An Invitation to Make A Difference

In many of my posts, I have talked about the high number of people being killed and injured at work.

There are many safety professionals and others working to improve safety, yet the number of deaths and lost time injuries remains relatively constant at about 5,200 deaths and 2,500,000 lost time injuries a year. We need to make a difference in the workplace.

I am not seeming to have much impact in reducing these numbers (by myself) and am wondering about gathering some interested, knowledgeable, professional people together in Zoom conversations to explore possible ways to reduce the number of deaths and injuries. I’m looking for people who care deeply about this too.

I do not know if anything will come out of these conversations of concern, but there is a real possibility we could accomplish something to help reduce these tragedies. I would be willing to host these conversations.

make a difference

Let’s Make a Difference!

If we can look at this from a systems perspective, important ideas and real possibilities will likely emerge. The systems approach will give us a much deeper perspective of the whole system than we normally use, and this could lead to some really good ideas and possibilities.

If any of you readers want to give the conversations of concern a try, please contact me at RNKnowles@aol.com. I’ll see what we can put together. I have an expectation that we can make a difference.

make a difference together

Overcome feelings of Impatience in the Workplace

When leadership can help employees overcome feelings of impatience, frustration and anger, the energy and creativity of the people emerges, enabling much quicker, better decisions and more effective work to take place.

Impatience

In a long road trip over this Labor Day Weekend, we got stuck in an hour-long traffic jam on a very busy Interstate Highway. The GPS message was “Your route is closed.” We were sitting on the 3-lane highway with big trucks all around us and there was no way out.

My impatience level went way up as we just sat without knowing anything about the stoppage or a possible alternative way out. Other car drivers were also getting impatient and beginning to make poor decisions. For example, several impatient drivers wiggled thru tight spaces, actually turning their respective vehicles around – then began their journey against the normal traffic flow, maneuvering along the shoulder to get to the last exit we had passed so they could get off the Interstate and go around the holdup on secondary roads.

We just waited with the trucks to see what was going to happen. After about an hour the traffic began to move and open up. We never saw the source of the holdup, but we had a sigh of relief to be able to move forward again.

overcoming frustration and impatience in the work place

Ruminations

I began to think about the times in my own career when things got bogged down or we had had an incident that stopped everything. I struggled with these same feelings of impatience. Everyone was impatient and frustrated. Some people wanted to just push through before we had given things enough consideration to understand what was wrong and see a way out of the problem. Others spent time in their offices, away from the situation, trying to dictate solutions; it is easy to come up with possible solutions when you do not know what is really going on. This really became frustrating when the corporate people tried to tell us how to solve our problem. Others wanted to cut through the safety procedures since they felt the procedures were getting in our way.

We were all impatient, anxious, angry, struggling with a strong sense of urgency and frustration. This is a dangerous situation where it is very easy to make dreadful mistakes. The people working close to the problem feel acute pressure to solve the problem and get going. They are extremely aware that their managers want to get going. Their managers are also under a lot of pressure from their managers or from sales or from customers to get going.

The people working close to the problem are aware of all these pressures, but also know that they have to do things right so no one gets hurt, so the process will really run correctly when things are restored, and so there will not be a new safety or environmental incident on startup.

Leadership’s Role

In these situations of high frustration and impatience, the people close to the work need to be helped and supported by their management and leaders.

As a Plant Manager, my role was to create a safe space for those working close to the problem to think things through, organize themselves, plan the restoration processes, and make the other decisions needed to get back up and running safely. The operators, mechanics, engineers, and safety people know what needs to be done, so as the Plant Manager, my role was to create a safe space where they could do their work. I also reminded them to work with high safety, environmental and customer standards, helping each other to do their best in the situation.

As we shared information on the progress to solve the problem and the things around it, we also helped to maintain respect and caring among everyone and gave credit to them as progress was made. These made a big, positive difference.

When we can minimize the feelings of impatience, frustration and anger, the energy and creativity of the people emerges, enabling much quicker, better decisions and more effective work to take place. This is Partner-Centered Leadership in action!

Call me at 716-622-6467 and I’ll be pleased to talk to you about Partner-Centered Leadership. It is the way forward.

feelings of impatience in the workplace

Why Are People Getting Killed At Work?

Indifference… At a local event this past week, I asked a friend who is involved in safety work the question, why are people getting killed at work? He quickly came up with this answer.

