(73a) Balance in Technical and Human Competencies to Create a High-Performance Process Safety Culture

14^th
Global Congress on Process Safety

22^nd-26^th
April 2018

Orlando World Center
Marriott

Call for Papers

Title:

Balance in technical and human competencies
to create a high-performance process safety culture

Authors:

Coen van Driel                                                                       

TÜV SÜD Schweiz
AG                                                 

Mattenstrasse
24                                                                                                         

CH-4002
Basel                                                                                                                       

Switzerland                                                                                                                            

coen.vandriel@tuev-sued.ch                                                   

Abstract:

The core of high performance in process
safety is managing risks to prevent incidents from happening. In a
high-performance process safety culture, there a balance between process safety
management system with technical soundness and human factor which is enabled by
leadership.

An essential element in the journey to a
high-performance process safety culture is competency management. In other
words, having and continuously working on the right and balanced mix of
competencies at all levels of the organization. Realizing that right and
balanced mix of competencies is an experience driven transformation journey
resulting in a high-performance process safety culture.

Why is the balance important for the
result?

A good example for illustrating the balance
is the challenge of climbing the Mont Blanc or any other challenging mountain.
For the safety of the climbers rules and regulations have been developed and
converted into management systems. The guides that lead groups of climbers to
the summit have to follow the rules and regulation. As in the industry, if
something happens with one of the climbers the guide has to go to court.
Despite rigorous systems in place, incidents and casualties should be accounted
for. The culture of climbing the Mont Blanc is changed and driven by money or
operational performance of the guides. Also, the perception of the climbers has
changed from seeing the Mont Blanc as challenging mountain to climb to an easy
mountain to walk up influenced by declining competencies, i.e. accessing risks
by changing weather, of climbers and guides. This trend cannot be changed by
focusing just on the system but also requires attention to change the mindset
of the climbers (human factor). There is also something called craftsmanship – learning
the mountains by generation of experience and doing.

In a high-performance process safety
culture the balance between the system and the human factor is embedded in the
organization and continuously facilitated by leadership (see fig.1). On the one
hand, there is focus need on the technical soundness of the installation and a
management system to manage the barriers. On the other hand, having a culture
in which there is focus on continuous improving with good set of values and
beliefs. This supported by craftsmanship (good balanced set of competencies) at
all levels of the organization. This all will not work if the client and
stakeholders do not appreciate the effort of the organization. Secondly, at the
core of everything what is done in the organization risk thinking is at the
core (fig. 2).

How to realize a high-performance
process safety culture?

The most effective way to realize a
high-performance process safety culture is an experience driven transformation
journey.

One of the success factors of an experience
driven transformation journey is that people are from the start aware of their
improvement potential in a way that they admit themselves that they can
improve. Something like an “ah” moment and becoming aware of the blind spots. I
understand know where we can improve in system, culture, technical status and
competencies and believe in it that we can improve.

How to get to that moment? Together with
the people in the organization visualizing fact based the improvement potential
by looking at the situation from different perspectives like the technical
soundness, management system and the behavior/culture point of view. Different
tools, from brown paper workshops about the processes to case studies support
the process in realizing the visualization of mutually understanding the gaps
in the system and the individual usage of the system by those people involved indicate
the process safety culture within a company.

To understand the culture, it is definitely
necessary to get an understanding of the attitudes, values and beliefs of the
people in the organization from leadership to the shop floor. This information
can be gathered by standard methods such as questionnaires but also with advanced
tools like Katalyst anonymous online workshops in which the approach unveils
the attitudes, values and beliefs behind the façade people tend to show.

All the perspectives at the end give a
realistic picture of the current safety culture by visualizing the blind spots
and creating an environment in which it is safe to become conscious incompetent
(the “AH” moment) as an organization and person.

Then in cooperation with leadership in the
organization developing a transformation roadmap to realize the vision or in
other words the picture of the future. It is a roadmap which is owned by the
people and leadership in the organization because they have developed it themselves
only facilitated by the consultants. Starting journey with the organization and
realizing high performance is a stage by stage process. It is like climbing a
mountain to go first to base camp and that camp by camp to reach the summit.
Now, you are at the summit the decent is the tricky part of the journey and
evenly important. This also accounts for developing the competencies stage by
stage – need continuous step back to understand the changes, i.e. new people.

How can competency management contribute
to the success of a high-performance cultures?

A competency is a measurable pattern of
knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, that a person needs to successfully
perform a job. In other words, there are visible competencies as technical/
management system skills and non-visible competencies as human/social/leadership
competencies (iceberg of competencies).

As craftsmanship and attitude/behaviors are
essential aspects to make a high-performance process safety culture successful,
competency development is making a difference in the success of a
high-performance culture. Naturally in the process industry there is more
attention to develop the technical skills of the people in the organization. In
this context, the balance of competencies – technical, human, leadership,
system competencies also make the difference.

There are some actuals threats impacting
the process safety performance. For example, as in recent crises years, there
has not been enough attention to competency development or a lot of senior
people are leaving the companies. Another threat is that people do not know the
assets anymore because the assets are too reliable.

The opportunity is there to invest in the
competency development in an experience driven transformation journey
facilitated by leadership. Such an experience driven transformation journey for
competency development has two components:

A)    Individual development: Picture current competencies – experience
driven development plan – execute journey – evaluate and update picture

B)    Organizational development: Picture current culture, knowledge, and
structure (roles and succession planning) – Organizational journey – execute
journey – evaluate and adjust picture

Integral embedded in the first component (A)
is the learning process supported by the different pedagogic tools like
coaching, experience learning settings, training on the job, classroom
training, e-learning, and learning by doing. In most companies the
craftsmanship development is missing due to technology improvements. The
learning process depends on: prior knowledge, motivation, memory,
understanding, intellectual engagement. Leadership can support the learning
process by continuously challenging to prevent normalization from happening.

What is the role of leadership in
realizing a high-performance process safety culture?

The key role for leadership is to
understand that the road to success is to keep the balance between a system
driven and human driven performance improvement to realize the results.
Leadership adapts to facilitative leadership competencies, like results focus,
managing the boundaries, motivational learning, challenging, etc., that enables
them to realize the results.

People have the feeling and motivation that
they can improve and they are in the starting position to take the steps for
improvement.

Leadership use the assessment to create a
clear picture of what Process Safety Excellence mean for the company = creating
the beacon for making the transformation plan/ roadmap.

Role of leadership at all levels in this
process is to create an environment in which the experience driven
transformation journey to high performance process safety culture is possible
by keeping the balance between system/technical soundness and human factor. It
is about improving the management system (boundaries in which people are
working) and developing the culture and people in the organization. The process
safety management competency development journey is a one of core themes.

The result

A high-performance process safety culture
in which people are actively aware of where they are related to best practices
and where there is a continuous challenge of the current procedures and
behaviors by trying to identify blind spots. A culture in which competency
development is not seen as a cost but as core to make the experience driven
journey to high-performance cultures a success. This committed culture has risk
thinking at its core.

Fig. 1   System and human related elements. Both are
mutually dependent. If one fails, the other might not be able to compensate.
Leadership has to ensure the right balance.

Fig. 2   Risks management at the core of the
performance of the organisation.