The Safety Side Effect

Things Supervisors do that, Coincidentally, Improve Safety

by Phillip Ragain

Common sense tells us that leaders play a special role in the performance of their employees, and there is substantial research to help us understand why this is the case.  For example, Stanley Milgram’s famous studies of obedience in the 1960s demonstrated that, to their own dismay, people will administer what they think are painful electric shocks to strangers when asked to do so by an authority figure.  This study and many others reveal that leaders are far more influential over the behavior of others than is commonly recognized.  

In the workplace, good leadership usually translates to better productivity, efficiency and quality.  Coincidentally, as research demonstrates, leaders whose teams are the most efficient and consistently productive also usually have the best safety records.  These leaders do not necessarily “beat the safety drum” louder than others.  They aren’t the ones with the most “Safety First” stickers on their hardhats or the tallest stack of “near miss” reports on their desks; rather, their style of leadership produces what we call the “Safety Side Effect.”  The idea is this: Safe performance is a bi-product of the way that good leaders facilitate and focus the efforts of their subordinate employees.  But what, specifically, produces this effect?

Over a 30 year period, we have asked thousands of employees to describe the characteristics of their best boss - the boss who sustained the highest productivity, quality and morale.  This “Best Boss” survey identified 20 consistently recurring characteristics, which we described in detail during our 2012 Newsletter series.  On close inspection, one of these characteristic - “Holds Himself and Others Accountable for Results” - plays a significant role in bringing about the Safety Side Effect.  Best bosses hold a different paradigm of accountability.  Rather than viewing accountability as a synonym for “punishment,” these leaders view it as an honest and pragmatic effort to redirect and resolve failures.  When performance failure occurs, the best boss...

1. consistently steps up to the failure and deals with it immediately or as soon as possible after it occurs;
2. honestly explores the many possible reasons WHY the failure occurred, without jumping to the simplistic conclusion that it was one person’s fault; and
3. works with the employee to determine a resolution for the failure.

When a leader approaches performance failure in this way, it creates a substantially different working environment for subordinate employees - one in which employees:

1. do not so quickly become defensive when others stop their unsafe behavior
2. focus more on resolving problems than protecting themselves from blame, and
3. freely offer ideas for improving their own safety performance.

3 Considerations When Implementing New Policies & Procedures

by Michael Allen

Most organizations have policies and procedures that they expect employees to follow.  One difference between the best organizations and the rest is how those policies and procedures integrate with various components of the organization.  In this blog we will detail three key organizational components that the best take into consideration when evaluating and implementing new policies and procedures.  Let’s begin with an example of the impact of a new policy and its associated procedure in a normal organization.  

Company XYZ was having problems tracking expenses incurred by their employees when they were traveling on company business.  To deal with these issues, they decided to institute a policy that all employees must use a new web-based program to record all expenses, scan receipts, and track payment.  The procedure was straight forward and only required an employee to log into the system using their employee number, input requested information including the vendor name,  total amount spent, and scans of receipts.  When the information was completed the employee simply hit submit and the program took over from there.  The CFO was very excited about this new policy because it was going to make his life and his office staff’s job much easier.  Six month’s later they went back to their paper tracking system because they had continued complaints from employees and they terminated one employee who refused to use the system.  The CFO determined that it was a failure because employee’s were simply too irresponsible to use a new and simple procedure.

So how do the best avoid these types of problems?  Do they simply hire more responsible and competent employees or is there something else?  With the example above in mind, let’s examine how the best organizations look at three key factors to help develop and implement new initiatives, including policies and procedures.

1.  The Individual Employee (Self):


People are very complex and make decisions about things on the basis of a variety of factors which include knowledge and past experience.  People are also typically averse to change because it requires effort and many times is counter to the habits that they have developed over time.  The best organizations want to affect both the knowledge and habits of employees to ensure that they actually comply with new P&P.  In the case of the expense tracker, the best organizations might train employees on the proper use of the software and hardware (computer and scanner) and on the value associated with the new procedure, so that they had the necessary knowledge and skills and were therefore competent and motivated to use the new procedure.  They could also address old habits with email reminders, signage in the workplace, or other means to prompt a break in the old habits associated with the paper tracking system.

2.  Other People in the Organization and How They Affect the Individual Employee (Others):

The performance of individual employees is influenced by the people around them in significant and specific ways.  Two of the common factors exerting this influence are the “help” and “model” provided by others.  When an employee is experiencing difficulty with the execution of a new procedure because of knowledge, skill or resources, getting assistance from a coworker can provide the needed support to create success.  The best organizations create work environments where peer support and assistance is both encouraged and reinforced by management.  Modeling simply means that other people demonstrate that they are accepting change by utilizing and supporting the new policy or procedure.  When an employee sees others using the new procedure to input their expenses without complaint, they are more likely to want to comply with the policy.  If they see other employees, especially the boss, not doing so then they are more likely to see the new policy as a mere suggestion and resist or avoid the new procedure all together.