A lot fewer people are being killed than it used to be before OSHA. There has been a lot of progress. We must be at about the best we can do.

Then the conversation moved off to the Olympics. He just brushed this off as no longer important.

But this is important to the approximately 5,200 families who have had someone in their family killed. This experience remains with the family forever. And this 5,200 total number is an every year statistic!

Those of you reading my newsletters know that I am constantly trying to help people reduce injuries and deaths by building Partner-Centered Leadership and sharing real case studies that have been published in Professional Safety. We can reduce the numbers of injuries and fatalities, and we shouldn’t just push this problem aside with indifference.

hard hats save workers from being killed at work

Leaders Lacking Insights About What Is Possible

At a recent graduation celebration gathering, I was talking with a family member who has a very responsible safety leadership job in a large company, about my efforts to have fewer people killed at work. We talked about Partner-Centered Leadership and having everyone involved, co-creating our shared futures and taking more responsibility for the whole business efforts, including safety.

I was asked, “How do you work this way across widely dispersed sites?” This is a challenge for sure. The way I see it, this effort has to begin with the CEO and the Leadership Team. They need to talk about Partner-Centered Leadership and walk the talk at every site visit so people can understand that they mean it. The top people need to personally engage the lower levels in learning to lead this way and insist that everyone is involved. The CEO and Leadership Team should do some of the training of the lower-level people.

If someone does not get on board, then some tough decisions need to be made. The message should be that this is the way the company is going to do business going forward. But equally important is helping everyone to see that going home to one’s family at the end of the workday with all one’s body parts intact – no injuries, no incidents, is the absolute answer to What’s in it for me?

My mantra when I was a plant manager was, “I don’t have a right to make my living where it is okay for you to get hurt!” Does anyone have this right? The methodology for success is to engage people – for supervision across the board, up and down the organization to learn how to ask process questions. When it comes to safety, leaders who are in denial, or pretending one “doesn’t know” just doesn’t cut it. Asking process questions can ensure accountability.

We then talked about why there was so much resistance to these ideas. Based on some hard systems thinking, I think that the whole US safety industry with all the training, audits, fines, blame, etc. is driven by FEAR! This idea can be startling. Examining safety from a systems perspective was a different idea – particularly noting that fear was a key driver.

The problem with a culture being driven by fear is that it is very difficult to learn and do new things. Just about everyone is concentrated on covering their backside rather than talking together in an environment that is safe enough to explore new ideas together. When we work together using Partner-Centered Leadership, we can open up the vast knowledge that is lying hidden in our organizations. When we treat people with respect, listen and learn together, amazing new ideas and possibilities bubble up.

Everything changes! Productivity goes up. Earnings go up, Safety improves. The culture becomes one where almost everyone is learning, growing, taking more responsibility and producing great results. New possibilities emerge which often lead to much better earnings.

workplaces should value safety

Partner-Centered Leadership

When the CEO and the Leadership Team learn what is possible and how to work this way with authenticity and caring, this can spread throughout their organization and achieve significantly better results. It takes some effort and dedication, but there is no need for new capital investment. In a sense, Partner-Centered Leadership is free!

Contact me (716-622-6467) and let’s discuss how this can work for you and your organization.

Shifting Our Thinking and Behavior

We should be shifting our thinking and behavior.

I have written a lot about our whole safety system in the US being stuck for the last 8 years, with about 5,200 fatalities and 2,400,000 serious injuries a year.  There is a lot of effort by many people, but the results are not getting better. That’s why we should be shifting our thinking and behavior.

I have also written and spoken a lot about Partner Centered Leadership, which is a very effective process to help organizations get a lot better in all dimensions of performance. In this process everyone thinks and works together with caring, respect, honesty, and trust. We all help each other to be our best.

shifting our thinking and behavior

Partner Centered Leadership requires a significant shift in how the managers lead.

I used to use the hard, top-down management approach. But I had to shift my thinking and behavior to being more open, really caring and working with the people, listening and learning together.

This is not just trying to be a better top-down manager. It is a complete shift to real partnering and caring.

The way I thought about the people and the huge knowledge they have about their actual work had to change. I had to learn to talk with the people and not at them. I had to listen.

Organizations are complex adaptive systems behaving more like a living system than a machine. No one has all the answers, so we had to co-create our future together. We found that our collective knowledge and intelligence were amazing. As this became revealed in our work, we all got more and more excited about what we were trying to do.

