Hugo's Frog & Fish House on Rush: What's That Got to Do with Safety Culture?

If you know Chicago, you’ve come to realize that it’s no ordinary place.  Chicago is a very special world-class city, with great people and wonderful hospitality.  And whenever I’m in Chicago for business, I often try to visit one of my favorite places, Hugo’s Frog Bar & Fish House.  It’s a fun place with great food. 

Just recently, I walked from my hotel, The Drake on Michigan Avenue, and headed over to Hugo's.  I was excited about eating there, but the place was packed – standing room only!  After I surveyed the place, I looked for the manager to ask about the wait time.  He said, “oh, at least an hour.”  I couldn’t wait that long –   I was already too hungry, so I asked for a recommendation.  The manager didn’t simply give me one recommendation but provided several.  But first, he stopped what he was doing on a very busy night, introduced himself, and shook my hand.  He then took the time to walk me outside to the end of the street corner, pointed out the restaurants he recommended, handed me his card, and let me know that if there were problems, simply call him and he’d be glad to respond!  Finally, he shook my hand again and thanked me for stopping by.  I thought – “wow – that’s special” and I’ll certainly go back to Hugo’s even though I didn’t get to eat there, this time!

Your Culture for Safety 

This story about Hugo’s is a great example of outstanding customer service but it also highlights various aspects of engaged leadership and exceptional cultures for safety.

Leaders in outstanding cultures for safety realize that they have to set a great example, even in small ways, like being involved in housekeeping, helping to orientate a new worker, or stopping and showing
a worker a few necessary details in order to avoid injury.
 

Exceptional leaders realize that when they take the time to go out of their way to help others, their example can motivate those around them to do the same.  And when leaders show personal care for someone, they understand that those individuals are more willing to open up and communicate important aspects of safety that are not always openly addressed.

Showing care and concern for an individual’s safety helps to establish a foundation for everyone to go out of their way to help everyone else work even more safely.  It’s a natural part of reciprocity and a key dimension of cultures where safety is truly special.
 

It’s Really Kind of Easy

In order to get your leaders to go the extra mile; you have to let them know what you’re asking of them.  What specific actions are you looking for?  How often should these actions or activities be performed?  And how will you follow up to hold them accountable?

Many organizations struggle with safety leadership but it’s really pretty easy. To start, acquire the appropriate support and get your leaders to buy-into the necessary activities that will improve safety performance – even the small ways that detail how to show care and concern for workers. Create an outline of your plan and provide details of the kinds of actions you want to see.  Develop a few tools and appropriate metrics to measure individual performance and help your leaders meet their safety-related goals.  Some organizations use upward feedback from the workers that let’s their leaders know how well their doing with respect to the plan.  Well, I know, I know, it’s not always that easy but those are the general steps that you have to sell, set, and deliver.  
 

Don’t Stop with Your Formal Leaders

With the general workforce the idea is similar.  Let your workers know what you want to see from them when it comes to safety related actions, activities, and ongoing performance.  Spell it out – give them some details regarding the actions you are seeking.  Support their actions through praise and recognition as a means to reinforce particular actions.  Finally, make it a deeply engrained part of your culture – make it a ritual to show, recognize, and reinforce safety related actions that make your culture for safety a special one.  

And the next time your in Chicago, check out Hugo's Frog - it's a special place and a special culture that you'll want to experience all on your own!

As a speaker, consultant, and coach, I’m very fortunate to be able to provide motivational safety talks and consultative support that highlights what great leadership activities look like and what safety culture excellence looks like though stories, the spoken word, and with various models and work tools.  If you need help in giving your leaders a nudge or the tools to create and sustain a world-class culture for safety, give me a call or shoot me an email – I want to help you!


About the Author.  David Sarkus, MS, CSP is an author, consultant, coach, and motivational speaker.  He has written five books and more than 50 empirically-based articles.  David is Chief Motivational Officer and President and Founder of David Sarkus International Inc.  His talks focus on teamwork, coaching, safety leadership, and safety culture change.  His firm also conducts safety culture assessments and interventions for some of the biggest and best run corporations in the world.  Please visit us at: www.davidsarkus.com.

