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!

Some Simple Rules

Production activity in most businesses is going up with all the changes in our economy.When there is a change in activity like this, we move into a danger zone. People are busier. More people are needed so the hiring picks up. Already there are reports of more serious injuries and fatalities showing up.

In a time like this, management must take a strong lead so the safety efforts pick up and fewer people get injured or killed. Extra attention is needed.

Simple Rules – Part I

simple safety rules should be followedOne of the most effective things that I did in stressful and changing times like these was to follow these three rules:

  1. Share Information
  2. Build Relationships
  3. Show how each person’s work connects to the larger business

First, I spent more time in the plant talking with the people, sharing information about all our safety, environmental and business activities. People were eager to know about these things so we had many good conversations. I talked about the importance of our safety work, the need to keep our standards high, and to work together so that we could all go home in one piece. I reported on our environmental standards and reports to the State and EPA. People felt good when I could report progress in lowering our environmental impact. I also reported bad news, if that was the case. I talked about our businesses, our key customers, and the need to keep providing high quality products on time and at competitive prices. We talked about near misses and the importance of learning from them and not covering them up. I emphasized the importance of all of us sharing information and talking together.

Second, as I engaged with the people in the plant, I was respectful and attentive to their ideas and thoughts. I answered their questions, and if I couldn’t, I promised I’d get back to them with an answer, and I did. I modeled the respectful behavior that we needed. We talked about the importance of treating each other with respect and that harassment and bullying were not acceptable. Sometimes we did not agree, but I never bullied or put people down. When I found that I was wrong about something, I would admit it and apologize. This always opened up the conversations where we could have honest dialogue. We created a safe space for the important conversations. I encouraged everyone to talk with whoever they needed to talk with (regardless of organizational level or department) to get the information they needed for their work.

Third, I shared a lot of information about the importance of their particular job to our total success and asked for their help. We talked together and learned more about our respective contributions.

These three leadership processes are very powerful in helping the organization to come together and grow. But I could not do it all myself. I needed a lot of help from everyone so that we could pick up our production activities and do it safely without environmental incidents.

Simple Rules – Part II

3 simple safety rulesThere are three important things that everyone needs to do to help to keep the safety performance and productivity high:

  1. Everyone needs to look out for themselves. Be sure you understand the work, have the right safety precautions in place, use the correct PPE, be sure to have the right people there to do the work safely, and being sure that lock-out/tag out procedures and other critical procedures are done. You need to get the rest you need to be sure that you are fit for the work and ask for help when it is needed.
  2. We all need to look out for each other, particularly when new people are coming into the workforce. The new people need to get up to speed and helping each other is critical. Help them to get oriented and learn how to use the PPE and other safety equipment. Teach them the right procedures. Keep an eye out for them to be sure they are fit for the work. If you see someone is getting into a problem, take the initiative and go to help them.
  3. Everyone needs to look out for this place where we are making our living. Keep things in order. Housekeeping needs to be excellent and the preventative maintenance needs gets done. The equipment inspections need to be up-to-date. Equipment should not be abused and damaged. Broken equipment should be repaired expediously and taken out of service if necessary. Work orders need to be addressed promptly.

We are all in this together. Managers and supervisors sharing information, building respect, trust and interdependence, and helping people to see the importance of their work for the success of the whole venture combined with everyone looking out for themselves, looking out for each other, and looking out for this place is a powerful way to keep the safety and production at levels of excellence even in a rapidly changing environment.

Simple Rules – Part III

your business safety rules will keep you preparedIn your tool box meetings or shift start meetings, consider expanding your thinking to imagine how someone could get killed in work planned for the day. This is beyond what most groups do, but is an excellent way to prevent an unlikely tragedy. Talk together about how a fatality could happen. Even the most unlikely scenario will happen one day. Talk about what is in place that will prevent the fatality if the event should happen. Then ask yourselves if these preventative measures are good enough to really protect you. If not, then consider what you need to do so that you will be protected from being killed if the unlikely event should happen.

Many fatalities happen because some really unexpected event occurs. In hind-sight the problems are obvious. Let’s try to make them obvious before hand and prevent an unnecessary death.

Want more information? Or hold a conversation on this? Please give me a call at 716-622-6467. I am pleased to share how simple rules make a difference – a big difference.

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