The Critics Speak

As you probably know, for almost a quarter of a century we’ve been teaching leaders the world over how to lead and manage safety performance. What you might not be aware of is that for nearly that long we’ve also taught followers how to recognize what can hurt them. 

Hazard recognition, by another name. 

It started with one of our very first clients, who called us back after a safety leadership class: “You’ve done a great job motivating our leaders. Now they’re all fired up, and tripping over the hazards. Can you help us?”

Hazards are the alpha and omega of industrial safety. If it weren’t for hazards, there would be no need for safety. Then everyone could devote their undivided attention to making the product, delivering the service, and keeping customers and owners satisfied. A nice thought, but hazards are inescapable, and when someone gets hurt, there’s always a hazard to be found.

Our help comes in a course called Recognizing What Can Hurt Us. That little word on the end – Us – looms large in the process.

No matter what the audience, our approach of teaching anyone anything is fundamentally the same: practical tools, the Socratic Method, case studies and practice exercises. If someone doesn’t understand what they are doing and can’t do it in the safe space of a classroom, good luck in the real world of operations.

As an aside, you just read the standard by which to judge any training course.

I like to think of class participants as students: someone with a serious interest in a subject. For anyone who works for a living – no matter what they do to earn a living – there is no more important subject to take serious interest in than what can hurt them. If you doubt that, ask someone whose life’s been altered by a workplace injury. They’ll explain everything you need to understand.

That’s the Case for Safety.

Compare a classroom filled with leaders learning how to manage safety performance with a room of followers learning how to recognize what can get them hurt, the common elements are obvious. One thing will be strikingly different, and it’s not what you think it might be. Initially, everyone who shows up for safety training is skeptical; who could blame them? It is a training class; the subject is safety; can you spell boring? It’s what happens next that is important to understand.

While leaders and their followers all benefit from learning, leaders actually want help. Followers are commonly of the view, “I know perfectly well how to recognize what can hurt me. It’s everyone else who’s clueless.

And that is not my problem.”

That is a big problem. If you’re their leader, it’s your problem.

The Critics Criticize

Read the injury reports, it’s understandable how a leader would conclude, “My followers need help recognizing what can hurt them.” Harm came from a hazard; harm wasn’t intentional; lack of recognition had to be part of the problem. A reasonable conclusion, but it does raise the question as to what recognizing a hazard actually means: never saw it coming – or something else?

Ours is not a course in theory. We teach hazard recognition using dozens of real-life cases, many drawn from the client’s operation. If you sat in the back of the room in the hundreds of hazard recognition classes we’ve taught, you’ll realize there isn’t a recognition problem. 

Exactly the opposite: collectively, a classroom of followers will show you they’re geniuses at hazard recognition. It doesn’t matter whether they’re looking at the familiar hazards found in their operation or totally unfamiliar ones we bring along as practice exercises. The power of group observation is astounding; in a flash, they’ll start pointing out the smallest of hazards and flaws – simply by looking at a picture. 

Students don’t even need to be asked; put up a photo and get out of the way. It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever taught. They’ll see things that aren’t visible to the eye, like frustration, being in a hurry and the pressure coming from the boss. 

The difficult part is getting followers to be kind to others: “Bear in mind this is someone trying to get the job done and not get hurt doing it. Please do not describe them as a mindless idiot.”

Or worse.

Bottom line: if you operationally define recognition as “pointing out the hazard” – often done by finger pointing – the capability to recognize is not the problem.  But don’t think there isn’t a problem, or training isn’t needed as part of the solution.

Recognizing Defined 

When a follower thinks, “I know perfectly well how to recognize a hazard” they aren’t wrong. If recognition were an academic group exercise done in the safe space of a classroom, everyone would be on the Dean’s list. But for this subject, the final exam is administered on the job, in real life and real time. Thus, the better definition of recognizing is “to identify and take seriously.” 

That – and not finger pointing – is the point of the process.

Psychologist Dr. Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking Fast And Slow describing experiments demonstrating how we humans think about things roughly the equivalent of hazards. I’d sum up the 499 pages of his book as “not very well”.

We’re humans, not Vulcans. Unlike Mr. Spock, objectivity and logic are not our strong suit. Were it otherwise, you wouldn’t see things like these in classes on hazard recognition:

• The most vocal of the critics of the unsafe behavior of others makes his opinion loudly known…while leaning back on the two legs of his chair.
• After finding flaws galore in a half-dozen photos, when shown a video of someone taking a shortcut through a construction zone by ducking under caution tape and then falling into a pit filled with some liquid resembling water, most students see that as “failing to recognize the hazard.”
• For all their criticism, when polled anonymously, peers are highly disinclined to say anything to someone working in harm’s way.

Were Kahneman to sit in the back of the room, hear and see that, he’d point out it’s all so predictable. He likened this kind of thing to conversations at the water cooler and gossip. Something else we’re great at.

I know what you’re thinking: tell me something I don’t know.

Unravelling the Problem

Applying Charles Kettering’s advice, “A problem well defined is a problem half-solved”, changing the dynamic of how we interact with hazards that can harm us begins with a better understanding of the problem. Give people the discipline of a process and time to observe, followers are great at identifying the hazards others are exposed to.

Take note of discipline, time and others. It’s necessary to tell people exactly what their process is. Ask them how they go about observing hazards, their answer goes roughly, “Hazard recognition? Duh. Look around, dude.” 

Kahneman calls that “thinking fast”: doing something without giving it much in the way of careful thought. Thinking fast is something we normally do well, but by definition, it’s something we don’t take our sweet time doing. 

Compounding the problem is communication: missing is a common vocabulary by which to talk about hazards. So, there’s no better place to start training than with a common understanding that recognition means more than identification: a hazard needs to be taken seriously, not just pointed out.

Not that we don’t know that. “Yup, that sure is a rattlesnake. Better be careful around that critter!”

Which helps explain the video of the guy who ducks under the barrier tape, walks along the edge of pit, and winds up going for a swim. Ironically, when participants in a hazard recognition class suggest he didn’t “recognize the hazard” it’s possible they imply, “Yes, he identified the hazard, but didn’t take it seriously. Otherwise, he’d not have fallen in.”

Defined and understood that way, hazard recognition is actually a two-part process: identification and corresponding action. In Spock’s logic, it’s known as “necessary versus sufficient.”

Not that those terms need to be taught to your followers, but the process of recognition should be.

See Something…

Finally, channeled positively, the natural inclination people have to be great critics of others is a huge asset. So, let the critics criticize – loudly! When Kahneman’s wrote “…it’s much easier to identify a minefield when you see others wandering into it…” I doubt he had the minefield of industrial hazards in mind. But you can – and should.

For this process, the job of the leader is to create a culture where followers feel an obligation to do something when they identify a hazard or significant concern. See something? Say something; do something! There is no bigger favor they can do for themselves and their peers.

So back to where we started. It’s a good bet many of the cases where it appeared the hazard wasn’t identified were actually ones where nothing was said, done differently, or, what was done was not nearly enough. 

Changing that dynamic goes on the short list of the most important work a leader can do.

Paul Balmert
May 2025