We discovered a relatively simple complexity tool called the Process Enneagram that we could use together so we could:

  • see the whole system in which we were working,
  • see the various parts and
  • see how they interacted.

This was the first time we could see this way; it really helped us.

The Three Levels of Work

As we learned, we also became quite conscious of different, interdependent, interacting, simultaneous levels of work processes. When you watch a soccer game you can see the three levels of activities.

  • At the Level 1, the players on the field are self-organizing as the game unfolds. They are making instantaneous decisions using the clues and actions they take in as they play. The best decisions are made by them as the game goes on.
  • At Level 2, the coaches on the side lines are making decisions based on what they are seeing. They see different things. They will call in plays, make decisions about replacing a tired player, think about improving or adjusting the over-all strategy, and cheer the players to perform better.
  • At Level 3, the referees make sure the conditions for the game are consistent with the league rules. They work on stuff like proper ball pressure, and the correct markings on the field as well as making sure everyone is playing fairly, calling penalties and managing the over-all game. If the players and coaches do not play by the agreed upon rules, the game will fall apart and no longer be soccer.

In Partner Centered Leadership, all three levels are working. Together we co-create the agreements of how we are going to live and work together at Level 3. All of us are accountable and take responsibility for them. The Level 3 agreements govern everything and are the difference in whether the organization is successful or not.

Those of us in management or leadership positions are at Level 2; we respectfully interact with the people sharing information about how the people and the business are doing. We ask for their help and ideas about how to get better. We encourage people to make decisions close to their work, with consultation with others who are also close and knowledgeable. We also use our situational awareness as we interact sensing problems like bullying or harassment, or how the organization is feeling at that moment, etc.

Those doing the actual, physical work at Level 1 are constantly learning and sharing so we are all improving. Making decisions close to work is usually the best place to make them. This is like the idea of “work-as-done” and “work-as-imagined.”

Shifting Our Thinking and Behavior: Partner Centered Leadership

When I was the plant manager, walking the plant every day, I operated at Levels 2 and 3. At Level 2 I talked respectfully with the people to help to build trust and interdependence. I shared lots of information about all we were doing. I also encouraged their decision-making, praising their successes. I also apologized for my mistakes.

I also worked at Level 3 as I talked about our agreements on how we wanted to work together. I would watch what was going on praising good behaviors, and if I detected poor behavior, we would talk about it. Rarely, I would have to address a bullying or harassment problem; these cannot be ignored since they are like a rotten apply and will spoil everything unless the behavior is eliminated.

I rarely worked at Level 1 since the operators, mechanics, engineers, first line supervisors, and safety people (we had 4 safety people) knew far more than I did. My Level 2 and 3 work enabled them to grow and be their best.

In leading this way, all 1,300 of us together, reduced injuries by 97%, and emissions to the environment by 95%. Our productivity rose by 45% and earnings rose by 300%. We did this in just 4 years.

Partner Centered Leadership really helped us all to get a lot better!

The shift in thinking and doing is worth it!

working together means success

Shifting our thinking and doing are critical in helping to lead our organizations to a successful, safer and more prosperous future. Partner Centered Leadership will really help your organization to prosper.

I’m heartened to learn about the Safety Futures’ – Advanced Safety Professional Practice, a 12-week program under David Provan, (Melbourne, Australia), having recently graduated 100 newly-enlightened Safety Professionals. This program covers the critical professional practice capabilities that are not taught well in other health and safety professional development programs. Click here for David’s LinkedIn profile.

Please give me a call (716-622-6467) or contact me at RNKnowles@aol.com. I will be pleased to connect with you about the “shift.”

A Story: Make Shi(f)t Happen in the Workplace

When I was first promoted into a low-level manager’s job, my mentors were tough “Kick Ass-Take Names” (KATN) managers.

They were “it is my way or the highway” type people.

Our focus was on things, and we saw the organization as a machine and the people as challenges we had to make work for us. I modeled this and was quite good at KATN, but it was tough, progress was limited, and people were angry most of the time.

Then one day there was a modest-sized fire in one of the chemical production units in the big plant where I was the Plant Manager. All the ugliness, arguing, complaining disappeared and in an instant, the people became a high-performance team. In just three weeks of amazing work, the plant was back into production, but then people reverted to their terrible behavior.

