Five Safety-Related Benefits of Getting Naked

Today, April 20th is my birthday, and I came into this world with nothing but my birthday suit, butt naked, just like you.  And many of you are realizing that some of your organizations need to strip away the unwanted layers of false protection and get naked too!

In my last writing, I addressed the need for organizational leaders to get naked and become more transparent in order to continually improve safety performance (Get Naked for Safety - It's Critical for Advancement).  However, I did not begin to identify the many positive outcomes of becoming more open and honest.  Here are five very straightforward benefits that are well worth your efforts in becoming increasingly transparent.

Greater Candor.  When there is greater candor there is more openness in communications that relates to concerns, hazards, precursors and related warnings. All of this helps to reduce incidents, risk, and accidents, especially serious incidents and fatalities (SIFs). 

Greater Trust.  When leaders and followers begin to open-up more appropriately, trust will increase and we all know that trust is essential.  Trust affords more opportunities for learning and engagement, as well requiring less time and effort for supervision and regular monitoring. 

More Leaders.  When transparency increases, individuals who remained in a comfortable follower-leader role will step-up and begin to lead from within their own groups.  An increase in the number of safety leaders and the quality of safety leadership is nearly always a plus.

Less Cognitive Bias.  An increase in openness and transparency helps to create objective feedback.  Objectivity in communications lessens perception gaps between how leaders view safety-related issues and how workers identify the same or similar safety-related concerns.  This helps everyone look through a clearer and more accurate safety lens.  It also allows everyone to stay on the same page – and move forward together with greater forms of agreement and strength. 

Increased Alignment.  Increasing organizational transparency affords an unobstructed view of your organization’s vision and values for safety.  When everyone begins to see your safety vision more clearly and concretely, that’s BIG!

It’s not easy to get naked in front of others and it takes hard work and lots of deliberate effort and planning.  However, as your organization becomes healthier and increasingly fit, getting naked becomes more comfortably ingrained and your culture for safety will ultimately embrace its nakedness.   Are you willing to add to this list of positive outcomes? I hope you do!

Get Naked for Safety - It's Critical for Advancement

Several years ago, I was having lunch for the first time at a new and now very popular Pittsburgh restaurant. Before lunch was served, and out of necessity, I visited the restroom.  As I proceeded, I moved my head upward to look at the wall in front of me (as guys usually do).   I soon realized that I wasn’t looking at the wall but through it.  I could see much of the waitstaff and visitors in front of me and I panicked - “these people can see me half-naked and they’re watching!” I quickly understood this was a one-way barrier that allowed only for one-way viewing.  I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed as others did too.  I was now hoping they weren’t just chuckling at me. I’m kind of paranoid!

When we think of our organizations as being intellectually honest and appropriately transparent, how do we begin to think about safety advancement?  Do we feel comfortable being naked from an organizational standpoint?  Do our leaders really want to know what they and their organization look like when the veneer is stripped away and the thinly veiled layers of false protection are peeled back?

Healthier organizations want to understand what’s really occurring and how people feel.  Their leaders openly and honestly solicit feedback.  They conduct focus group sessions with their workers and evaluate their culture for safety through perception surveys and other cultural tools.  Some leaders want to hide from these types of evaluations and remain completely clothed for fear of personal exposure.  They don’t want to be caught with their pants down or to be seen naked for the sake of safety or for the greater good of the organization.  

No organization can improve safety, quality, or productivity, in any sustainable manner, without being intellectually honest and transparent.  It’s about getting organizationally fit.

Getting fit means getting organizationally naked.  When we do, we often see things that aren’t very appealing, which in turn motivates us to get healthier. With our organizational leaders, that takes honesty, transparency, and subsequent changes that will make the organization increasingly fit for duty and overall performance.  Eventually it can take the organization out of its danger zone.  Yes, staying in the danger-zone can lead to unacceptable risks, serious incidents, and fatalities.

I believe that being objective and honest about how we look naked drives us to healthier outcomes.  But it takes courageous and selfless leaders who want to get naked in order to improve safety and the organization as a whole. How naked is your organization willing to get?

Safety - Where's the Rigor?

Earlier in my career, I was fortunate enough to have worked for a few organizational giants like NASA, TRW, and United Airlines.  Within these organizations, I was exposed to the rigors of systems thinking, Total Quality Management (TQM), and the Baldridge Award efforts of the 1990s.  Each of them helped improve our efforts, efficiencies, and outcomes.  And each of them taught us to keep looking upstream for ongoing improvements.  These types of efforts also taught me the importance of leadership, vision, and engagement.  I could go on but many of you already know a great deal about systems thinking as it applies to safety.  However, one facet of these movements seems to strike a chord, and that's “rigor.” 

As our world of safety evolves, I continue think of improvements in terms of my TQM and Baldridge experiences.  Are we continually looking upwind for ways to rigorously improve materials, tools, equipment, facilities, processes, and people?  But wait, I also get stuck on the people element.  People and rigor resonate.  People and rigor seemingly provide the largest challenges and payoffs. Is there a constant form of organizational questioning that drives individuals to go deeper and look continually upstream, with good tools, for resolutions and abatement tactics that will lessen your risk for failure and loss?  Who’s making sure your people apply rigor to near-misses and incident-producing events?  Do you have the right organizational leaders pushing others to look upstream, always questioning how the organization can protect, mitigate, prevent, and preclude? 

