Knowledge is Power

Knowledge is Power

If you don't know what you don't know, how can you know what you know?

 

Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon was the first person attributed to the phrase "Knowledge is Power'. It dates back to 1597 when he published the maxim in his book, "Meditationes Sacrae and Human Philosophy'.

 

“A lack of knowledge creates fear. Seeking knowledge creates courage." “The highest form of ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about." “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

 

Without knowledge, one cannot be successful in life. To grow in one's career, gaining as much knowledge as possible is important. ... Knowledge is also very important to shape our personality and perfect our behavior and dealings with people. We need to understand ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses.

If you expect your employees to participate in safety simply because you pay them to work for you, you are going to be sadly disappointed in the results.  People don't participate in the unknown without being provided the encouragement and motivation and knowledge.

KISS is an acronym for "Keep it simple, stupid" as a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore simplicity should be a key goal in design, and that unnecessary complexity should be avoided.
 
Safety and health program tasks are each specifically assigned to a person or position for performance or coordination.

Let's say for example that some electrical and machine guarding hazards were found during the walk through.  No one was assigned specific responsibility to inspect for electrical hazards.  Assign specific responsibility for performing inspections of electrical and machine guarding hazards, so these hazards do not continue to go undetected.  (The intent is to assign specific safety tasks to specific individuals and to hold that individual accountable.  Such as inspections for the hazards found during the walk through)


Each assignment of safety and health responsibility is clearly communicated.

Majority of employees can explain what performance is expected of them.  To ensure all employees know expectations, develop a detailed list of responsibility and accountability and have supervisors communicate that to all employees and post on safety bulletin boards


Individuals with assigned safety and health responsibilities have the necessary knowledge, skills, and timely information to perform their duties.

The individual assigned to perform weekly inspections did not have adequate knowledge of electrical or machine guarding rules.  (Intent is to determine if the individual assigned to various safety and health tasks has the knowledge and skills to perform the task)