Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
TIPS TO TRANSFER
Tip 1: Safety Investments Never Stop
The fact that we all have a brain that is programmed with a lot of risk
tolerance, especially for circumstances in the 21
st
century, teaches us
that we need a structured and continuous process to keep safety behav-
ior on a high level. Combined with the fact that the danger center of
the brain has a love
hate relationship with safety measures and that
safety actions are not intrinsically rewarding, safety is not an obvious
factor that will be reached automatically. Without giving continual
attention to the safety process, it will lose its effectiveness. An organi-
zation will never reach a point where it can say,
“
Finally, we invested
enough to reach complete safety.
”
From a safety management perspective, one could get irritated or
disappointed by the fact that safety behavior has a tendency to decline,
regardless of the investments that are made.
Question: What can you do to continue investing in safety
improvements?
Tip 2: Bodily Sensations
—
Gut Feelings
By definition, we are not aware of the processes in our nonconscious-
ness system. There is, however, an indirect link of the conscious and
the nonconscious in our bodily sensations. Although we feel these sen-
sations in our body, our brain actually creates them. One might say
they are secret messages that can guide us to some extent, if we address
them. The most common recognized bodily sensation is the gut feeling.
This is an innate warning system, originally created for getting rid of
tainted food. Nowadays, the gut feeling is also a sign of unconsciously
sensed dangers. In our society, which is dominated by the (irrational)
idea that people are rational, respect for addressing bodily sensations
is incorrectly low. It is advisable that management explicitly supports
employees to attend to their gut feelings. During the LMRA, a simple
question like
“
Do we have a good feeling about this job?
”
can help to
activate the sensitivity for this kind of awareness.
Do you see opportunities to enhance this nonconscious warning
system?
Advice: Always check if gut feelings are based on previous experi-
ence with similar situations.
