When the System Isn’t Enough: How to Create Personal Motivation That Saves Lives

Author’s Note: In this article – the first in a five-part series – we explore the notion of accepting 100% accountability for our safety at work, just as we do at home. This is an act of self-preservation. The hope is that management’s safety focus will overlap with our own preparation. We want as much overlap as possible.

The next article will address mental preparation, which is different than mental health. It’s a targeted focus to reduce risk of serious injuries and fatalities by improving our ability to remain self-aware and vigilant. We must keep our heads in the game.

When you’ve experienced as much loss as I have, safety becomes more than policy – it becomes a personal mission.

During the 31 years I worked for a large utility, I witnessed more tragedy than anyone should in a lifetime. Forty-four employees died on the job, part of 87 total fatalities at the company since 1965. Those individuals were my coworkers and friends, not just statistics.

Among the accidents that took their lives were vehicle crashes, falls from height, helicopter disasters over land and sea, and countless electrocutions. A major steam leak killed my entire shift and carpool partners. Some incidents are simply too painful to talk about. Most involve a person doing something that, if they could, they would choose to take back.

Each loss I’ve experienced has deepened my resolve to pursue what I call “the holy grail” of safety: a way we can end preventable worksite tragedies once and for all.

Serious injuries and fatalities still occur far too often despite decades of systemic improvements and process upgrades within utility organizations. As part of my ongoing journey to help the industry find a solution, I’ve closely examined Total Worker Health (TWH) – a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health framework that integrates safety, health and wellness – and motivational interviewing (MI), a proven method of fostering lasting behavioral change.

Together, these two approaches offer what traditional safety systems alone do not: a shift from compliance to personal commitment. Real change begins when people choose to work safely because they want to – not because they’re told to.

Who is Responsible for Safety?
Management and frontline workers share safety responsibilities. And while the “don’t blame the worker, fix the system” mindset has value, the reality is that the moment we get into our car or set foot on a jobsite, we accept the risks inherent to that system.

Now, none of us would knowingly walk into certain death, which tells us we have agency. That’s important; each day, we make choices about which risks we’re willing to accept.

For example, most of us trust the rules of the road yet still drive defensively because we know others can make mistakes. The same applies at work. Although management has the obligation to eliminate or mitigate hazards and design systems to fail safely, even the best systems have their limits – which is why workers must take safety ownership, too.

Much as with driving, each of us must work defensively, developing awareness, discipline and personal safety rules that go beyond company policy. Frontline workers need their own safety margins and ways to stay alert because in the end, they are the ones who pay the ultimate price, not management.

Keep in mind, however, that safety isn’t just about you or me; it’s also about those around us. Consider how carefully you drive with a friend’s child in the car. You naturally step up your focus. The same mindset can work on the job, and it doesn’t have to be exhausting.

When my kids were little, they once stepped into a crosswalk simply because the light read “Walk.” I pulled them back, explaining, “Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s safe. Always look both ways.” Over time, that next-level awareness became second nature to them. Ideally, we want to make our safety habits at work second nature, too, because minimal compliance may be insufficient for adequate protection.

Closing the Gap Between Knowing and Doing
Do your personal safety rules exceed your employer’s minimum standards? The truth is that many of us don’t really know how well we follow the rules. We complete our required training and annual refreshers, but we still have blind spots, gaps between where we are and where we need to be to work as safely as possible. Closing those gaps takes effort, which means many of us stop actively improving as soon as we can. Sometimes, deep down, we think safety is mostly a matter of luck.

That attitude changes when the stakes are obvious and high. A World Series outfielder, a U.S. Navy SEAL or a heart surgeon doesn’t slack off – because they can’t afford to. For each of them, being focused is nonnegotiable. For us, the stakes may not look as dramatic, but the consequences can be just as final, as with the coworkers I lost.

Total Worker Health: A More Complete Approach
We must begin approaching our jobs with the same preparation, mindset and sense of personal responsibility that the outfielder, Navy SEAL and surgeon do. That’s where NIOSH’s TWH comes in, expanding safety beyond accident prevention. It combines safety, health and wellness into one holistic framework designed to help people thrive, not merely survive.

