The Three Biggest Safety Mistakes that Most Managers Make that Can Lead to Disaster and the Way Out.
The first Big Mistake is putting production first. Some managers are quite blunt and drive production without regard to the safety impact on the people. This sort of indifference is not common and these managers are fading away.
For most managers putting production first can be quite subtle with messages like:
- We have to get the product out and meet our schedules, but do it safely.
- We need to do it quicker and cheaper, but do it safely.
- We can’t miss a shipment.
- We’ll schedule maintenance when it is convenient.
- We’ve spent lots of money and time on training and equipment, now just get on with it and do it safely.
- The people cause injuries and incidents.
- There is lip service to safety, but it gets lost in the press for production.
The second Big Mistake is the normalization of drift. This can also be subtle since we want continuous improvement. We want changes that are carefully considered by co-workers, engineers and managers. These need to be documented as part of the Management of Change OSHA requirements.
But we do not want people making changes here and there with little consideration and no documentation. This can happen when a worker sees a better way to do his/her work and makes a little change. Then she/he sees another improvement and makes that change. Over time, many little changes accumulate to the point where deviance is accepted and the process suddenly goes out of control.
The third Big Mistake is having structural and cultural blocks to communications. Many organizations are structured in silos of specialization like engineering, maintenance, production, HR, accounting, shipping, etc., where people in one silo are not supposed to talk with people directly in another silo. They are supposed to communicate up through their line of management to the top of the silo and then that manager will pass the message down through his/her silo. Each time there is a step in the communication chain, information gets lost or changes or both.
Sometimes cultural practices block communications. Bullying, fear of criticism, messengers getting “shot”, etc. can also block the communications.
- People do not ask for your opinion.
- Management does not want bad news.
- The “boss” doesn’t listen.
- Mind your own business.
When communications are blocked, critical information is restricted and those who need to know it are unaware of what is happening and serious mistakes are made.
Here is the way out of this mess. All three of these Big Mistakes can be overcome.
- In opening up the communications in the organization where people can share and talk directly with those who need the information better decisions are made.
- When there is trust and interdependence, people listen to each other, critical information and decisions are openly discussed, and evaluated and much better decisions are made.
- When people see how they fit into the organization and the importance of their individual contributions, energy and creativity flows into their work.
It was fascinating to see the contrast between the usual, linear, mechanical approach to safety and The Complexity Leadership Process (CLP) that I discussed at my display table. A large number of people talked with me at my display table about The Complexity Leadership Process which was new to all of them. Many could not believe how quickly and dramatically the safety performance improved using the CLP. At one level the CLP looks like a simple employee involvement program, yet it is much more and also different at a deeper level than the usual employee involvement processes. One fellow, who recently wrote a book about changing the safety culture to excellence just brushed the CLP aside as something he’d already seen. The approach to safety excellence he’s written about involves 43 linear steps that take 3-5 times as long as the CLP and require a very high level of persistence and determination over many years.
