teamwork | Safety Excellence For Business

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

May 10, 2024 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

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.”

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.

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.

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!

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: communication in the workplace, improve how to work together, leadership safety, learn to work together, Partner-centered Leadership, safety in the workplace, safety meetings, stronger workplace relationships, team meetings in the workplace, teamwork, teamwork in the workplace, workplace safety

A New Season for Relationships in the Workplace

March 11, 2024 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

We are coming into a new season of nature with emerging flowers, nesting birds, new gardens, and sunny, warmer days.

It is a time of anticipation of all the new things emerging from the winter hibernation. There is excitement and anticipation in the air. There is hope for new things. Spring is all about change and renewal.

There is also hope for new relationships with our families, friends, and co-workers. The bright, warm sun warms us all.

Suppose we have a new season at work where we develop stronger, more supportive relationships among us. Just imagine the positive impact this would have. There would probably be a lot fewer people getting hurt and a lot less toxicity if our workplaces were filled with caring and support.

New Relationships

In our February blog post, I introduced the idea of a Cycle of Change, which I show here.

How much stronger would this Cycle of Change be if we could work together in an environment of caring and support? What would the morale look like? Would we be looking out for each other and helping where we could? Would we have more open conversations about what is going on and how we could improve things? Would there be a lot less bullying, dysfunction, and workplace violence? Would there be less fear and anxiety? Would the level of understanding among all organizational levels be a lot better? Would conflict between the people on the floor and the supervisors be less? Would we be growing a more sustainable, stronger culture? Would safety and environmental performance be better? Would productivity, quality, cost effectiveness, competitiveness be better?

It is interesting to think that all these would improve by just working on supporting and caring for each other. How we chose to work together has a big impact.

There are a lot of “would” words written above. And this one is used pointedly…Would that we all could understand and embrace this fundamental of life: “We change through the work we do together.” Leaders, especially need to connect these dots!

Making Our Choice

Who decides that supporting and caring are important relationships to work on? Who will make you work this way? Are the ideas of support and caring important to you?

If they are important, can you act on them and spread this way of working, one person at a time? Can you help, and support each other as you spread this way of working?

Each of us can make a positive impact if we want to. What do you want? What do you decide?

Call me at 716-622-6467 and I’ll walk you through how quickly and easily you can adopt this framework to your business, your team, your group.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: bullying in the workplace, improve how to work together, learn to work together, safety in the workplace, safety leadership, stronger workplace relationships, teamwork, teamwork in the workplace, workplace safety, workplace support, workplace violence

We Change Through the Work Itself: It is not complicated!

February 10, 2024 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

There’s a need for the crucial conversations to help the people in the organization to raise their awareness and identify ways to improve how they do their work together.

We often fall into routines, and skip thinking and talking about ways to improve things. Sometimes safety consultants are brought in to talk about the need to change the mindset of the workers and improve their safety culture.

I have a real problem with this approach.

The word “worker” sends a message that these people are somehow below us and maybe not so smart as we are. This is a terrible message. These people who are doing the work are really not much different than the rest of us. They have families, are paying their mortgages, paying their credit card debts, buying cars, etc. Most of the time they do their work safely and well. Why do we so often, at work, treat them as somehow inferior? In my experience, trying to fix and change someone’s mindset is a hard sell, meeting with resistance and often resentment.

Many of these “change” consultants offer various ways to change the culture, hoping that the people’s mindsets will also change. Most of these changes come across like New Years Resolutions. They sound good, but after a month or two, we drift back to our old habits and nothing really changes.

Change is a process and not a thing.

In my experience change comes about as we work together on something we need to improve, find better ways to do the work to make the improvement, agree on how we will do the work and then do the work. Change comes about through the experience of doing the work itself, together, and learning from that experience. The process looks something like this picture.

change comes about through work experience

This way of working requires open, honest conversations where everyone feels safe enough to share and contribute. As we learn together, amazing improvements begin to emerge. Visualize this as a learning helix. Each step lifts us from level to level.

The people who are close to the work have the best knowledge of what needs to be done. They do not have it all, so they need to talk with people outside the group like safety professionals, engineers, and others to be sure their ideas are the best they can be.

It will be interesting for you to talk together about these ideas. It would be fun to see how it works for you and your organization. Make a modest start and see what happens.

work issues can be solved together

As leaders in workplaces, we need to do better. Give me a call at 716-622-6467 or contact me via email and let’s talk about how you can do this – working with a real problem and genuinely involving the people – sharing their best to make it happen together.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: improve how to work together, learn to work together, partnering in the workplace, safety culture, safety in the workplace, safety leadership, teamwork, teamwork in the workplace, workplace safety, workplace support

Safety Works When People Work and Learn Together

January 10, 2024 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

The year 2023 was a busy and active year with all the increased business activities, increased construction, and lots of safety conferences.

