Principles of Human Performance
10/26/2020
Human nature: According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, human nature is the fundamental dispositions and traits of humans. Human nature encompasses the physical, biological, social, mental, and emotional characteristics that define our tendencies, abilities, as well as our limitations. One of the innate characteristics of human nature is imprecision. That is, we differ from a machine, which has the ability to perform a given process over and over while providing the same outcome (within a given tolerance). But people are imprecise, especially in high stress and time pressure situations. This means we are vulnerable to external conditions that can cause us to exceed our human limitations. In other words, humans, are “fallibility,” and under a certain set of circumstances, this fallibility can become more pronounced, and quite possibly result in a workplace incident.
Those that have studied human behavior, from Fraud to Fritz Pearls, as well as those writers who spent pages to describe the motivation of a character in one of their novels (Dostoevsky and Melville quickly come to mind) have recognized certain characteristics or underlying truths of human performance. And today, experts in the field of HPI have recognized these traits as the foundation blocks for our behaviors.
1. People are fallible, and even the best people make mistakes. Error is universal. No one is immune regardless of age, experience, or educational level. The saying, “to err is human,” is indeed a truism. It is human nature to be imprecise—to err. Consequently, errors will happen. It has been proposed that no amount of counseling, training, or motivation can alter a person’s fallibility. However, understanding how and why unsafe acts occur is the essential first step in effective error management.
2. Error-likely situations are predictable, manageable, and preventable. Most of us may be a little skeptical that our humanness can be predictable. And while experts in the field of HPI agree that human errors are inevitable, through observations it is quite conceivable that specific errors can be anticipated; and thereby, preventable. Take, for example when a person writes a personal check at the beginning of a new year. There is a good chance that person will mistakenly write the previous year on the check. Similarly, we can predict this same scenario within the context of work at the job site. Recognizing error traps and actively communicating these hazards to others, is a proactive approach to manage situations and thus, prevent the occurrence of an error. This means that if we can recognize the accident precursor, we can change the work situation to prevent, remove, or minimize the presence of conditions that provoke errors due to individual factors at the job site.
3. Individual behavior is influenced by organizational processes and values. It has been said that organizations are goal-directed and, as such, their processes and values are developed to direct the behavior of the individuals in the organization so that the desired goals are achieved. According to HPI experts, managing human performance has historically focused on the “individual error-prone or apathetic workers.” However, modern HPI principles subscribe to the model that work is achieved within the context of the organizational processes, culture, and management planning and control systems. Thus, workplace incidents can be controlled through the integration of safety into the organizational framework of each project or working system.
4. People achieve high levels of performance because of the encouragement and reinforcement received from leaders, peers, and subordinates. All human behavior, whether good or bad, is reinforced, whether by immediate consequences or by past experience. A behavior is reinforced by the consequences that an individual typically experiences when the behavior occurs. The level of safety and reliability of a facility is directly dependent on the behavior of people. Therefore, one might conclude that human performance is a function of behavior. Because behavior is influenced by the consequences that workers experience, what happens to workers when they exhibit certain behaviors is an important factor in improving human performance. HPI philosophy promotes that positive and immediate reinforcement for expected behaviors is ideal.
5. Events can be avoided through an understanding and application of the lessons learned from past events (or errors). Traditionally, improvement in human performance has resulted from corrective actions derived from an analysis of past events. Learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others is reactive—after the fact—but important for continuous improvement. Human performance improvement today requires a combination of both proactive and reactive approaches (sometime referred to as leading and lagging indicators). The anticipation of how an event or error can be prevented is a proactive approach to accident control and has proven to be a more cost-effective means of preventing events and problems than when compared to reacting to an event and then try to mitigate its consequences.
I understand that we just went through a summary of some rigorous concepts. The main takeaways from these thoughts can be synopsized through the initial highlighted statements at the beginning of each section. And while our humanness cannot be removed from us, we can institute a number of tools to help use our human traits to our advantage; most notably, through organization goals and understanding when our natural behaviors are most susceptible to errors in the field.
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for