Creating a Culture of Safety Through Effective Leadership

1. Creating a Culture of Safety Through Effective Leadership

2. Question What are some examples of cultural issues in your organizations that make it difficult to ensure the safety of your employees?

3. Questions What are the critical ingredients in a culture that has an excellent safety record? What must leaders do to develop and maintain that culture?

4. Critical Ingredientsof Safe Cultures • Aligned and Engaged Employees • Effective communication • Reinforce what you want • Challenge what you don’t

5. Validation of this Program • This program was developed and taught to a large construction company in Ohio as a part of a commitment to improve safety after a fatality. • Result: That company and one of its subsidiaries have both recently won national awards from the Associated General Contractors of North America as having the best safety record in their class in the United States.

6. 1)Creating Alignment The way the most effective companies feel The way many companies feel Questions: • Does your company feel more like the figure on the left or right? Why? • How can you create a greater sense of alignment? This concept was introduced by Peter Senge in his book, “The Fifth Discipline”.

7. Flip the pyramid to align and engage employees Management Mentality: Keep employees in line Management mentality: How can we help you succeed? Leader Customers Middle managers Front line employees Front line employees Middle managers Customers Leader Old school view of organizations New school view of organizations Ideas for these diagrams taken from Tom Peters, “Thriving on Chaos”

8. Douglas McGregor’s XY Theory Theory x (‘authoritarian management’ style) • The average person dislikes work and will avoid it when he/she can. • Therefore most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organizational objectives. Theory y (‘participative management’ style) • Effort in work is as natural as work and play. • People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organizational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment. • Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement.

9. Examples of old school and new school management Old school: Ford River Rouge plant in 1930s • Ingots and rubber to a car in 3 days • 100,000 employees. Make each task so simple anyone can do it. • 10,000 subs every day of the week! • If you shut down the line you risk being fired. • You are paid to do, not think. • Quality is expensive. Focus on quantity. • No need to improve the process. Look at the results! New School: Toyota was amazed by River Rouge in 1930. Went back in 1950. Nothing changed. • Dignity of the individual worker is respected. • We will never stop trying to improve the process of making the best cars in the world. • All employees invited to be on quality improvement teams. • Everything is measured. All employee suggestions for improvement are taken seriously. • Quality becomes inexpensive.

10. 2) Effective Communication How we communicate: • Three main elements in face-to-face communication: words, tone, body language. • Listeners understood our message by: • Body language – 55% • Tone of voice – 38% • Words we say – 7% Study done at UCLA by Albert Mehrabian, Ph.D.

11. The Communication Process noise Putting thought into symbolic form Process by which the receiver assigns meaning to the message. receiver sender encoding message decoding media noise feedback response noise

12. 3) Reinforce What You Want • What employees say motivates them • Ranked in order of importance: • 1) Interesting work • 2) Full appreciation for work done • 3) Feeling of being in on things • 4) Job security • 5) Good wages • 6) Promotion and growth opportunities • 7) Good work conditions • 8) Management is loyal to employees • 9) Tactful discipline • Sympathetic help with problems • This information is based upon the research of Kenneth Kovack, Ph.D.

13. What their bosses thought motivated them 1) Good wages 2) Job security 3) Promotion opportunities 4) Good working conditions 5) Interesting work 6) Management is loyal to employees 7) Tactful discipline 8) Full appreciation of work done 9) Sympathetic help with problems 10)Feeling of being in on things

14. Some Thoughts on Recognition According to research by Development Dimensions International, Inc. • Highly engaged employees have far fewer quality errors than disengaged employees (52 errors per million pieces made vs. 5658 pmp!) • Two big factors in engaged employees is that they feel that their work is appreciated, and they feel that their opinion counts.

15. More Thoughts on Recognition • For optimal motivation: • Supervisors should compliment their employees about four times* as often as they criticize them. People want to cooperate when they are being encouraged. When they get discouraged they disengage. • As Kenneth Blanchard has said, “Catch someone doing something right.” • *According to research by John Gottman

16. More Thoughts on Recognition • According to Marcus Buckingham*: • The most important factor in whether or not employees liked their jobs was their relationship with their supervisor. • Turnover was most explained by a poor relationship with that person’s supervisor. • If employees felt appreciated, they were more engaged and had lower turnover and fewer mistakes. • *First Break all the Rules

17. More Thoughts on Recognition • When you compliment someone: • Be specific about what they have done. • Look them in the eye. • Let them know how much you appreciate what they have done. • If possible, do it in public.