Sometime later, as I walked the plant talking together with the people who were most impacted by the fire, I found that they really liked the way they worked during the fire repairs. People helped each other, they shared all information, were respectful, they told the truth, they made decisions themselves close to the work; this way of working meant a lot to them. They were quite excited as they reminisced about the fire and restoration experience. At one point I said to them “Fellas, we can’t burn the darn place down every few months so we can feel good. We have to figure this out.”

partner-centered leadership in the workplace

I began by walking the Plant for 3-5 hours a day, every day, among the people, listening and learning about their work and ideas, discovering that many of them were quite remarkable. I asked for their help and encouraged them to solve as many problems as they could themselves. I held weekly communications forums (in various venues across the plant) to keep everyone updated on the business, events, changes, etc., and answered everyone’s questions. Energy and good ideas bubbled up as the deep intelligence and creativity of the people emerged each day. Within just three years, the injury rate was down 97%, emissions to the environment were down 95%, productivity was up 45%, and earnings were up 300%.

In walking among the people, talking, listening, and sharing, everything changed. My role was to encourage the sharing of information, helping to maintain the vision and mission of our work as well as insisting on maintaining high standards of performance. Those doing the front-line work did remarkable things to make significant improvements. We all developed our agreements on how we would behave and work together which formed a rock-solid basis of our culture.

For example, we agreed to tell the truth, listen to, and respect each other, and apologize for mistakes. I was part of this; I had to model the behaviors. We held each other accountable to live up to our agreements. We had discovered that the organization behaved as if it was a living system where the key for success was in all of us, how we related and agreed to work together. We had created the conditions where everyone could learn, grow and be the best we could be. I asked everyone for help because we in supervision surely did not know everything. Many people already knew this.

Partner-Centered Leadership

We had shifted from a fear driven, KATN culture where relationships were poor, where it was hard for people to learn and grow, where change was slow and difficult, to a partnering culture where we cared for each other, learned, and grew to levels of performance we never imagined. I call this way of working “Partner-Centered Leadership.”

Everyone began to shift from sitting back like consumers, waiting for management to bring in various, new safety offerings like better safety meetings, training courses like behavior-based safety, new PPE, better safety equipment, new hazards analysis processes, more process safety management, management inspections like walk-arounds, big safety conferences, special OSHA training, and new versions of safety like Safety II and Safety Differently, to becoming active citizens and leaders taking the initiative and responsibility to be creative, to explore new ways to do things so we could all get better and help to solve most of our problems.

partner centered leadership can make a difference in workplace safety

If new training or equipment was needed, groups could select from a broad variety of safety offerings to fill the need. We took responsibility for the whole plant system, our safety, environment, health, production, HR, quality, customer service, and community relations; they all came together. The separate stovepipes almost disappeared as we realized that we were all in it together, needing each other to be successful. We were a whole system with all the parts connected and interacting all the time. Through the process of partnering at all levels, our total performance went way up. Morale and a strong sense of belonging developed which felt good.

As we worked together this way, we learned to sustain this way of working. For example, the safety and health performance achieved a TIFR (Total Injury Frequency Rate) rate of ~0.3, and it was sustained at this world-class level for 19 years; this lasted for 14 years after I was transferred to a new assignment. I wrote an article about this in the American Society of Safety Professionals Journal, Professional Safety, which showed that Partner-Centered Leadership was far more effective than KATN.

Doing It

This way of leading requires a shift in management’s thinking about the people to seeing them as whole people with families, hopes, dreams, and a big creative capacity. It requires a shift in management’s behavior about developing relationships of caring, trust and commitment. It requires a willingness to treat each other with respect, to listen together, learn, grow. It means inviting everyone to work together to become our best. It requires giving people credit for their contributions.

It does not mean losing control of high standards, suffering with incompetent people, putting up with toxic behaviors and sloppy performance. It does not require new capital investment, new computers, and training. It requires a willingness to be with the people to talk together about the problems we face, to share almost all information and the need to solve problems at the lowest, appropriate level so our businesses can survive in this highly competitive, fast changing world. We also need to give credit where credit is due.

working together in the workplace

Everyone Wins

Partner-Centered Leadership builds morale and releases creative energy. The collective intelligence of the whole organization increases. It builds resilience and flexibility. Everyone together, co-creates their shared future. As the Plant Manager, I could throw leading by fear and KATN into the trash and shift to leading with deep caring, respect, integrity, and a great sense of satisfaction as all dimensions of performance significantly improved. It was wonderful to see how we all were growing and developing. All of us became winners!

