S12Ep3 Success Factors White Paper: Personal Commitment

Unlock the secrets to a robust safety culture with Tim Page Bottorff and Chris Ross, as we discuss the transformative power of personal commitment in the workplace. Episode 5 of 6 discussing Safety Climate Success Factors.

Host: Tim Page Bottorff
Guest: Chris Ross

https://safestart.com/file/idclip/

https://safetalk.buzzsprout.com/1032442/11286195-s8ep8-happiness-the-secret-to-organizational-performance

Transcript

Personal Commitment in Safety Importance

Tim Page-Bottorff 0:08

Hey , welcome back to SafeT alk with SafeS tart . I'm Tim Page-Bottorff joining me today as fellow consultant , Chris Ross . Hey , Chris , welcome back to the podcast .

Chris Ross 0:17

Thanks , Tim , great to be back .

Tim Page-Bottorff 0:19

I'll tell you what I asked Chris back here again as we review the portions of the six climate success factors . And today we're going to cover Personal Commitment . And so a full copy of the white paper you'll find tucked away in our show notes . And so today we're going to cover three main areas of personal commitment , and that's a why is personal commitment important . B ways to demonstrate that you care about keeping your people safe . And then C ensuring that your people have the training and skills to do their job safely . So we always hear about the importance of personal commitment and safety . I always think of leaders who walk the talk being such a key to safety success . Do you see the same , Chris ?

Chris Ross 1:05

Yeah , I agree with you , Tim . For an organization to succeed in safety it's got to start at the top and carry all the way through all the levels of leadership . In fact , you know , one of our success factors in safe start is leadership , commitment and buy in at all levels . It's so important for leaders to not only talk about safety but actively lead safety . One of the disconnects we sometimes find in organizations is there's lots of support for safety at the top and line . Employees are very interested in their own safety , but sometimes not as much commitment for safety in the middle . I've seen that before too .

Tim Page-Bottorff 1:44

I got to ask , though do you think it comes from ? You know , sometimes those folks in the middle are measured more on production than safety or wait , could it be ? They are kind of always being held accountable for tons per day or truck ship per week , but not so much on the leading elements of safety .

Chris Ross 2:03

Yeah , I think that's exactly it . There are some other issues , but I think sometimes there can be a misalignment of expectations , and I think another factor is that all senior leaders , managers and supervisors are concerned for safety . They don't always understand how to lead for safety , and that's what we'll talk about today how to give leaders some specific tools and skills to lead safety by demonstrating their own personal commitment .

Tim Page-Bottorff 2:31

All right , I'll tell you why . Why don't we start off with talking about how leaders can show how they care once you start there ?

Chris Ross 2:37

Well , in the broadest terms , just getting to know people , you know their family their spouses , their partners , their kids ? What do they do away from work , their sports , their hobbies , general ? Interest stuff , but make it a point to get to know people on your team on a personal level . We're so much more than just our work titles .

Tim Page-Bottorff 2:57

You know , I gotta agree with that , Chris . When I go out on the shop floor I do a bit of that myself I see a picture of a kid or some kids on a toolbox and I'm gonna ask who they are . And so it's kind of easy to jump right to on the job safety when you're having these discussions , but also about off the job safety . So , for example , I'll get somebody to say , Okay , dad , if one of your kids comes to work for us and we put them under your care , what would you tell them is the most dangerous part of your job ? And that gets the employee to think , like think a bit more about the hazards that they'll likely have , I think , over time , become complacent about .

Chris Ross 3:39

Yeah , great point , Tim . I really like asking questions and we'll talk more about that . One of the opportunities to ask questions takes place in lean manufacturing with Gemba walks . I'm a big fan of Gemba walks . I think it gives that opportunity for people to go out and have discussions with people .

Chris Ross 4:00

So one of the acronyms I recently learned to make Gemba walks more productive is SPPA , so the S is for schedule . It's important to schedule your walks in your calendar , for my experience they don't happen , or happen with enough frequency to make a difference . So it should happen daily for at least an hour , and I'd also like to have them scheduled at the same time so employees know to expect you . Remember you're there to help , not play a game of gotcha . But I think the scheduling's really important . P the purpose what's the focus of today's walk ? Maybe it's 5S , maybe it's safety , maybe it's a new rule , or maybe it's just a conversation , and then people have the right people on your team . I think it's a tremendous opportunity to engage leaders at all levels supervisors , managers to go out and engage with employees on the block , and then action and follow-up . If your walks produce actions and they should make sure you build a feedback loop to the employees to let them know their input was heard and being paid attention to .

