Everyone, welcome to deconstruction with VC I'm your host, Tyler Kern. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the show today today we're talking about behavioral change, which is a tricky topic, and we're going to dive into it, and explore some of the nitty gritty today with Scott Anders. He's the safety director at VC construction Scott. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So, Scott, let's dive in and talk behavioral change now. It's a tricky topic like I mentioned, and I think part of what makes it so tricky is that you can ask 10 people what is behavioral change and you'll get 10 different answers. But for you specifically when you look and you see behavioral change at work on a job site, what does it look like to you? Paint that picture for us? Well, in construction, you know, most accidents happened because of human behavior. So I want to know what causes that human behavior. So for me, behavior change is, you know, I want people to do the safe and right thing unconsciously without having to think about it. Mm-hmm What are some instances of behavioral change that maybe fit that definition, right? I think of maybe someone thinking, oh, I could take this shortcut and do this thing in a way that's quicker, but maybe less safe is a good way of thinking about it in your mind that people are just going to unconsciously do the thing the right way, even though it's going to take longer? Well, I mean, we could talk long, long about that. You know, when people think I'm going to take this shortcut, you know, that is a behavior of, I'm going to take this shortcut. But now everybody's going to be proud of me because I've got something done faster. Well, if. In the interim, if you take that shortcut and you get hurt now, you've just cost the project more time and more money. This is really interesting because it involves a mindset change, right? Which is a process that's something that could potentially take place over time, right? So what are some steps along the way? And maybe these are things that we've talked about in previous episodes of the podcast. What are some steps along the way that help people change their mindset, whether it's regular safety meetings or task hazard analysis, things like that are those things that can change your mindset over time to lead you to behavioral change? Well, I think those can certainly help. You know, for me, it's more about finding out why people do the things they do instead of finding fault in what they did. I can find fault in what people do, you know, in construction, accidents and injuries all the time. But what I but what I want to do is determine what made you think it was OK to do what you did? If I can determine. What made you think it was, OK, then I can go back to the root cause of that problem and correct that? Can I try to take it back to sports as an example? So I played baseball, I was too small to play football. And my mom thought I would die, which makes sense. I was pretty small kid, but so I played baseball. I played shortstop pretty often. So let's say a guy is on third and a ball gets hit to me at shortstop and I try to throw it home to get the guy out at home. He ends up being safe. Everyone is safe. I get no outs. The run still scores. I could have thrown the first thing, gotten the guy out at first, and at least I would have gotten it out, right? The coach, as I'm coming off the field later wants to understand what made you throw the ball to home rather than the first base. He wants to understand my mindset, why I thought I could get the guy out at home. Sure, and it may have been a mistake that I made, but in the end, he's trying to figure out what went through my mind. And can we correct that for the next time? We're in a similar circumstance? Is that similar to the behavioral change that you're discussing? That is very similar? Did it change your behavior? Did it make you think about what you were doing the next time that you did it? Yeah, I think I was more proactive about thinking about OK, runner on third. I'm at shortstop. I'm playing deep at shortstop. They didn't ask me to come up and play on the grass. So if the ball said to me, I'm going to first, I was more proactive about thinking about my surroundings and what I would do the next time I was in that same situation. Yeah, it's very, very similar, you know, and if the coach would have come out to you and started screaming and asking you, you know, why did you do that? Why did you do that? Would you have the same result? No and the same works in construction, just the same. Really interesting, I like taking things back to sports that helps me anyway. Sure so what are maybe some of the biggest challenges about behavioral change? Is it simply that sometimes people aren't aware of their actions or it's asking people to be a little bit more conscious throughout the day of what they're doing? What are some of the biggest challenges with this? The biggest challenge? You've already said it. Behavioral change. People don't like the change. People do not like change. Yeah getting people to change their mindset is one of the biggest hurdles that we have to face. So, Scott, as we wrap up this episode, is there anything about behavioral change? We haven't discussed that. You think people need to know about or any closing thoughts you have about behavioral change. Behavioral change is a very broad subject. I won't pretend to know everything about it, you know, but but what I try to do myself is to be a positive influence on those that I'm trying to work with. And again, like I said, we don't want to find fault in what people do. We want to make sure we understand what made them think. It was OK to do that, right? Positive reinforcement when you want change, positive reinforcement is a big step towards getting to that goal. And we've talked about leadership before on the podcast. But if you're a leader, you have to embody that change that you want to see in other people on a job site as well, right? That's correct. Excellent stuff. Scott Anders, safety director at BC construction Scott, Thanks for diving into a tricky topic with me today. Thank you very much and everyone. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of deconstruction with bc. We appreciate it very much. Of course, stay tuned for upcoming episodes of the podcast. We'll be back very soon with more. But for my guest today, Scott Anders, have been your host, Tyler Kern. Thanks for joining us.
