Respect as a Key Dimension of Safety Leadership and Culture

Visiting different parts of the world is one of the many benefits of my work. Right now, I am traveling through Italy and having a great time. In Italy, the cultural aspects and variations of a country much older than my own, helps me to see things through a broader lens, which I appreciate. Processing what I am seeing and hearing is sometimes difficult, but it’s an important part of gaining newer insights. But, much of this begins with respect for others.  

In terms of managing and improving safety within our own organizations, it is important to step back, and take on the broader perspectives of others in order to open our minds to greater outcomes.

Varying perspectives and ongoing dialogue offers greater possibilities that can advance the cause and practice of improving safety in our world. However, I believe there is an important starting point to obtaining these perspectives and creating ongoing dialogue. That starting point is respect.

Being respectful to everyone within our organization can’t be overlooked because respect leads to increased dialogue and tolerance, and greater tolerance leads to greater acceptance.

Showing limited respect leads to minimal dialogue and acceptance of others at various management levels, which in-turn limits broader views of strategic thinking and the ability to move forward, at or near the top where it’s absolutely critical. Both respect and a lack of respect trickle down.

When there’s a lack of respect, dialogue, tolerance, and in-group acceptance, it becomes most visible at the worker level. It’s here where its absence and lack of tolerance for individual differences leads to poorer communications, a lessening of care and concern for others, confusion, and ultimately accidents.

A low degree of respect and acceptance shown to others will not help to build teamwork and cohesiveness. A low degree of respect is evidenced by bad-mouthing, gossiping, ostracizing, and purposely limiting the thoughts, opinions, and usefulness of others. The problem with initiating, accepting, or perpetuating these types of limiting actions is that the table can and will turn for anyone, at anytime, especially within these kinds of groups. You might be considered a valuable part of the “team” one week, and cut off from that group by the following week. In these groups, do you ever know who has your back or who’s looking out for your safety?

Work groups that have great leadership don’t accept exclusion but promote inclusion. Groups that create ongoing dialogue will take time to hear each other out, practice patience and tolerance, fight fairly, and work toward acceptance of each other. These particular groups are also better able to move through barriers, changing and challenging hazards and work conditions, and they draw from the collective knowledge of the group and its broader forms of inclusive decision-making.

It makes good sense to listen to the newer worker, and individuals who come from different industries, and from varied backgrounds. These kinds of groups also tend to help the supervisor who has limited experience and needs the patience of others so he or she can hear from the entire group. In turn, this leads to more informed decisions for the safety and benefit of his entire team. But it begins with respect.

Within this writing, I could have addressed respect for the profession of safety or one’s role within safety. I could have also highlighted respect for many issues and concerns within safety but all seemed so impersonal. But showing respect for each other throughout the hierarchy in our organizations and within our professional relationships, now that’s a different story!

Bottom line, greater respect leads to greater dialogue and greater tolerance, and greater tolerance leads to greater acceptance. And greater acceptance leads to better decisions, which ultimately brings people together as safer and more productive work units.

Most all of us have observed how a lack of respect hurts the individual and the organization in a multitude of ways. But you’ve got to start somewhere, so don’t trivialize the importance of respect. It’s a great starting point and part of your foundation to higher levels of safety achievement.

The Fourth Behavioral Principle and Blue Bell Ice Cream

You’ve likely read some of the stories linking Blue Bell Ice Cream to three deaths and up to 10 listeria cases.  But did these events have to occur?

Seemingly workers repeatedly informed management about housekeeping-related concerns and the issues were apparently poorly addressed. 

Well, I can’t help but think of an old video I reviewed years ago that highlighted the four basic behavioral principles: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction.  I believe the great Albert Bandura hosted this black and white video while working at Stanford University.  The fourth principle is largely about ignoring some action or activity that will eventually fade to zero because it was not reinforced in some manner.  Seemingly the leaders at Blue Bell got this principle wrong – maybe they thought that ignoring the employee concerns (or letting workers know their complaints needed to stop) would cause the health and safety issues to go away, but in reality it caused the upward-feedback to fade. 

Ultimately, ignoring the workers and their feedback was a bad move – the all-important feedback went away, but the problems reportedly got worse.  Maybe there was a little less initial pain to not hear from the workers, which had likely led to a bit of negative reinforcement for management – but not the type of reinforcement leaders should have been experiencing.

In no way I am trying to beat up Blue Bell and maybe we've all gotten this part of the story wrong.  I'm just citing one side of the occurrences that have been in the press.  And I’m sure there are other explanations for what happened at Blue Bell – surely there are many good leaders there.  Nonetheless, listening and acting is critical to the health of every organization. 

Asking, listening, and acting on important upward-feedback is crucial. And listening well to the people closest to the work makes really good sense. Just query a few leaders who chose to use the fourth behavioral principle in the wrong way. 

The Ant Man and Your Safety Vision

Yesterday, I was returning from my opening keynote for the Governor's Industrial Safety and Health Conference in the state of Washington and decided to pass the time by watching Ant Man, the movie.  I loved Ant Man – even though I don’t typically like sci-fi movies.  And I have to tell you, The Safety Coach® would not want to take on Ant Man!

Ant Man resonated with me because he never gave up on his vision.  He fought, and fought, and worked through tremendous obstacles in order to see and embrace the reality of his vision.  Thank God for the Ant Mans in this world!

Just a few days ago, someone asked me a question pertaining to letting go of one’s vision for safety.  I responded by saying we should never let go of our vision for safety.  It only takes one turn of events, one new key stakeholder, or a new leader to enter the organization who will support your vision and give it new life.  In fact, we should have a personal vision for safety, and a collective one that we share within our organizations.  Your personal vision should get you excited and out of bed in the morning.  The collective or organizational vision needs to do much of the same for those in your corporation.

You may have to let go of your organization in order to find a new one that shares in your dreams but don’t let go of your vision for extreme success in safety.  Don’t ever give up on your vision and dreams for safety.  And don’t ever let your dreams for great safety achievement evaporate just because of a temporary obstacle or two.  The Ant Man certainly didn’t!