3.  The “Stuff” Around Us That Impacts Our Performance (Surroundings):

The best policies and procedures are merely good ideas without the surroundings to support their use.  Our employees work in environments that not only include other people, but also physical surroundings such as climate, equipment and the layout of that equipment.  These physical surroundings impact the ease with which people can implement new policies and procedures.  Let’s return to our expense report example.  The operations of the XYZ company are often conducted at remote sites that don’t have  the tools of a modern office.  Employees have laptops but wifi and scanners are only located at central field offices.  Employees rarely spend any significant time in these offices, rather they perform their work out in the field.  The equipment they need to use the new procedure is a resource that they would have to travel great distances, after hours to use.  For these employees, in these surroundings it was just easier to turn in paper receipts and reports hoping somebody else would log it for them.

Managers in the best organizations understand that the knowledge and habits of individual employees, the help and model provided by others, and the surroundings in which employees find themselves are significant factors in determining the successful utilization of organizational policies and procedures.  They understand that without deliberately addressing each of these contextual factors they are likely to fail in the implementation of new initiatives.

4 Steps to Influence Mission "Buy-in"

How can I influence employees to "buy-in" to the mission of the organization?

by Ron Ragain, Ph.D.

As we stated in our last newsletter, the mission of an organization “is its reason for existing, its purpose, where it is headed”.  People need to know, understand and “buy-in” to the mission so that they can “get on board” and help with its accomplishment.  But how can you get them “on board”?  

Average organizations assume that people are on board when they read the mission statement, so they place signs and even plaques around their facilities, on the walls in conspicuous places, so that employees are always aware of the mission.  We call this “buy-in by proclamation” and it is a strategy that a lot of managers use when giving assignments and introducing change.  However, while awareness is essential, it is not sufficient for buy-in.  

The key is to “influence”, not to dictate or merely proclaim.   Influence is not related to “power” but rather to understanding and therefore requires communication of the impact of accepting the mission and the individual’s role in its accomplishment.  This requires communication of something more than the mere mission statement.  It requires communication of the relationship of the organization’s mission to the success of the organization, the individual and society in general.  We recommend following a 4-step process in communicating these relationships.  

1. Articulate the importance of the mission to the success of the organization.
2. Articulate the importance of the mission to the individual team members.
3. Articulate the importance of the mission to society/customers.
4. Communicate 1, 2 and 3.

While we could discuss these steps in the abstract, it might be helpful to use a specific example, so let’s use The RAD Group’s mission statement as that example.

“The RAD Group’s mission is to improve individual, team and organizational performance.  We seek to provide products and services that help leaders create a culture in which employees are skilled, motivated and able to serve all stakeholders - employees, investors/owners, customers and others.”

1.  Articulate the importance of the mission to the success of the organization.  This mission statement helps to guide our decision making relative to what products and services we develop.  Not all products and services fit with our mission and we only consider those that do.  Likewise, not all products and services that fit our mission are accepted or developed; only those that are deemed to contribute to both the success of our customers and the success of The RAD Group.

2.  Articulate the importance of the mission to the individual team members.  Every team member of The RAD Group understands that his/her success is in some part tied to the success of the organization.  Likewise, every team member understands how his/her performance impacts the success of every other team member and therefore, our ability to succeed as an organization.  Marketing impacts our image, research impacts the quality of the products and services that we develop and delivery impacts our reputation and impact on the performance of our customers.  The understanding of this connectedness increases the motivation of each of our team members to work toward the accomplishment of our mission.  

3.  Articulate the importance of the mission to society/customers.  This may sound a bit lofty, but we need to understand that if our mission does not provide value to society, and especially our customers, that there is little or no reason to exist as an organization.  We believe that what we do provides value to our customers by improving their performance and we constantly challenge ourselves to both demonstrate and increase that value.

4.  Communicate 1, 2 and 3.  While we do attempt to communicate our mission formally through papers, speeches and marketing materials, communication does not have to only be formal.  It can be done through conversation with customers and within the organization by respectfully challenging and evaluating ideas to determine if they align with the mission.  We bring our mission statement to life, not by having it on a plaque (although we do have it on our business cards as a reminder), but rather by asking ourselves regularly if our products and services are improving the individual, team and organizational performance of our customers.  We also attempt to measure that impact to help us fine tune those products and services.

You Might Not Always Get What You Want

By Michael Allen

What does it mean to have a "Formal Culture" and an "Informal Culture"?

Have you ever instituted a new policy or procedure into your organization, spent countless hours and dollars trying to drive the initiative throughout the organization, only to see it fall flat?  Organizations large and small face a similar problem -- how to make their organization become what they envision it to be.  

