Monday Morning Coffee : A little reality to add to the caffeine…
A sampling of news, topics and trivia from across the internet. The crew here at the Maritime Safety Innovation Lab have compiled a few of the stories, trends, theories and anecdotes that crossed our inboxes, feeds and minds over the weekend.
It has been six days since MV Dali allided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. Tragically, six road workers are assumed to have lost their lives, the harbor is closed and tens of thousands of local residents have lost a vital transportation thoroughfare. While many have reached out to the Maritime Safety Innovation Lab, we have declined any interviews or comments for two reasons. First, while there is significant evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, of these events, we feel that it is not appropriate to hypothesize any of the numerous issues that could have lead to this incident. Second, the principals of the Maritime Safety Innovation Lab have tangential relationships with many of the involved parties, none of which would benefit from conjecture in public forums.
What we do know and will comment is that there were things that went right. Early action by the Maryland pilots onboard and their organization saved lives by alerting MDOT, who stopped traffic on the bridge. There are families and individuals that are whole today as a result. To use a Navy-ism, Bravo Zulu.
We look forward to the official report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), because there will be lessons learned. Until then, we stand strong with Baltimore and hope for a rapid recovery.
https://www.keybridgeresponse2024.com/
Improving Physical Safety Through Psychological Safety
As Dr. Timothy R. Clark says, “the absence of physical safety can bring injury or death, but the absence of psychological safety can inflict devastating emotional wounds, neutralize performance, paralyze potential, and crater an individual’s self-worth.” Each of these consequences have an upstream effect on the levels of physical safety on a team, division, and organization.
There’s a lot of talk in the maritime industry and others right now about psychological safety. There are those that believe this means that everyone has to wear their emotions on their sleeves and is all about political correctness. These myths and others are discussed here. The reality is that the psychological safety of our vessel crews and management leads directly into physical safety.
LeaderFactor is a consultancy and training organization focusing on leadership and psychological safety. Their recent ebook “Breaking the Chain of Command: Improving Physical Safety Through Psychological Safety” recently came across our desks. It and their “Behavioral Guide : A Practical Guide To Improve Psychological Safety At Work” are well worth the time to read.
Wouldn’t you like to learn more about the 4 Stages of Psychological Safety?
Goodhart’s Law:
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” A famous historical example is the “cobra effect”: in India during British rule, the government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was successful. Then people started breeding cobras for the income. The reward programme was scrapped so the breeders set their snakes free & increased the cobra numbers.
Two strategies to “cobra-proof” our goals & metrics:
1) Define metrics clearly in ways that reduce the potential for them to be misinterpreted or gamed
2) Use a diverse set of metrics collectively to measure the “true goal”
Be safe.
Be happy.
Have fun.