Tool Box Talk: Errors, Critical Error Reduction Techniques

“Complex systems require a great deal of human contribution to maintain productivity, quality, and safety. Human error is the inevitable by-product of our necessary involvement in complex systems. To eliminate human error would require us to eliminate the best source of creativity, flexibility, and problem solving ability. Therefore regarding errors, the purpose should be to understand the sources of error, predict when errors are most likely to occur, and predict which errors will lead to the most serious negative outcomes (injury, property/environmental damage, reduced quality). As a result, we can then design or modify the system/job to reduce error, develop personal strategies to reduce individual error, and implement safeguards to mitigate negative outcomes when errors occur.”

Safety Performance Solutions
Fundamental Causes of Accidents

When reduced to the base elements, injuries are generally caused by four primary factors:

1. Not Watching What We Are Doing

Most of us have had our fingers pinched in a car door at one time or another.

Now if we had had our eyes on what we were doing our reactions would have taken over and we would have jerked our hand out of the way — no injury just a close call.

Not watching what we were doing took away our ability to react.

2. Not Concentrating on What We Are Doing

Not all hazards are visible. Some hazards must be thought about and prepared for. We need to know they’re lurking even if we can’t immediately detect them with our eyes.

Examples: A hot stove, ice on the highway and electricity.

We need to be concentrating on the task we’re performing to activate our capacity to recognize and avoid such hazards.

3. Being in or Moving Into the “Line of Fire”

Failure to recognize that we’re in the line of fire is another primal accident cause. It’s often the result of not keeping our eyes and mind on the task at hand.

4. Loss of Balance, Traction or Grip

This type of error is also apt to occur when our eyes or minds are not on task.

How Errors Happen

Mistakes are, by definition, not deliberate. So telling somebody to watch what they’re doing may be a nice gesture, but it’s worthless in preventing injuries.

So why do we make errors? It’s generally the result of external factors like rushing, frustration, fatigue or complacency.

Error Reduction Techniques

The antidote to risk factors is the teaching of a set of skills or critical error reduction techniques.

There are “four” critical error techniques that, when practiced, definitely limit errors and the injuries they cause:

1. Self-Triggering on the State Before Errors Get Made

The first skill is the ability to recognize that we’ve passed into a state that causes risky behavior before something bad happens to us. Some people already do this type of thing.

They’re working on a project and nothing seems to be going right. Say a bolt is real tight and they can’t seem to get it loose no matter what they do.

They start jerking the wrench a little harder but before the wrench slips and they fall or hurt their shoulder they realize that they’re getting frustrated and need to calm down.

In other words, they trigger on frustration. They put the wrench down and go get a cup of coffee.

When they return they’re calmer and can thus take a reasoned approach to solve the problem like getting the right tool.

2. Learning from Close Calls & Small Errors to Prevent Big Ones

Learning from our OOPS! Even though we may be working on triggering on the state, we’ll still make some errors along the way.

Often when we make an error or have a close call, we just hope no one saw us make the error. The last thing we think about is learning from it.

But this is an opportunity to look at the state to error pattern we were in at the time to prevent making a bigger error in the future.

3. Observing Others for the State to Error Pattern

This technique has three beneficial effects that prevent accidents:

• Watching others enables us to detect individuals in the state to error pattern so we can avoid them. We want to steer clear of these individuals like we would a reckless driver on the highway.
• Watching others in the state to error pattern makes us less likely to engage in the same behaviors as the observed individual — and thus helps us avoid complacency.
• Watching others helps us protect the individuals we observe. That’s because we’ll probably recognize that persons are in the state to error pattern before they see it in themselves.

This gives us a chance to help the person before an injury occurs. Although intervening like this is tricky business that requires diplomacy, it’s well worth the effort.

4. Working on our Habits

While there are numerous habits we could work on to improve our safety awareness and limit injuries: Start by dedicating one day to making a conscious effort.

Thanks for the share, TO!