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🧠 What is a Questioning Attitude?
Having a Questioning Attitude helps create awareness of uncertainty, hazards, and potential errors before they lead to incidents. It supports:
• Recognizing what’s STKY (Stuff That Kills You)/ High Energy Hazards
• Avoiding complacency
• Challenging assumptions and conditions
A Questioning Attitude is not about mistrust — it’s about being engaged, alert, and proactive.
✅ Best Practices
• Challenge assumptions
→ Ask: “Am I doing the right thing?” or “Is this still correct, even if I’ve done it before?”
• Stay engaged
→ Continually ask yourself: “What could go wrong, and how do I prevent it?”
• Take a Stop/Timeout when uncertain
→ Ask questions until you fully understand the task, conditions, and expectations.
• Encourage open communication
→ Be willing to ask questions and listen to others when they speak up.
• Identify STKY daily
→ Use your JSA/THA to highlight life-threatening hazards and plan controls to mitigate the STKY/ High Energy Hazards.
🛑 Avoid At-Risk Practices
🚫 Thinking a task is "simple" or "routine"
🚫 Ignoring unusual, unexpected, or degraded conditions
🚫 Overlooking Critical or Irreversible Steps
🚫 Dismissing or ridiculing questions from coworkers
🧾 JSAs & THAs — Know Before You Go
Job Safety Analysis (JSA) and Task Hazard Analysis (THA) are your roadmaps to a safe job. Bring your Questioning Attitude to every review:
• What could go wrong at each step?
• Are we relying too much on past experience or assumption?
• Have conditions changed since this was written?
🛑 Everyone Has Stop/Timeout Authority
If uncertainty exists — STOP the task at hand and do not proceed until everyone is in agreement as to how to proceed safely.
Every team member has the authority and responsibility to call a Stop/Timeout when something doesn’t look or feel right. Safety often starts with asking the right question.
💬 "Have we verified everything?"
💬 "Do we all understand the plan?"
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