A contrasting approach holds the key to improving safety must concentrate on changing people’s attitudes, in the hope of influencing their subsequent behavior. The underlying assumption here is that attitudes cause behavior. But an attitude is often an expression of how we would like to see ourselves behaving, rather than the behaviors that we actually engage in.
For example, senior management in many companies says the safety of its employees is of the utmost importance. But often these same managers design the overall workflow system, and/or the reward system, in such a fashion that unsafe practices are inevitably encouraged. Plus, attempts to dig in and change people’s attitude is a time-consuming, therapeutic approach that requires considerable psychological expertise.