I congratulate those of you who made progress in improving your company’s safety performance and had more people going home in one piece. It is a wonderful thing to know that you made a positive difference in someone’s life.

The safety challenges were difficult and relentless. The preliminary reports indicate that overall, the number of people getting killed or injured went up in most areas around the world, including the United States. There is so much to deal with like drugs, violence, the push for people to produce more and more with limited resources, more reporting, and the uncertain political and economic climate that is so distracting.

What sorts of changes can we all make in the way we are doing our safety work?

Just doing what we are doing, but harder and faster is not getting the improvements we need. Putting more safety people into the work may make a small difference, but not the step change we need to make.

My Learnings

One of the things I found that really made a big difference when I was working as a plant manager was going out among the people listening, talking together, getting to know them, and the challenges they had in doing their work. These are the people actually doing the physical work of manufacturing.

As a manager, sitting in my office, I had almost no idea about their daily challenges they faced in doing their jobs. I was also worried that they were getting various messages from me, the other managers, and supervisors that put them into a bind. They were struggling with messages like work safely but get the pounds out. They were unclear about priorities and goals. I think they were all trying to do their jobs as well as they could, but it was like working in a fog.

As we talked together, the messages got a lot more clear. I got a much better understanding of their challenges and difficulties. I could not do their jobs; I just did not know how to do their work. So, I started to ask them for their ideas about how I could help them in doing their work.

It was slow at first, but as trust began to build, a lot of good ideas emerged. Many problems they could solve themselves, so I encouraged them to talk together and figure out a good solution. If it was safe and workable, then let’s try it a see how it worked.

A Deep Learning Developed

I did not know how to do the Level 1 work where the actual manufacturing tasks took place, and they did not know how to do the Level 2 work that I was doing. We lacked the experience, information, and knowledge that we each had. All I could do was to ask the people how I could help make the systems better so their work went better, and the people could ask me about the things that I was saying to make the messages and goals more consistent and clearer.

The frontline people got a lot better at doing their Level 1 work and I got a lot better at doing the Level 2 work. As we worked together improving our Level 1 and 2 work, we also talked a lot about the importance of treating each other with respect, really listening and learning together. We learned to help each other better, talk together better, and learn better. These shared values were our Level 3 work and applied to all of us. We discovered that the values in Level 3 applied to all we did so that our work at Levels 1 and 2 went a whole lot better.

Over time, in working together like this for about 4 years, our injury rates went down around 97%, emissions to the air, water and ground went down about 95%, and earnings went up around 300%. All aspects of our work improved. We all did it together.

For the New Year

I ask you to think about how you can begin to do safety differently and make the breakthroughs you want to make.

Workplace Safety is a Local Issue

Improvements in the safety performance (fewer deaths, injuries and incidents) is a local issue. These improvements have to be made by the people working in the particular jobs and activities. Ideas and edicts can come down from on high, but they do not make the place safer. If they could, we would already have injury-free workplaces.

The people, working together, as I described, make the difference. The work has to apply to the specific work and tasks by the people who are involved at Levels 1, 2 and 3.

When people at the facility level decide to work this way together,
amazing things happen.

Let’s have an amazing year!

My offer to you: Give me a call (716-622-6467) so we can talk together about working at Levels 1, 2 and 3. Let’s see what happens.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: improve safety performance, learn to work together, partnering in the workplace, safety in the workplace, safety leadership, safety training, teamwork, teamwork in the workplace, workplace safety, workplace support

The Focus on Safety Situations is Not Working Well

November 10, 2023 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

Each day I read in various news reports and items about different safety situations and people getting hurt or killed.

It is rare that there is no report of a fatality somewhere.

These are real people getting killed doing their work. Most of these incidents are not new. Things like a boiler explosion, a grain silo explosion, a train wreck, someone caught between things, someone falling, a crane tipping over, a fire in a refinery, a boat accident, and I could go on and on. It is very sad to think of all the families, their losses and suffering.

The technology is there to avoid most of these situations. There are often safety people somewhere around the incident. Presumably there are supervisors around. Most of these incidents are not occurring with people who are working alone. Who is paying attention?

Tool-box sessions at the start of the day help some organizations.

