Get That Safety Monkey Off of My Back
By Carl Potter, CSP, CMC, CSP and Deb Potter, Ph.D, CMC
Have Carl speak at your next meeting!
One of the Harvard Business Review’s top two selling reprints is the classic article from 1974, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass. In this article about managing time, the authors give a visual description of how upward delegation from worker to boss is like having a monkey on one’s back. As the boss takes on more and more from their employees, more and more monkeys are on his back. And, if you’ve ever watched monkeys, they are not passive, immobile creatures; they are in constant motion, picking and clawing, playing and fussing. The point of the article is that managers are constantly running out of time while their employees seem to be running out of work. The article challenges leaders to develop their employees so they will take on more initiative and responsibility for getting things done.
What does this have to do with safety?
Safety Monkeys – They’re Everywhere!
As we work around the country, we see “safety monkeys” every day: situations where responsibility for safety is passed around from one set of shoulders to another, to the point where it seems no one is responsible. Consider the following.
A group of employees decides that they don’t like a certain safety rule, so they refuse to follow it, saying it’s unclear or unnecessary. Later one of those employees is injured because she didn’t follow the rule. The excuse is that “I didn’t know we had that rule. You didn’t tell me.” There goes the monkey, on the back of the supervisor. The supervisor then says “The safety department didn’t give us any good information about the rule. I don’t know why we have that rule. And I sure didn’t know it applied to this situation.” Oops! There goes that safety monkey jumping on the back of the safety manager.
How about this one?
An employee backs into a post on a customer’s property. This employee has been trained to not pull forward when parking a company vehicle unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. The employee has made a delivery to this customer every week for the past three years and the post has been there for at least twenty years. Now, because of the backing incident, the employee has to fill out a report and turn it in. The employee states, “The only place left in the parking lot was near the post, I had to park in that space and no one was there to spot me, so I pulled in. When I got ready to leave, the post was where I couldn’t see it. It was in my way. I could not have avoided that accident.” Now, think about what’s going on here. This employee is putting the monkey on the customer’s back, on the post, and every one who was parked in that parking lot! He is not taking responsibility for his own actions. That safety monkey is definitely getting around! What happened to a 360 walk-around? What happened to making a trip around the block until a suitable parking place was available? Sometimes it just seems easier to put a safety monkey on someone else’s back.
Here’s another one.
An employee has had several injuries in the past year, all because he has broken safety rules. He has been trained on these rules, yet doesn’t follow them. His manager likes the employee and thinks he does a good job – even though he doesn’t follow the safe work procedures. After each incident, the manager contacts the safety department and each time he has been advised to follow the company’s safety disciplinary policy – but he doesn’t. After the third injury in three months, the manager expects the safety department to take care of this situation. Another monkey! The safety director has no authority to discipline the employee and encourages the manager to take appropriate action. The manager then goes to the human resource director for help. The manager doesn’t follow the advice given their either. That monkey is now a “flying safety monkey” – remember the Wizard of Oz? Pretty soon those monkeys are flying everywhere and nothing is getting done!
In each of these cases, no one stopped and said, “The buck stops here!” Instead blame and finger pointing was the approach.
Monkey Alert
The only way to get rid of these safety monkeys is to recognize what they look like, hunt them down, and eradicate them. Here are some things you can do:
- Learn to recognize when others are passing their responsibility to others and confront them. Keep your “monkey radar” on.
- When someone attempts to give you a safety monkey, refuse to let it climb on your back. Let other’s know that you don’t want safety monkeys on your back and what they can do to solve the problem.
- Make sure that your employees know that they are responsible for knowing and following the safety rules and work practices. Clear expectations will keep the monkeys away.
- Hold others accountable for their safety actions. Have a “no monkeys allowed” approach.
Banish Safety Monkey’s from Your Workplace Forever
Take a look around your organization. Do you have a safety monkey infestation? Are there flying monkeys? Or maybe you only have an occasional safety monkey sighting. Take charge by first taking personal responsibility for safety; know what your role is with regard to safety and then do what you need to do. Then, let others know what their responsibilities are and hold them accountable. It doesn’t matter at what level you are the organization, you may be putting monkeys on others’ backs, or allowing those monkeys to jump on you. Do what you can to make sure every holds themselves accountable for safety so everyone can go home without an injury.
Carl Potter, CSP, CMC and Deb Potter, PhD, CMC work with organizations that want to create an environment where nobody gets hurt. As advocates of a zero-injury workplace, they are safety speakers, authors, and consultants to industry. For information about bringing Carl and Deb to your company or your next conference, contact them at Potter and Associates International, Inc. 800-259-6209 or carl@potterandassociates.com.