Leadership: Moving Through the Mire … to a Better place

We are living through a period of extraordinary uncertainty. Our safety and our Leadership is in flux.

Two renowned scholars and two McKinsey experts recently illuminated the leadership imperatives of our time:

  • bringing people together,
  • energizing forward progress, and
  • reimagining normalcy.

This is exactly what we embrace with our Partnering through Collaboration Leadership Approach (at RNKnowles & Associates).

Stress in the Workplace

The COVID mess has driven us onto new and different ground. The virus, the vast amounts of conflicting information, the on-again off-again edicts, the shortage of workers, and the supply-chain problems are forcing everyone to rethink what and how we conduct our businesses. On top of this, we still must maintain our standards of safety, quality, and total performance. With such high levels of complexity, no one knows how to do all of this.

For the businesses having to impose and enforce all the edicts, we wind up pitting ourselves against each other. For example, suppose someone must be let go because the edict required vaccination and the person refused it for good health reasons, and then the edict is blocked in court the next day. What do we do? We can bring the person back to work, but then other, new changes are imposed. What then? How do we handle the pay issues? It goes on and on. These stressors are intense in our workplaces today.

Finding a Workable Way through this Mire

With everything changing around us, we must find a way to take control, and make sense of what we do. Perhaps we need to shift our way of working from a top-down, hierarchical approach to one of opening up and partnering with the people. Talking together and working out our problems, as partners, is extremely important.

Our top-down approach is faced with lots of questions. Who knows the “right” answers? What are the rules today? How do we operate our businesses for the good of everyone? Are we supposed to force people to get COVID vaccinations when some people have already had COVID and are immune or have some health issues that make having a vaccination dangerous? Is Management trying to force things and the people are resisting because they do not want to get pushed around? Is Management just an extension of the Government?

No one person knows the answers. Yet, when we partner, we can do a lot better. You do know your own workplaces and the people who work there. Collectively, you know what is best for you, and what will keep you from splitting up into various factions. You know the playing field you are on. Talk together so everyone has a good picture of what you are trying to do. Talking and sharing is important because everyone has a different picture. In sharing, a clearer picture can be developed by all.

partner through collaboration in leadership

Partnering through Collaboration (Leadership Approach) is your Guide

As you talk about developing a clearer picture of your new playing field, let the conversation move on to trying to figure out how to manage yourselves on this field the best you can. Your goal is to help each other get through all this confusion so everyone can work safely, people can keep their jobs, and your business do the best it can. Develop some co-created agreements about how you are going to manage and deal with problems so things can be the best they can be. Listen to everyone and explore the best ways to work together in these difficult times. In having this conversation, you are establishing the ground rules for working together as partners. Be open to the constant need to pay attention to what is happening around you so you can be resilient and flexible as things change.

Having developed a clear picture of your playing field and co-creating how you’ll play in these confusing times, to go and do what needs to be done. Do the work, adjusting together as you go. Help each other, share information, treat everyone with respect. Avoid blame and fighting which will tear you apart.

No one know just the right answers, so you will have to develop your own as best you can. If you just default to today’s edicts, you’ll have to change them tomorrow when some new edict is issued. Take control of your destiny as best you can.

the road to successThe goal is to get through all this safely, keep your people and business thriving and active, building stronger relationships for partnering and working together. This is a tough challenge, but who knows your workplace and the people better than you. You can work things out together.

Remember these 3 tenets of Partnering through Collaboration (Leadership approach):

  • Understand the big picture – What’s your frame of reference?
  • Continually Build Relationships with all people
  • Share Information…openly, widely, often, in various ways

We at Richard N. Knowles and Associates help the people in organizations to develop partnering with our Partnering Through Collaboration approach. It is a specific Leadership process that we can teach you to utilize as you move through your stressors. We have a long, successful track record in this work. You can move forward quickly. To learn more about this, please give us a call at 716-622-6467 and see our web site at www.RNKnowlesAssociates.com. The calls are free.

Improving Workplace Safety for Your Employees…

Many Thousands of People are Being Injured and Killed at Work

Many, many good, safety professionals are working to maintain and improve workplace safety. Yet the number of people losing their lives in our workplaces (in just 4 years) has increased from 4,836 in 2015 to 5,333 in 2019, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2015 through 2019 there have been 25,746 people who have lost their lives at work. To put this into an alarming perspective, compare this to the losses in Afghanistan since 2001 (over twenty years) where there have been 3,592 allied forces who have been killed, based on Associated Press.

