Research shows the importance of attitude in safety

As we have stressed here before, a key factor in safety is making sure that the people involved have the right attitude.

That truth is driven home by a fascinating article called “Cognitive – Behavioral Safety: How Stages of Change Influence Safety Behaviors.”

Here is how author Dianne R. Stober, Ph.D. starts out:

“Let’s face it, we all have to deal with change. Whether we are trying to lose weight, change our golf swing, improve our communication with our spouse, or adopt a new safe work procedure, important change takes energy. And people do not expend energy without sufficient motivation to do so.”

The article goes on to say:

“Addressing internal processes among leaders and workers will help move a company closer to meeting the safety challenge. However, it is also important to recognize that becoming a person who thinks and behaves more safely involves personal change. As such, to be successful, any safety program will need to consider the specific internal processes involved at various points during the change process … The stages include:

1. Precontemplation: the individual at this stage is not aware of, nor contemplating, the need for change
2. Contemplation: the individual has begun to think about the need for making change but has not committed to nor made change
3. Preparation: the individual has increased his or her commitment to change, with intention to make change in the near term, and may have begun making small changes
4. Action: the individual has begun engaging in new behaviors but has not yet cemented these changes over time
5. Maintenance: the individual has been consistently acting on the change made over a period of time
6. Relapse: many change efforts result in periods of relapse where the individual falls back into old behavior patterns.

“Many efforts aimed at improving safety, including many BBS systems, focus primarily at the action stage. If our initiatives are aimed here, we are assuming that individuals are ready, willing, and able to make changes regarding their safety.

“Trying to modify behavior without awareness is unlikely to work in the long term: ‘overt action without insight is likely to lead to temporary change.’

“When it comes to the stages of change, diving right into behavioral change may not work. Until awareness of the need for change, evaluation of what that change is, commitment to making change, and preparation for effective action steps are all present, jumping straight into action will be unlikely to be successful in the long run.”

The article provides the research foundation for what Fred Rine, Flavius Brown and other FDR safety pros have learned while training over 400,000 employees on safety awareness. You have to help move individuals from “have to” be safe to an attitude of “wanting to” be safe. It’s important to get to the heart as well as the mind.