ML19308B847

Training as Related to Behavioral Change, Prepared for Erda

ML19308B847
Person / Time
Site:	Crane
Issue date:	06/30/1976
From:	Buys J, Nertney R AEROJET NUCLEAR CO.
To:
References
TASK-TF, TASK-TMR ERDA-76-45-6, SSDC-6, NUDOCS 8001170435
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ER DA-76-45-6 O

SSDC-6 1

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TRAINING AS RELATED TO BEHAVIORAL CHANGE SYSTEM SAFETY DEVELOPMENT CENTER A

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l AEROJET NUCLEAR COMPANY 550 Second Street Idaho Falls, Idaho 83401 JUNE 1976 UNITED STATES ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION DIVISION OF SAFETY, STANDARDS, AND COMPLIANCE 1 #2 d, 0 11 70435 p-g w

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O DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. Neither the United States nor the United States Energy Research and Develop-ment Administration, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, com-pleteness, cr usefulness of any information, apparatus, product or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.

O Available from:

System Safety Development Center EG&G Idaho, Inc.

P.00. Box 1625 Idaho Falls, Idaho 83401 l

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ERDA-76-45-6 l

SSDC-6 i

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l TRAINING AS RELATED TO BEHAVIORAL CHANGE l

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Prepared By l

R. J. Nertney J. R. Buys i

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j Work Performed At AEROJET NUCLEAR COMPANY IDAHO OPERATIONS OFFICE j

Under Contract No. E(10-1)-1375 i

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1 June 1976 l

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l ACKNOWLEDGMENT l

Special acknowledgment is due to Jerry G. Hawkins for his helpful guidance and suggestions, and to l

Della T. Kellogg for her editorial assistance.

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CONTENTS Page i

DISCLAIMER ACKNOWLEDGMENT I n troduc ti o n.........................

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The Behavioral Change Tree............

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f 1.0 Define Desired Behavior.................

2 1.1 Analyze Barriers and Supports to Desired Behavior....

3 1.2 Select Means of Introducing Changes...........

4 1.3 Plan Implementation Program...............

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1.4 Conduct Behavioral Change Program............

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9 Figure 1...........................

tU Introduction The purpose of this guide is to provide a basis for upgrape of safety training programs. The approach is based upon the MORTill philosophy of systemic upgrade and repair.

This approach may be contrasted with the too frequent reactive approach to single accidents and events, i.e., "If we tell or train people one more time, it won't happen again and everything will be all right."

The futility of the latter approach has been demonstrated again and again in repeated accidents or in appearance of new accidents of a type closely related to past experience.

The ultimate objective of any training program is to change behavior of people. This is true whether the training is of a type designed to impart knowledge or to impart skills to the trainee. That is to say, whether we send a physicist to " Nuclear Criticality School" or a craftsman to " diagonal cutter and ball peen hammer" classes, the objective is to cause them to do their jobs correctly and effectively.

The first thing that becomes obvious when we consider training in this perspective is that there are many factors - some beyond our control -

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given training element must not be considered out of context.

Further study indicates that behavioral change can be insensitive to training, if other factors (i.e., emotional, physiological, sociological, environ-mental, managerial, etc.) predominate in determining the way that people are behaving. However, even under these conditions, once the dominant factors have been identified - and this may require the aid of professional behavioral scientists - instruction directed toward behavioral change at the correct th$nagement/ supervisory / employee level can provide recognition of the problem and effective improvement in perfonnance.

Whatever the factors involved, training will ordinarily provide an effec-tive solution to a behavioral problem only if:

. Skill deficiencies are involved.

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. The people have not performed correctly in the past and are not performing correctly now.

We will, therefore, identify " training" as one of many variables which we must consider and control -to achieve behavioral change. This is necessary because we will reach the desired optimum safety only if:

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. Our training is specifically targeted on our priority safety problems.

. The safety problems are of a type which is sensitive to training.

• The various facets of our training programs are coherent and consistent with one another.

Our training programs are coherent and consistent with communi-cations to the trainees from other sources.

. The desired behavioral changes are logically related to existing l

individual and organizational attitudes.

It should further be noted that efforts to alter human stereotype (natural) behavior are likely to result in high error frequencies under normal condi-tions, and reversion to stereotype behavior is very likely to occur under emergency or other highly stressed conditions (4).

Tha Behavioral Change Tree As indicated earlier, if one wants to cause a change for the better in the way that work is done, training is only one of several factors which are, and have been, effective in establishing behavioral patterns.

The top objective, at the apex of our tree (Figure 1), is to achieve bene-ficial behavioral change. The first constraint upon this objective is the direction of effort toward solution of our priority safety problems.