With all the effort put into improving safety performance in our workplaces, why have we not seen a reduction in the number of people being killed at work? New papers sharing improved ways to ‘improve workplace safety’ are presented at safety conferences by the American Society of Safety Professionals, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Global Congress on Process Safety, and many smaller conferences as well as in publications in a variety of journals. The informational know-how is available!

Each of the specialties of occupational safety, occupational health and process safety management have a huge amount of information that has been developed over the years to improve safety performance. While some progress has been made in reducing the total number of injuries from a rate of 3.0 in 2015 to 2.8 in 2019 (2,814,000 injuries) this seems slow to me.

What is Missing?

The fruits of all this work has to be carried out by the people actually doing the physical work, those close to the actual operating and maintenance processes. We need to help these people, and not just pile more stuff onto them.

wokrplace safety comes down to the frontline people

I have found in all my 60 years in working in research, production and consulting globally that a missing link is not talking with the front-line people and exploring and learning together how to improve the work so that fewer injuries and incidents occur. None of us have all the answers. We need each other. (Talking down to people doesn’t work; talking to people (one-way) doesn’t work—the key is in talking with our people!)

Here is a Simple Solution…

When I was the Plant Manager at the 1,300 person, DuPont Belle, WV Chemical Plant I changed this. In my leading process, I spent 4-5 hours a day for 7+years walking around in the Plant, being respectful, sharing information, listening, asking how I could help the people, asking them for their help, learning together to improve things and building trust and interdependence. I talked with everyone. My mantra was “I do not have a right to make my living at a place where it is okay for you to get hurt, and we have to make a living, so let’s figure this out together.”

Our injury rate dropped by about 97% in three years, emissions to the environment dropped by about 96% in 4 years, productivity rose about 45% and earnings rose about 300%. Safety is connected to everything so as we made safety improvements everything else improved. In this approach which I call “Partner-Centered Leadership”, all parts of our safety work came together as shown here.

partner centered leadership for workplace safety

Each of occupational safety, health and process safety have their unique knowledge and management disciplines. When they are brought together, in the region of overlap in the center of this Venn Diagram, this is where the people and the leading process described above come together. In addition to talking with everyone about all the dimensions of our safety work as I walked around, there was one place where this all came together and was clear to everyone. Our monthly Central Safety Meetings were open, and all aspects of our safety work were discussed openly with everyone. All questions and concerns were welcome, and fixed. I strongly urged our supervisors to talk with their people and the engineers to sit with the operators to teach them the elements of process safety.

This is Simple.

Go into your workplaces, respectfully talk with the people, listen, share, ask them where you can be of more help, help them to follow up on their ideas and concerns, solve problems, build trust, and have everyone go home healthy and in one piece. Engagement!

You can do this!

To learn more about this approach see our web sites:
RNKnowlesAssociates.com and SafetyExcellenceForBusiness.com or give us a call at 716-622-6467.

The Things Every Manager Wants from Employees…

But What Does Every Employee Want from their Managers/Leaders? And, How Do We Get These, Together?

In a 2017 article in INC online magazine, the desired universal list of what every manager looks for in an employee was highlighted:

  • Predictable results (get stuff done – be counted on to deliver!)
  • Drama-free collaboration (play well in the sandbox; don’t cause interpersonal issues)
  • Spontaneous initiative (don’t expect to be told exactly what to do every time)
  • Truth-telling (candid about issues; willing to speak up, diplomatic)
  • Enthusiasm (show your positive engagement)
  • Continuous growth (treat your job as part of career)

But what does every employee (universally-speaking) want as traits in their managers/leaders (excerpts from the SESCO Survey report)?:

  1. Honesty. 90% say they want honesty and integrity from their manager. Lies and secrets are the biggest killers to credibility.
  2. Fairness. 89% want their manager to be fair and to hold all employees accountable to the same standards.
  3. Trust. More than 86% want to trust-and be trusted by-their manager.
  4. Respect. 84% want to respect-and be respected by-their manager.
  5. Dependability. 81% say they want to be able to count on their manager when needed.
  6. Collaboration. 77% want to be a part of their manager’s team and be asked to contribute ideas and solutions. Shutting employees out will shut them up-and send them shipping out.
  7. Genuineness. 76% want their manager to be a genuine person. Employees sometimes spend more time with their boss than with their families-they don’t want a phony.
  8. Appreciation. 74% want their manager to appreciate them for who they are and what they do. When was the last time you handed out a “Thank you!” or “Great job!” to employees?
  9. Responsiveness. 74% want their manager to listen, understand and respond. Be a sponge, not a brick wall.

partner centered leadership can make a difference in workplace safetyI share all this because, if you follow my work with the Process Enneagram©, you can pick up very quickly that there are certain things that are integral to each point of that framework – especially the pattern for excellence that I call Partner-centered Leadership©.

