Although our critical initiatives might change year after year, we must commit our attitudes and behaviors to always stay true and focused on excellence in all we do.

As humans, we…you…all of us, are fallible! Our attitudes must be one of striving for excellence to perform Safely, correctly, and efficiently, but recognizing our mistakes and recognizing, we…you…all of us deserve forgiveness when we don’t hit the mark.

Human performance starts with an idea and can quickly morph into an action, and if repeated and supported by good HU tools and management over time, HU can become a strong company culture. What is Human Performance? Human performance is simply continually approaching our work with a safety focused mind set with rigorous use of the appropriate HU tools while reinforcing the high standards and expectation in all we do to avoid issues, events, and near misses.

We must have a safety culture with a focus on values that identify and address issues, events, and near misses. We must expect that procedures are followed as written, or we must be willing to modify, change, or create new procedure that support doing work safely, correctly, and efficiently. We must constantly, without wavering perform work utilizing HU tools and our training to function in a safe event free environment. We must teach our employees to have a questioning attitude that fosterers teamwork and resolution to concerns. And most important, Management needs to live our values demonstrating strong leadership and the pathway for others to follow.

HU Tools:

  • STOP – Allow anyone to STOP a job, activity, or action if something seems not right or out of sequence. If your gut instinct is off, STOP and regroup.
  • Three-way communication – Make communication a strength and the first step in preventing an event. Use three-way communication when giving or receiving instruction and use the phonetic alphabet when identifying a specific component, noun names, or other designations with complex nomenclature.
  • Before committing to an action, use STAR: S-Stop T-Think A-Act R-Review
  • Follow procedures as written using place keeping: If a procedure cannot be followed as written stop and re-right the procedure before proceeding.
  • Promote the habit of Self Checking, Peer Checking, and Independent Checking for action that cannot be recoverable if performed incorrectly.
  • Teach decision making and ensure if an employee needs to make a decision outside of what is written, outside of training, or communicated that they are empowered to have a questioning attitude because they realize the risk and exposure of getting it wrong.

No Matter what HU tools you use to ensure excellence and operational reliability, you must always strive for continuous improvement, high level of teamwork, respect, and identifying problems before others do. Keep training as the number one tool to avoid complacency and encourage all employees to coach their peers, supervisors, and subordinates without fear of retaliation to achieve the highest level of organizational performance and most importantly…TRUST!