I am a big believer in Root Cause Analyzes, and Corrective Action Plans to address our findings from an incident investigation – It just does not get more fundamental than this in industrial safety. Early in my career, I worked for a great man who was ALL ABOUT his employees. He was undoubtedly the most empathetic leader I worked for, and he was a big believer in the RCCA process.
But he went to great lengths to train me that we FIRST look at management system failures BEFORE we even consider the decisions the employee(s) made at the time of the event. My job was to ensure that in the outcome of the RCCA process, we offered the employee(s) a SAFE PATH to safety success rather than hoping they merely avoid failure by a matter of luck. That stuck with me, as it was a powerful culture creator, as the employees knew the RCCA process was NOT about them but an effort to improve their workplace and their safety.
So I created this meme that we should keep in mind…