This is necessary in order to avoid the too frequent trap of creating safety training programs which are " popular", but which only relate in an indirect or general way to the organization's priority safety problems.

Exampies of the latter are training programs which are too heavily weighted toward off-the-job safety.

At the next level, the tree breaks into five major branches:

1.0 Define Desired Behavior l.1 Analyze Barriers and Supports to Desired Behavior 1.2 Select Means of Introducing Changes 1.3 Plan Implementation Program 1.4 Conduct Behavioral Change Program Specifics dealing with the individual branches are as follow:

1.0 Define Desired Behavior This branch relates to the key preliminary steps in establishing and designing any program to achieve behavioral objectives, i.e., formal definition and evaluation of the desired behavior and the changes required to achieve it.

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lV 1.0.i In order to satisfy our initial constraint at the top of the tree (solution of priority prehlems), we must first select a priority safety problem which reluires behavioral change for its solution.

This problem must be clearly and specifically defined.

1.0.2 We must next relate the safety problem to the specific behav-ioral changes which are required for solution, and define these behavioral changes. That is:

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What is the individual doing now (or for r.ew systems, what would he do without training)?

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What do we want him to do in the future?

1.0.3 We must consider the side effects of safety related behavioral changes on other activities in the organization.

For example, how will operations or production managers react if safety programs tend to slow down the work? This requires that the means of achieving the behavioral changes must be integrated with continuing management decisions relating to optimizing the total complex of company functions, goals, and objectives, and will often require structure of steering groups involving members of affected work groups.

1.1 Analyze Barriers and Supports to Desired Behavior o

This relates to analyzing for barriers which inhibit the desired behavior. The objective here is first to remove these barriers to the maximum practicable degree, and secondly, to become aware of the remaining barriers in order to take them into account when the behav-ior change program is designed and evaluated. At the same time, one analyzes for the necessary support elements which can or should be used to aid in creating the desired behavior.

Four basic sorts of preanalysis are recommended:

• MORT (l) analysis which has capability for revealing a wide variety of basic systemic defects.

• Mager-Pipe analysis (2) which is specifically designed to place training in a proper context and to systematically reveal barriers to the desired behavior.

• Capability-values analysis (3) which is designed to distin-guish between those things that people can't do and those situations in which they place a low or even negative value on correct performance.

• Human factors analysis (4) which takes into account physical

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and physiological factors relating to behavior.

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O Typical problems which would surface here are:

• Need for proper policy statements.

• Need for better designed mechanical or adninistrative systems.

• Need for practice or drilling (where the people have performed correctly in the past, or have the required knowledge, but have either lost, or have not yet developed, the required proficiency).

• Need for performance feedback (so the people will know how well they are doing their jobs, or how well they are meeting desired behavior criteria).

• Need for changes in mechanical-procedural systems to provide a better person-hardware-procedural " match".

1.2 Select fieans of Introducing Change Here we must consider four basic means for introducing behavioral change:

• Selection and Placement

• Training

• Adjustment of Attitudinal Factors

• Adjustment of Organizational Psychology 1.2.1 Control of Selection and Placement 1.2.1.1 The first step in this process is based upon ade-quate definition of selection and placement criteria, based upon matching people to jobs. An important "real world" criterion here is validation in terms of:

• Relative numbers of qualified personnel selected and placed by the system.

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• Relative numbers of nonqualified personnel l

" passed" by the system.

• Relative numbers of qualified personrel

" rejected" by the system.

In the latter case, particular care must be exercised to avoid media which discriminate against prospective employees in any non-job related sense. At the same time, no person should be placed in a position where lack of valid job related qualifications will result in injury to that individual or to others.

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!q 1.2.1.2 The second step has to do with actual execution of V

the selection-placement program.

This involves soliciting, analyzing, and utilizing proper infor-mation from personnel files, testing, examinations, etc.

l.2.2 Control of Training 1.2.2.1 Formal determination of training needs must be made.

Sources of needs-input-data include job specifications, specialized needs surveys, analysis of system failures (human and mechanical), personal data from personnel files, etc.

1.2.2.2 Training media and methods appropriate _t_o the needs o

must be selected. Training economy and effectiveness are often highly dependent upon the proper choice of media and methods. Particular problems are presented by inappropriate use of standard " teach and preach" safety lectures or_ use of inappropriate packaged and purchased media.

1.2.3 Control of Factors Which Influence Attitudes I

This area presents serious problems to one who wishes to introduce behavioral changes. There is often little vali-(Q dated information indicating the degree to which using the i

sorts of media and methods commonly available, actually work in real life. One should, therefore, not be surprised if media which "should work" don't.

