Behavior of people

Another often forgotten aspect of quality management is the behavior of people in an organization. Such behavior is formed by the core values to which that organization subscribes. The absence of core values that form a positive behavior may not have an immediate effect because individuals will operate according to their own personal values. When these conflict with the organization s values, an individual could resent being forced to comply and may eventually adopt the values of the majority or leave to find a more suitable company to work for. 

We can find out whether a proposed reaction is possible by determining whether it is a spontaneous thermodynamic process. In this context, spontaneous has a precise technical meaning (see later for clarification) that should not be confused with its conversational meaning, such as describing the spontaneous behavior of people in social situations. Thermodynamics can tell us whether a proposed reaction is possible under particular conditions even before we attempt the reaction. If the reaction is spontaneous, thermodynamics can also predict the ratio of products and reactants at equilibrium. But, we cannot use thermodynamics to predict the rate of a spontaneous reaction or how long it will take to reach equilibrium. These questions are the subject of chemical kinetics. To obtain a large amount of product from a spontaneous reaction in a short time, we need a reaction that is spontaneous and fast. 

Violent criminal activity seems to be associated with high levels of epinephrine, and may have played a role in the behavior of people, such as Charles Manson. He took the name Helter Smelter from a Beatles song of that name in the early 1970s. Manson was obsessed with the song and used its title as a symbol of rebellion, evil, ghoulishness, bloody violence, race war, and homicidal psychosis. 

Statistical parties Caused by unsafe behavior of people Caused by unsafe condition of objects... 

Numerous safety elements help control both the behavior of people at work and the work environment and procedures. No hard-and-fast dividing line can be drawn between elements defining them as either behavior or environmental control. One influences the other. All elements are mini safety culture change interventions and demand certain actions and performances that eventually create behavior and conditions that equate to an ongoing safety culture. 

There are several types of emergencies. Some result from the forces of nature. Some involve fire and explosion. Some involve system failures. Some emergencies entail traffic or transportation problems. Some result from the behavior of people. For others, there are police, military, and public safety actions to assist people and protect property. 

The behavior of people can lead to emergencies. Case 29-2 provides an example in which one person s irresponsible behavior affected thousands of individuals. 

High risk acts are the behaviors of people that put them, and possibly others, at risk (at-risk behaviors). This means that people are behaving contrary to the accepted safe practices and, thus, creating a hazardous situation that could result in a loss. High risk acts include ... 

Traditional research proposed by W. H. Heinrich showed that 88 percent (the majority of all accidents) could be caused by the unsafe or high risk behavior of people. The high risk meehanical, physical, or environmental conditions could cause 10 percent of all accidents (minority of all accidents) and there is a small percentage ( 2 percent) of all accidents that are beyond our normal control and that can be contributed to natural causes, acts of providence, or other phenomena that we can neither predict nor control. 

Numerous safety program elements help control, both the behavior of people at work as well as the work environment and the work procedures. No hard and fast dividing... 

The third factor is the behavior of people in labs. Having knowledge and ability is important only if those factors are put into action. Human error is always preventable, and you can have considerable control over the probability that you make some mistake in a lab. However, since you cannot control other people in the lab, someone else may cause an incident that injures you. Assessing the probability of other people making mistakes depends on understanding the experience and attitudes of other students or coworkers. It is simply prudent to remember that the overall risk assessment process must involve all sources of risk in any environment. 

Destructive behavior of people, environmental factors (exposure). 

Many of us like to think that v e behave in a rational manner. This is not always the case, and economists often use the rational man model only as a straw man, to demonstrate and understand biases in the actual behavior of people, especially in their purchasing decisions. Our decisions are biased in many ways, and only recently have some of the psychological biases been understood (Tversky and Kahneman, 1992). Still, there is reason to our behavior at least on many occasions, and at least within limits of the information available to us. The challenge to the rational model of driver behavior is to allow for all our limitations and biases. Conceptual approaches to explaining and predicting driver behavior in the context of a process of rational decisions have been offered by Sivak (2002), Fuller (2005), and Parker and her associates (1992). 

If stimulus overload can affect people s attention to an emergency, it can certainly reduce attention to common everyday situations that are not very obtrusive, but nevertheless require actively caring behavior. Consider, for example, the various needs for proactive behavior that can prevent an injury. Environmental hazards are easy to overlook, especially in a busy and noisy workplace requiring focused attention on a demanding task. Even less noticeable and attention-getting are the ongoing safe and at-risk behaviors of people around us. Yet, these behaviors need proactive support or correction as in the safety coaching approach described in Chapter 12. 

There is a good deal of overlap between process and technical safety. However, process safety tends to focus on the role of people on facilities that are already in operation. Technical safety has more to do with technical analysis, and is less concerned with the behavior of people or the implementation of management systems. 

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