Everybody agrees that leadership is crucial to successful safety performance. The rub comes when you ask how leadership should be demonstrated. Like people in other professions, we safety professionals have a tendency to look inward for answers. This is a mistake, one that limits the search for new solutions and approaches. When we engage in this practice, we exhibit a phenomenon known as inbreeding - limiting your search for new ideas and methods to within your own industry.

I would like to try and open the doors, let in some fresh air and suggest a broader approach to safety.

What Is the Driving Force behind Safety

When coming to grips with a safety approach, we need to start by asking exactly what we are trying to achieve. Why do companies take measures to protect their workers' health and safety? The answer depends on who you ask. Ask representatives of organized labor, and they'll tell you that safety is driven by the law. This is why, historically, organized labor has played a major role in lobbying for more and tougher safety laws.

Others see workplace health and safety as not a legal but a moral imperative. Companies promote safety because it is "the right thing to do." While the ethical approach to safety has merit, serious students of the profession need to critically ask whether there is more to the equation than meets the eye.

How Do We Know What Safe Means - the Behavioral  Approach

If superior safety performance is the goal, the challenge is to define and then articulate just what superior safety performance means. How do we measure success? Again, it depends on who you ask. According to behaviorist theories, workers' behavior - how safely they act and what risk taking behaviors they engage in - is the appropriate place to measure, quantify and qualify safety. The behaviorists call for a feedback loop that lets workers know how well they are performing, and provides positive recognition or reinforcement to those who engage in appropriately safe behaviors. If only things were that simple! If only we could count on workers to respond to simple prizes and token recognition and modify their behavior accordingly the way dogs do when we train them to sit up or roll over!

The behaviorist approach can result in select worker behavior improvement. It may help us achieve some measurable objectives in the short term. But a simple worker behavioral approach fails to address the entire safety management system under which businesses operate. The fixation on workers' behavior that characterizes behaviorists' strategies ignores those who control and regulate the means of production: management. Thus, to be effective, behaviourist approaches need to also address the behavior of senior, middle and first line management.

Modern Approaches to Safety

This leads to a larger point: The opportunity to participate in strategies to improve safety performance based on incentives, motivations and behavior modification should run vertically from the top to the bottom of the organization. Thus, those who advocate more modern theories of safety management use phrases like "shared approach," "team-based safety," "common goals and objectives," "employee ownership" and "worker empowerment." Pick up any popular management theory textbook and you'll be assaulted by a litany of new and improved approaches to business and the science and theory of management.

By way of example, to promote a health and safety conference in New Brunswick, Canada in 1994, conference organizers chose as their theme, "Shifting Gears in Health and Safety." According to the conference brochure:

"The changing economy and workforce downsizing mean managers expect more, while workers are stressed out from job pressures, increased workloads and lack of control over either the job or the future. Companies are struggling to do more with less, and still be competitive in ever-tighter markets."

Conclusion

Although 12-years-old, these words still ring true today. The safety profession is still facing a challenge. Which factors will make the difference in overcoming it? Time and time again, it has been shown that leadership is one of if not the most significant factor in helping industry, labor and government surmount challenges. After the holidays, I will resume my analysis with a look at where leadership in the realm of health and safety will come from and what role it will play. In the meantime, I wish all of you SafetyXChange members a happy and safe holiday season.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE

St. Boniface: Martyr and credited father of the Christmas tree tradition

A Brief History

By Glenn Demby

St. Boniface, the 10th century monk who converted the German people to Christianity is recognized as the "inventor" of the Christmas tree. According to legend, Boniface was trekking through the snow when he came upon a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree. Not a fan of pagan ritual, Boniface is said to have cut down the tree in anger when, lo and behold, a fir tree sprang up in its place. Because its triangular shape invokes the Holy Trinity, the fir tree was and is still considered a symbol of Christianity. So the replacement of oak with fir had more than a botanical significance.

The Christmas tree tradition really took root in the 16th century. It was at that time that people in Germany started cutting down fir trees and taking them into their homes to celebrate the holiday season. Supposedly, the practice of decorating the tree started in Riga, Latvia. It took another century and a half before the practice caught on in England. The Georges I-III imported Christmas trees because it reminded them of their native Hanover in Germany. At the time, things Germanic weren't popular with the English public. But Queen Victoria was. So when she started making a big to-do about the royal Christmas tree, the English quickly embraced the tradition.

The Hessian mercenaries who served in King George III's army during the American Revolution were said to have introduced Christmas trees to North America because the trees reminded them of home. Christmas trees were especially popular with members of American East Coast Society, eager to emulate their English cousins. Christmas trees were also big with Texas cattle rangers, of all people.

In the 20th century, Christmas trees became bigger, flashier and more public. They also became synthetic. Lord only knows how St. Boniface's concoction will evolve in the 21st century and beyond.

BY THE NUMBERS

Don't let your Christmas tree become a fire hazard

Christmas Tree Fires

By Glenn Demby

Not to play Scrooge, but remember that bringing a Christmas tree into your home is not the safest thing you can do. Sure they're beautiful. But Christmas trees, with their juxtaposition of combustibles and electrical power, are a fire hazard of the first magnitude. Here are the numbers to prove it and the tips to prevent it:

300 The estimated average annual number of home fires in the U.S. in which Christmas trees were the first item ignited

14 The number of people who died in such fires in 2004

$16.8 millionThe average direct property damage attributable to Christmas tree fires every year

40 The percentage of Christmas tree fires that were ignited by electrical problems or malfunctions

24 The percentage of Christmas tree fires caused by placing the tree too close to a heat source

12 The percentage of Christmas tree fires ignited by candles

14 The number of Christmas tree safety tips SafetyXChange offers below:

1. When you buy your tree, have the vendor make a fresh cut an inch from the bottom; this will help the tree drink.
2. If you buy your tree early and keep it outside, store it away from wind and sun, and keep the bottom in a bucket of water.
3. Make sure your lights are safe. If you need outdoor lights, make sure the ones you buy are meant for outdoor use. Make sure your lights carry certification from a testing laboratory.
4. Don't use electric lights on a metal tree.
5. Discard any strings of lights that are frayed or broken. Christmas lights are cheap.
6. Unplug your Christmas tree before you leave or go to bed.
7. Don't buy a tree that is dry and dropping needles. To check for freshness, loosely grip the end of a branch and pull your hand over it. Only a few needles should fall off.
8. Make sure your tree stand holds plenty of water, and don't let it run out.
9. If your tree seems wobbly, center it in the stand more securely and redo the bolts or screws. Of if your tree stand is cheap, buy a larger, stronger one.
10. If you buy an artificial tree, make sure it is fire-retardant.
11. Keep your tree at least three feet from furnaces, radiators and fireplaces.
12. try to position it near an outlet so that cords are not running long distances. Do not place the tree where it may block exits.
13. When Christmas is over or when the tree starts to drop needles, dispose of it. Don't leave it in your house or put it in your garage.
14. Keep a close eye on small children when they are around the tree; many small decorations and ornaments are sharp, breakable and can be swallowed.

Source: Fire statistics: National Fire Protection Association
Source: Christmas tree safety tips: Naval Safety Center

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