Tim Page-Bottorff 5:10

I really like that acronym . Let me just repeat it one more time for the listeners it's SPPA and the S starts again for schedule . The first P is about the purpose , the second P is about the people and the letter A is about action and follow-up . I get that right .

Chris Ross 5:26

Yep , you got it , Tim . You know , in the Safe Track , Larry Wilson had some advice for all of us which is , I think , really straightforward and important "Talk to people the way you wanna be talked to" I don't know what a golden nugget, and always thank them for their time . After all , they're helping us out .

Tim Page-Bottorff 5:44

I mean , aren't they ? Oh , take care of your people . Listen , that's a good one . I really appreciate that . So that sounds really good . So talk to us a little bit more about what other leaders can do at the same time as caring .

Chris Ross 5:58

Yeah , I think first of all , it's important to recognize the elements of leading safety are all intertwined among the six success factors we've been talking about in this series . A few more skills that come to mind are really just basic management leadership concepts Like management by walking around MBWA , just being involved out on the floor , being visible . We talked a little bit about getting to know people and getting to know and understand the human factors that affect to them . Creating open dialogue , asking for input We'll talk a little bit more about that . Using questions to do that . Facing tough conversations we have to sometimes have those and the interesting thing about tough conversations it's not always tough for the person that's initiating it . Sometimes it's tough for the recipient . Building trust and engagement that was a whole series on that and then recognizing and promoting informal leaders really drives them up the engagement scale .

Tim Page-Bottorff 7:05

I agree I'd have to say MBWA . I've heard that concept before . It seems like it's just a really basic thing to do in practice . But I also see a lot of managers and supervisors who were locked away in their office and they're not really in touch with what's going on on the floor , so they're in a sense managing behind a desk as opposed to managing by walking around .

Chris Ross 7:29

Yeah , exactly , and the whole purpose of this is get to know people , creating that climate of trust and engagement , open communication , getting to know your people means demonstrating personal commitment to employees , and is it ?

Chris Ross 7:43

not about being nice or liking everybody . It's about the importance of recognizing human factors in the workplace . What is caring about your about keeping your people safe mean to you personally , it means both the organizational accountability for creating safe conditions and also individual leaders taking action not only on external conditions , but human factors that may be affecting their team members' safety and performance . These factors might be physical , like fatigue or injury or illness , or they might be mental , like decision fatigue or distraction , due to conditions beyond their control . While some of these human factors originate outside the workplace , they can affect workers 24-7 . So having a boss who offers worded tactics for being safe can have a huge influence on the worker's well-being . As a worker , it's hard to feel a sense of well-being . If you have good reason to anticipate , you can get seriously injured at work , and if there's no active workplace commitment to doing the things that keep people safe , it really sets people off . Our research has made a clear connection between happiness and well-being at work and better safety outcomes .

Tim Page-Bottorff 9:04

Yeah , to that end , just as you bring that up , I was just thinking about Rodd Wagner , our executive advisor , Rodd Wagner . He wrote us an article about well-being and happiness in the workplace , and so I'll actually be able to place that link to the podcast we recorded in the show notes as well . So let's talk about people systems , Chris .

Chris Ross 9:26

Yeah , another aspect of this is making a transition from telling to asking . It's so empowering to ask workers for their opinions . That's what we do out on Gamba Walks . That's what we just do in casual conversation . It helps gain their buy-in and commitment , not only for safety issues but even more importantly , for change or operational aspects . What I'm teaching SafeLead to supervisors one of the most popular activities is just going out into the workplace and striking up a safety conversation using some of the 20 questions we provide . They find out the participants after a few minutes that the workers are very excited that someone's actually asking for their opinion and listening to them . After all , you're getting them to talk about the most important person in the world themselves .

