Daniel Defoe, Mark Twain and Zsa Zsa Gabor did not pursue careers in a safety field, but whether they realized it or not, they had a lot to say on the subject. The words of wisdom they left behind have been fixtures in the Laboratory Safety Institute’s courses for the last 45 years. As we rise out of the pandemic and look ahead to a new year, here are eight inspirational quotes from some unlikely “masters of safety.”
8. Author and humorist Mark Twain loved science and spent many hours in the laboratory of his friend Nikola Tesla. Although “better to be safe 100 times than dead once” is often attributed to Twain, he probably never said those words. However, he makes the “safety masters” list for giving us another phrase: “Humor is the good-natured side of a truth.”
The connection between those words and safety may be less immediately obvious, but that quote deserves a slide of its own in every safety presentation for the simple reason that so many safety seminars are mind-numbingly dry. It is true that safety is a serious subject stacked with thousands of rules and regulations, and that when those rules are ignored, there are morbid consequences. But safety training need not be delivered like a funeral recitation. To the contrary, when employees are sleeping through the safety training is when you have a seriously unfunny safety problem.
As an example of Twain’s timeless principle, here is a lighthearted but true story to keep in your pocket for the next time someone says, “We’ve never had an accident here before.” A fire chief once told the vice president for business affairs at the University of Texas: “I go to home fires in the city of Austin all the time where people’s homes are burned to the ground, and there’s nothing left but the foundation. Interestingly, they all say the same thing: ‘That never happened before!’”
7. The second-century Roman soldier and orator Marcus Cato was so convinced that the security of Rome depended on the annihilation of Carthage that he began concluding all his speeches in the Senate with the words “Carthage must be destroyed,” whether the topic was related or not.
Today, the message “practice science safely” needs to be voiced with the same dogged redundancy. Inject safety information wherever it can be injected. Make knowledge of safety part of the grade for students and part of the employee evaluation for teachers, scientists and lab personnel. Include questions about safety in every job interview, and make safety training part of the onboarding process for new employees. Bake safety information into every laboratory process and every paper published, not as a footnote or an extra, but as an integral element of the science itself.
There is little danger of too much repetition, especially when you consider how little airplay safety currently receives. A 2016 study found that out of 107 mentions of 11 hazardous compounds in chemistry journals, only one article provided cautionary information. It will take a consistent drumbeat of safety messaging to reverse that trend.
6. Although he is best known for the novel “Robinson Crusoe,” Daniel Defoe also wrote a book of serious business advice called “The Complete English Tradesman.” In it, he observed that “customers love to see the master’s face in the shop” rather than the apprentice.
In a laboratory, that means the safety program needs to be championed, supported, and directed by the highest levels of management. Without support from the top, the most beautifully crafted safety policy tends to ring hollow.
Try this: in advance of next month’s lab inspection, invite members of management to join you. Just a 10-minute showing can make a difference.
Getting consistent support from organizational leadership is admittedly a hard nut to crack. It remains one of the challenges most commonly reported by participants in the Laboratory Safety Institute’s courses. Managers may question the need for new safety measures or say it costs too much. The next two “masters” will give you inspiration to keep trying.
5. John Wooden coached the UCLA men’s basketball team to 10 national championships, becoming known as the “Wizard of Westwood” and one of the most revered figures in the history of sports. He said, “Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.”
You may not be able to change the organizational culture overnight, but you can make a list of small action items and start checking things off. Do you have a reward program to encourage safe behavior? Do you have a safety rules agreement that is signed by each new employee or student? Do you have a safety newsletter? What is being done to encourage employees to practice safety when they’re not on the job? These are just a few small steps that any organization can take. If one door closes, kick another one open.
4. Jacob Riis, a Danish-American social reformer and journalist who tried for many years to bring attention to the plight of the poor in New York City, said: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
Small blows over time do eventually raise the safety consciousness of an organization. Something as simple as including a one-minute safety video at the end of each staff meeting can help lay the basis for meaningful change. Keep chipping away. Safety program improvement is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.
3. Automobile pioneer Henry Ford said: “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” We all hope there are no serious safety incidents, but when something does happen, we need to learn from it — not who to blame, but what to do differently next time. Openness in reporting and sharing accident information (as well as close calls and near-misses) is a crucial element in developing an effective lab safety program. One of the best ways to encourage open reporting is for the members of senior management to lead by example (see #6). When leaders feel comfortable in their own skin admitting their own mistakes, it fosters an organizational culture of using every failure as an opportunity for growth.
2. Zsa Zsa Gabor makes the list for saying, “Husbands are like fires — they go out when unattended.” She spoke from experience about a life principle that is as true in the laboratory as it is any place else.
Students, or employees, or fellow researchers need attention. Show them that you care about your own health and safety and that you care about theirs. When they sense that their life and health matter, they will feel inclined to treat others the same way. It’s infectious.
1. When Paul O’Neill took over as the new CEO of Alcoa in 1987, it was in a state of financial decline. At a meeting with shareholders, O’Neil announced his goal to make Alcoa the safest company in America. Someone in the audience asked about ROI.
“I’m not certain you heard me,” O’Neill replied. “If you want to understand how Alcoa is doing, you need to look at our workplace safety figures… We’re going to focus on safety over profits.”
Convinced that O’Neill was going to kill the company, some investors panicked and sold their shares. By the time O’Neill ended his work at Alcoa in 1999, Alcoa not only had a low injury rate; its market value had increased by nearly 90%.
When asked how he knew his “safety first” policy would work, he replied that every employee has “discretionary energy” — they can decide how hard to work. Then he explained that the maximum percentage of this energy is delivered to Alcoa “when employees are treated with dignity and respect every day. A down payment on that is nobody ever gets hurt here, because we care about our own commitment to our safety, and we care about the people we work with,” he said.
When a company puts the health and safety of people above profits, employees feel valued and cared for, which pays off in terms of worker satisfaction, productivity and retention. For proving this timeless principle, and for having the courage to stick to it when nobody believed him, Paul O’Neill earns a place at the top of the “safety masters” list.
As we begin a new year, we draw inspiration from these eight people who taught us something about ourselves that helped us be safer and work better.
About the Author: Jim Kaufman, PhD, is a member of Labcompare's Editorial Advisory Board and Founder/President Emeritus of the Laboratory Safety Institute (LSI)– an international, non-profit center for safety in science, industry, and education. He received his BA in chemistry from Tufts and his PhD in organic chemistry from WPI. Kaufman has educated more than 100,000 scientists and science educators in over 135 types of labs in 34 countries. Working for Dow, he authored "Laboratory Safety Guidelines." Over six million copies (in 23 languages) are in circulation. He was a 10-year member of the ACS Council Committee on Chemical Safety and is past-chair of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety.