Turning HOP Principles into Action: Context Drives Behavior

In this third blog in my 5-part series on the five Principles of Human and Organizational Performance (HOP), I will be discussing the third principle. This series is written to help provide specific actions leaders can take to implement HOP. As always, my hope is to provide behaviors leaders could adopt on a daily/weekly basis to put the HOP principles into action. 

HOP Principle 3: Context Drives Behavior

Context Drives Behavior: Workplace accidents are usually caused by systemic factors such as fatigue, poor design, or production pressure, rather than bad intentions. 

Consider these concepts when pinpointing what leaders can do to put actions behind this principle. 

1. Our behavior is heavily influenced by the environment. Undesired or at-risk behaviors are most often the result of systems issues, process factors, poor design and unintentional leadership tactics, not bad intentions. 
2. Leaders are responsible for organizational design and ensuring that the systems, processes, tools, resources, and work support the development of critical safe behaviors and allow works to fail safely. Often there is a disconnect between work as designed and work as done, with the work being designed by people disconnected from the work. Make working safely the easiest and fastest way to get something done. 
3. Humans are not robots, and yet many organizations build systems, processes, and work that require high quality awareness, critical thinking, and responding for long periods of time. Given that humans are prone to error, that is an unreasonable ask. Building in the ability to fail safely is critical.
4. It’s ultimately cheaper and more effective to invest in prevention strategies than it is to wait for an incident to occur. 

Let’s get into some critical behaviors leaders should do to help their organizations deal with the third principle. The following are proactive behaviors or actions leaders should build into their daily/weekly habits to ensure their organization is living out this HOP principle.

Proactive Behaviors for HOP Principle 3

Develop a deep understanding about how Antecedents and Consequences influence behavior. One of the key learnings in behavioral science is how antecedents and consequences influence behavior. Each of these has unique characteristics in how they create context. Antecedents (such as tools, resources, processes, planning, production pressures, organizational culture, typical norms) have a role in nudging us in certain directions. Consequences (what happens when a person interacts with those things) largely determine whether behaviors are repeated. And while this is a brief description of what they do, it’s deeper and more interesting than that. What’s been lost by a couple prominent names in the HOP space is that people are not interacting with antecedents and consequences in isolation; it’s the combination of antecedents and consequences that creates the context for behavior and decision making. 

A leader’s “product” is not what the company produces; it’s other people’s behavior. Knowing how antecedents and consequences influence behavior will help leaders make better decisions in organizational design (e.g., culture, processes, systems, work) and their own leadership practices. 

Be curious about what is influencing behavior, not what should be. I’ve often heard leaders talking about what should be happening inside of their organizations. People should work safely, should lead by example, should spend time coaching their people, should put safety over production. This should be thinking is often disconnected from reality from a systems and behavioral view. Mager and Pipe captured this idea with their italicized statement “You Really Oughta Wanna,” as part of the title in their systems analysis book. We live in the is world, as in “what is influencing behavior,” and we need to examine that on a regular basis. Aubrey Daniels introduced the PIC/NIC Analysis® in the 1970s, Sidney Decker discussed studying “Work as Done,” and Todd Conklin wrote about pre-incident investigations. Each has the goal of identifying what is influencing worker behavior. I will discuss conducting a proactive work-as-designed gap analysis in the next blog on Principle 4. For this blog, I want to provide leaders with directions to what leaders can look for to identify what is influencing behavior. 

Consider incorporating questions like these during observations, site visits, meetings, or roundtables:

• What is the true messaging around safe production as experienced by those doing the work? Is the organization’s actual message around safety supported or discouraged through everyday leadership actions?
• Does the organization truly make safety the number one priority by providing the most optimized tools, resources, training, time, procedures, etc. to do the job correctly? Does the organization actively seek how systems/processes/leadership practices might send signals misaligned with their intentions on safety? Does the organization make it hard to “do the wrong thing,” or allow someone to fail safely through its processes, procedures, and design?
• Does the organization do enough for proactive safe production management? Is it making visible and key investments based on the recommendations of the workers? Does the organization use leading indicators to proactively adjust organizational activities?
• Does the production schedule encourage shortcut taking? Does the organization have the qualified staff and/or equipment it needs to meet the production schedule demands?
• Does the work-as-designed make things more difficult, frustrating, or time-consuming to do safely? Are there benefits to the performers for not following procedures?

