Behavioural safety training through drama and story-telling

A key part of developing and sustaining a strong safety culture is addressing worker behaviour, and a key way of doing that is providing effective and engaging training. Glen Robertson suggests that one way organisations can become ‘good at learning’ is through drama and story-telling.

Behavioural safety programmes provide tools that help organisations focus on worker behaviour. Through training and other interventions, the aim is to change behaviour and so reduce risk. Often, a system of observation, intervention and reward is used by management and supervisors to identify and encourage safe behaviour. How successful such programmes are in creating a safer work environment, however, depends on the level of attention paid to the range of individual, organisational, and environmental factors that influence worker behaviour.

An organisation’s culture, too, will support or undermine health and safety messages on many different levels. The Health and Safety Executive defines ‘safety culture’ as: “The product of individual and group values, attitudes, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety programs.”¹

Given this complexity, it is not surprising that the interaction between human factors and the implementation of safety management systems is still poorly understood.

To embed and sustain a safety culture organisations need to become good at learning. On one level, this means people need to be good at analysing the root causes of incidents, and at identifying, communicating and implementing necessary changes. At another level, it means the culture itself needs to encourage people, wherever they are in the organisation, to ask questions and to be involved in conversations about practice. In other words, what they do and why they do it.

Knowledge about our own values, attitudes, and routine work practices (or “the way we do things round here”) is embedded in our behaviour. It is only when something goes wrong that we start to ask questions, and we have an opportunity to discover how:

• making an assumption about a situation stops us from asking a critical question;
• operational circumstances (e.g. it is towards the end of a shift, worker fatigue, being preoccupied with a worry) impact on the way we carry out a routine task;
• there is a gap between what we say we do and what we actually do;
• our own behaviour is heavily influenced by the culture we work in; and
• our own perspective turns out to be unfounded.

Teaching behavioural safety

Story-telling delivered via a structured programme of drama and facilitated-action learning is an approach that can be used to highlight the human factors behind behavioural safety, raise questions and stimulate discussion, and create an emotional engagement and motivation for change. Through drama, the cultural practices, attitudes and ways of communicating that characterise the work environment can be depicted. The process can help workers (including supervisors and managers) develop the awareness, knowledge and skills they need to be able to improve their work relationships and, in turn, health and safety practice.

With drama, the action is interactive, allowing those watching to influence and get involved with the story in real time, as it unfolds in front of them. At various stages, they can stop, rewind, or forward the action, offering comments, suggestions and challenges to the characters about their management of the situation. The actors then improvise around their suggestions, showing the possible consequences.

Through this interactive process, front-line workers, supervisors and managers can:

• understand how their own work culture operates;
• identify strengths and weaknesses;
• clarify the changes required; and
• develop awareness of how their values, attitudes and behaviour impact on other people, and on work practice.

Everyone has the ability to relate to stories, regardless of their confidence with reading, writing, speaking in a group, or their cultural background or history. Through stories, people make personal connections and they pay attention to what is important to them. As a workplace training and engagement method, they can:

• be a good starting point for getting people to explore and express their experiences, and to think about their own values. This is particularly important in situations where people may not be used to discussions of this kind;
• provide a link to investigate a whole range of issues. What people notice and respond to, and the connections they make, will differ widely, and that, in itself, provides good learning for a group;
• encourage people to share their own experiences and engage emotionally with the issues to be explored; and
• help people look at a situation from different perspectives and so broaden the field of interest.

In showing behaviours and cultural norms that people recognise, drama raises critical questions and stimulates discussion. For example:

• “Is there anything about your job you think is unsafe?”
•  “What do you think could be done to improve safety in your workplace?”
• “Have you observed any near misses and, if so, did you report them?”
• “What stops you from challenging colleagues on their safety practice?”
• “What risks do you take with your own or others’ safety (at home and at work), and why?”

Because the drama encourages people to respond on an emotional level, the discussions they have tend to be more strongly connected to the complex reality of what happens at work. In high-risk industries in particular, where the human cost of real incidents can be devastating, drama enables people to address the horror of a fictionalised incident – and learn from it – without having to experience something like it in real life.

The emotional impact can still be felt, difficult questions can be asked, and a lasting change to behaviour can be provoked, all within a safe learning environment.

The challenges

As with any learning and development approach, if drama is to be effective it needs to be well facilitated and sit inside a sound educational framework. The discussions generated can be wide-ranging and, in the time available, it can be a challenge to keep people focused on the task at hand.

Drama also provides an opportunity for people to share views (often for the first time) with colleagues, managers and partners, so it is important to maintain an environment in which people feel able to express strong views and disagree with one another.

Furthermore, individuals need support in order to reflect on their responses to the drama and identify what is relevant, in terms of practice improvement. If insufficient attention is paid to this, then drama is unlikely to lead to behavioural change.

Finally, the drama/scenario itself must be well researched and devised, presenting believable characters and behaviour that is recognisable.

Conclusion

Drama offers a rich and effective way of stimulating discussion about safety culture and the attitudes and behaviour that lead to unsafe acts.  Encouraging people to feel (as well as think) brings them closer to the factors that influence their own actions. In this context, discussion enables people to identify the behaviour that needs to change and to agree how that change can be supported.

Furthermore, drama provides an opportunity for people to develop the skills they need to improve workplace communication and intervene when they witness unsafe acts. It is this combination of emotional engagement, motivation to change and skills development that makes drama such a valuable tool.

References

1    HSE (2002): Safety culture – a review of the literature, HSL 2002/25 – www.hse.gov.uk/research/hsl_pdf/
2002/hsl02-25.pdf
2    A ‘sound slide’ of Nils’ story, illustrating the kind of discussion it generates, is available to listen to at www.foruminteractive.co.uk or www.offshore-technology.com

Glen Robertson is director of Forum Interactive.

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