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The Future of Health and Safety Now

The future of health and safety now is developing an organizational structure based on clear systems thinking, organizational learning and sound decision making mechanisms. (Connor, 2007). The development of these principles becomes part of the culture of an organization that guides it in the implementation of its systems and the creation of policies and procedures related to health and safety.

Russell L. Ackoff is one of the most influential thinkers in interactive planning, and a proponent for the utilization of "systems-thinking" methodologies in business today. His theory of interactive planning ties together a series of activities which essentially involve several steps. The five steps to be used in the process, are as follows:

1. Formulating the Mess 2. Ends Planning 3. Means Planning 4. Resource Planning 5. Implementation and Control

The steps are outlined in more detail below:

Formulating The Mess

Formulating the mess is the identification and recognition of the problem.

Today, many organizations struggle with the mess of a weak safety culture which limits the overall success of the safety and health program.

Change to a culture begins at the top and trickle down, through training, to achieve full acceptance. Management must buy into the core principles that are being implemented to change culture. Transparency is extremely important in the implementation of the principles.

“A fair and just culture means giving constructive feedback and critical analysis in skillful ways, doing assessments that are based on facts, and having respect for the complexity of the situation. It also means providing fair-minded treatment, having productive conversations, and creating effective structures that help people reveal their errors and help the organization learn from them.” (Connor, 2007)

Ends Planning

Ends planning is the act of making decisions - that is selecting a course of action. Organizations need to learn from their experiences and create ways to become better than all others by responding to and adapting to changes in their internal and external environments. Through annual planning, they seek improved performance through setting goals and objectives, that is, short term and long term planning to an end that they usually obtain. As they continually learn, they close gaps and determine opportunities in efforts to replace the existing system (our current state) with a “technically feasible” and “operationally viable” desired end (outcome).

Changing behaviors results in acceptance and recognition of core values and their principles allowing a more effective and easier implementation process. Through commitment and learning, the vision of the ideal state can and must “transform” the structure and processes for continuous improvement. To survive this “radical change” without harming the integrity of our own existence, we teach. Transferring knowledge of what we have learned is critical and necessary to obtain consistency in behaviors for tomorrow’s desired outcome, today.

Means Planning

Means planning is the process of closing the gaps between where organizations are doing today and where they want to be in the future (Ackoff, 1999). Essentially, it is how do we implement the decisions that have been made. Manufacturing concepts such as Lean Production are often used by organizations as a tool for identifying the gaps between what is being done today compared to where they want to be in the future. The same tools which are used to eliminate wastes and drive towards continuous improvement are particularity well suited for addressing the gaps found through means planning and influencing the future of the organization.

Taking one element of a OHS program, training programs encompass cultural elements from organizations and help guide them in the implementation of their governing systems, policies and procedures. The training programs of the future need to adapt from their traditionally technical viewpoint of safety. It has become necessary to accommodate that of a more dynamic and multi-dimensional view in order to be better conceptualized and incorporated into practice by those doing the learning, as the workforce of tomorrow learns differently than the workforce of the past. G.I. Rochlin identified this need for change in 1999 when he wrote, “it was observed again and again, in different contexts and in different manifestations that “operational safety” is not captured as a set of procedures, of simple empirically observable properties, of externally imposed training or management skills, or decomposable cognitive or behavioral frames. While much of what the operators do can be empirically described and framed in positivistic terms, a great deal of how they operate, and more importantly how they operate safely, is a property of the interactions, rituals and myths of the social structure and beliefs of the entire organization.” (LeCoze 2005).

Resource Planning

Resource planning is controlling the implementation of the decisions, their effects and the assumptions on which they are based. According to Russell L. Ackoff (1999) the five types of resources that enter into planning are money, plant/equipment, people, consumables, and knowledge/understanding. To ensure success, Ackoff (1999) suggests each of the questions below be directed to each of the necessary resources:

1. How much will be required, where, and when? 2. How much will be available at the required time and place? 3. How should each shortage or excess be treated?

Due to inequities in the requirements and the supply, it is essential that continuous planning takes place(Ackoff, 1999).

Implementation and Control

Implementation and control helps provide the information required to carry out the above functions. It is the final step in the process of filing the missing steps in the organization, between where the organization is currently and where it would like to be in the future. Implementation takes the missing pieces, the gap, and give it definition. This definition comes in the form of according to Ackoff,(1999) specifying who is to do what, where and when. Control consists of monitoring all planning decisions, including implementation decisions, to determine the validity of the expectations associated with them and the assumptions on which these expectations are based.

Only entities that can display choice can learn and unlearn, that is only purposeful individuals or systems. Learning and unlearning can only take place in the context of decison making. Therefore, system that support decision making should facilitate rapid and effective learning and unlearning and, of course, the acquisiton and development of information, knowledge, and understanding.

References

Ackoff, R.L."On learning and systems that Facilitate it" Center for Quality of management Journal Vol.5, No.2 Fall 1996 p.31

Ackoff, R.L. (1999). Re-Creating the corporations, pps.81-157.

Connor, Maureen, et al.: (2007).Creating a Fair and Just Culture: One Institution's Path Toward Organizational Change. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. 33, 617-624.

Le Coze, J., 2005. Are organizations too complex to be integrated in technical risk assessment and current safety auditing? Safety Science 43, 613-638.