The Ingenieur Vol 59 July-Sept 2014 The Ingenieur Vo. 59, July-Sept 2014 | Page 42

INGENIEUR

Green Wedge
The first wedge is to secure
minimum standards. The most
common method is to put in
certification and drive more
ownership with a risk based
system. Certification does not
identify a good safety performer.
However it does ensure that
what you have built does not
slide too far back. Senior
management, especially the
Chairman or Managing Director,
plays the most influential part in
the culture of the company. It is
a disaster when the organisation
gets a chief who does not
believe in safety. In a way, having
a certification system in place,
forces the leader to continue
implementing the basic system.
Losing the certification would
be a serious a loss of face and
no leader who has just come
on board wants to be in that
situation. The inter-connected
business environment is also
seeing a rise in the number of
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customers asking for proof of
a safety management system.
Thus this helps to at least
keep the minimum standards in
place.
Gold Wedge
This is where the top performers
are playing. These organisations
are using leading indicators
to drive behaviour. I would
like to stress that without the
foundation of a proper system
with a risk based model, it is
quite ineffective to use leading
indicators to drive behaviour.
This is a major issue for those
who have reached the “gold”
stage. They tend to focus too
much on just behaviours and
sometimes
neglecting
the
foundation technical skills.
Platinum Wedge
Those at the top of an
organisation continue to be the
leading influencers. Mistakes
at the ground level lead to

an accident. Mistakes at the
management level leads to
a failure of the organisation.
Keeping this in mind, those
who aspire to be in the
“Platinum” level need to drive
safety into management development programme. This is
perhaps overlooked in many
organisations, as the tendency
is to train the future leaders
in
achieving
sustainable
profitable growth rather than in
achieving more encompassing
and responsible sustainable
profitable growth.

The Next Big Thing
Having locked up our gains, let’s
look at the next big thing. It will
still be grounded in behaviour.
If you noticed, additional
investment gives a smaller return
as our performance peaks. How
then can we drive more value
into safety?

VOL 59 JULY –2013
VOL 55 JUNE SEPTEMBER 2014

7/9/14 10:37 AM