Teddy Roosevelt on Safety Influence

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Contemporary research suggests that we can better influence the safety-related opinions, attitudes, and actions of others when we have a large degree of expertise and trustworthiness.  In other words, credibility helps leaders become more persuasive.  However, the individual who is trusted, is more influential than the person who is not trusted; even though he or she may be viewed as an expert.  Interesting, isn’t it?  The bottom line – when it comes to influencing safety-related attitudes and actions, trust is more important than expertise. 

If you want to build trust, you have to truly care about people by creating the right climate and culture for safety. You have to spend time with others helping them, and working with them to improve safety, regularly. You have to “walk the talk” with resources and resolve – being consistent in what you say and ultimately do. 

As leaders, we need to build trust without our personal and self-seeking agenda getting in the way.  We can’t rely on threats, coercion, or punishment for substantial change.   That will largely dissolve trust. 

Don’t worry about how much you know or may not know, communicate to those around you the importance of working safely for themselves, their co-workers, and their loved ones.  Work with them and "get dirty" with them.  Speak from your heart because you care, and because you’ve built-up your side of the trust ledger. 

Showing care and concern is about working diligently to help others remain safe and whole.  Your hard work with others will build trust and help you to become a more influential safety leader.   

Dunder Mifflin and Your Safety Teams

There’s a quote from the TV Sitcom, The Office and Steve Carell who stars as Michael Scott, Regional Manager of the Dunder Mifflin Scranton Branch that goes something like this, “Yes, I love teamwork because that means I don’t have to take all the blame.” 

Teams can make a real difference in your own safety success but it requires that everyone contribute. But please don't hurry your teams along ― your organization has to be ready and well prepared to make the leap. Safety teams can’t flourish and succeed without the right dynamics, support, knowledge, and shared responsibilities.

1.  Team Dynamics.   Whether it's an accident investigation team or a hazard abatement team — the dynamics of the group is the foundation for greater outcomes in terms of productivity and reduction of losses.  Real teams have:  a) clear objectives and clear work tasks to complete; b) they have well defined responsibilities and boundaries for their work; and c) they've been given the authority to operate as a safety team.  All of these facets move the group in a direction that helps them to become self-managing, self-sufficient, and increasingly self-sustaining. 

2.  Emotionally Driven.  Teams also have to be given clear direction that connects the head and heart.  People have to believe in their minds that what they're doing is important and worthwhile but they also have to believe it in their hearts.  Members have to be driven emotionally — they have to be excited about possibilities, the cause, and about working with others who have the same goals.  And they have to realize what there are doing makes a difference in the lives of others.  

3.  Synergy and Balance.  Each group has to have the appropriate number of people and the right mix of skills.   If your safety teams are too large it is difficult to move though tough decisions but if they are too small the diversity of views and talents is not there.  These same people have to work well together, complement each other, and push each other to make the most of their abilities.  Some workers may have great technical knowledge, say in electricity, and others may have great communications skills.  

4.  Organizational Support.  Safety teams work in a larger arena or context than what they may readily understand ― they work within their own companies, and their own organizations.  Work teams are made up of individuals who need to be recognized for their particular safety-related efforts and achievements.  And at times, your own safety teams need to be rewarded and recognized based on their distinct accomplishments.  Recognition and rewards also need to be appropriate for your culture and must be aligned with your vision for safety. 

5.  Great Coaching.  The best of players on the best of teams need great coaching to meet their goals.  Great coaching requires great communications.  It requires honesty and openness regarding the team's direction and focus.  It also necessitates, that at times, team members be pushed outside of their comfort zones, to take risks that offer greater rewards relative to safety achievements.  Great coaches are patient yet persistent — pushing their team to new levels of success — not allowing them to give up.
 
I've seen safety-related teams make a big difference — but you have to have the right culture and right team dynamics in place.  Safety teams can move your organization to another level of achievement but their assembly, development, and ongoing performance has to be based on a number of the key elements like those addressed above or your teams will not reach their desired level of success or may fail completely.  Even if you’re not ready for self-sustaining safety teams, the elements highlighted above can help your organization move towards greater safety-related teamwork. 