When organizational experts refer to the overall performance of an organization, they often use the word “culture”.  While there is disagreement on the exact definition of organizational culture, most would agree that it includes the values and behaviors that the majority of participants engage in; what most of the people believe and do most of the time.  This is called the “informal culture” as compared to the “formal culture”, or what the leadership wants the culture to be.  It makes no difference if your organization is a large corporation, a small “mom and pop”, a non-profit, or an educational institution, each of you have a formal and informal culture.  One aspect of great organizations is that they close the gap between the two cultures so that “what’s going on  - out there” very much resembles the vision of leadership.  

“Informal Culture is what 

most of the people believe and do 

most of the time.”

You may wonder if these great organizations close this culture gap by hiring the “right people”, or if they do something more intentional to close this gap.  The answer quite simply is both.  Great organizations start with great people, but they also understand and affect the other aspects of their culture.  

The Best Organizations

The best organizations don’t stop with simply creating rules and policies, they do much more to impact the everyday behavior of their employees.  If you’ll refer back to our August 2012 Post on the role of contextual factors in industrial safety incident prevention, the very best bosses and organizations understand that human performance is a result of complex systems.  Organizational factors such as rules, policies, and reward systems are only a portion of the complex system that drives human performance.  The best organizations understand that it is also people, both the individual and intact teams, plus surroundings that drive their overall performance.  If the employee base has failed to implement a new directive from leadership, there could be several reasons affecting this.  It could be that employees don’t understand the new initiative, operational pressures contradict the initiative, they don’t have the equipment necessary to make it happen, or a myriad of other factors.  The very best organizations are those that are able to gather field intelligence detailing actual performance and factors driving the performance, and then institute corrective measures that enable the workforce to align their own performance with the vision of leadership.

So what does that mean for you if you are in an organization with a gap between your formal and informal cultures?  We would first encourage you to perform a cultural analysis to get a better understanding of your informal culture.   With this knowledge you will be able to  understand what contextual factors are driving the performance of your employees.  This information will allow you to initiate corrective measures to close the gap between your formal and informal cultures.  The best organizations don’t make the mistake of simply focusing on changing people, they focus on the entire context to enable those on board to perform to a higher standard.

Dreaming of Greener Pasture

by Michael Allen

How do I find personal satisfaction in an organization that doesn't seem interested in being effective?

This is a very important question for all of those who have spent time working in seemingly heartless or meaningless organizations.  In January’s newsletter we defined an effective organization as one that meets its stated goals and accomplishes its stated mission.  But of course, by this definition, low goals and unimportant missions can create effectiveness and this would miss the point, therefore we add that effective organizations are those where the mission and goals are ones that people would want to invest in and/or participate in because they bring value to not only the individual, but also customers and society in general.  

So what about the employee who is stuck in an organization that doesn’t seem to meet these criteria?  The easy answer is to simply quit and find a better organization.  While this may seem to be the prudent decision, is it the right one?  Let’s now refer back to the original question and focus on a key word in the question - “seem”.  Often times employees can only guess as to what their organization’s goals and mission may be because they have not been clearly articulated (our February Newsletter topic).  Until one clearly understands where leadership is wanting to take the organization, employees should not make bad guesses about their willingness to be effective.  This is where candid and frank conversation with leadership is critical to clearly understand the mission.

For argument’s sake, let’s make the assumption that the employee is actually working in an organization that simply has no intention of meeting our definition of an effective organization.  How do we find personal satisfaction without simply leaving for greener pastures?  At this point the employee needs to focus on what they can control and influence within the organization.  They have control over their own performance and influence over the performance of their team.  To this end, an objective setting and strategy exercise can help the person move toward higher satisfaction.  We would recommend that the employee set short, intermediate and long term objectives for themselves and, where possible, their team.  These objectives should meet five SMART criteria. 

1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Attainable
4. Relevant
5. Time Bound

Once we have SMART objectives in mind, the next step would be to create a task list which would take us step-by-step to the accomplishment of each objective.  The key to reaching our objective is to stick to the plan while measuring its effectiveness.  These measurements of effectiveness are critical to determining if we are on the right track.  If the measurements are in-line, we should continue on course until the objective is met.  If the measurements show that we are somehow failing, we need to either tweak the task list, or reassess the objective.

We find that those who focus on individual and team objectives, with a sound strategy for attaining and measuring, have greater satisfaction and better performance than those who simply go to work every day, counting the days until the next paycheck.  In the end, organizational effectiveness is impacted by both organizational mission and employee performance.  Not all of us have control or even influence over mission, but we all have considerable impact on our own performance and the objectives that we set can help improve that performance and ultimately our satisfaction.

