SPE 108683

Utilizing Drama-Based Training To Achieve Behavioural Change in Safety

J. Teakle and Z. Hart, Chevron Australia

Copyright 2007, Society of Petroleum Engineers

Introduction

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Health, Safety, Security and
Environment Conference and Exhibition held in Bangkok, Thailand, 1012 September 2007.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of
information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as
presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to
correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any
position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at
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Abstract
As organisations continue to have incidents resulting
from a behavioral component they seek new and
innovative approaches to engage the workforce and
target at-risk behaviours. The Behavioural Based Safety
(BBS) process aims to prevent injury to the workforce
through reinforcement of safe behaviors and reduction of
at-risk behaviors in the workplace.
Many organisations have implemented a behavioural
based safety program, however despite this incidents
continue to occur and organisations are recognize that
something is missing from their programs. Traditional
approaches are failing to address at-risk behaviours and
require a fresh approach to engage people.
Unlike traditional training approaches, which typically
rely heavily on theoretical approaches to human
interaction, drama based training engages participants in
practical skill development.
This paper provides a thorough discussion of how this
innovative new approach to safety training has been
successfully implemented and transitioned into an
organisation with an existing program. Organisations
that have an existing behavioural based safety program
in place will benefit from guidance on how to implement
a training program without loosing or compromising the
ownership of existing programs.

As organisations continue to have incidents resulting

from human factors components, they seek new and
innovative approaches to engage the workforce and
target at-risk behaviours. Behaviour Based Safety (BBS)
aims to prevent injury to the workforce through
reinforcement of safe behaviours and reduction of at-risk
behaviors in the workplace.
Many organisations have implemented behaviour based
safety programs, however despite this, incidents with
behaviour causes continue to occur. Organisations are
recognising that something is missing from their
programs. The purpose of this paper is to share the
experience of Chevron Australia in relation to changing
the BBS system to increase employee participation,
enthusiasm and achieve positive safety outcomes.
Twelve months ago Chevron recognized that their BBS
process required a fresh approach. At the time, there
had been an existing process in place for over five years
the OSPREY (Observing Safety Protects Resources,
Environment and You) program. At the time of
commencement in 2004 OSPREY was developed by an
internal interest group with the help of subject matter
experts to ensure alignment with international best
practice.
A 2006 internal audit of the process revealed some
positive results for this effort; the BBS system was found
to be structurally well developed and broadly
implemented across the business unit operations.
Further, there was a large degree of ownership of this
process at the workforce level, and training had been
extensive in operational areas. However, despite these
good results, it was felt strongly by HES professionals
and management that there was something missing from
the program that was fundamental to the success of
behavioural based safety. In short, OSPREY was not
delivering a powerful impact on the safety culture.
Feedback forms evidenced that very few comments
were recorded on feedback and individuals were
hesitant to engage in safety conversations.
Chevron sought to make a change to OSPREY that
involved a fresh approach to engage people. We

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SPE 108683

undertook an extensive review of training techniques

and providers in order to source a methodology that
would provide the necessary dramatic impact,
Another challenge we faced was to balance the need to
implement a revitalised training program with the risk of
losing or compromising the workforce ownership of the
existing program. As such it was important that the BBS
program retained the branding of OSPREY whilst
increasing the involvement, energy and commitment of
the workforce. The update of the BBS process was seen
as a good opportunity to build on existing buy-in from the
work force by placing a renewed focus on the
consistency and quality of BBS training.
The criteria for improvement were as follows:

Make the training more practical: ensure that the

employees leave with a real sense that they can
intervene in behaviour using the OSPREY
processs.

Ensure that the entire 1000 strong workforce

receives training, with modularized training for
observers, leaders, steering team and third party
contract owners.

Meet or exceed Chevron International standards

for Operational Excellence.

In order to fulfill these criteria, Chevron engaged the

services of a corporate psychologist from IFAP (The
Industrial Foundation for Accident Prevention). IFAP
customized their Drama Based Training approach to
engage the hearts and minds of our workforce with
tremendous success.
Dramatic Impact
In contemporary workplaces, our lives are increasingly
fast paced and demanding. Our daily experience of work
is such that we are bombarded with urgent messages,
multiple tasks, new skills to acquire and new problems to
solve. For example, just think for one moment about the
number of emails that will be waiting for you when you
return from this conference or your schedule for the next
fortnight, or even the pieces of work still waiting to be
finished from the last fortnight!
With this clutter in the workplace as far as the eye can
see it is not an easy task for a safety and health
professional to approach the workforce with new
information. Despite the vital importance of our
messages, common refrains like correct manual
handling safe operating procedures or even
behaviour based safety can be lost amongst the clutter.

