What has improving safety in the oil and gas industry got to do with values education?
By Dr Bill Robb

Since 1995 I have been assisting oil and gas companies improve their safety performance. Little did I know that my study of values education would give me the insight to develop a range of very effective tools. Indeed, it wasn’t until a year or so ago that I realised I was applying those principles that values educators have to use if they are to effectively change behaviours. 

Here’s what happened.

Early in 1995, with my educational psychology background, I had helped a client overcome problems associated with “cultural clashes” on one of their installations. When they contacted me again, they asked for help with a serious safety problem. Despite all their efforts people were still getting hurt. 

The client was very worried because they didn’t know what else to do! They had many thorough procedures and some of the best equipment available. They had tons of personal protective clothing (boots, gloves, eye protection and fire resistant coveralls) and excellent training programmes. Posters were put up everywhere alerting people to potential hazards. And still people were getting hurt. Even being comforting and supportive, telling people that everyone has the right to stop a job and it is a good thing to do, didn’t seem to help. Consequently, doing more of the same wouldn’t improve matters. 

So we analysed their accidents and some other from similar installations and what we found was very interesting. People knew what they should have been doing – they knew the procedures, they knew the rules and they understood commonsense – but sometimes they just didn’t do what was right. 

Why do we sometimes do things we know we shouldn’t?

We found five things or “traps” that stopped people doing what they should have been doing to work safety, but the biggest one was FEAR. When we asked people why they didn’t follow their procedures or their commonsense, it took a bit of probing, but eventually it came out that they were afraid. Here is a list of the fears people mentioned.

• Fear of looking stupid (so people don’t ask questions or stop unsafe jobs)
• Fear of being seen as lazy (so people hurry up)
• Fear of seeming incompetent (so people struggle on without asking for the manual or help)
• Fear of upsetting friends who may not speak to me for the next two weeks (so people just go along with the team)
• Fear of being regarded as a troublemaker as this may result in being given all the lousy jobs, or worse, losing one’s job.

Do you agree that lecturing or hectoring wouldn’t work? Telling people to grow up and not be afraid doesn’t work. As I’ve already mentioned, even being comforting and supportive, explaining how people won’t look stupid and won’t be seen as lazy, doesn’t work as well as it should. When there is a tension between doing what is right and fear, fear often wins. So how does one fix this? 

Socratic questioning

Knowing that lectures and exhortation doesn’t work, we devised a workshop in two parts. The first part involved participants in analysing four accidents and giving THEIR recommendations on what the people involved should do in future to avoid a similar one.  The second part involves a discussion between the facilitator and the participants. The facilitator deliberately dreams up situations where the people cannot follow the recommendations offered. In other words obstacles are put in the way to prevent people following the correct behaviours. This forces people to confront their own fear of having to stop a job.  

The third part involves an open and honest discussion of fear during which some of the questions are asked and answers sought by the whole group.

• So it’s true then that at the root of an unsafe act is being afraid to do the right thing?
• How many adults have these fears do you think?
• Do you think these fears are justified?
• Is anyone willing to share an example where you did something out of fear when you knew you shouldn’t?
• Do you think we have a fear problem here?
• What makes people afraid like this?
• What can we do to lessen the fear factor?

When you allow these questions to be mulled over the truth will out. It has a powerful effect on people – they realise for the first time that you can blame whoever you like but you chose to go ahead when you know it was unsafe. Bringing people to their own realisation of what is right helps them to change for good because they want to – it is difficult to go against the principles one has devised for oneself. 

Would this work for reducing youth crime?

Isn’t society in the UK in the same position as my client? Haven’t we tried just about all the traditional methods of combating crime we can think of? Haven’t we got to the point where we don’t know what to do? Yes, more policemen on the beat, more punishments and more prisons may help a little but only for the short term.  Lecturing and telling people off won’t help. Yes, we must improve the circumstances so that people don’t WANT to commit crimes. 

However, unless we get to the heart of the matter, by exposing youngsters to the consequences of their actions (for themselves and others) and showing that they are often afraid to do the right thing, we won’t overcome the tension between fear and doing what is right. Values education is an approach that can achieve this.