The Positive Side of Conflict

by Phillip Ragain

We usually treat conflict like a pest - a plague on organizational efficiency and effectiveness.  It disrupts operations, sours cultures and inhibits collaboration.  But is it always and entirely bad?  We suggest that there are two overlooked sides to conflict that, if managed correctly, can be harnessed for good and give your organization a boost:

1. Conflict gives rise to conversations about "undiscussables".  These are things that silently constrain healthy interaction among employees and that need to be resolved, but are considered minor enough that they do not outweigh the risk associated with trying to resolve them.  For example, employees might perceive that leadership does not respect their contributions.  This would normally be a topic of conversation that employees choose to avoid when in the company of the organization's leaders because, while bothersome, it is not so severe a problem that it warrants "rocking the boat."  When conflict arises, though, there are usually strong emotions involved and the parties will bring up issues such as this, which, in more sober moments, would be considered "undiscussable."  It then becomes the responsibility of the leader to take the opportunity to learn from the conflict driven discussion and make changes that will lead to increased productivity within their team.

2. Differences in opinion (conflict) can also fuel productive creativity.  Substantial research by Dr. Charlan Nemeth has demonstrated that, when people disagree, they put significantly more effort into supporting their positions.  In other words, we think through, develop and vet our own ideas much more thoroughly when we have to defend them against countervailing pressures.  Conflict among individuals can present such countervailing pressure and therefore increase analysis of ideas and lead to more positive discussion and thus increased creativity.  It goes without saying that such increased creativity can, when managed effectively also lead to organizational improvement and innovation.

Unfortunately, conflict is usually a destructive force in organizations.  People disagree, emotions elevate and the social bonds that keep organizations operating effectively begin to dissolve.  When unmanaged, this is what most conflict creates, but we have proposed that conflict has a positive side.  It presents us with an opportunity.  The key, of course, is for the conflict to be handled well.  When people (1) understand the anatomy of conflict - how and why it fuels emotional fires and spirals out of control - and (2) possess the skills to redirect conflict into healthy conversations, conflict becomes a uniquely positive force on organizations.

The Secret to Conflict Resolution -- Stop Compromising

by Michael Allen

We hear the word “compromise” anytime we turn on the TV or read a newspaper article about how the U.S. Congress should fix our fiscal woes.  Talking heads and Joe Public alike beg for more compromise to fix the situation.  Is it possible that compromise is what is putting us in such a predicament?  Compromise is based on giving up something you want, thus it is based on “losing”.  As that term suggests, I give a little, you give a little, and we meet somewhere in the middle at an agreement.  While compromise sounds like the best way to get unstuck, it actually leaves both parties feeling unsatisfied, almost as if they gave up too much.  

To truly resolve conflict we suggest another “C” word -- “Collaboration”.  To collaborate, two or more parties must brainstorm ideas to fix a problem.  The goal, in the end, is to walk away with a solution that is more likely to truly “fix” the situation over which the parties were at odds to begin with.  The process is really pretty easy.  First, the two parties must come to an agreement on a goal that they both want to achieve.  Once that goal is agreed on, they brainstorm ways to get them to their shared goal.  No giving up one’s beliefs or buying into the other guy’s beliefs, simply agreed upon strategies that can get both parties what they have agreed that they both want.  The task then is to choose one solution that both parties have already agreed will achieve the common goal.

Let’s look at an actual conflict that shows how this works.  There was a state in the Southern U.S. that was having violent clashes between Pro-Choice and Pro-Life groups.  The state’s governor knew he must do something before more violence led to somebody’s death.  He told his assistant that he wanted the leadership of both groups to meet with him so they could come to some sort of agreement to stop the violence.  His assistant, thinking the governor had lost his mind, questioned if getting these two groups together in the same room was wise, but the governor insisted.  

When the meeting did occur, both sides were at each other’s throats from the moment they arrived in the meeting room.  The governor eventually created calm so that he could address the restless crowd.  What he told them was surprising even to is staff.  He said, “As you all know, we have a significant teen pregnancy problem in our state.  We rank 49^th out of the 50 states in teen pregnancies and 50^th in the number of teenaged abortions.  What I need from you is to help me solve this problem.  I need your ideas for cutting back the rate of teen pregnancy so that we can cut the number of abortions in the state.”  Both sides instantly changed their demeanor.  After all, the vast majority of abortions are performed on teenaged mothers.  If they could solve that problem, their debate would become moot.  

For the next few weeks both sides met and came up with a strategy to lower the pregnancy rate of girls in their state.  They worked together, civilly to reach a common goal, and in the end, they lowered the teen aged pregnancy rate over 50% in their state.  

How about you, how does this work in your world?  Can you find a common goal to work towards rather than trying to determine what you are willing to give up, and therefore feeling unsatisfied?  Stop compromising when you are at odds with your co-worker, spouse, or neighbor and find a way to create an action plan that gets you both to a mutual goal.  If only they understood this in Washington.