NC State of Business

What is the most dangerous part of your job? It’s a question that we all should consider, as the awareness of a risk is usually the first step in minimizing or eliminating it. The choice to work safely is ultimately the choice of the person conducting the work.

The concept behind Behavior Based Safety suggests that a person is motivated by consequences. If the consequence of an activity will occur sooner rather than later, will occur with some sense of certainty, and results in a positive consequence rather than negative, we are more likely to engage in that activity. For example, if a speeding driver sees a highway patrol officer or other law enforcement official, he or she most likely will choose to slow down. The consequence of slowing down is:

• •Soon: The law enforcement authority will quickly see the driver at a reduced speed.
• •Certain: It is fairly certain that said law enforcement official will monitor the speed of the driver’s vehicle.
• •Positive: Reducing the speed and avoiding a speeding ticket is always a positive! Of course reducing the speed and avoiding a potential accident is the ultimate positive consequence.

You may notice numerous unoccupied highway patrol vehicles sitting on the shoulder of highways during busy holiday weekends, to encourage drivers to reduce their speed. I would like to think that driving the legal speed limit would certainly reduce the potential for an accident, but often it is the sight of a law enforcement authority that causes a driver to reduce his speed.

Behavior based safety is an observation-based program, where observers are trained to observe the critical safe behaviors of their co-workers while they are performing their work. Following the observation, the observer gives feedback to the worker regarding their safe behavior or at-risk behavior. Safe behaviors are recognized and encouraged to continue. A discussion of at-risk behavior proceeds to try to understand why this behavior occurs. For example, if the at-risk behavior is improper use of a ladder, the observer and worker discuss the barriers that led to the improper use such as an inadequate availability of ladders or the available ladder is improperly maintained.

While the data from the observations is maintained, the name of the person being observed is never recorded. This allows for open, honest discussions without fear of discipline. The data collected allows the facility to determine the % Safe Behaviors in the facility, allowing for measurement of facility performance based on a positive statistic, instead of our traditional accident rate which is more of a negative statistic.

What is your % Safe while driving this summer?

With the rising price of gasoline, have you been working from home a few days a week to avoid driving to work? Has the thought at least crossed your mind? I try to work from home one day a week -- something I started before I moved further out in the country. I don't always succeed, because the university tends to schedule committee meetings on days I've set aside for home-working (or on days like today, when I'm supposed to be on vacation). But when I can, it really helps with the cost of my commute.

How are you dealing with the rising cost of self-transportation? If you usually drive alone to work, have you looked into carpooling, or riding the bus, or some other way of getting back and forth that doesn't involve using gasoline? If you drive every day but you're not feeling the pinch from gas prices, consider yourself blessed -- and let us know what you do for a living.

A question occurred to me as I was putting gas in my car: If gasoline prices continue to rise, are we likely to see an exodus from the suburbs back to the cities? Maybe a better way to ask that is, how far does the cost of private transportation have to rise before people decide they're better off moving closer to goods, services, and jobs?

That's why cities grew up, as I understand it: in the Industrial Revolution, manufacturers located their businesses close to transportation routes, power, and people. Then, as farming began requiring fewer people, those who weren't needed on the farm moved to the cities to make their livelihood. Then in the last century the cost of transportation fell and the desire for open space rose, beginning the exodus to the suburbs.

Most of the manufacturing and commerce didn't move to the suburbs, though, because it costs a lot to move an established business, and industry still requires trade routes, power, and people. Transportation corridors into the cities became bigger and busier as more people commuted to and from work. Now, however, with the cost of transportation rising, are we likely to see cities expand and suburbs decline?

Last night on Wally Bock's "Three Star Leadership Blog" he used basketball player Steve Nash as an example of someone who proved that "Greatness isn't a matter of talent alone" -- someone who achieved success as much by determination and hard work as by natural talent. (Read the entire post here.)

His use of a basketball example reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's presentation on "hiring mismatches," in which our selection criteria may not focus on the factors that will really determine success. Gladwell started with hockey and used several sports examples to make his point. (Video here; I saw it because Guy Kawasaki linked to it on his blog.)

You can look at the Nash example in two ways.* First, along with Gladwell's examples, as a cautionary tale when hiring people. You can hire someone who looks great on paper and find out that they don't produce the way you think they should, or don't fit into your organization, or cause more problems than they solve. On the other hand, sometimes you get lucky and hire someone you think is a decent fit but not a "star," only to have them surprise you with their abilities, attitude, and output.

The second way to look at the Nash example is as a personal goad -- a kick in the pants, if you will -- to keep striving for excellence. From the original post,

If you aspire to greatness, you can't do a thing about the genetic hand you were dealt. You can't do a thing about where you were born and the fortunes of your family.

But you can do something about how you develop the talent you have. You can do something about how hard you work. You can do something about how much you concentrate on results.

That doesn't help predict success any better, of course, and it can be a hard challenge to live up to. But when we strive for excellence, even if sometimes we don't quite reach it, at least we end up higher than when we started.

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*Okay, maybe more than two. But two for now.

What challenges or problems are you facing? Use the feedback button and suggested format below to answer some basic information about the challenges and/or problems you are facing. We want to know!

Basic Information - Date, your name and email

1. Describe your business.

2. What is the problem you are facing?

3. Why is this really important to your business: what will you gain if you succeed and what will you loose if you fail?

4. What reference information is useful to understand your problem; web links, newspaper stories, etc.

As the IES Executive Director, let me welcome you to "NC State of Business," the official blog of the Industrial Extension Service. We started this as an informal way of discussing topics that interest us -- and that we hope will interest our clients and supporters.

To kick off our blog, I want to report on some good news I heard at the North Carolina Manufacturing Summit last month. It was the second annual summit held by the NC Chamber, and it was a great success. We were proud to be one of the sponsors.

The theme of the summit -- "What North Carolina Makes, Makes North Carolina" -- is also the title of a report Dr. Graham Toft of Growth Economics is preparing on the state of manufacturing here. He delivered the preliminary results at the summit; the complete report is due to be published in August 2008.

What will the report say?

His preliminary report made it clear that "manufacturing is alive and well in the state." Despite some rough patches in this decade, manufacturing "remains a major contributor to the North Carolina economy." North Carolina manufacturers

are at the forefront of a very exciting and promising industrial transformation taking place across the U.S. and leading to higher levels of innovation, increased productivity, stimulating and rewarding jobs, and global integration in 21st century manufacturing. What is occurring could be described as a kind of "quiet industrial revolution."

"North Carolina is the seventh largest state for manufacturing as measured by the percent of total state gross domestic product," and we need a solid foundation of high-productivity manufacturing to "ensure economic progress and improve North Carolina’s prospects of becoming a 'top-10 state' in the nation on per capita income."

And manufacturing reaches far beyond the factory floor. The report noted that every manufacturing job indirectly creates 1-2 additional jobs through "support industries and retail and household purchasing by those directly employed in manufacturing."

That's good news to me, and I hope it's good news to you. For more information on the importance of manufacturing to North Carolina, see the Manufacturing Matters page.