 

Fear: A Major Barrier to Precursor Management and Serious Accident Prevention Within Your Culture for Safety

In January of 1986, along with my coworkers outside of the Kennedy Space Center Headquarters Building, I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger catastrophe and was brought to tears.  It was an event that I will never forget! 

Cues to this national disaster have become increasingly evident with regard to the faulty O-ring design.  Initially, O-ring concerns were not highlighted, but once reported and analyzed, the issues remained largely unabated.  At one point, engineers pushed back with their concerns but senior leaders pushed back as well – “let’s launch,” seemed to be what really mattered!   Eventually, an O-ring “burn through” occurred and an unforgettable tragedy erupted.  At various stages and levels, open communications and relevant actions were constrained by fear.
  

Precursors - Observable Cues

For more than 15 years, there has been a growing body of knowledge regarding serious accidents and their precursors.  Largely, precursors provide observable cues and manageable signals that something very bad might be about to happen.    

In similar ways, precursors seemingly coexist with almost every serious accident.   Often times, precursors are more readily apparent when dealing with high hazard concerns inherent to kinetic, nuclear, thermal, electrical, explosive energies, and the like.  And in nearly every case, when analyzed, various precursors signaled an eventual gloomy outcome. 

The Evolution of a Serious Event

There is rarely one pathway or root cause associated with serious accidents or fatalities.   Often times, a significant event has multiple hazards or activities that are poorly controlled within a complex organizational framework and support systems. 

In most industrial operations, front line supervisors and workers are closest to the hazards and the catastrophic events.  And it’s here, where lateral communications between co-workers may first reveal “certain cues” that signal - something’s wrong!

Cues may come in the form of an electrical arc, a flash volatile solvent vapors, a noisy piece of equipment that previously failed, inappropriate or at-risk behaviors – the list is nearly endless.  The bottom line, precursors have to be communicated, recorded, and analyzed so that hazardous conditions or activities can be controlled and mitigated. 

Organizational Defenses and Precursors

Well known psychologist Chris Argyris and others have realized that certain workplace discussions are “not discussable” and become part of various defense routines that limit organizational efficiencies.  I will argue that many organizational defense routines are driven by fear.  There’s fear of individual embarrassment, fear regarding the perceived value of individuals or groups, or fear that future work may be lost if it is not completed on time.  Ultimately, fear helps to produce certain defensive mechanisms and routines that impede critical forms of communications. Think about the various defense routines and behaviors in your own organization that are often created by fear?

When it comes to safety, precursors may not be reported outside of one’s immediate work area or amongst coworkers because of fear.  Serious events and near misses often go under, or unreported to management.  If the concern is reported to management, it may not reach an appropriate level from which abatement can be initiated.  When a concern is “fed back,” communications may become filtered, fractured, and misun-derstood in ways that leads management to believe that a serious event is unlikely to occur, or that it’s being appropriately abated.  Within these same filtered communications, management may manipulate what has been discussed or rationalizes the risk as acceptable.  Management may even take part in self-serving communications, viewed as bullying.  As a result, event precursors are not accurately communicated, analyzed, managed, and controlled. 

A Culture of Fear

In every organization, cultural elements of fear produce organizational defenses that can impede the abatement of serious incidents.  Even with the recent Penn State debacle, fear was a formidable barrier to appropriate reporting and action. 

I’m certain that many of us recognize the effects of fear in the workplace and its impact on productivity, quality, morale, and of course, safety performance.  At times, fear can strongly influence finger pointing, blaming, mistakes and miscues, job stress and overload, under-reporting of near-misses and accidents; and in turn, the evolution of various forms of serious accidents, even fatalities.  All of this is especially true in times of economic frailty, when there is fear of job security, and potential job loss.  Fear immobilizes, impairs important communications, and limits critical decision-making.

What Good Leaders Do

In some cultures, fear may be a prominent dimension that will never become well managed. In other organizations, leaders may be encouraged to diminish fear and build trust.  It’s trust that leads to openness, engagement, creativity, and a desire for safety excellence. 

I’ve highlighted three essential, fear-diminishing and trust-building tactics that will help you in your own quest for limiting the risk for serious incidents and building a culture of safety excellence.

1.  Lead by Listening.  Listening and being open to what is heard is required for serious accident abatement.   Listening well without interrupting, manipulating, swaying, or bullying a discussion is a learned skill that must be well monitored and managed.

