FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- This morning, Phil will leave his burrow at 7:20 a.m. at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., and he will observe the weather conditions and look for his shadow. He will then make his prediction for the remainder of winter.
Groundhog Day … every year this event takes place. Do you think Phil gets tired of going through this same routine each year? Do you think he becomes complacent?
When deployed, leaders routinely tell service members and civilians, "Don't get complacent." Complacency often strikes deployed Soldiers who fall into what is sometimes called "The Groundhog Day Syndrome," highlighted by a famous movie where the lead character is forced to relive the same day over and over again.
When you're doing the same thing day in and day out, you start to feel like you can do it in your sleep, but the fact is you can't.
In the garrison environment, how often have you been told, "Don't get complacent?" I know you're probably thinking, "It won't happen to me," but it's that attitude that gets service members, Department of Defense civilians and DoD contractors killed or injured every day as a result of injuries or illnesses related to their work. It is one of the six deadly words found in accident reports; the others are untrained, undisciplined, unsupervised, overconfident and unprofessional.
So what exactly is complacency? One definition of complacency is a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, while unaware of some potential danger, defect or the like; self-satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc. Another less lofty definition is failure to pay attention to details; failure to conduct an adequate risk assessment resulting in negligence, bodily harm and destruction to property.
Complacency is the most common cause of work-related injuries, both deployed and in garrison environments. Too often, individuals and units overlook important safety requirements. Some may think the longer a successful safety program has been in effect, the less important or relevant it is due to its own past success. Once overconfidence and complacency set in, risks are discounted as being less likely than they are.
Events with a low probability of occurrence, but high consequences, tend to be ignored as something that couldn't happen at all. Similarly, people assume that risk somehow decreases over time. Just because it hasn't happened … doesn't mean that it isn't about to. We need to be focused on our mission, but more importantly, we need to get the job done safely. Force protection is a fundamental component to mission accomplishment.
As leaders, we need to ensure a complacent attitude never becomes "the norm." It takes more than just saying you are committed to safety -- you have to put actions behind your words. Take these simple steps to fight complacency: keep your eyes on the task, keep your mind on the task, monitor others as supervisors and Mountain Buddies, and monitor your "near hits" for accidents that almost happened. We must all demonstrate our commitment to being SAFE -- Standards Are Fully Enforced.
So let's make it our mission, our goal to make Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Infantry Division (LI) the safest place you'll ever live and work!
Climb to Glory!
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