Page 178 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company

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Reinforcement and Corrective Action 147

In addition to following through in implementing documented rein-
forcement plans, managers should proactively search for evidence of out-
standing performance as a part of the daily routine. Ongoing reinforcement
should become a daily habit for leaders through words of thanks, a high-
five, or whatever else is readily available and appropriate. Surveys often
confirm that managers believe they initiate reinforcement frequently while
subordinates feel reinforcement is received infrequently. This paradox is re-
lated to the pyramid shape of most organizational charts together with the
trend toward wider spans of management control. A manager with twenty
or more employees in his or her unit may truly reinforce subordinates on a
daily or weekly basis. However, each individual may be on the receiving end
on limited occasions. Thus, managers and team leaders should consider the
impact of reinforcement from the perspective of individual employees.
Unwanted side effects from well-intended but misguided reinforcement
can create barriers to achieving the results needed for an organization to be
fully successful. As an illustration, a Fortune 500 retailer enacted a com-
mission system for its auto center workers that reduced base salaries by as
much as 50 percent. Thus, for many workers the commission received for
selling parts and services became more valuable than any reinforcement an-
ticipated for satisfying customers. Later, a California probe found an aver-
age of $223 in unnecessary parts on each car serviced by the company’s
auto centers. In 1992, the company publicly encouraged customers to return
cars for free correction of problems. It also ran full-page advertisements in
major newspapers throughout the country reconfirming its commitment to
customer satisfaction. 3
Like the commission-based wage system that led to dissatisfied cus-
tomers, misguided reinforcement practices can undermine the integrity of a
facility’s serious incident prevention process. Reinforcement practices that
emphasize high production and cost reduction jeopardize the process if re-
inforcement is neglected for executing the work necessary to sustain inci-
dent-free operations. Clearly, production and cost-control-related
reinforcement is appropriate, provided milestones are accomplished with-
out sacrificing principles of safe operation. Reinforcement must not be
skewed toward a small number of specific performance areas to the detri-
ment of other critical areas. Maintaining the constancy of purpose neces-
sary for serious incident-free operations requires that reinforcement be
effectively administered for the work critical to safe operations.
Reinforcement actions provide direct insight into a manager’s value sys-
tem, priorities, and beliefs. Effective reinforcement processes help maintain
the constancy of purpose required to ensure that low-visibility, but essential,
serious incident prevention tasks are diligently performed. Reinforcement is
an essential part of the process of watering what we want to grow.