2.  Honesty is Essential.  When it comes to safety-related communications, be open and honest.  Honesty and openness, helps lead to a reciprocal candidness that is a key ingredient to near miss reporting and hazard abatement.

3.   Be Fair.  At times, discipline, dismissal, and other difficult organizational decisions in the workplace are required, but always strive to be fair.   A lack of fairness leads to a loss of respect, resistance, and limited communications that will not help to uncover accident precursors, at any level.

Your Early Warning System

Wherever fear exists, there’s always a lack of engagement, energy, excitement, creativity, openness, and willingness to change. 

Right now, you just might be thinking, “Sure, everything is clearer after it happens.  Hindsight is always, 20-20.  There’s a certain ‘after-the-fact-bias’ to all of this!”

In return, I must say – yes, there may be a particular “precursor bias,”
but you have a built-in early warning system, wherever you work.  And fear just could be a major barrier to communicating, tracking, analyzing, managing and abating the hazards, conditions, and at-risk actions that
need to be resolved. 

History is on your side – and it’s an awesome warning system.   
Please take heed!

About the Author.  David Sarkus, MS, CSP is an author, consultant, coach, and motivational speaker.  He has written five books and more than 50 empirically-based articles.  David is Chief Motivational Officer and President and Founder of David Sarkus International Inc.  His talks focus on teamwork, coaching, safety leadership, and safety culture change.  His firm also conducts safety culture assessments and interventions for some of the biggest and best run corporations in the world.  Please visit us at: www.davidsarkus.com.

Teammates, Coaches, and Cultures for Safety

Arguably, Fulton Walker of the Miami Dolphins had one of the finest special teams' performances in Super Bowl history.  In 1983, Super Bowl XVII, Fulton had four kickoff returns for 190 yards and one touchdown.  His touchdown of 98-yards was the first-ever kickoff to be returned for a touchdown in Super Bowl history. Fulton’s Super Bowl feat stood for nearly 15 years!

Recently, I was talking to Fulton about his record setting return and I told him that I watched it for the first time since 1983 and had gotten goose bumps! Fulton is a friend and former teammate at West Virginia University. He laughed a familiar laugh and I asked him, “What went on before the return?  How were you feeling and was your return set up in any particular way?”

The Rest is Super Bowl History

Fulton said he "felt great" that Sunday and told his Head Coach, Don Shula what he wanted to do. Fulton recalled saying, “coach they’re coming up real hard on the left side.  I want to take it real quick to my right and then break it back off to the left.”  Coach Shula believed in what Fulton was saying and instructed his team to set up the return in the way Fulton, believed it could work.  The rest is Super Bowl history.  You've got to watch this great return!

Great Teams and Great Safety Cultures

Great safety cultures have corollaries and similarities that are marked in similar ways to this great play.  And from my perspective, there’s much we can learn from Fulton’s record setting return.  I like to simply call it “the return.”

      1.  Raise Your Hand.  Great safety cultures have individual performers who believe in themselves and are confident enough to step up and say, "I can do it!”  Workers raise their hands and say, “this is what I think we can do.”  Fulton did that before his return.  Great cultures for safety have individual performers who have the confidence and courage to want to do something extraordinary.  They want to do more for others around them because they see how their contributions make a difference.  Great workers, much like great Super Bowl performers, understand when something needs to be accomplished, differently.

       2.  Coaches Coach.   Great coaches for safety are approachable and lovable.  Coaches step up to support great individual performers because a history of trust has been developed.  Fulton had a short history with Coach Shula but the coach believed in Fulton. Similar events unfold within safety cultures that become extraordinary. Informal and formal leaders step up to provide coaching support to “set things up” so that greater outcomes can be achieved.  Coaches bridge the gap between individual performers and the kinds of team support that’s required to make a bigger and broader impact – organization wide.  Great safety coaches build trust and open communications, and in turn, workers raise their hands.  And great safety coaches have a way of saying, “here we go – we can make this work!”

