Mental Toughness - Are Your Developing Yours?

Everything hasn’t always been rosy in my safety career, just as things haven’t been in yours.  At times there were difficult conflicts, personal attacks, layoffs, and political battles that tested my resolve. I never gave up — my sports background and upbringing didn’t allow for it.  That’s where mental toughness comes into play.

Mental toughness is about getting knocked down and getting back up with greater resolve, focus, and energy.  But it takes a certain mental fortitude not to cave in to self-defeating thoughts that tell us to “quit” or “take another career path.”  It’s about not giving in to the possibilities of failure.

Successful athletes and executives have a well-developed mental edge, tenacity, and competitive drive that catapult them to higher levels of personal achievement.  Can it be learned or developed?  You bet!  Mental toughness can be strengthened, refined, and embraced as an individual resource.

Mental toughness helps us to drive for the implementation of new processes, a formidable budget increase, the engagement of a key organizational leader, even sustained safety excellence.   It gives us an edge that helps to define success over failure.  But what can you do to get mentally tougher?

Sharpening Your Edge

Be Self-Critical.  In the mid 1980s, while working at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), I found myself presenting to the center director and his safety advisory board.  This was the highest level safety meeting at KSC.  During my presentation, I over-projected, my mouth dried, and I couldn’t stop coughing.  I was so embarrassed!  In the end, I was okay, but not pleased with my performance. 

Over the years, I was determined to improve and I worked on my speaking skills.  I read more, scheduled practice time, rehearsal time, and I dug in to be my best whenever presenting to all types and sizes of groups.  Little did I know that my ongoing self-critique and hard work would lead to a career as a professional speaker, consultant, and coach.  Being self-critical paid big dividends.  If you want to become really good at something, be self-critical, develop a plan, prepare, practice, and deliver. 

See it Through.  Safety professionals get started, stalled, and stopped because of new or persistent organizational challenges and various forms of resistance.   Maybe a given task is mundane, difficult, or it forces you to work with people who aren’t very supportive.  But if you want to improve your mental toughness as a safety professional, this is the type of resistance training you need in order to become mentally stronger.  Make it a personal challenge to be placed in difficult situations as often as possible.  Hold yourself accountable to see new safety projects through till the very end.  Don’t make excuses — make plans for greater success!

Coaching is Key.  Individuals who want to get better and increase their focus and resilience, regularly seek out a performance coach.  Somebody to assess their strengths and weaknesses, to guide them, provide unique insights, direct them, and hold them accountable by setting up a plan for improvement.  It’s just that way – especially today.  Safety professionals who want to be their best need a coach to help them become their very best.  Every great performer has a coach to facilitate higher levels of achievement. 

The Need for Safety Professionals

This past decade, I have witnessed the need for an increasing number of safety professionals to improve their mental toughness, relationship skills, communication abilities, and professional presence.  That’s why I am delivering a seminar, Soft Skills for Safety Professionals, addressing those particular opportunities for improvement.  My friend and former college teammate, Oliver Luck will be a featured speaker.  Oliver is a former NFL executive and NFL quarterback who will discuss developing mental toughness. I’ve always admired Oliver’s drive and mental toughness.  In business, I’ve seen him in action, he’s seemingly unflappable. In case you are wondering, Oliver is the father of Andrew Luck, star quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts.  Oliver knows what it takes to develop mental toughness and he’s had a lot to do with Andrew’s resilience and ongoing success. 

We can learn a great deal from athletes like Andrew Luck.  There isn’t a young professional in sports tougher than Andrew.  He gets knocked down but keeps coming back, stronger and with more tenacity.  He’s also the consummate professional.  Andrew has an exceptional work ethic, communicates well, is a great teammate, has leadership presence, and again – he’s tough as nails!  Andrew has obviously had great coaching.

The topic of mental toughness has been spilling over into the business arena for quite a few years. It helps to create a point of separation, from good to great, and allows us to connect with others and inspire them!  Safety professionals, like you, need to tap into this kind of knowledge and become your very best.  Your organization is counting on you!

David J. Sarkus, MS, CSP is a coach, consultant, and speaker.  His upcoming seminar, Soft Skills for Safety Professionals will be held in Pittsburgh on October 22^nd and 23^rd.  You can learn more about this two-day seminar by logging on to www.SafetyCoachAcademy.com.

Collaboration or Cooperation – Which Would You Choose?

