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From page 171... ... 171 The history of change in the offshore oil and gas industry reveals a great deal of progress and innovation over the past decades, especially following the Piper Alpha explosion in the North Sea in 1988, but it also shows frustration and delay. While some data indicate a downward trend in recordable and lost workday incident rates offshore (see Chapter 3, Figure 3-1) Read the entire page →
From page 172... ... 172 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Therefore, this chapter focuses on how to implement change in a sustainable way, especially culture change that involves everyone from top to bottom in an organization. It first briefly summarizes change principles from the extensive literature on change, including strategies for culture change, and examines the illustrative cases of the U.S. Read the entire page →
From page 173... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 173 and major oil spill in 1977 and the capsizing of the Alexander L Kielland in 1980, which led to 123 fatalities. Read the entire page →
From page 174... ... 174 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Third, because organizations are so complex and their parts so interdependent, it generally is not possible to change one thing at a time. Any change has intended and unintended consequences and reverberations, some of which reinforce the desired change, but some of which interfere with it or raise new challenges. Read the entire page →
From page 175... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 175 Jacobs (2013) offers behavioral leadership as a framework for understanding and shaping a culture of effective leader behavior and provides a science-based method for understanding and addressing leadership development that can measurably impact a safety culture. Read the entire page →
From page 176... ... 176 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry discovering problems and learning new things (Carroll and Quijada [2007] Read the entire page →
From page 177... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 177 a statement of fact, quantitative or qualitative, that documents the deliberate steps taken to comply with requirements. Certification can readily be audited throughout the life of a submarine, and without certification, a submarine cannot be operated. Read the entire page →
From page 178... ... 178 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry The SUBSAFE program explicitly recognizes the potential conflict among stakeholders with different goals and gives voice and weight to each of three key roles: • The platform program manager is responsible for the design and operation of a particular submarine design, or platform; • The independent technical authority is responsible for providing the necessary technical expertise, such as recommending acceptable designs from which the program manager may choose; and • The independent quality assurance and safety authority is responsible for compliance with requirements. None of these actors can make a unilateral decision; designs can move forward only if all three have agreed that their goals are satisfied. Read the entire page →
From page 179... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 179 tor for its absolute safety record, which may be no better than that of other operators. However, this story is notable for its long duration, the company's global reach and willingness to share details (e.g., Hudson 2007) Read the entire page →
From page 180... ... 180 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry The change team conducted interviews in multiple locations to identify aspects of culture that more than 50 percent of respondents could agree represented each step on the ladder. The result was the Hearts and Minds program (a name used by British Army operations in several parts of the world during the mid-20th century) Read the entire page →
From page 181... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 181 prior 10 years, safety leadership estimated that had these rules been in place earlier, compliance with them might have prevented 80 percent of those fatalities. These rules also have been made available to the oil and gas industry through the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP Safety Data Subcommittee 2013) Read the entire page →
From page 182... ... 182 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry innovative concepts and initiatives that came partly from outside and partly from within the company. Even now, there is variability across the company and its contractors. Read the entire page →
From page 183... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 183 CHALLENGES IN CHANGING OFFSHORE SAFETY CULTURE In sum, the safety culture journey requires leadership commitment and engagement; significant time, money, and know-how; appropriate policies and training; and means of ensuring that new values and behaviors are actually in place. As was the case with the example company described above, there is more explicit focus on culture at some points in the journey and more explicit focus on structures and rules at other points. Read the entire page →
From page 184... ... 184 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry practices, the concept cannot be specified and assessed, nor can efforts to improve safety culture be effectively managed. Overcoming the Challenge One goal of this report is to provide clarity and direction to the offshore industry in its safety culture journey, analogous to what the Norwegian Petroleum and Safety Authority did for its industry in 2002–2003 in articulating a sound health, safety, and environment culture (PSA 2003) Read the entire page →
From page 185... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 185 dents are less frequent, some rare accidents reflect the reduction in pilot resilience that characterized the old safety model. In the offshore industry, each company need not invent its own safety culture policies, practices, and measurement tools, but each has to decide how to translate (and put into practice) Read the entire page →
From page 186... ... 186 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry culture, they must first believe that the tangible and intangible benefits of doing so far outweigh the costs, as the two case examples described above illustrate. Then, they must provide support and convince others to commit themselves as well. Read the entire page →
From page 187... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 187 ing them questions (Schein 2013) and offering appropriate assistance, they know these leaders care about what they are doing and how well they are doing it. Read the entire page →
From page 188... ... 188 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry regarding unsafe practices and accidents to minimize further costs (in dollars and reputation) Read the entire page →
From page 189... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 189 Given the many industry groups that are stakeholders in the offshore industry (see Appendix B) , a coalition of informed, interested, and respected parties will be needed to influence others to participate. Read the entire page →
From page 190... ... 190 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry involving minor personal injuries, transportation incidents, and spills (because they occur most frequently) rather than gaps in process safety that could be precursors of major accidents. Read the entire page →
From page 191... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 191 is essential, positive safety changes also need to involve field supervisors and workers in the field who are dedicated to safety improvement and equipped with both the authority and resources to pursue it. This is why the term "safety culture" implies commitment and participation throughout the organization. Read the entire page →
From page 192... ... 192 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry safety-related responsibilities offshore. These two organizations have a good working relationship with each other, which was strengthened in 2012 by a new memorandum of understanding.3 While leaders in both agencies recognize the need to extend their federal role by fostering safety culture in the industry, internal challenges remain with respect to staffing resources. Read the entire page →
From page 193... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 193 help a company implement its safety culture philosophy. Further, the public has its own expectations of safety regulators, which appear to include the levying of heavy sanctions and fines when problems arise and generally forcing industry compliance through more inspections and penalties. Read the entire page →
From page 194... ... 194 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Successful culture change is a long-term effort that entails considerable uncertainty and necessary investments and requires sustained commitment from senior leadership. Behaviors and relationships will be disrupted, and the organization needs to be supported through the lengthy change process. Read the entire page →
From page 195... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 195 and pathological cultures will not appreciate the need for change until they see others change successfully and feel pressure and encouragement to move forward. Recommendation 6.2.1: Industry leaders should encourage collective and collaborative action to effect change in an industry as fragmented as the offshore oil and gas industry. Read the entire page →
From page 196... ... 196 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Recommendation 6.3.1: The industry as a whole should create additional guidance for establishing safety culture expectations and responsibilities among operators, contractors, and subcontractors. Regulators should assist in these efforts and ensure consistency. Read the entire page →
From page 197... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 197 what features of safety culture have the greatest impact on safety outcomes? • Define what contextual factors matter most. Read the entire page →
From page 198... ... 198 Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Brown, S Read the entire page →
From page 199... ... Implementing Change in Offshore Safety Culture 199 Schein, E Read the entire page →

From page 171...

... 171 The history of change in the offshore oil and gas industry reveals a great deal of progress and innovation over the past decades, especially following the Piper Alpha explosion in the North Sea in 1988, but it also shows frustration and delay. While some data indicate a downward trend in recordable and lost workday incident rates offshore (see Chapter 3, Figure 3-1)