       3.  Team Synergy and Balance.  Special teams, like the kick-off return team of Fulton Walker’s, involve special people with a special synergy.   Many of these individuals may not be starters, but each knows their  individual “special team performances” can help to win or lose a big game.  Individuals have to believe and trust in one another and commit to their specific responsibilities. At times, each has to believe in one another in order to achieve something substantial.  In great safety cultures, "special individuals" come together with particular skill-sets and specific responsibilities. Granted, some individuals just don’t work well together or don’t have the kinds of skills that work best for a particular team or group.  Finding the right balance is sometimes difficult and experimentation with team makeup and membership is necessary.

       4.  Execute for Existence.  No matter the level of trust or the degree of belief in one another, great teams have to execute.  They have to put out and perform.  Look at Fulton Walker, even after two great Super Bowl performances and several great seasons with the Miami Dolphins, he was on the trading block and headed to the Oakland Raiders.  Trading your team members or getting rid of them may be a bit more difficult but there is a bottom line.  Workers have to be “coached up” and held accountable to do what they are expected to do.  You may have formal work teams or a loose knit groups of people working together in specific ways but success is often required.  Good things have to happen and results have to be tracked in some way. 

I'm sure you've realized that this writing is about much more than great plays, players, and teams.  It’s about leaders having the insight and desire to bring people together in order to achieve something special for safety.  It’s about creating great safety cultures by identifying and utilizing key performers, bringing the right people together, developing trust, open communications, team cohesiveness, and holding people accountable for specific outcomes.

With Fulton, 1982 Grad School, West Virginia University

Fulton Walker was an outstanding performer who had an infectious smile and laugh that I still enjoy.  Well, it's time to go, I'm about to call my old friend Fulton to rehash "the return" and have some laughs!

About the Author.  David Sarkus, MS, CSP is an author, consultant,

coach, and motivational speaker.  He has written five books and more
than 50 articles.  David is Chief Motivational Officer and President and Founder of David Sarkus International Inc.  His talks focus on teamwork, coaching, safety culture change, and safety leadership. His firm also conducts safety culture assessments for some of the biggest and best run corporations in the world.  Please visit us at: www.davidsarkus.com.

The Power of Vision and Your Safety Culture

An increasing number of my clients are recognizing the importance of branding safety in bigger and better ways.  And each of these organizations has realized the far-reaching impact of envisioning, branding, and everything that’s a part of improving their safety culture.

Some organizations that desire to clarify their vision want to take EHS performance to another level, while still others want to go further by creating and sustaining a zero-incident safety culture.  Whatever the case, having a clear and compelling vision for safety excellence and aligning your organization’s leadership can have far-reaching impact for long-term success.  Obviously, I mean positive impact regarding morale, productivity, and quality. 

  

A critical component of branding involves clarifying your vision for EHS excellence.  Clarifying your vision is an important part of raising the bar for sustainable EHS success.  And it’s an important part of setting everyday expectations that can become a deeply engrained part of your culture for safety. 

Why It’s Important

In recent months, I’ve helped a number of my clients design new
visual materials (including logos and icons) as a part of their internal branding for EHS excellence.  This effort included training and safety coaching for their leaders along with various handbooks and support materials that further align and engrave their path forward.

What can clarity of your safety vision and branding do for your organization?  Well, I’m going to identify three ways that your vision and branding process can help you gain more support for your efforts and help sustain long term EHS improvement.  The thoughts that I offer can catapult your organization to an entirely new level of success! 

1.  A Starting Point.  Envisioning and branding EHS in your own organization can allow you to have something to point towards at all times.  By this I mean logos and icons that serve as a focal point of discussion.  Visuals have a way of reminding people about their desired state of excellence and the organizational values, beliefs, and actions that support it. 

2.  A Source of Stability.  Having a clear vision for EHS excellence allows you to maintain a solid base.  A steady and secure point of contact will help keep you on track and aligned for the future, even when things become difficult.  And we’ve all been there in recent years, especially when a budget gets squeezed, a bad event occurs, and we then become more apt to allow emotions to drive our actions rather than clear headed thinking.  Having an uncluttered thought process allows you and others to embrace the vision you’ve already committed to. 