We all know that high performing cultures for safety rely heavily on engagement, collaboration, and cooperation.  But if you could choose only one, which would it be, collaboration or cooperation?  If you had to improve safety performance over the next 12-months, would you rather have a large degree of collaboration or cooperation?

Collaboration often requires working together to solve common problems or to complete a given task.  There may be specific roles, goals, or milestones to reach.  There may be particular skills and team synergies that have to be utilized for more efficient and effective outcomes.  And with collaboration, a focused framework of active involvement is often inherent. 

Cooperation implies a less formal structure, mostly without specific goals, roles, milestones, or team-related dynamics.  The word, cooperation also suggests starting and stopping in less formal ways.  It implies less active, more passive and spontaneous work.  Cooperation often requires very few written guidelines and even less task-related boundaries.  However, cooperative work arrangements are quite necessary to move forward, progress, and improve.  One might even argue that cooperation is part of the organizational infrastructure that catapults collaboration to entirely new levels of success!

Cooperation a Critical Cultural Dimension

I don’t think it’s fair to choose one over the other, but I do believe it is important to seek higher degrees of both collaboration and cooperation, especially when it comes to something as important as safety.

If you think about it, even though certain safety-related groups may be highly collaborative, those same groups need to be reminded of the importance of cooperation.  In effect, highly collaborative groups need a set of guidelines to reach higher levels of cooperative success.  And they must continually ask a set of questions that will help ensure they’re being as cooperative as possible so that better outcomes are realized.
 

The following questions can help you to improve your organizational cooperation and collaboration.

     1.   Even though your people may be working together on a specific project (collaboratively), are they working in unison and openly sharing their knowledge, skills, and abilities?

     2.  When there is conflict, do your people fight fairly, without personal attacks, and work hard to get back on track to complete their work, through their best efforts?

     3.  When groups of people are working together to enhance safety performance, is everyone included in the discussions and is everyone given an appropriate way to contribute?

      4.  Are your workers reminded of the importance of letting go of the past so that current work and future success is not hampered?

     5.   And are individuals held accountable to complete their assigned tasks on schedule and as expected?

In my own culture assessment strategies for safety, I have always found that cooperation is very critical and cannot be overlooked.  However, it takes time to develop enough trust and cooperation that will afford your workers more opportunities to contribute openly and effectively for continual improvements in safety.  But open, honest, and highly cooperative work strategies are critical to your next great safety performance gain! And it could be the kind of substantial safety culture improvement that you’ve been seeking for a long, long time.  

This article / blog cannot be reproduced in any form without prior written consent from David J. Sarkus.  If consent is provided, the below bio, in its entirety must be used along with the above written work.  

David J. Sarkus, MS, CSP is president and founder of David Sarkus International, Inc.  He has over 30 years of experience as a speaker, consultant, and leadership coach who works with some of the biggest and best run organizations in the world.  For more information regarding his services please visit www.davidsarkus.com. 

You Don't Need to Be Superman!

You don't have to be Superman to be a great safety leader.  But let's face it, some leaders bring out the best in people and others bring out the very worst.  We need to make choices every day regarding the kind of leader we are going to be, especially for those who are following. 

On our worst days, we bring about anxiety, fear, and a loss of focus.  Sometimes we are unapproachable, confrontational, and don't care to listen to the concerns of others.  At times, we can be detached and withdrawn.  Not the kind of leader others want to be around or follow.

At our best, we bring out more energy and excitement in our people.  We are approachable, and want to be engaged in the safety-related efforts of others.  We want to facilitate, coach, listen, and support the work of our people.  This is the kind of leader that attracts and influences others to be their very best and to reach new levels of safety engagement and performance. This is the type of leader who turns followers into the very kinds of leaders that we want to be - a reflection of our best qualities and characteristics.

Here's a couple of quotes from some organizational leaders who I have worked with recently.  I spoke about bringing out the best in others to improve safety performance.  Near the end, I follow with some questions that you may need to ask of yourselves and your leaders.  
 

David gave a presentation to the SILBA lumber owners, and employees that was terrific. David had their rapt attention, engaging them throughout the talk. It was definitely a heartfelt talk about each of them becoming active participants in their own company's safety process. It was directed at the owners/principals as we hoped it would be and asked them if they thought they could just take 20 minutes of their day to walk around, talk to staff, promote a positive, involved image of a caring manager/owner. This was about observing employees working and about providing positive feedback, educating them along the way. He has a very unassuming air about himself that seems to resonate with all he speaks to.