Apathy and Safety - Don't Lose Them Now

About 15 years ago, I read an important engagement story regarding a line worker with a major automotive manufacturer in the United States. The story evolved from an organizational push to gain more involvement from their workers at a time when it was critical.  An employee spoke up somewhere along the way and stated, “You used my body for 40 years and paid me well, but you could have used my mind for free and chose not to use it.”  Sadly some organizations remain stuck in such a position when it comes to worker engagement and advancing safety.

Over 25 years ago, I was working for United Airlines as a young safety professional.  It was there where I first learned the importance of employee involvement and engagement.  If we left people out of an important safety-related process - shame on us.  And it was at United where I first learned the depth and breadth of getting people directly involved in improving safety and reducing related losses.  What great experiences I had there!

Influencing attitudes and actions is really important but it’s even more important to first capture the hearts and minds of your workers.  And it needs to start by improving the work environment – the materials, tools, equipment, and facilities.  At times, I believe we leave some of this out because it seems so mundane and simple.  Maybe even a little boring.  However, I believe these are critically important components of our cultures that have to be continually addressed and improved.  

Here’s a few simple and straightforward ways to get your associates and end-users involved and engaged in ongoing safety improvement that will make an impact.
 
1.  Involve workers as early as possible in the specification and review processes so that safety can be built-into materials, tools, equipment, and facilities.

2.  Ensure safety professionals, operations personnel, key stakeholders, and the workers “maintain a seat at the table” so appropriate voices can be heard and timely actions can be taken. 

3.  Communicate discrepancies or revisions in design and specification processes so that questions that might surface later can be addressed in open and honest ways.

4.  Help everyone understand the failure history of particular equipment, components, tools, and how those failure histories will be controlled or eliminated.

5.  Educate and involve workers in human factors and ergonomic measures that will make the job more productive and safer.

6.  Involve workers in near-miss reporting, hazard reviews and identification of those hazards for appropriate abatement or elimination. 

7.  Follow-up and correct hazards or specification issues as quickly as possible.  Communicate your proposed actions and timelines, especially if a given process is protracted.

If you aren’t consistently getting workers and end-users involved in improving facilities, tools, and equipment, you’re losing out on a great opportunity to advance safety and to build trust. 

Build safety into your work as early as possible.  Abate hazards and concerns quickly because the downward slope from apathy to cynicism is a steep one.  And it’s cynicism that forms a substantial barrier to the kinds of trust your organization will always need to maintain its traction.  

Go, Get, and Grow for Safety

Many organizational leaders don’t spend nearly enough time with their workers.  Yes, I know we’re busier than ever but there’s nothing more important than the investment of time you make with your people.  I strongly believe that 20 minutes a day with your workers will prove its worth many times over, so let's get going.

Go.  Spend quality time with workers in their environment.  Get to know them personally and get dirty with them.  As Jack Welch has stated, you have to learn to “wallow with your people.”  As leaders, when we spend important time with others, we can find more common ground than uncommon.  Spending productive time with workers helps to build rapport, trust, and improves communications.  Going to the space where people work is so important and should not be minimized. 

Get.  We get more when we give more of ourselves.  This can never be understated.  Meeting with workers on their turf, and getting their perspective is a set-up for sustainable success.  Meeting with people in their space allows us to gain respect and obtain greater amounts of unfiltered and objective information about the good and bad regarding safety. About what’s working and not working.  About what we need to continue doing and what we need to stop doing.   It’s nice to hear “good things” about safety but hearing about the “bad things”, and acting upon them when necessary, allows us to make the greatest gains.   

Grow.  When we spend quality, face-to-face time with our workers and associates, we ensure the growth of others as safety leaders, safety champions, and safety coaches.  Talking about cloning oneself!  Engaging workers in safety, listening to them, and providing them with appropriate resources assures that we have safety leaders in places where formal leadership can’t always be – where the work gets done!  Formal leaders can’t be everywhere at all times, but growing our workforce as leaders and safety coaches helps to enable greater forms of positive safety change.   

What are you waiting for?  Invest 20 minutes a day.  Go to their space, get them engaged, gain their perspective, and grow your workers as safety coaches and safety champions.