Is it Clean or Clear?
It is impossible to avoid shock and pain at the news of the recent disasters, currently the floods in Rio de Janeiro, claiming the lives of over 200 and the coal mine explosion in West Virginia, claiming the lives of upwards of 25 miners. The first catastrophe, greatly influenced by the forces of nature devastating ramshackle infrastructure much like the Haiti earthquake, and the second brought about completely by the choices and behaviors of men. While the first claimed a much larger number of lives, the second dominates airtime, and in one respect, justifiably so. I have learned from two of the global masters that Safety comes from choice, not chance. Claiming that something is inherently unsafe as a means to accept or tolerate risk borne by others in an economic venture challenges all levels of integrity and ethical choices.
Through good fortune I have observed the difference between safety by declaration, posters, slogans and damage control mouthpieces; and safety as a core value, a non-negotiable principle, and the manifestation in daily life through work, planning, preparation, constancy of purpose, and consequences. Two organizations, Bechtel Corporation and BHP-Billiton live and breathe what we could all emulate and perpetuate. They share many like practices, rules, gear, training, science… all important. What they share that is essential is that it starts at the top of the house, runs down and across the house, and returns to the top of the house.
These two, perhaps among many, treat safety as a probiotic, not an antibiotic. Bechtel Corporation and BHPB put the living organisms of safety into the daily diet for the workplace and into the feasts that ensue at the celebrations of lives extended. Should a death occur at a Bechtel site, be it employee, contractor, customer or visitor, the phone at the site leadership rings with none other than the Chairman, Riley Bechtel on the other end. There is nothing more important than the integrity with which human life is respected. There cannot be business success without human safety.
Contrast that behavior with the recent disaster in West Virginia, the one in Utah a few years back, and the frightening records of poor safety citations coming to light, followed by obfuscation strategies that delay responsiveness on the part of the alleged perpetrators. The absence of enforceable regulation is unfortunate, apparently essential in the face of the choices and behaviors by those who have the calling to choose, and those that have the power to legislate, but only watch.
For many of us, most of us, these mining disasters have little to do with our businesses, our communities, and our lives. They are in fact, not in our back yard. But, they do speak to our business principles and what we allow to be tolerable, acceptable, or sufficiently infrequent. Except when we turn on the light switch, for that sends a demand signal that rings a bell to pull more coal out of the ground. We do share a connection, every day. What should we do?
There cannot be clean coal without a clear conscience.
Thoughts?
Related Links
http://tridentleverage.com/blog/?p=106
http://tridentleverage.com/blog/?p=362
http://tridentleverage.com/blog/?p=92
Comments
John,
I will take serious exception to immediately classifying mining accidents as people not being safety minded. There are as many forces of nature at work in a mine as there was during the earthquakes in Hati. It is a potentially dangerous environment. Absolutely no question about that. The steps that the mining companies take to assure that the areas underground are safe would absolutely dwarf efforts taken in any other industry or at least in Chile, Peru, Australia, South Africa and the US. The picture of some guy with a pick and a few timbers pounded into place are long gone. There are people underground every day who have the task of identifying hazardous area and there are various ways to mitigate those risks but the bottom line is that if they do not see them as safe nobody works in there until they are satisfied they are safe.
I worked with BHP Base metals in Chile, Peru and Australia. We had more than a “No Fatalities” type program. It was “Zero Harm.” We wanted nobody injured oe killed. The program was driven by the President of the division. When I was hired to do the Six Sigma deployment in our first conversation I made it clear that to be successful I needed visible support from him. He made it clear to me that he would support the deployment but that Six Sigma would always be second in importance to the “Zero Harm” initiative. That worked for me because we were in the pits and underground just like everyone else and there is nothing that says just because you are a consultant you won’t die there as well.
The time we spent in South Africa was the same experience. The CEO when he chartered Six Sigma identified targets for us in the program and one of those was that “20% of the projects would be safety related.” My bonus was tied to that number just as directly as the total benefits. Freqently at Lonmin when you are working underground on the face you are in a space approximately 1 – 1.5 meters high. We have known each other long enough do you think I would be in a space 1 meter high 1 km underground at 57 years old if I didn’t feel safe or at least relatively safe?
As far as getting these guys out when there is a fall of ground (the press refers to it as a colapse or a cave in) you have to understand how much training and work the rescue guys go through to be prepared for this. It isn’t an occasional thing where they trow on a resperator and see what happened. These are guys that have to maintain physical fitness every day because they don’t know when they will have to go to work. Can you even imagine the courage it takes to go into a space where there has been a fall of ground and try to save someone. You cannot even imagine the courage and the caring for a fellow human being (who the frequently may not even know) that it takes to go down there. They are amazing people.
After that long rant here is my bottom line. The reason safety programs do not work is that they are reactive. We have a lot of proceedures and policies around doing investigations and corrective actions. That is after something happens. The answer is how to be proactive. If you haul ore underground with a locomotive (small one) and people die when it derails then you work on the derailment MTBF. If you systematically increase the MTBF – relentlessly – at some point you will save lives because it derails less frequently. Look at the old Quality is Free Funny Uncle Phil Crosby nonsense. Why didn’t it work? Because you are realistically not going to get to zero. Why did we choose Six Sigma at Motorola? Because it gave you a metric and methodology that let you apply a system to run against and measure your progress.
