Overview

This blog turns the conversation with three human and organisational performance experts into a guide you can use at work. They have backgrounds in the nuclear navy and high-risk industries. Nevertheless, their ideas work in any place where things can go badly wrong.

We will look at:

• What is a critical step?
• How is it different from any other task step?
• How risk actions set you up for success?
• Why too many tools and checks can make things worse.
• How to build real resilience in people and in the organisation.
• What you can start doing tomorrow.

Blog

Why Critical Steps Matter More Than Ever in Safety?

Meet the people behind the idea.

The podcast host from Rebranding Safety spoke with three American guests.

• Tony Muschara, who has worked in nuclear power and human performance since the 1980s.
• Ron Farris is a human and organisational performance consultant with a background in nuclear operations.
• Jim Marinus, who has worked in nuclear submarines, nuclear plants and research labs.

All three grew up in the nuclear navy. In that world, getting work right is not a nice-to-have. It is a must. A mistake at the wrong moment can be deadly for people, the plant and the environment.

From that world comes the idea of the critical step.

What is a critical step?

A critical step is more than a mere step in a job.

A simple way to say it

A critical step is a human action where, if you get it wrong, you can cause serious harm right away. You also cannot easily undo that harm.

Think of:

• Opening the wrong valve that sends very hot liquid to the wrong place
• Lifting a heavy load so it hangs over people or vital equipment
• Jumping out of a plane during a skydive
• Firing a real gun on a film set

If that step or one key action before it is done wrong, the harm is:

• Immediate
• Cannot be reversed
• Not acceptable to you, your team or your company

This is very different from making a small mistake on a form or writing down the wrong number and catching it later.

Most work steps are not critical. Some are. The secret is to know which is which.

Risk important actions

Before a critical step, there are often many smaller actions. The authors call these risk important actions.

Risk important actions – Steps that create either safety or danger. They do not hurt anything on their own. But they set the stage for the critical step.

A simple example is skydiving.

• Risk important actions
• checking and packing the parachute in the right way
• putting the harness on so it fits your body
• checking the spare parachute
• making sure you know how to pull the cord
• Critical step
• jumping out of the plane with the parachute you will rely on

If the “risk important actions” are weak or rushed, the jump can become deadly.

Another example is lifting a heavy load with a crane.

• Risk important actions
• Checking the weight of the load
• Inspecting the lifting gear
• Choosing the right slings and hooks
• Setting up barriers so no one walks under the load
• Critical step
• When the crane takes the strain, and the load leaves the ground

The moment the load hangs free, you have energy in the system. If something fails, then the harm is fast and hard to undo.

Hidden landmines at work

Sometimes, critical steps are not obvious. The authors call these hidden critical steps landmines.

Examples:

• A garage door spring under tension can fly loose and injure someone when it is removed in the wrong way.
• A tool dropped through a floor grating onto sensitive equipment below, causing a plant trip.
• Pressure is trapped in a pipe that is opened without proper checks.

These landmines sit quietly in the system until someone touches them in the wrong way. To find them, you need people who understand the pathway of energy, matter or information in the job.

Why more tools and rules can make you less safe

Many companies fall into this trap.

Something goes wrong.

They add a new checklist, a new card on a lanyard, a new rule or a new talk.

Over time, workers carry a small library of tools, all to be used for every task.

Soon, everything is treated as high risk. If everything is critical, nothing is.

The authors have seen workers hold up their badge full of human performance tools and say

Please, no more of this. These tools are now getting in the way of work.

When people must use every tool every time, they stop thinking about what really matters. 

The tools become noise. They even become error traps in their own right.

The better way is to be clear:

• Which steps are truly critical
• Which actions are risk important
• Where you really need certain tools
• Where you can trust expert workers to choose how to do the job

This focus creates more safety and more efficiency at the same time.

From avoiding error to making sure things go right

Traditional safety often asks – What may go wrong?

How do we stop errors?

The critical step approach asks a different main question.

What must go right

If you know what must go right, you can

• Focus checks and energy on the vital few steps.
• Support workers to succeed at those moments.
• Design the job so that, if things do start to go wrong, you can still fail in a safe way.

You move from fear of mistakes to planning for success.

Workers are not the problem

A strong theme in the talk is that workers are the solution, not the problem.

Frontline workers close the gap between work as imagined and work as done.

• Work as imagined is what is written in the procedure or risk assessment.
• Work as done is what really happens on site, in a tight space, in bad weather, with real-time pressure and real people.

Every day, people adjust. They spot small issues. They work around missing tools. They keep things going even when the plan does not match the real world.