Today as we gather in Bangkok from around the world,

there would not be one amongst us that would aim to

have these messages go unnoticed, or be uninspiring or

unmemorable.
Making safety and health messages noticeable in
organizations is a challenge. Because we are
surrounded by clutter, we employ perceptual selectivity
in dealing with it. We chose which messages to attend to
and which to ignore. To continue the previous example;
if most of us are faced with tens, or even hundreds of
emails to sort through once we return to work, we will
respond by deleting some without even opening them.
Cognitive psychology offers some basic principles that
ensure that our messages are more likely to be attended
to. Physically, messages are more attention grabbing
when they have colour, movement and novelty value.
Performance art is unique in its ability to incorporate all
these things at once.
Psychology also tells us that messages have more
emotional importance to us when they relate to prior
experience, connect to our personal interest and align
with our current attitudes and beliefs. In achieving
cultural change, an understanding of the problems
associated with existing attitudes and beliefs needs to
occur in order for the change to eventuate. Performance
art has the ability to hold a mirror up to reflect our
attitudes towards life and our behaviours. It can directly
address our conscience and appeal to our better nature.
In drama based training, we apply an approach to safety
and health promotion that strives to make a clamour that
stands out from the clutter.
As a technique, drama based training is not new. In
400BC Plato wrote his model of continuous learning
organisations. Credited with being the first to contrive a
theory on the psychology of learning, Plato practiced this
learning through the theatre of humour at his Academy
in Greece. He wrote:
Serious things must be understood through humorous
things..to utilise characters and scenes from theatre
and the world of comedy.
(Learning should happen).. through recreational
games, the way the Egyptians do, through amusement
and pleasure
Platos legacy is that our learning should be fun in order
to motivate organisational change. Just like the students
in Athens so long ago, todays safety and health
professionals can learn from this visionary man so that
we can enjoy the benefits of a learning organisation.
In contemporary times, drama based training is a
methodology that utilizes theatrical techniques, together
with traditional training techniques, to ensure that
learning is interesting and memorable to participants.
One of the hallmarks of the OSPREY Program is the use

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of professionally trained actors and commercial script

writers. The training facilitator ensures that the transition
between PowerPoint presentations, group discussions,
and theatrical techniques are seamless and learning
outcomes are optimised.
Methodology
The aim of drama based training at Chevron is to
establish a creative learning environment in which
participants explore the human elements of occupational
safety and health. OSPREY Refresh focuses on the
development of communication skills and interpersonal
relationships between members of working teams. We
challenge participants to:

Explore emotions, attitudes, opinions and

relationships.
Become
more
skilled
and
open
to
communication within teams.
Evolve a more spontaneous creative approach
to problem solving.

During the training, interactions between the acting

team, facilitator and training participants occur in the
form of:

Comedic plays: scripted interchange between

actors incorporating humour, movement and
contextual information to highlight areas of
organisational culture that need to change.
Interactive skits: scripted exchange between
actors with in built prompts for light hearted,
undemanding audience participation.
Simulated
interventions:
semi
scripted
interchange between characters and audience
members designed to highlight behaviour that
needs to change and challenge audience
members to intervene in a spontaneous,
creative fashion.

With a combination of talented actors, colourful

characters and scripts that use humour and movement,
this approach has drawn the audiences in and ensured
that important safety messages are attended to.
Importantly, this approach allows participants to interact
in these situations so that established patterns of
communication and behaviour can be challenged and
overcome.
In this respect, transfer of learning from the training
environment to the workplace is increased as the
lessons become thought provoking, practical and
memorable. Through creative exploration of these
topics, drama based training process becomes a catalyst
for attitude and behaviour change in the workplace.

Results
A large part of the success of the OSPREY Refresh
training lies in the tailoring of material to suit the various
professional, cultural and societal backgrounds of the
workforce. The scripts proved to be emotionally
intelligent, designed to initially entertain, then engage,
and finally promote behavioural change.
As can be seen in the following testimonial, the training
was very well received. This message was received from
a training participant by executive management at
Chevron:
I have just completed the OSPREY training and felt the
urge to communicate to you my thoughts on it. I am a
long term employee - 20 odd years with Chevron. I can
tell you I have sat through quite a few hours of training
and refreshers, a lot of them having me wishing I was
sitting in the dentists chair as it would have been less
painful.
This Osprey training, however, was something very
different. It was engaging entertaining and informative
because of the use of the actors. Role playing was well
received by all the participants in my session. This
approach is quite a bit outside the box compared to any
other Chevron training I have encountered. Five hours of
a monotone drawl would certainly not motivate people to
embrace a safety system but I think this presentation
captured our attention and encouraged us to participate.
Congratulations to all the team involved I think the
program was well presented and well thought out.
The program has been in place for a period of six
months. An initial qualitative analysis has been
undertaken to determine if this successful training
translated into improvement in the engagement and
feedback. Results show an increased depth of detail and
feedback included for concerning behaviours. This has
provided managers and supervisors with quality
information on behaviour, and has enabled HES
professionals to target individual areas of concern with
dedicated strategies for safety improvement.
A long term analysis process is now underway to
monitor concerns raised for behaviour and completed
feedback cycles toghether wirth near miss and incident
data that relates to human behaviour. Ultimately, it is
hoped that an increase in the quality and frequency of
feedback will correspond to a decrease in injury and
harm resulting from behaviour choice.
Summary and Conclusion
Drama based learning establishes a process whereby
elusive concepts such as safety culture, and
communication and awareness of safety issues can be
incorporated into personnel development.

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SPE 108683

The use of the exciting, funny and thought provoking

theatrical techniques engage participant interest in topics
that can be traditionally hard to promote.
In conclusion, the most ambitious goal of safety and
health is to facilitate a process of changing mindfulness
and behaviour. Drama is an exciting vehicle for
achieving this objective. It allows for a creative process
that gains the attention of our audience. Once gained,
this attention can become focused on changing
problems into insights and habits into new behaviours. In
this way our organisations will be continuously learning
in safety. I think Plato, summed it up well when he said;
And the teachers will continue learning as well.

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