We shouldn’t make all of this more complicated than it has to be.  But we should look for leaders who set a great example by applying rigor to our failures and opportunities.   And we should look for leaders who set high expectations and hold others accountable to do much of the same. 

At times, we have to deal with complex systems but please don’t complicate what’s not necessarily complicated. Rigor needs to be applied to standards of excellence, with a simple but straightforward tenacity, and out of concern to help and protect others. 

Rigor certainly helps to keep our organizations robust, flexible, and open to ongoing success.  And when it comes to safety, our transparency as leaders can go a long way, especially when aligned with rigor.  Transparency and rigor will stop the rigor mortis from settling in, because if it does, it could make sustainable safety excellence just about impossible to embrace.

The Nerd Factor and Safety

In the National Football League (NFL), there’s a term bantered about by owners, management, coaches, and scouts - it’s “the nerd factor.”  In the NFL, it’s a positive term because it often translates into success.  Athletes who have “it” are dependable, smart, and strong.  I won’t mention names, but some of the best players in the league are labeled as nerds.

In safety, we need to tap into workers who are both followers and leaders.  Many can help us take safety performance to a new level.  And many of these workers have the nerd factor and simply need a little support, like everyone else - but they also have a distinct edge. 

Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with my share of great employees who embraced safety and their role.  A number of them had the nerd factor and were a joy to work with, especially when it came to safety.  These particular workers were insightful and bright.  They had a passion for safety and needed little support once their roles were defined.  Many were mentally strong and did not cave to negative peer pressure, especially when they dug into their work and got traction.  And most importantly, each of them was dependable.  They showed up, got the work done, they’d grind it out, and many kept you informed of barriers, progress, and the path forward. 

The term nerd should not have negative connotations when it comes to safety or improving organizational performance.  The term should largely be positive. 

All things being equal, I'll look for the nerd factor.  Some of your best performers have “it” so tap into it and use it. Nerds make our safety world better!

Are Your Safety Efforts Like Watching a Movie Trailer Or Casting the Plot?

I live near a special effects school.  Every time I pass, it reminds me of the dramatic movie trailers we often watch at theatres before we view the show we paid to see.  Trailers are full of great visuals and entice us to watch the entire movie.  

On the outside, and from a distance, many organizations are like movie trailers. They’re attractive, but full of warts and wrinkles and challenges on the inside.  This becomes especially true the longer we hang around.  As a safety professional, throughout my 32-year career, I've seen many organizations and their movie trailers, but also hung around to watch the plot unfold.  Oftentimes the plots were not nearly as exciting as the trailers.  I’ve also stayed to watch the introduction with various roles that were cast and the actions that followed.  In safety, we need to ensure that our leaders take on appropriate roles and are held responsible for the types of actions that will form the right culture for their supporting cast – so they can work as safely as possible. 

If we remain throughout the rising action of our own organizational plots, we have to weave our way through political and organizational barriers so we can align it with the vision we’ve placed out in front.  This is hard work and many are not willing to grind it out.  After the rising and climax, the resolutions of our organizational efforts should be made clearer.  It’s here where we have to deliver the right programs, processes, interventions, and systems that keep the organization moving forward, closer to the vision for excellence in safety.

The challenge I've seen in many organizations is that people fall in love with the trailer and special effects without digging deeper, to smooth out the warts, wrinkles, and barriers throughout the plot, specifically within the resolution phase.  Many individuals don’t want to re-cast roles so leaders champion the rise and resolution in favor of safety and... 

It takes a tremendous amount of effort to move beyond what we see in the glitz and glitter of our brands, vision, and values.  It takes discipline and a disciplined-grind to re-cast leadership roles and work, so the plot is carried out in a way that moves our needle in the right direction, to get the "safety numbers" we’d like to see.   

I’ve also learned that we can get the “right numbers” when we don’t fall in love with the trailer but embrace the process and the plot.  And embracing a proven process leads to a much more appealing cast, movie, and rating that even the harshest of critics might have difficulties arguing against.  

Safety Influence in Tight Windows

I was in Atlanta last week for a conference and was having breakfast off the lobby area.  The omelet man working nearby was doing what he does best.  At a glance, I saw that he started talking to a young woman who was getting breakfast to go.  The omelet man was obviously attracted and he quickly moved the conversation from small talk to asking for her number.  He wasted no time and his efforts made for some hilarious banter between the three of us.  Really funny stuff! Our parting comments revolved around the fact that you have to move quickly, through "tight windows" whenever the opportunity presents.  And so it is when we're presented with opportunities to influence the attitudes and actions of those around us. 

Never pass on opportunities to correct and redirect at-risk behaviors.  Always look for ways to reinforce and confirm safe actions.  Don't miss opportunities to collaborate and clarify why working safely is so important and relate your communications through stories and your company's values. 

We often miss opportunities of influence because we feel the window is too tight. There may be a fear of rejection or some form of deflection.  We may feel we're too busy or don't feel comfortable talking about safety on a particular occasion. 