Identifying what actually is influencing behavior allows leaders to proactively make changes in context (i.e., systems, processes, work design, leadership tactics) to better support safe working practices. 

Conduct “After Action Reviews” to determine what to repeat. After Action Reviews (AAR) prompt teams to reflect on performance, and when used effectively, help strengthen successful behaviors and give leaders the ability to proactively address potential issues. Many resources provide questions to ask during the review, so I will not include them here. Instead, the focus will be on what leaders can do to ensure AARs are effective. Consider the following recommendations:

• Determine which job tasks require an AAR. Not every team or job task requires an AAR, so carefully consider which ones do. Work that is non-routine, has high SIF potential, requires substantial upfront planning, or has multiple teams involved should be considered a high priority. 
• Resist the temptation to turn this into an administrative burden. I attended a presentation on conducting AARs at a recent conference. While walking through the process, the presenter stopped and said, “Do you want to know the number one reason AARs fail?” Of course, the audience nodded their heads “yes.” He stated, “It’s turning AARs into an administrative burden by requiring the group to write things down.” At the group level, it’s the conversation that’s important. To capture ideas on process/systems improvement, have a leader or admin person attend the meeting to capture ideas. But remember, this meeting is dedicated to the conversation. 
• Build time into the job plan for AARs and do them immediately after the job is completed. Time is the enemy of remembering details. 
• Add a fifth question: “What did we do that led to the success of the job?” This question gets people to think about the things that led to the work being completed successfully. If most jobs get done safely, then picking out what made them safe will help those critical behaviors be repeated next time. 

Be a force for strengthening desired behaviors. Since the environment (the context people experience) plays such a crucial role in influencing behavior, one critical leader behavior is purposefully creating a world that supports them. While I have already discussed the importance of leaders observing and positively reinforcing safe work, and improving processes and systems, this recommendation gives leaders additional focus. Most people know the importance of delivering positive reinforcement. The question, “Which behaviors should we be focusing on?” is vital to ensure those other recommendations improve the safety culture inside the organization. Here are activities leaders can do to identify those behaviors:

• Identify specific behaviors that prevent SIF related injuries. Look at the biggest risk potentials inside your organization and, for each of those, ask, “What behaviors specifically reduce that type of injury?” For example, working from heights is a risk, and wearing fall protection is a risk-mitigating behavior.
• Identify behaviors that create “checks and balances.” Look for behaviors that help teams work together to self-manage around risk (e.g., peer checks on critical tasks and peer-to-peer feedback).
• Identify behaviors that help develop the skills to remain safe while working around risk. Ask yourself or your teams, “What behaviors should people excel at to make working around the SIF-related risk safer (e.g., hazard recognition and developing mitigation strategies)?”

Knowing what behaviors to focus on provides a target for leaders and a leading indicator for the organization. This gives leaders direction in what to look for and deliver positive feedback for during their observations. The identification activity should be revisited as improvements in the work, systems, processes, and environments are made. 

Pinpointed leadership activities and behaviors turn principles into action. The third principle of HOP provides an understanding about the environmental influences of behavior. Once leaders understand what’s truly influencing the behaviors in their organization, they can work to make real changes to strengthen safe behaviors and remove the obstacles/barriers to safe work. Building leadership habits around these principles will build a safer organization.

References

Mager, R. F., & Pipe, P. (1997). Analyzing performance problems, or, You really oughta wanna (3rd ed.). Center for Effective Performance. 

Dekker, S. (2015). Safety Differently (2^nd ed.). CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Group.

Conklin, T. (2012). Pre-Accident Investigations: An Introduction to Organizational Safety. CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Group.

Daniels A.C., & Bailey J.S. (2014). Performance Management: Changing Behavior that Drives Organizational Effectiveness. Performance Management Publications.