Training is advocated by a lot of people. Some safety professionals look closely at the causes of these incidents. Sometimes the employer is cited by OSHA or fined. Some states pass new laws to try to force better compliance. All this is focused at things and situations, and not having the positive impact we all want.

Partnering with the People

All this safety stuff, the good and the bad, occurs through people. Most people want to be engaged and involved in their own safety…if anyone will listen. Many people are angry and cynical about safety because no one listens and just imposes the rules. Meaningful conversation is missing.

safety is about teamwork

One of the top reasons the OSHA cites organizations is the lack of proper hazards communications.

Hazard Communicating is a core element of any OSHA safety training compliance program, yet it has often been trivialized. You would think that supervisors and safety people would utilize the HazCom opportunity to converse with employees on a regular basis – not wait for an annual review.

Hazards are in the workplace; people need to understand the hazards and Management needs to create the conditions for meaningful, respectful conversations to occur. The conversation avenue for partnering is right there – among our people, not only about hazardous chemicals, but about all safety concerns…all people concerns. Why is there this level of disrespect for the people doing the work? Who cares? This is not difficult work. It takes commitment and time, but aren’t these both worth doing to save a life?

As I engage with people about their work, they are usually quite willing to talk about it, and often have good ideas about how to improve the situation. I have found that in talking together to explore what is the best way to do something, the people get quite interested and pay a lot more attention to what they are doing. Talking with the people, listening, and learning together results in a lot fewer injuries and incidents.

Our safety efforts across the various industries needs to shift to working with the people. We need to help people do things right. We do not need new safety philosophies; we need to be with the people, talking together, listening, learning, growing, and releasing our skills and insights to really make a difference to improving workplace safety.

All of you can walk among the people in your organizations, talking together, listening, learning, and doing together. Try it for 20 minutes a day, every day, for a few months and see what happens. What do you suppose you will begin to see and hear?

Changes Before Us

Change is a time when the possibility for getting hurt increases. By the time you read this, we will have shifted back to standard time. Daylight hour will change. Conditions around commuting will change with different hours and day light.

Some people will be extra tired until they adjust to the different hours. Work conditions may change. Our weather will be getting colder, often wetter, and slippery. Our windshields will need scraping, so we need to start a little earlier.

All this change, the bigger and the smaller ones, will cause us to be more alert and focused. Please pay attention to yourself, others and come home safely each day.

Below is a link to a short recap video on Hazards Communication. As you watch this, count how many opportunities you are provided with daily to:

1) Talk up general and/or chemical safety
2) Converse respectfully with an employee about the work
3) Respect and honor the individual and the task being done

Communicating is a huge key to Partnering in the Workplace. HazCom communications lend an excellent start for meaningful conversations across the board.

Hazard Communication Training for General Industry
from SafetyVideos.com

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership, Safety Partnership Tagged With: hazards communications, OSHA, partnering in the workplace, reducing risks in the workplace, safety in the workplace, safety leadership, safety situations in the workplace, safety training, teamwork, teamwork in the workplace, workplace safety, workplace support

Are You Convinced that Working Safely is a Good Thing?

March 10, 2023 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

What future lies ahead for safety?

The Winter 2022 HR Magazine has some interesting insights about looking into the future of work. While their focus is on Human Resources, we know that HR and Safety go hand-in-hand. The same future scenarios are coming for Safety Professionals and Leaders.

The Covid pandemic and aftermath became an ugly reminder of how difficult it is to predict and prepare for the future. Yet that doesn’t mean that safety leaders shouldn’t think ahead – especially when there are no absolutes. Older, experienced workers are retiring, and the digital revolution continues. It is not too early to start thinking and preparing for new generations to be taking over or that effective digital training will become a necessity. It is never too soon to think about preparing employees to expect the unexpected…to prepare for what may not yet be known.

One quote that struck me (in this article regarding future training) was, “You’ve got to convince people why they need to do the work, and it’s not just ‘because you’re paying me to do it.’”

For decades, now we’ve been teaching our workers the “why” to work safely, so that they can go home at the end of their shift whole – with life and limb intact – eyes, ears, fingers, toes. The “why” becomes evident with every piece of protective equipment that is required…the last line of defense.

Convincing people that being able to go home to their families in the same condition as they entered the workplace is the goal, without being maimed, having long-term disability, or worse, a fatality in the workplace. That is the “why” that underscores workplace safety.

The next “why” is what we all should know as human beings…we grow, we develop, we learn, we solve problems…individually and together. There is much value to learn by experience, and to learn by training mechanisms that are most effective to the task, the job, the larger picture. Learning while doing work fulfills a natural need for personal and professional growth.