If they did not do this, many companies would already be out of business.

So the question is not – How do we make people follow the procedure like a robot?

The question is:

How do we help people use their skill and judgement, while keeping control at the few points where failure is not an option?

This is where the idea of adaptive capacity comes in.

Adaptive capacity made simple

Adaptive capacity is a long phrase. It means your ability to adjust when things do not go to plan and still stay safe and on track.

People need adaptive capacity, including teams and whole organisations.

You build adaptive capacity when you:

• Train people to understand the why of the work, instead of a mere list of steps.
• Leave room in the procedure for experts to make sensible choices where risk is low.
• Talk often about what is really happening, not what should happen.
• Watch for signs that things are drifting away from the safe path.
• Make it easy for people to speak up when the job is not as expected.

One employer shared a simple rule from his glazing business. His teams work on high-rise buildings with heavy glass. They use this idea when:

• You can handle up to two small changes from the plan.
• Once you hit a third change, stop and call your supervisor.

This rule gives you some freedom to adjust, but also a clear point to pause before risk grows too much. That is adaptive capacity in real life.

Training for competence, not only for compliance

Many firms see training as a box to tick.

You sit in a room.

You sign the sheet.

You pass a short test.

On paper, you are now competent.

However, real competence means you can handle changes and problems in the real world. It means you know why you are doing each step, not what the step is.

The authors saw many smart people in one industry who were trained only to follow the procedure. When something happened that was not in the book, they were lost.

Good training should:

• Build a deep understanding of how systems work.
• Grow people who can spot when the system is not behaving as it should.
• Give real practice in making decisions when things are not normal.

This kind of training grows the adaptive capacity you need around critical steps.

Leaders and critical steps

Leaders play a key role in all this. Their job is not to sit in an office and talk about safety in a separate meeting.

Good leaders:

• Go to the field and watch real work.
• Listen to workers about the gaps between the plan and reality.
• Learn where the assets are that really matter, such as people, equipment and brand.
• Help teams find and name critical steps and risk important actions.
• Remove extra rules and checks that add no value.

They also stop saying that safety is the first priority without thinking.

An honest view is this:

Your business exists to create value and profit.

Nevertheless, if you cannot do that without harming people or assets, you will fail in the long run.

The point is not to choose safety or production.

The point is to talk about risk and safety as part of normal work, not as a side topic.

How to use critical steps in your own work

Here are simple actions you can start this week. You do not need new posters or slogans.

Step One

Choose a high-risk task where things could go badly wrong. For example:

• Lifting a heavy load
• Breaking containment on a pressurised system
• Working at height
• Moving vehicles in a crowded yard

Step Two

Ask where the critical steps are. Use the simple test:

• Could this action, or the one just before it, cause serious harm right away?
• Would that harm be very hard or impossible to undo?
• Would it be clearly unacceptable to people or the company?

Mark those steps. There should only be a few.

Step Three

Find the risk important actions. Work backwards from each critical step and ask:

• What actions create the safe conditions we need?
• What conditions do we need to check before we go ahead?

For example, before lifting a load, you may need:

• The right slings and also complete the checklists. 
• A clear area under the load.
• The agreed clear signals between the crane driver and the banksman.

Step Four

Ask workers where they have seen surprises in the past.

Look for hidden sources of energy, stored pressure or sensitive assets that could be harmed.

Step Five

Cut the clutter

Look at your procedures, checklists and training for that task.

• What is needed to control the critical steps?
• What can you simplify?
• Where can you let expert workers decide how to do the work?

Do not simplify the risk. Make the picture of risk clearer.

Step Six

Talk about the why of work. Before the job, have a short talk with the team. Keep it simple.

• Here is what must go right.
• Here is the point of no return.
• Here is how we will fail safely if we start to lose control.
• Here is when we will stop and talk again.

This kind of clear, honest talk is far more powerful than a long, dull briefing.

How Risk Fluent can help?

At Risk Fluent, we care about turning ideas, such as critical steps, into real change at the front line.

That means you need to:

• Design risk assessments that focus on what must go right.
• Help teams map critical steps and risk important actions.
• Train leaders to see real work, not just the paperwork.
• Build training that grows competence and adaptive capacity, not mere compliance.

If you feel buried under tools and rules, the answer is not to throw everything away. It is to focus.

Final thought

Critical steps are not about fear. They are about respect for the moments that truly matter. When you know those moments, you can:

• Support your people better.
• Protect your assets better.
• Keep your brand and your business strong.

Start small. Pick one task. Find the critical steps. From there, you can build a safer and smarter way of working, one job at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)