4 Days Since a Training-Related Death

Recently I was assisting Ed while he presented a virtual
learning session on Forward Focus. Ed discussed how
we get more of what we focus on and as a society we
tend to focus on the negative – what people shouldn’t do –
versus the positive – what we would like them to do.

Then Ed brought up an example that was particularly
impactful to me. Ed mentioned that many factories and
places where there are accidents tend to reward
employees by the number of days since the last accident
rather than the number of continuous safe days.

You see, this was meaningful to me because I had joined
the Army my senior year of high school and was shipped
off 3 weeks after graduation, just barely 18 years old and
quite unsure of what to expect. After I finished all of my
training I was sent to my permanent duty station, Ft. Bragg,
North Carolina. As the bus I was on approached the main
gates and passed through the first thing I saw was a giant,
almost billboard sized, sign that said

“4 days since last training related fatality.”

You can imagine that all I could think was 4 days since
someone died?!? And this is where I was going to spend at
least the next year of my life? I was a little scared to say the
least. I am one of those people with an overactive imagination
and I could already imagine half a dozen ways I was going to
be the next one to go.

Ed’s idea of rewording the sign so it could have greeted
people with “4 continuous safe days” or something similar
certainly would have made me feel more comfortable and
less threatened while still delivering the same message.

I soon learned the purpose of the billboard was that when
it reached 82 days without a fatality the whole division
received a day off as a reward. I ended up being at Ft. Bragg
for 2 years and we received only 3 days off for lack of fatalities.

Perhaps if we had changed our focus as a unit then we would
have made it with more safe days because we would have
been focusing our minds on safety rather than fatalities.

It’s too late for me to know if it would have worked in my
circumstances, but maybe this lesson is a valuable one for
you and your company to try to reduce workplace accidents
and injuries.

You can provide the leadership!

Tiffany Childs – The Enlightened Leadership Team