Particularly, the qualities that employees want from their managers (and their coworkers) fall into the Building of Relationships by living by agreed-to Principles and Standards – essential ingredients: Honesty, Fairness, Trust, Respect, Dependability, Collaboration, Genuineness, Appreciation and Responsiveness. This is how we choose to behave with and treat each other!

Employees want sufficient information to be able to do their jobs and to understand how they fit in the big picture. Each cog in the wheel is essential. Yet they also need to understand where that wheel is rolling, what direction, and how fast. They do not want to be jerked around.

Information-sharing & Identity/Frame of Reference: Employees want the truth about the business…where does it stand? What is needed to move forward? What is required performance-wise for the next quarter? What is in it for me? How can I grow as the business succeeds? These are valid questions. How do I fit in to our success (likened to the stonecutter who was building a cathedral!)?

Leaders / Managers / Employees …Yes, you can get it all…together! Call me at 716-622-6467 and I’ll share the process with you. We teach Leaders and Managers how to do this, and we train-the-trainers too – so that you can have sustainability.


These three legs on the 3-legged stool are essential: Living by a set of Principles and Standards so that you can Build Relationships, Sharing Information, and Ensuring a Sense of Identity. Why? Because all things get done through people. And People Matter! And these are the ingredients for a successful business.

live by a set of principles and share information in your business

The key features for leaders/managers to remember in Partner-Centered Leadership are:

  • Valuing people, change and the future
  • Seeing organizations as if they are living systems
  • Recognizing organizations as complex, adapting, self-organizing networks of people
  • Focusing on the open flow of information, building respect and trust
  • Helping people to find meaning in the work itself

Partner-centered Leadership | Safety Excellence For Business

Highly Participative Leadership produces the best results

A 19-Year Case Study

On Tuesday, August 18, 2020, from 4:15 to 4:45 PM, I will be making a virtual presentation at the AiCHE 16th Global Congress on Process Safety. The paper is a 19-year case study demonstrating a successful plant leadership transition that improved process safety performance.

highly participative leadership process produces much better results that the top-down management processWhen I was transferred to the DuPont Belle, West Virginia plant in 1987, the Total Recordable Injury Case Rate (TRC) was about 5.8 and emissions to air, water and ground, as reported in the EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) annual report, was over 6,000,000 pounds/year. Within three years, both of these had dropped by about 95% to a TRC of about 0.3 and a TRI of about 275,000 pounds/year. Emissions to the environment is one way to measure how well the process safety is working; the better the process safety work, the lower the emissions to the environment.

I was using a highly, participative leadership process I called Partner-Centered Leadership for Occupational Injuries and Health, as well as for Process Safety; this was a highly integrated process with just about everyone involved, and consciously working together to make our plant safer and have less impact on the environment. When I was transferred by DuPont in 1995 and replaced by a traditional plant manager using a top-down driven management process, things changed.

The process safety work was pulled away from the occupational safety and health effort and taken over by the managers. The occupational safety and health work continued to be led by the first and second level supervisors using the Partner-Centered Leadership approach. The highly participative leadership approach and the top-down management approach were running in parallel (the same business conditions, the same regulatory pressures, the same people, the same community). The occupational safety and health performance stayed at a rate of 0.3 or better for the next 15 years.

But the five different plant managers who came in during that period gradually cut back the process safety management resources and effort. They cut back on the manpower, allowed work-orders to pile up, stretched out the inspection intervals, ignored feedback from the operators and mechanics about the deteriorating conditions, etc. The TRI emissions rose by about ten-fold to over 2,500,000 pounds/year.

transformation can happen in the workplaceThe process safety management collapsed in January of 2010 with major, accidental releases to the air and river and they had a man get killed with a phosgene release. When the US Chemical Safety Board investigated in late 2010, they reported that while the occupational safety and health performance was the best in the DuPont Company, the process safety management had fallen apart and the plant was not even using the DuPont standard procedures. This was a sad commentary about how far things had fallen.

