Written by: Justin Abshire, MSIE, MBA, PMP, CSP, Founder, Industrial Engineer, Operational Risk & Resilience Executive
We kicked off a leadership meeting at a petrochemical facility with a single question:
“What worries you in our operation?”
Everyone from operations, maintenance, and functional departments joined the conversation. The only ground rule? The leadership team had to listen—no responding, no defending—just listen as the people closest to the work shared what they carried every day.
The responses stunned the leadership team.
We heard things like:
🔺 “We didn’t get CAPEX for switching, so there’s no E-Gen backup unless we do a manual cold-start.”
🔺 “We don’t have enough staff at night—so during isolations, we either self-verify or pull someone off the board.”
🔺 “I’m worried about running out of critical parts now that Houston’s central supply chain controls our warehouse—and we have to submit tickets for service.”
🔺 “Our junior operators—some who started this year—are approving contractor work and leading field interactions.”
We didn’t ask these questions to challenge or criticize. We came in to talk about specific process safety events—but we started with this question to surface the deeper organizational factors influencing risk.
It would’ve been easy for leaders to roll in with a well-polished corporate message about how important safety is. But that kind of scripted talk doesn’t move the needle. That doesn’t uncover what’s really happening—and it definitely doesn’t improve process safety.
If we want meaningful change, we have to start by being curious.
So—who’s world can you positively influence this week by simply asking the right question?
#OrganizationalFactorsMatter #BeCurious #ProcessSafety #OperationalRisk #LeadershipListening
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