ABSTRACT
This chapter unboxes quite a few stereotypical problems with safety program implementation. In it, the author describes a conversation with a senior executive who was concerned that safety issues (near misses, incidents, hazards, etc.) were not being reported properly. This assumption led him to the conclusion that there must be some magic formula for making the world right. Though he may have been partially correct in that assumption, the answer was not one he had expected. As the author pointed out to him, the key to getting people to open up is complete amnesty. While that concept seemed acceptable on the surface, the executive could not wrap his head around the idea of amnesty for anyone involved in a serious event (catastrophic injury/death). The problem is that the executive could not separate his emotional reaction to the consequence of an event from the circumstances of the event itself. Until one is ready to do that, true, open communication is not possible. Following that line of thinking, the Stupid Simple Tool in this item is a simple challenge to remove emotion from one’s decision making coupled with a test to determine how effectively that is done.