This 19-year case study clearly shows that a highly participative leadership process produces much better results that the top-down management process.


An Online Course Offering

Beginning August 24th, I will be presenting a six-week course on Leadership and Using the Process Enneagram©. The Process Enneagram© was a key leadership tool I used when I was at Belle. I have used this tool successfully around the world with people in all sorts of organizations and businesses in the 25 years since I retired from DuPont. Wherever I have used it in my consulting, safety and total performance has improved.

This Online course is the first in a series to teach about leading and using the Process Enneagram©.

If you are interested in taking the course, please go to my web site, RNKnowles and associates.com, and sign up. Or, call me and I’ll answer your questions. I’ll be using Zoom for the calls. This is important work.

The Need for Partnering Grows

Our society is fracturing into so many disconnected and angry parts. At every level of society and even in our workplaces, we see this happening every day.

businesses, schools and hospitals, governments, are fractured and coming apartOur businesses, our schools and hospitals, our governments, and not-for-profits, at all levels, are fractured and coming apart. Change is coming faster and faster. So many people seem to be trying to cope by pulling into their shells and trying to push the turmoil all away. The trust levels among all the various groups is very low. So many loud voices are pushing their version of the “truth” that it is almost impossible to tell who is being honest and should be listened to. How do we find the truth?

The connection to physical and psychological safety…

When problems like these come into our workplaces, people do not feel psychologically or physically safe. The distractions pull people away from focusing on their work. This can lead to injuries and incidents, as well as to lower productivity. This is expensive both in terms of the impact on the people and the business. Working in a place like this, where the pressure for production is intense, can feel like we are living in a pressure cooker.

When connections breakdown…

Mary Eberstadt, in her 2019 book, Primal Screams, suggests that people are basically social animals and that our connections are broken. A lot of our problems in society are the result of people having lost their sense of identity. Changes in how families function, or not, changes in where people live and work and move away from their roots, changes in the way the internet seems to be dividing us and making people feel scattered and lonelier, changes in the role of churches and other centers of moral guidance like more fathers in our homes, and the political strife blocking our ability to talk about the real issues are some of the concerns she raises.

We’re not helpless – we can make some important choices…

We do not have to be helpless victims. We can make choices about how we agree to work together. We can choose to…

  • be respectful of one another,
  • be aware of people who are bullying or harassing others and speak up about this,
  • listen to each other,
  • learn from each other,
  • look out for each other and be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers,
  • learn from our successes and our mistakes,
  • give each other the benefit of the doubt and not jump to judgement,
  • talk together about how to improve our jobs,
  • talk about our differences and figure a way through them,
  • create a safe space where it is okay for people to ask questions and provide feedback, and
  • help each other to be successful.

There are many things we can do in our workplaces to build a sense of community that is safe and productive.

What if…?

true character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressureIn thinking about your own place of work, what do you suppose it would be like if people did some of the things mentioned earlier in this newsletter? Do you think that you could begin talking with others about building a more respectful environment? What do you think it would be like if you could openly talk together about the important issues like improving the safety of your job? What would it be like if the managers and supervisors talked frequently about with everyone about how the business was doing the challenges from the competition? What would it be like if you knew that someone was looking out for your back? What would it be like if you felt you were in an environment of trust? What would it be like if people really asked important questions and talked about them? What would it be like if people in upper management asked you for your honest opinion and really listened? That’s called breaking the iceberg and engaging in authentic conversations!

YOU CAN MAKE THAT POSITIVE DIFFERENCE!

Each person can make a positive difference, if they decide to do it. It is a matter of will. If you do not step forward to make our workplaces safer and more productive, who will?

There must be people with whom you can partner and begin these focused conversations. These do not have to be big projects. Start slowly and spread it as it grows. Change happens one conversation at a time!

I would be glad to talk with any of you about building Partner-Centered Leadership with you. Please call me at 716-622-6467.


Partner-Centered Leadership – You don’t have to live like a pressure cooker!

There is a “workable pressure relief valve” already available to us to release these stress levels! It’s called Partner-centered Leadership.

The need for open, honest, disciplined, constructive dialog is critical. It is through these sorts of continuous conversations that people and organizations change. The positive energy for continuous improvement builds one conversation at a time over and over. Showing respect and caring for both the people’s mental and physical health, as well as for the success of the business, is critical. The business can’t succeed without the creativity and energy of the people and the people’s jobs can’t survive without excellent business performance.

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