I’d like to respond to Wayne’s article criticizing behavior based safety (BBS). It won’t be the first time I’ve taken a different view from Wayne. I don’t agree with Wayne’s interpretation of Dan Petersen’s views on behavior and the importance of human behavior and motivation in the systems of safety management. I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with Dan and have used his materials in my courses at the University of Alberta and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Wayne’s article misses some critical parts of Dan’s teachings. To that end, here’s my view on the “failure of BBS.”

The ABCs Model of Human Behavior

Humans behave. We do things. We speak to each other and we take actions that others, if they take the time to look and listen, can observe. Even doing nothing is doing something. The fascinating thing about human behavior is that we know a great deal about it. We know the ways to motivate people, we can test our theories to see if they work, we can observe the outcomes and we can help each other to engage in behaviors that increase our chances of being safe.

There are many excellent Human Behavior books and internet sites available but I won’t turn this into an everything-you-need-to-know-about-human-behavior session. Instead, I’ll give you an overview of the essential elements we believe, through over seven decades of research, is the model for human behavior.

There are always exceptions to the rules, but here are the basics of the ABC model:

• Activators or Antecedents: What happens to motivate the behavior;
• Behavior: The observable action(s) taken by the person; and
• Consequences: What results from the behavior (actions).

Using these definitions, we can soon see that the only things we can actually manage are activators and consequences. That’s because individual behavior is the individual’s choice based on the other two. We simply can’t manage behavior; what we can control are the activators and consequence. And that’s why we can drastically affect human safe behaviors. This is particularly powerful if we do it with people instead of to them.

The Key to Promoting Safe Behavior

If we are to influence safe behavior we need to realize that we can’t force anyone to do anything. People will always choose their own behaviors. All that we can do is give people activators and consequences. In other words, the only way we can increase the chances of safe behaviors is by managing the A’s and the C’s. This requires the cooperation of the people who are doing the “behaving.” So put away your consultant behavior observation cards and start to engage the people who are trying to behave safely.

“The single greatest safety system failure,” according to Dan Petersen, “is the lack of accountability.” Accountability is about human behavior.

Conclusion

One of Dan Petersen’s Six Criteria for Safety Excellence is “High Employee Involvement.” In a company culture where people have a great understanding of human behavior and where they’re actively working with each other to make safe behaviors much more likely, Behavior Based Safety can’t fail. By contrast, doing safety to people will always fail whether you call it “BBS,” “ISO” or a “Safety Program.”

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