speaker
If we can at least schedule little tiny bits of our days and weeks for nothing but reflection, you know, that's where the clarity comes. That's where your next big idea comes. That's where your next direction for your career or clarity on something, you know, a specific task, a problem you're trying to solve. That's where the clarity comes.
01:01:07
Speaker
Absolutely. So I thank you. You've been helpful for me in preparation for this is that, you know, I'll have to tell you this one story and I've told people this story before. Yeah. And there's a book and it's called Write It Down, Make It Happen. So I used to mentor these young ladies. Okay. And there's about five or six of them.
01:01:28
Speaker
all young ladies early in their careers, and every month we would meet at my house for dinner. I was in the kitchen and they were talking and they were having all these conversations and everything was about dating and guys. So I said, okay. I said, I know we're supposed to be in a mentoring relationship. Do you want to do anything about work? It's up to you. They said, okay. I said, well, let's do this. Let's do a book club and I'll find a book.
01:01:57
Speaker
And, uh, and, uh, and so they said, okay, so I went and got this book, write it down, make it happen. And, uh, you found it in the bookstore, just kind of scanning through things. And I still, I read probably the first, maybe a hundred pages. And what it talked about is that when you write things down, it actually helps to bring things from the back of the brain to the front of the brain.
01:02:20
Speaker
And because of that, it helps you to pick up the signals that you're getting every day. And because of that, if you respond to those signals, things will happen. So I told them about it. They were like, oh, this is a bunch of crap. We don't wanna do it. I said, okay, look, look. I said, I'll do it, I'll start. I said, I'm gonna sing in an opera.
01:02:50
Speaker
And they said, have you ever been trained? Nope. They said, how are you going to do it? Don't have a clue. I said, and it, and it also, it talked about when you write it down, you have to be very prescriptive about what you want so that you can see it. Because they said, one example is like when you go out and buy a car, a red car, and then you notice everybody has red cars. The red cars were there all along. It's just that because you bought that car,
01:03:17
Speaker
It brought it from the back of the brain to the front of the brain, and now you're starting to see it. Same thing. So I said, I'm going to sing in an opera. I'm going to have on a red dress. And I said, I'm going to sing before a large audience. And so the other young lady said, OK, well, I want to do mission work in a third world country. Another young lady said, I want to be in a job that travels the world, right? OK.
01:03:43
Speaker
I was living in Louisiana, moved to Houston. I had a coach. Coach said, Carla, he said, you know, you need to spend more time in your personal life. What would you like to do after work? I said, well, you know, I want to sing in an opera. He said, really? He said, you know, I have a friend who works with the Houston opera. Would you like to meet him? I would like, sure.
01:04:06
Speaker
So he said, I'll have them call you. I said, okay. So the guy calls me. So then he said, Carla, I heard you want to sing in an opera. I said, yes. He said, what type of training have you had? I said, I've had none. He said, would you like to take some training? I said, sure. He said, what do you like experiential something else? I said, I didn't know what it was. I was like, okay, experiential. So he said, okay, here's a number of people that you can talk to.
01:04:32
Speaker
He said, there's a woman who, he gave me the name of this woman. I won't call out her name because she may not want it. But he said, she works with the University of Houston. I said, okay, call her up. She said, you want to sing in an opera? I said, yes. She said, I have some classes and an opening on Saturdays. Do you want to take it? I said, sure. I took the classes.
01:05:00
Speaker
She said, well, Carla, you're not ready to sing an opera. She said, well, you know that there's a opera company in Houston, a volunteer opera company, and they even have one that's African-American. I was like, oh. So I started training, so we did a couple recitals. Now, I did a recital I had on a red dress. And then I was talking to one of the young ladies who, we were in Australia,
01:05:26
Speaker
at a coffee shop. And she said, Carla, do you remember when we had that conversation about, you know, write it down, make it happen? I said, yes. She said, do you remember the goal? I said, I said, no. She said, I told you I wanted to travel the world into my job and we're sitting in a coffee shop in Australia. And then the other young lady who got laid off from her job was during the time she didn't have a job.
01:05:51
Speaker
found through her church that they had a mission in Guatemala. And she signed up for it. It's power. It is power. It is power. You transformed yourself into a red dress wearing opera summery. I never sang in the opera though. That's fantastic. But because my job stopped it, but I was extremely close. You were extremely close. You got on the stage in practice at least, right? That's right.
01:06:20
Speaker
Oh, that's fantastic. Carla, oh, this has been an absolute delight. And I look forward to seeing the process that you create for others to use and reuse to spread the change. Well, I'm looking forward to it. That you know is possible. Yeah, this is great. This is great. I really, really appreciate the conversation today and all that you've shared with our audience. Thank you so much. You have a great day.
01:06:48
Speaker
Thank you. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. Making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. We'd love it, rather, if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more health and safety professionals like Carla and I.
01:07:17
Speaker
Special thanks to Amy Norton and Emily Gould, our podcast producers. And until next time, thanks for listening.