Going back at least as far as the early 1980s, to the study done by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman in the now classic In Search of Excellence, and continuing today in the work of many management gurus, a small subset of companies have been identified as “best practice†organizations.
Jim is a safety professional with 12 years of experience. He’s technically very competent, probably the best in the whole corporation. Jim tends to be low-key, private and introverted, a bit hard to “read.†He doesn’t initiate a lot of contact with the folks in the plant unless he is doing a safety audit, and spends a lot of time in his office alone.
Psychology is going positive — something to consider in your efforts to motivate workers to think and act safely. You see, for much of its history, psychology has focused much attention on the negative. Hmmm… might we say the same about safety programs? But I digress.