18. More Thoughts on Recognition • According to the book Positive Discipline: • Recognition is most effective when it is: • Timely – Don’t wait until the review. Do it now! • Specific – Tell the person exactly what they did right. • Personal – Delivered in a way that person finds meaningful. • Proportional – Is appropriate to what they did.

19. 4) Challenge What You Don’t Want • What is the difference between these three terms? • passive/aggressive • assertive • aggressive

20. The Assertiveness Continuum

21. The Control-Dependency Loop Behavior: Loud, domineering, angry, not listening Control (Aggressive) Dependency (Passive/aggressive) Behavior: passive, passive-aggressive, disengaged

22. Replacing Control/Dependency with Partnership • If you want partnership, you should rarely, if ever, lose your temper. • That always causes disengagement. Learn to listen more effectively if you want feedback on “near misses” you seek. • If this behavior is accepted in your company it’s worth considering making it unacceptable. “One of a leader’s main responsibilities is to constructively listen to bad news and then to fix the problem immediately. As soon as employees feel you are not listening to what is wrong everything unravels in a hurry.” Bill Gates Shared ownership Partner (management) Partner (employees)

23. The "How To" of Assertiveness "There are small Hitler's around us every day." Robert Payne • Describe the behavior • Explain how it makes you feel • Explain the changes you would like • Do not: • Sound accusatory • Label the person’s behavior as wrong • Call the person names • Lose your cool • Do: • Be gentle. Try not to make the person defensive. Listen, but stay focused.

24. Performance Problem Discussion Checklist: Harvey and Sims* • Identify desired and actual performance in specific behavior terms. • Determine impact of the problem. • Identify realistic consequences. • Check past practices for consequences. • Determine type of discussion. Coaching, counseling, formal discipline? • Seek feedback from others, especially for formal discipline. • Document *Positive Discipline

25. Conducting a successful accountability discussion with an employee: Harvey and Sims Steps: • Understand that the goal is to gain the employee’s agreement and make the desired behavior change. • Describe the actual and desired behavior. • Ask for agreement on the problem. If they won’t agree, you set consequences. • Discuss possible solutions. Be very specific about behaviors and time frames. • End on a positive note.

26. More Thoughts on Confrontation • How do we "win" a confrontation? • What is the reason we confront someone else? • Whose approval are we after when we confront someone?

27. Decision Making Leave:According to Harvey and Simms Consequence that is different from time off. • Tell them to “Take the next day off and make a final decision to correct the problem or resign” • This demonstrates that the employee is responsible for their behavior. • Employees take this seriously. • It is more effective than time off, which just feels like punishment.

28. Have a progression • First confrontation: Please don’t do this again. • Start here most of the time. • Second confrontation: If you do it again, this will be the consequence. • If the behavior is serious you may need to start here. • Third confrontation: Deliver the consequence. • If the behavior is egregious, you may need to start here. • This omits the need to get angry. Let the consequence combined with positive reinforcement create the behavior change you seek.

29. Dealing with Your Emotions: How to stay cool in a confrontation • If you do not understand and manage your emotions they will undo every bit of your efforts at assertiveness. • Emotions are powerful indicators that you need to assert yourself. • They can also be a powerful part of the solution, or your undoing. "Every time you meet a situation, though you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before." Eleanor Roosevelt

30. Productively Dealing with Your Emotions “Speak when you are angry and you will make the greatest speech you will ever regret.” William Ury To manage your emotions in a confrontation instead of being managed by them, you: • Acknowledge them • Accept them • Assess them and • Act upon them. • If you do not make a plan beforehand to assert yourself, you will probably regret what you have to say in the moment. • Useful tip: Bring notes into the confrontation. This will keep you focused if they get defensive.

31. Case Study • Company that won AGC safety award did the following to increase accountability: • Quarterly audits with a checklist of safety areas • Top management present for audits • Results of audits published for everyone to see. • Managers look forward to these audits to prove they are complying with guidelines.

32. Reading Material Embracing Rebellion: If you can raise teenagers you can lead anyone Steve Anderson Positive Discipline: How to Resolve Rough Performance Problems Quickly…and Permanently Harvey and Simms

33. Questions?