Evidence-based and built on bedrock psychological and safety science, TWH is the foundation of an important new approach to workplace safety. Here’s a simple breakdown:

• Safety is about managing hazards – the mechanical, technical and job-specific risks. If something goes wrong here, you call a safety specialist.
• Health means being free from injury or illness. If this slips, you typically call a doctor.
• Wellness is health actively achieved through exercise, nutrition and social connections. If this dips, you might turn to a trainer, therapist, chaplain or friend.

To further explain TWH, NIOSH developed a separate hierarchy of controls for worker well-being (see www.cdc.gov/niosh/twh/php/hierarchy/index.html). The top three levels focus on organizational improvements, while the fourth and fifth target individual improvements (i.e., increasing safety knowledge and promoting safe behavior). To support these goals, I turned to MI, a method designed to help people learn and change on their own.

Sparking Self-Motivated Safety
Developed by psychologists William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick, MI is a proven approach in health care used to help people change behaviors, from quitting smoking to reversing chronic illnesses. Backed by over 2,000 clinical trials, it is effective across medicine, public health and even sports. Now it’s time to bring MI into the safety world.

When I trained as a board-certified health and wellness coach, MI was at the heart of the program. The health-care field believes in it so strongly that coaches using MI may soon qualify for Medicare reimbursement. While doctors treat illnesses, MI helps people make lasting lifestyle changes.

The technique can help utility workers do the same. Wearing a hard hat, following checklists, learning from incidents – these are all personal choices. The decision to follow the rules is always ours. And although you can’t force someone to care about their safety, you can help them find the internal motivation to do so. That’s where MI shines, replacing the outdated carrot-and-stick model with something far more powerful: self-awareness, confidence and alignment with personal values that truly matter to the individual. It sparks personal motivation – the kind with staying power – and helps people avoid the natural resistance they feel when they’re told what to do.

The Power of Honest Feedback
MI works best when paired with clear, honest feedback, like a health check revealing high blood pressure or cholesterol. We need the same kind of assessment for safety: job-specific, confidential, easy to understand and rooted in real behavior.

Such assessments act as mirrors, helping people see the gap between who they are and who they want to be. Honest reflection, when handled with care, is what kindles real, lasting change. Without it, MI struggles to take hold.

Imagine a lineman receiving a safety psychology score that reveals measurable, objective insight into his approach to risk. That kind of clarity is about growth, not judgment. It enables the individual to be honest about their natural tendencies and creates space for change.

Just as medical tests measure physical health, safety assessments should measure self-awareness and competence across safety, health and wellness. “Knowing gaps” – the differences between how we see ourselves and how we truly perform – are made painfully clear through well-done assessments. The gaps are what drive a person’s motivation to improve. Thus, MI is unlikely to work in the absence of accurate, relevant, accessible and confidential assessments.

Advancing Safety to the Next Level
Helping workers take true ownership of their safety may be more effective than years of traditional training. Doing so requires effort, but an easy solution has never been the goal. Safety is the goal.

To move beyond the current plateau in safety performance, we must look deeper than systems, checklists and compliance. These are essential tools, but they can only take us so far. Complete consciousness of our internal mindset – where self-awareness, motivation and purpose guide the decisions that prevent tragedy – is often what’s missing.

MI is a proven, practical approach that helps unlock that mindset. When paired with NIOSH’s TWH framework and grounded in honest, behavior-based assessments, we create a powerful engine for cultural change that supports people and processes.

This approach isn’t about abandoning what works; it’s about completing the picture. For decades, safety professionals have searched for a way to eliminate – not just reduce – serious injuries and fatalities. That’s been the elusive holy grail. By integrating TWH and MI, we may finally be closing in on it.

About the Author: Tom Cohenno, Ed.D., CSP, CUSP, HWC, is a recognized safety expert and principal of Applied Learning Science (https://appliedlearningscience.com). With deep academic and operational experience as a U.S. Navy veteran, substation chief and former utility executive, he blends real-world insight with evidence-based research to deliver practical, impactful safety solutions.