3.  An Emotional Bridge.  Your safety vision and everything that supports it serves as the foundation for a call to action and excellence.  As a speaker, consultant, and coach, I often use my clients overall mission and vision as a way to strengthen their particular EHS vision, but that’s just the beginning.  I often speak about their EHS vision in ways that draw upon the emotions of each worker and leader so they can more clearly recognize how their individual attitudes and actions align with their organization’s values.  For example, if a company values openness in communications, it can easily be discussed as a way to increase near miss
reporting and limit the potential for egregious events from evolving. 

Where Can You Go from Here?

I take a great deal of pride in helping my clients evolve their safety culture and vision for sustainable EHS excellence through logos, signs, symbols, handbooks, and leadership training.  However, none of these aspects of envisioning and branding stands alone very well.  More importantly, each works together synergistically, providing far greater impact. 

Envisioning and branding is a very exciting and thoughtful process that some of you have been directly involved in and have reaped the many benefits and rewards.  However, many good professionals downplay and remove themselves from the power of vision and branding.

Several of my client organizations have reached zero recordable injuries and maintained that level of performance for many years, in many different locations, worldwide.   So I’ll ask you some of the same questions that pertain to achieving this type of EHS excellence.  Are you branding EHS performance in bigger and better ways than before?  Have you helped to express your organization’s vision for EHS excellence through very clear logos, signs, and symbols?  Do you provide learning seminars to help align your safety leadership in order to better express the vision being embraced?  And do you regularly provide an emotional call to action that strengthens everyone’s commitment to that vision? 

Envisioning and branding is a very critical part of advancing and integrating safety performance throughout any organization.  It’s an important process that should not be overlooked or displaced.  Without a powerful and pervasive vision for sustainable EHS excellence, the overall mission of your organization will never fully realize the power, purpose, and far-reaching impact of EHS excellence!

This Month's Safety Blog - June 2011!


Asking the Right Questions and...

When I was in my twenties, I can recall being afraid to ask some of the women I was dating, those very difficult questions. Like, "well, do you lalala..." - Ah, I still can't say it - haha! And I wasn't too good about listening either.

The BIG LOV... word! I guess I was afraid of hearing what I may not have wanted to hear - or afraid of hearing something all together different than what I expected. Saying "I love you" to someone or hearing it from the "wrong person" can be a scary thought. But in retrospect, I guess I was just too young to handle the response - no matter what I heard. And I'll also bet that you can complete your own story in place of mine.


Asking and Listening

I'm having a great year in 2011 and I hope you are too! Both on the consulting and speaking side of my business, things could not be much better. But what I'm finding in this (very good year) is that my consulting clients are discovering something that I have known for quite some time. Workers want to be heard and want to be listened to - they want to contribute to improving safety performance and they want to know that you care about what they have to say.

I have clients who want to make effective and active listening a bigger part of their training programs and other clients who are spending the entire year focusing on listening to their workforce. I think that's fabulous! Spending a large amount of their leaders' time and energies on listening to their workers! WOW - now that is a powerful strategy!


How About You?

In my keynote work and extended training sessions, I often stress the importance of listening - I mean really listening! Also, in my safety culture assessments, I stress the importance of listening and being willing to receive upward feedback from the workforce. Your employees need to feel comfortable "speaking up" but they also need to know that organizational leaders will do "the right thing" once they are heard.

Think about you and your leaders. Are you listening enough to safety-related concerns?


Do you have a strategy to listen more actively and effectively?

Do you continually encourage your workers to speak up?

Do you know what questions to ask in order to go deeper and to more fully understand how to improve your safety culture?

Do your leaders and co-workers know how to listen more actively and effectively?

And are you willing to act on what is heard - especially when the response calls for important actions?

Well, I'm looking forward to the rest of 2011 and I hope you are too. I also hope that you make listening an important skill set that will greatly improve your safety performance and the overall health of your culture.

If you and your leaders want to become more effective communicators and listeners, please give me a call. I can be reached toll free (in the contiguous states) at 1-800-240-4601 or 1-724-379-6439.

Thanks for taking the time to visit with me.

Warm Regards,


David Sarkus, MS, CSP

Do you need help from an outside voice - a speaker, consultant or coach who can help you overcome various organizational barriers? I can help - just give me a call. 1-800-240-4601 or outside the U.S. at 1-724-379-6439.


Note: No part of this work, article, or e-zine can be used without referencing and attributing the work to David J. Sarkus, MS, CSP. Thank You!