The final “why” is because our economy runs by money…we live the way we choose because we have money to spend on our own pursuit of happiness…when we work, we get paid; when we are paid we provide for ourselves and loved ones; we contribute to the economy in the system in which we exist.

Because of the changing futures (as noted above), Teamwork will become the new game plan. Healthy culture and trust will have to draw more focus. The article notes that scrums, sprints, and squads will be widespread as employers draw workers from all over the company and even from outside the organization to work on projects together. You’ll see a breaking away from hierarchical ways of working and putting people into these newer constructs. Putting together effective project teams is the way of the future.

In safety, however, this is not new. The best safety improvement teams and trouble-shooting/problem solving endeavors have drawn from people across the workplace – where sharing ideas, prompting new innovations, and, ultimately, improving the safety of the workplace (system changes, process flows, etc.) spring forth from people who have knowledge of the concern, a relationship to what’s at stake, a voice and information to share, experience to convey, and an overall desire to make things better.

In safety, the “buddy” system is tried and true. Looking out for our workplace “brothers/sisters” – everyone – has been a mainstay to help ensure that people not only get the job done well, but that they get the job done safely. The individual “person” has a valued life – underscoring the “why our workplaces have to be safe, and work be meaningful.”

While signage in the workplace helps us with prompts to work safely, taking cues from those we work with, paying attention, having situational awareness for ourselves and others must be the norm. That’s not a bold prediction – that’s a bold requirement in my mind, for the present and the future of work.

We’re all in this together.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: buddy system, project teams in the workplace, protective equipment, safety leaders, safety leadership, safety professionals, teamwork, teamwork in the workplace, work safely, working safely in the workplace, workplace safety, workplace safety in the future

Working Together Makes All the Difference

November 10, 2021 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

When we are asked to come into an organization to help them improve their safety performance, we do not work on safety in the traditional sense.

We work with them to identify an important, complex problem they want to solve. It needs to be a problem that everyone thinks they know about and wants to solve. While the stated problem is something like, “How do we improve our total safety performance?,” their problems are usually much deeper than this surface level. We help the people to find the deeper problem that is driving a lot of their poor safety performance.

We then gather a group of people together from across the organization, from the top management to people on the floor, and have a focused conversation about their problems. Our workshops usually last 1-2 days, depending on the size of the organization. As the people open up, a lot of important information emerges. Their answers are arranged around a circle (circles indicate wholeness), and they discover who and what they are as a group and how to work together in resolving this concern for the long-term.

This figure illustrates the process:

As they look at their question from these nine perspectives, the collective intelligence of the whole group rises. People often tell us that they did not know that they knew so much.

As they talk together, they discover that their main problem is in how they chose to work together which they describe when they talk about their Principles and Standards. Initially, a lot of dysfunctional behavior surfaces. They see that stuff like bullying, harassment, and lying are really causing their poor performance across the organization. It’s not just in poor safety performance. These poor behaviors contaminate all their work.

Paul Glover of the Forbes Coaches Council reported recently in LinkedIn that 48% of American workers are looking for other work because of dysfunctional behaviors like these, 70% see no reason to speak up about problems because they fear their bosses and co-workers, and only 33% are working at optimal levels. There is little psychological safety for raising and resolving problems together. Many organizations are in denial about problems like these. These dysfunctional behaviors adversely impact all aspects of the organization’s performance, and lots of people want to get out of there. Leadership, unfortunately, is in denial – often because egos are involved, or they don’t know how to turn things around. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way!

Note: This model works, when you decide it is time to make that big difference for your organization, to be intentional about the safety of your people! This model becomes your extraordinary leadership magnet for improved safety performance – because it contains all the critical elements – and because it is collaborative, alignment and effectiveness comes quickly.

Most people want to work in organizations where everyone is working together for the good of the whole. Leaders are seeking better ways for embracing safety. People want to be proud of their place of work and feel good about it. So, in our workshops we help the people to tap into this way of working and everything gets better, quickly. For example, we have seen the safety performance change for the better the very next day. When people decide that they want to change, they do it.

Call me at 716-622-6467 soon and share with me the safety concerns that are happening in your organization. It’s a free consultation. Leaders are looking for answers…I’ll demonstrate for you how quickly your safety issues can be rectified, and your people can be more engaged in the betterment, as well.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: 360 degree collaboration model, business safety, embracing safety in the workplace, leadership in the workplace, organizational safety, organizational success, reducing workplace violence, safety performance, stop workplace violence, teamwork, working together makes a difference, workplace safety, workplace violence