Your people want to hear from you especially when you're genuine and helpful.  Don't look away - walk through every window of opportunity and coach your people up. 

Hubris in Safety - A Prideful Obstacle to Safety Improvement

If you watched the Super Bowl, you may have witnessed what some have been discussing as the worst play call in the history of football.  With three downs remaining, Pete Carroll the head coach of Seattle, decides to throw a high-risk pass play, even though he has three downs remaining to run the ball with the best running back in the league.  Well, the pass was thrown, intercepted, and the New England Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl.  Many individuals believe it was Pete Carroll's hubris that got in the way and caused such a stunning loss for the Seattle Seahawks.

You’ve likely dealt with extreme forms of pride that have gotten in the way of ongoing safety improvement. Hubris is the bad side of confidence; it’s excessive pride about being correct or overestimating one’s abilities to achieve whatever is seen as possible.

Since the beginnings of its study in the 1960s and 70s, hubris has been dissected and categorized in a number of ways. And seemingly, a growing interest in the study of hubris leadership stems from our ever expanding, narcissistic-driven world. However, those inflicted with large doses of hubris are first and foremost fully self-confident regarding actions that will take them and their organizations closer to their desired goals.

Excessive pride or hubris has gotten in the way within various organizations that I have supported. Many of us have realized the destructive forces of hubris and its harmful wake which takes others down a path of disappointment, disillusionment, and loss.

Individual personality flaws help to form the basis of hubris and can occur throughout an organization and at any level. Let’s take a look at some of the issues we have all likely experienced.

Senior leaders may oversimplify safety and commit to a vision that is larger than the organization can accept. These leaders push down and cause undue pressures on individuals and demand excellence, or even zero, with an absence of organizational maturity and resources to move closer to that vision. Other pressures they exert may be enough to launch a series of unwanted actions that lead to catastrophic results.  Relying largely on lagging indicators such as recordable rates further reinforces their overconfidence and that of others. Hubris may also remove a leader from the type of safety support and influence it requires. These leaders may believe that safety is not critical to the health of their organization and declines to provide appropriate safety leadership support. Some leaders may even feel that it is beneath them to be engaged in safety improvement. All of this is a set-up for larger forms of setbacks.

Managers and supervisors may exhibit hubris through production-driven risk taking — short-cutting procedures and policies. These front line leaders have completed difficult and challenging work for many years with close calls that haven’t been well identified or reported. In turn, many near-miss activities, from a production and quality standpoint, have been accomplished with relative and prideful success.

Workers embrace similar pride though an overestimation of their capabilities which leads to judgment errors. And managers and supervisors with similar hubris reinforce their actions on a regular basis. Even more, these same workers become quite self-reliant and tend to believe their success is largely due to their own mental and physical capabilities. They don’t need the help or support of others, and in fact, like their supervision, detest any type of safety-related feedback or coaching. Getting the job done, taking risks, even severe and distinguishable injuries, form a badge of honor that is proudly worn by some. Pride in risk-taking is further reinforced by senior leaders and supervisors who overtly or discretely applaud many of the types of risk-driven efforts of the workforce.

Safety professionals and practitioners have to deal with their particular forms of hubris. Some don’t handle success very well and get too comfortable with their perceived achievements. Oftentimes, their main forms of success are calibrated through a lens focused on recordable and lost-day rates. These individuals are close-minded when it comes to new ideas, methods, practices and interventions — even when large amounts of empirical support are provided and offer new opportunities for ongoing improvement.

Many hubris-driven individuals insulate themselves from others and desire little feedback or input. Some may be recognized as lone wolves who want to remain in their personal silos.

Hubris-bias is very real, with arguments for two sides — the good and the bad. Near the top, good hubris provides confidence and helps to formulate a compelling vision for safety, which appeals to the masses. It helps to obtain an initial degree of engagement; however, others soon face frustration regarding a fanciful dream and cultivate a newly formed cynicism toward safety because of hubris.

Within other parts of an organization, hubris helps to develop a can-do attitude and work ethic. On the other side of the hubris-coin, arrogance, self-reliance, and risk-taking create formidable challenges to individual growth, organizational maturity, engagement, and the realization of a shared vision for safety achievement.

The key to mitigating the bad effects of hubris begins with open and objective feedback that will diminish arrogance and self-reliance. It also helps to foster collaboration and teaming for objective reality testing about strategies, tactics, processes, programs, and interventions. But certainly, the key is feedback — which begins with approachability, and leads to trust and openness in receiving other viewpoints, even when it may hurt.

Successful leaders have to embrace humility and objectivity to ward off the harmful impact of hubris. But they also have to embrace the confidence that has made them believable, successful, and influential — not an easy task.

Tom Peters, author and consultant states, “The four most important words any leader can say — What Do You Think?” Difficult words for some but so very necessary to foil the kinds of hubris, which holds us back.


Reference:  Picone, M.P, Dagnino, P.M., Mind, A., . (2014).  The origin of failure:  A multidisciplinary appraisal of the hubris hypothesis and proposed research agenda. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(4), 447-468.