Let’s Get Focused

“Teamwork, It Works”

When most transient workers come on site, for the most part, they think that individual performance bears the significance. Seemingly, the team concept has eluded the thought process or simply, just has not been shared as a viable way of improving overall performance. With focus on TEAM, this is something we as an organization can turn around.

As someone previously involved in team sports, participating and coaching, accountability for yourself along with your teammates has an everlasting positive effect on your behavior. When you know that a teammate has your back when you may not be at your best, makes you want to deliver the same in return.

Striving to formalize the team concept in a short outage window may seem inane to some, but if it’s initiated from day one and motivated throughout, then the outcome can be rewarding.

Being a unique group of travelers, we develop relationships and bonds. The familiarization and camaraderie we develop should be easier to maintain because we see those same folks from outage to outage.

What could be better than an accident-free, violation-free outage? If we can bring this concept into every outage, oh how it could change how we view what it is we do and the people around us.

I ask that when you go to your next outage, do your best to be your best for yourself and those around you. Make being the best teammate your goal. It not only makes the job easier, you will be amazed at how it will make you feel!

James WarrenDirector of OperationsBNI-BHI Energy

Diversity Quote

"Diversity and inclusion seems to me to envelope this tenet about what should be our approach to work, just as this tenet should wrap around diversity and inclusion—we are all in this together.”

Tom Copolo

Think they started the day knowing this would happen?

Poor Housekeeping

Just imagine how distracted you’d be if your workstation or work area is cluttered with all your personal stuff, unsorted files, bolts, screws, wires, food wrappers and other junk. Visual clutter can easily translate itself to mental clutter. Befriend the broom and sweep all those visual distractions before they do something nasty.

Remember, poor housekeeping says a lot about your attitude towards safety, quality, and production.

Humor In Safety

(Names changed to protect the innocent)

Bob, Nick & Lee-Anne were at a safety conference together. They all had rooms on the top of a 75-story hotel. After a long day of meetings, they were shocked to hear that the elevators in their hotel were broken & they would have to climb 75 flights of stairs to get to their room.

Bob said to Nick & Lee-Anne, “Let’s break the monotony of this unpleasant task by concentrating on something interesting. I’ll tell safety jokes for 25 flights, Nick can sing ‘safety dance’ for the next 25 flights and Lee-Anne can tell accident stories the rest of the way.”

At the 26th floor, Bob stopped telling safety jokes & Nick began to sing. We can Dane, We can dance………

At the 51st floor Nick stopped singing & Lee-Anne began to tell accident stories. “I will tell my saddest story first,” she said. “I left our room keys in the car!!!”

Work Stress

For many of us, there are several contributing causes to stress in our lives. There are outside influences such as home and family, just as well as there are things going on within our work environment that have the potential to create stress. Our ability to manage stress in the workplace can make the difference between success or failure on the job.

There are a variety of things you can do to dispel work stress. These are just some examples:

• Get Time Away. If you feel stress building, take a break. Walk away from the situation, gather your thoughts and re-focus on your work activity.

• Talk it Out. Sometimes the best stress-reducer is simply sharing your stress with someone close to you. The act of talking it out—and getting support and empathy from someone else—is often an excellent way of blowing off steam and reducing stress.

• Cultivate Allies at Work. Just knowing you have one or more co-workers who are willing to assist you in times of stress will reduce your stress level. Just remember to reciprocate and help them when they are in need.

• Find Humor in the Situation. When you or the people around you start taking things way too seriously, find a way to break through with laughter. Share a joke or funny story that will help set a mind at ease long enough to release some stress.

This week’s safety topic is on work distractions, so let’s see where this ties into Behavior Based Safety…….

Last week we looked at “Beliefs, Values, Perceptions and Attitudes—The Centers. This is the area that will trickle down to our results and also influence the safe or unsafe decisions that we may make at work.

The key is to stay in the “Intellectual Center” and steer clear of the emotional, moving and instinctive centers. A difficult and sometimes daunting task but very critical for achieving our desired results.

Knowing and understanding what drives your decision making is the key…..predict it and we can prevent it!

A Single Moment of Inattention by David Little

A single moment of inattention can change lives forever.A single moment of inattention meant my children had to watch their father remain trapped in their vehicle and wait roadside for 10 minutes for emergency crews to arrive. My wife tells me the wait was over 20 minutes. We were in a rural area.A single moment of inattention meant they had to watch me be extracted by the ‘jaws of life’ from a wrecked vehicle and placed in an ambulance.

A single moment of inattention caused my father to initially think I was dead when my wife first called him. She was very upset, and rightly so.A single moment of inattention caused a wonderful man, a complete stranger to stop and check on us, and to stay with me while my wife tended to our children, as we waited for emergency responders. I can still hear his voice in my head, “Hang in there buddy, helps comin’”…A single moment of inattention caused a dislocated femur, fractured hip, two broken ribs, a broken collar bone, a collapsed lung and a broken nose.A single moment of inattention, meant 16 days in the hospital.A single moment of inattention meant I needed 4 nurses to bathe me and change my bed sheets at the same time.A single moment of inattention meant having to pee in a jug, bedside.A single moment of inattention meant I would learn to walk on one foot…from my bed to a chair and would be sweating after covering a distance of 3 feet.A single moment of inattention meant I would take Christmas Eve communion from a hospital bed.A single moment of inattention meant my children would have a Christmas morning without me.A single moment of inattention exposed me to the magic that was Match Game ’73, ’74, ’75, ’76, and ’77. God bless Gene Rayburn, Richard Dawson, Bret Somers and Charles Nelson Riley for the laughs.A single moment of inattention meant a wheel chair and/or crutches for 3 months.

A single moment of inattention brought me two of my favorite cheesy movies. Teen Wolf and Footloose.A single moment of inattention allowed the best professionals to practice their craft on me! The Cotaco Volunteer Fire Department, Huntsville Hospital ER doctors and staff, Huntsville Hospital SICU nurses and staff, TOC Orthopedic surgeons, nurses and staff and HealthSouth therapists, nurses and staff.A single moment of inattention meant I would live with my parents for 8 weeks because my own home was not wheelchair accessible.A single moment of inattention meant selfless neighbors and friends built one of the best wheel chair ramps in the world, in record time, in the dead of winter.A single moment of inattention caused untold numbers of friends to prepare countless meals for my family.A single moment of inattention meant I would have no shortage of reading material for the coming year thanks to the generosity of so many friends.A single moment of inattention caused 5 months of arduous but stellar rehab at Johnson and Hayes Physical Therapy.A single moment of inattention has insured that my kids will ALWAYS remind me not to text and drive.A single moment of inattention means my family discusses this, usually once a week, in some form or fashion. The kids have never forgotten that night, or that time period.This single moment of inattention was the moment a 17-year-old boy, decided to text his father that he was on his way home from church, a reassuring text message that he usually sent from the parking lot. 3 years ago tonight, he sent that text from his truck, as he drove down a rural two lane highway, at night. That one extremely brief moment in time, meant he did not notice the slowing vehicles in front of him, which he then rear-ended and slid into our lane of traffic. We hit nearly head on, at around 55 mph. My wife had just asked me to slow down as it was a rainy night. The impact pinned me between my seat and the dashboard, with my knees under my chin, feet dangling in midair. My wife and 3 children were able to walk away.I hold no ill-will towards the young man. He made a mistake, owned up to it, and certainly has paid a price in his own right with the knowledge of all this. He knows, because he visited me in the hospital.It is my hope that as you read this, you will make a commitment to not text and drive.I freely admit that I am guilty of it at times, but everyday force myself to leave my phone in my console as I drive. You can too.