Now let’s go back to Hati and our behavior. There was an earthquake and a lot of people died. It was a terrible thing. Force of nature but what really drove the devastation was the poor construction of a lot of those buildings. The Dominican republic is on the other half of the island. Haven’t heard a word about them. Chile (close to my heart) had a more powerful earthquake shortly afterwards. Saw some stuff on the news. Then it faded away. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of people worried about Chile anymore. More powerful earthquake and less fatalities. Was it the earthquake that really made the Hati earthquake as bad as it was or does it go back to your question of laws and regulations, etc? We saw the same thing with Katrina. The devastation and loss of life. Shortly after katrina Iowa flooded very badly. Don’t hear much about Iowa these days. What made the difference?
There are still countries that don’t have the safety programs in place but the large mining companies like BHP, Anglo, Rio Tinto, etc regardless of the country laws have taken the corporate responsibility on their own to protect their people.
Just my opinion.
Mike,
You are making the same point I made about BHP! I cited them as exemplary of a safety culture and practice. The concerns I raised were not about mining in general, but specific to the current catastrophe in West Va and recently in Utah.
In fact ,I referred to BHP as probiotic versus anitbiotic….. we are agreeing …. my perspective is that Massey Energy is no BHP or Bechtel.
John & Mike
Some interesting (and true) comments indeed.
One thing I miss is the realisation that mining is a traditional industry (we have been mining since before biblical times). Knowledge transfer in traditional industries is typically based on the “come with me, I will show you how it is done” mechanism. Invariably, all the bad habits are then transferred from one generation to the next.
In addition, the culture in most operations is ‘reactive’ at best (as mentioned by you both). We therefore do something to prevent a similar incident from happening again.
The challenge therefore is to move the culture from reactive to proactive, and at the same time to get people to realise that although human behaviour is important, it is not a very effective control for hazards. What is needed is engineering type controls, where the overall system becomes resilient to human error – let’s face it: we are all human and we will make some form of human error at some time.
Unfortunately, this is where things come short in a big way in this industry I love dearly. For some reason (be it capital constrains etc etc), we are very poor at ensuring that the correct engineering controls are in place. Mike – this is exactly what you have been saying about the loco derailments. If we work on how to stop derailments, or even better, to remove loco’s from the mine, then the hazard is so much better under control.
In my view, this is what differentiates companies like BHP, Lonmin, Bechtel (and many others) from the “pick & shovel” operators.
If you are reading this, and you work in a mining company, please take a critical look at your engineering type controls. Ask yourself if they are sufficient, and whether they are effective. This will save a lot of lives.
Just of of my thoughts…
John and Wynand,
John – My apologies for misreading your post but as you said it also supports what you said.
Just as an FYI Dr. Wynand van Dyk was the person who was the first Program Manager for Lonmin (platinum mining). Currently he consults on his own and he trains several large mining companies on safety.
Wynand – I agree about the removal of the loco’s. I think the example you use of the lion makes it even more apparent, even for those people who are really thick i.e. if you have a lion in front of you you are at risk because the lion can easily kill you. You can put the lion in a cage and you have mitigatesd the risk (increasing the MTBF on locos) but the risk is still there and if the cage fails in any manner someone gets hurt or killed and frequently this is where current safety programs stop. If you kill the lion the risk is completely gone and there is no more risk (eliminating the locos).
One of the things that has really bothered me as we have worked through many of these deployments is that the initial reaction from people is that Six Sigma doesn’t apply to them. The application isn’t all that creative and safety typically has plenty of data. It seems that the same hand me down training that Wynand refered to in mining is frequently present in safety as well. Some of the idiotic things we put into place do as much to desensitize people as they do to make people aware. I was working with a mining company that had an offsite office (OFFICE! it was an office. there was no mining going on – it was an office – the mining site was 850 km away) and they had a safety meeting every morning that covered the plan to get out of the building location of fire extinguishers and first aid kits – every morning. Who in their right mind believes that is having any effect. When people are doing things like that then they are going through the motions and the program is style over substance.
I agree with Wynand that there needs to be more science put into safety. Right now I see a lot of superstitious ritual in safety programs.
Just my opinion.
Regards,
Mike
Mike and Wynand,
Thanks … and thanks again,
I cannot bring to bear the level of experience and tangible insight comparable to what you have both shared.
I see multiple factors at play, they are identical for safety or six sigma, because they are identical:
1. Belief or disbelief that Zero is possible and probable
2. Coincident with point 1, a paradigm of acceptability and that inbred thinking is all we need
3. Environmment … tangible and intangible (site conditons and the influences that enable or constrain decisions)
4. Ignorance of the power of knowledge, skills, tools (includes Six Sigma and all its cousins as well as ES&H)
5. Expectations … some things are just not negotiable
6. Ethics and behaviors … from leadership to all
7. Resources … people are different and the way the world is depends on where you are, who they are, and what their fundamental (Maslow if you like) needs are
8. Transparency …
9. Agility …. Change in the face of changing requirements
10. Consequences
11. Smart budgeting … a dollar cut upstream costs you thousands downstream
Six Sigma provides a means to achieve much of the above … but it cant’t create leadership with integrity and respect for human life. It can’t create that visceral intolerance for waste (all types).
So, add the right leadership … that says, “Not on my watch,” and the world begins to change.
Thoughts?