Strive to focus on the present
When you drove to work today, did you take the same route and park in the same spot even though there were lots of other spaces available? Did you walk into the office and make a cup of tea or coffee and use the same cup? How about when you walked into the lunch room did you sit in the same chair as you always do? What makes it your parking space, your cup or your chair? Is it the feeling of certainty or familiarity, does it give you comfort to know you are in control of your actions?
What happens when you go to make a cup of tea or coffee and the cup that you usually use is being used by someone else? What if someone else parked in your spot or sat in your chair? How does it make you feel when confronted with a change to your daily routine? Does it force you to make uncomfortable adjustments and consider other opportunities or possibilities to accommodate for the disruption to your own perception of certainty and control?
Often the banality of life can force us into a deep sense of mindlessness that we only become aware of when shocked out of our normality by a disruption to our routine. Similarly employees in an organisation can often be observed undertaking routine and repetitive tasks in the workplace with apparent disregard as to why the task is performed in a particular way. They become blind to the risks and hazards associated with the task due to their own perception of competency and experience. Research tells us that, with daily repetition, actions and behaviours can form habits in as little as 10 days. Therefore supervision and training is paramount to ensure corrective actions are undertaken to safeguard that only positive safety habits are embedded and passed across the organisation.
Neurological studies have shown that our brain makes connections which create pathways for us to be able to learn new tasks and skills. Once these neurological pathways have been established, it is much more productive for us to undertake the same task again, as the brain has learnt to process the information in a more efficient way. This allows us to routinely perform the task without having to establish a new pathway each time suggesting greater levels of mindfulness. Mindfulness within this context implies an understanding of what we are about to do. However, further studies have indicated this is not the case, because with repetition often comes mindlessness, complacency and risk blindness, which can inadvertently place us at risk of harm and injury.
Enhance Solutions understands this paradigm in risk and OH&S prevention and offers interactive leadership workshops that challenges participants to look and think differently about how they receive and process new information to turn stale situations fresh. By acquiring this new level of mindfulness, managers and supervisors are better placed to assist the teams they lead to understand their own responsibility to act as a defence in incident prevention when performing routine and repetitive tasks or standing in the line-of-fire.