Plausible remedies to this problem are:

• Exercising due care in the selection of materials.

• Modifying purchased-packaged materials to meet specific needs.

• Tailor-making one's own methods and media when suffi-cient internal resources exist, or seeking professional counsel from behavioral science experts when in-house skills are inadequate.

Two factors appear to have sufficient " common sense" validity to deserve direct attention:

1. 2. 3.1 One must relate desired behavioral change to attitudes in a logical manner. This includes identifying the particular personnel involved (and recognizing that psychological and emotional factors often outweigh fact and reason in creating their attitudes), relating

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the behavioral change to these specific groups or (V) individuals, and relating the behavioral change to the desired attitudes.

1 1.2.3.2 One must then select the methods and media which can cause the attitude change in a logical manner.

Since the media in common use are often purchased-packaged material (posters, handouts, etc.), and since there are many interfaces with other organizational func-tions (Personnel, Industrial Relations, etc.), care must be exercised to maintain a proper degree of coherer.ce and consistency in the messages which the employee is receiving from a wide variety of sources.

1.2.4 Control of Psychological Factors Related to Management This branch is closely rGated to the previous branch relating to attitudes.

It differs in that the " Attitudes" Branch relates directly to the feelings of individual " persons".

This branch deals in the broad sense with the role of the total organizational environment in shaping and changing the behavior of the employees.

It should be born in mind, however, that " organizational attitudes" are shaped by, and of ten reflect, the " individual attitudes" of upper management about planning, organizing, leading, delegating, controlling, operating, etc.

Again, in this area, there is little valid data confirming successful use of available methods and media.

1.2.4.1 One must, again, begin with definition of needs.

This may be based upon formal needs surveys, ana-lyses of organizational failures to meet goals and accomplish objectives, and other studies based upon organizational performance.

1.2.4.2 Once the needs are defined, one proceeds with selec-tion of appropriate methods and media to satisfy the needs.

1.2.4.3 Finally, the methods selected must be integrated into the organization's total Industrial Relations (Personnel) program. Again, care must be taken to coordinate elements in such a way that a coherent, consistent system results.

1.3 Plan Implementation Program Once all elements designed to produce behavioral change are selected and evaluated for self-consistency (i.e., do all of our methods and media give the same message to the people), we proceed with design of the implementation program.

1.3.1 The program is planned, taking into account such factors as:

selecting the implementation process, defining success-failure criteria, setting up a means of monitoring, establishing priorities, conducting cost-benefit trades, and establishing coordination-correlation programs with steering groups, staff implementers, and line managers.

O 1.3.2 Milestoned schedules are then prepared for initiation, conduct,

- closeout, and follow-up of the program.

1.4 Conduct Behavioral Change Program 1

The program is finally initiated, conducted, and closed out (unless it is a permanently established program).

Follow-up is conducted to determine program effectiveness.

Conclusion An analytical tree for use in design and analysis of behavioral change programs has been developed.

It is hoped that this tree will be helpful in avoiding many pitfalls which exist in structure of training programs.

These exist primarily in:

. Failure to relate safety training to solution of the organization's priority safety problems.

. Failure to analyze for and remove obstacles to the desired behavior.

. Attempts to use training to solve problems for which training, per se, is not the proper solution.

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. Failure to use scientific method in design of safety training programs and elements.

. Failure to relate training in a consistent and coherent way to other system elements which determine employee behavior.

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REFERENCES (1)

Johnson, W. G., MORT - The Management Oversight and Risk Tree, SAN 821-2, February 12, 1973 (2)

Mager, Robert F. and Pipe, Peter, Analyzing Performance Problems or 'You Really Oughta Wanna', Lear Siegler, Inc./Fearon Publishers, 1910 (3)

Letter, R. J. Nertney to All Morticians, "fiORT Note #12", Ne-67-75, June 30, 1975 (available epon request from the SSDC)

(4)

Nertney, R. J. and Bullock, M. G., " Human Factors in Design",

ERDA-76-45, SSDC-2, UC-41, National Technical Information Service, February 1976 O

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BEHAVIORAL CHANGE TREE

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REVISED MAY 7,1976 SOL UTION OF Pm0RITT PROBL E MS 81 12 l'3 lIA l10 4

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i Other SSDC Publications in This Series SSDC-1 Occupancy-Use Readiness Manual l

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l SSDC-2 Human Factors in Design SSDC-3 A Contractor Guide to' Advance Preparation for Accident Investigation j

SSDC-4 MORT User's Manual l

4 SSDC-5 Reported Significant Observation (RS0) Studies i

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