I find him a very likeable, thoughtful, engaging person and he probably has something to offer to any audience. He speaks to the little steps that an organization can take action on right now. I would definitely use David again!

Terry Buckhout, CSP
Regional AVP Risk Control Services
Meadowbrook TPA Associates

Just a quick note of thanks for the tremendous job you did at our four Leadership Conferences.  As background, Eagle Materials needed a motivational safety speaker for our Leadership Conferences.  David was an easy choice since he had spoken at one of Eagle’s Annual Safety conferences two years ago and as a result was widely accepted and recognized within our organization. 

Our Leadership Conferences were focused on enhancing the leadership skills of our first line supervisors and department heads with an emphasis on safety leadership.  David’s role was a half day segment of motivational speaking on leadership safety – specifically leading from the heart and caring about those you work with.  David’s material dovetailed perfectly with speakers before and after and energized the Leadership Conference participants.  Our participant evaluations told the story – our participants graded us out above the 97^th percentile in achieving the conference goals. 

David we will be calling on you in the future, as a key element in our leadership development program.  Again, thanks for your contribution to our Leadership Conferences.

Rodney E. Cummickel, Vice President – Risk Management
Eagle Materials

The very best organizations invest in their people to make them better safety leaders so they can bring out the best in others.    

What kinds of safety leadership opportunities are you helping to create for others?

Are you helping individuals to become better listeners?

Are you helping to develop the coaching skills of your workers?

Do you provide opportunities to learn various psychological strategies and tactics?


Well, I would love to hear from you and help you make your leaders better safety leaders. We don't need to be Superman, but we need to have the desire to be better safety leaders and we need the tools to make our cultures for safety the kinds of cultures we can be proud to talk about. 

Your Vision for Safety and Closing the Gaps?

“The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits…”  ― Tony Dungy, Former Head Coach, Super Bowl Winning Coach and Player, Indianapolis Colts / Pittsburgh Steelers

You and I know that having a vision for safety begins in your mind’s eye and is critical to taking safety performance to an entirely new level.  We also know that your vision for safety has to be a clear and compelling one.  It has to move people towards a future state of excellence – a great place to be but not one to rest within.  And having a creative vision for safety that is embraced is an important part of improving your culture for safety.

You and your leaders need to have a vision that brings everyone together in ways that recognize individuals as a valued member of your work community. But, part of helping people to understand their value requires obtaining their opinions towards critical dimensions of safety that support your vision. 

Great organizations realize that objective leading indicators obtained through survey tools are critical to sustainable EHS success.  In particular, various safety climate measures help to support the vision in very real ways.  And when I talk about measuring the vision gap, I’m speaking about the specific ways your vision is supported and the variety of differences in viewpoints (and actions) at various organizational levels.   These very important gaps need to be assessed through well-designed metrics and acted upon.

Where Are Your Gaps?

Think about the statements below and how they support your vision.  Try to understand the perception gaps that may exist between your senior management, mid-level managers, supervisors, and your workers.  Each individual will have a different view towards the question being asked.  Obviously, the greater the separation in views, the more risk you may be accepting.    

What gaps currently exist when it comes to required resources such as materials, tools, equipment, and facilities?

How broad are your gaps when it comes to the control of workplace hazards, job pace, and acceptability of risk?

What kinds of views are relevant to supervisory support and regular forms of communications?

When there are production and scheduling demands, is safety just as important as when things are steady, unhurried, and without crises?

What views exist with regard to the overall support and commitment from your top organizational leaders?

Moving Forward

With nearly 30 years of safety climate research and experience, I can tell you with great certainty that each of the above types of questions often reveals important gaps that have to be closed through hard work and more engagement. 

When I measure these and other perception gaps, it’s important to realize that the larger ones will often harm organizational trust, focus, open communications, and the everyday motivation of your workers.

Supporting your vision for safety can be done in very practical ways.  However, what your people think and do, at different organizational levels is also very important to understand. 

Sadly, I’m wondering if the West Fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas had a serious vision for safety.  And I’m now thinking, their catastrophe may have never occurred if their leaders fully understood the importance of safety and the kinds of proactive metrics that would have allowed them to close their own vision gap.

Do you have a clear and compelling vision for safety?  Are you measuring, assessing, and closing your safety perception gaps? Tony Dungy had a vision for great success and worked tirelessly to close his gaps.