Tim Page-Bottorff 10:15

I like that . I mean , isn't this all about having conversations when safety is not an issue ? I remember an old personal friend of mine told me oh , I get it now . This is all about normalizing , talking about safety and human factors . Do you get the same ?

Chris Ross 10:32

Yeah , exactly it's , you know . Let's talk about safety when safety is not an issue .

Chris Ross 10:38

And it's also why we want people to talk about their close calls , not necessarily formally reporting as an official near miss , but just talking about the effect of human factors on their performance and actions , including the part about how it could have been worse than and the CERTs , and , just as we talked about on a previous episode , that really helps to normalize discussing human factors . One of the other things we talk about in both SafeLead and Safe Start and is developing a personal value statement for safety . Basically , it's just a sentence or two that answers the question why do I care about the safety of my people ?

Tim Page-Bottorff 11:17

I love the personal value statements . I mean , throughout Safe Start we do it with Safe Start trainers . We even get our leaders to kick it off in the Safe Start leadership sessions . I mean , I think the personal value statement is also a great tool when our leaders use it to help articulate what I believe is support and commitment in the world of safety . It kind of shows I mean not kind it really shows why they personally care about the people and what's going on . And I also have to say that it's a pretty valuable part of having a difficult conversation with somebody , as we've discussed before , and having the leaders share why their work or safety is personally important to them . How huge is that ?

Chris Ross 11:56

Yeah , that's , that's . That's such a show of commitment . And the other thing about personal value statement maybe not everybody has that same degree of support for safety , but when they hear the leader's personal value statement they can't deny that leader has a vision for safety . You know , in addition to awareness of human factors and safety , we need to address the people system structures in place to ensure that employees have sufficient training , experience and supervision to perform their jobs correctly , safely and to the right standard . Moreover , they need to have the opportunity to learn and practice procedures enough to use them confidently . In most industries , the use of operating procedures is given verbal emphasis to make sure you follow the procedures , but not action emphasis . In other words , we haven't practiced or drilled the detailed steps of work . Ensuring this practice is both an organizational and a leadership accountability . We all know it takes a lot of practice and reinforcement in order to build a new skill .

Tim Page-Bottorff 13:05

You know , that kind of really ties into ensuring that people have the training and the skills to do their job safely and at least to some level of a standard .

Chris Ross 13:15

Yeah , safety for many has been about policies and procedures , and that's important , but safety covers and influences so much more . What's missing in traditional safety is human factors , which we capitalize on and spend so much time talking about . If we start with the premise that people don't hurt themselves on purpose , but we do make mistakes and realize that engineering and administrative controls have their limits , we owe our people what we know about accident causation . SafeS tart is the missing piece for a lot , but SafeS tart's concepts extend far beyond safety and equality , production and performance .

Tim Page-Bottorff 13:57

Yeah , I have to bring it back . I know we're talking about Safe Lead here , but just real quick . There are some elements when we talk about critical decisions that have to be made or sometimes get forgotten . We place those in the flex units , which is in the client portal for everybody to address . I just wanted to point that out . I know we're talking about Safe Lead and the six climate success factors , but just a reminder for all of our listeners there .

Chris Ross 14:22

Yeah , those flex units are awesome . I think it was Larry said that's where the gold is . It's really the next step when we solve problems that lead to safety errors . We often solve production and quality problems

Flex Unit and Critical Error Reduction

Chris Ross 14:36

. You said critical decisions , and that's what the flex unit addresses . It's all about using CERTs critical error reduction techniques to reduce our mistakes due to human factors like rushing , frustration , fatigue and complacency .

Tim Page-Bottorff 14:51

Yeah , those are great units . They do cover things like driving and conscious risk taking and even preventing back pain . There's so much more already and you can take them in order that makes sense to you , but when it comes up , you can call your client manager for more details . Based on that , Chris , I want to thank you for carving out some time for us today .

Chris Ross 15:12

It's been my pleasure , Tim .

Tim Page-Bottorff 15:14

And so , for Chris and for everyone who's been a part of this one , thank you so much for spending a part of your day with us . Remember , you can check out the entire white paper on the show notes and , as well , a link to Rodd's happiness podcast is going to be down there on the show notes too . I'm Tim Page-Bottorff for Safe Talk with SafeStart , and I'll see you down the road .