A little while ago, I participated in a workshop for CEOs discussing health
and safety matters. We did the usual workshop thing of breaking into table
discussions and feeding back to the group in time-honored fashion. It is
relatively rare to bring together such a large group of influencers, so I was
looking forward to the output and the opportunity it could give to drive
wholesale improvements across a number of businesses and their supply chains –
as the principal topic was contractor engagement and supply chain management.
Unfortunately, the output did not live up to its billing. There are many
thousands of discussions, blogs and articles on the difference between
leadership and management, so I won’t repeat them here. Suffice to say that
there was a lot of management and not a lot of leadership. Worse still, it
wasn’t even corporate management – it was safety management. Improvement areas
included better early engagement, more efficient pre-qualification processes
and ideas for leading indicators. As safety practitioners, while always being
open to new ideas and not wanting to dismiss their input, this is not really
what we need from CEOs. We can design the transactional safety management part
ourselves and have (hopefully) got that aspect covered.
So, what do we need?
This is not intended to be a treatise on contractor management, but for this
particular topic it could include:
-
Leading a mind-set change to start treating
contractors like partners in achieving the business goals, rather than
disposable resources we throw work at
- Changing contractual models so that cost and
corner cutting are not so well rewarded, with associated pressures on safe work
- A return to employing the front-line workforce
instead of ever extending long tails of contractors in the supply chain
culminating in hundreds of itinerant sole traders
These all require changes in philosophy and the underlying approach to how
we think about our work. They are not quick fix actions to be taken
immediately. Yet, frequently when interfacing with executives and boards, the
requirement is for just that – quick fix actions. They are busy people; they
need to know what it is they have to do. They can’t spend hours thinking about
things. After all, a board may only meet once a quarter for a day. They simply
don’t have time to “waste.” Many discussions have come to a close based on a
statement of, “This is all very well, but what are the two or three things we
are going to go away and actually do?”
Partly, this is due to the reality of a senior role – there is a lot to do –
but it also an embodiment of the well-known Peter Principle, which states that
people are promoted based on the requirements of their previous role, not on
those of the new, more senior one. People are often successful due to their
ability to get things done when they were in a more transactional role. In a
leadership role that requires more vision, strategy and delegation, they can
struggle. This can also be exacerbated by the fact that one of the reasons they
are good at fire-fighting is that they enjoy it and so, even sub-consciously,
find opportunities to do more of it.
There is a success model in life coaching based on the approach of “Be-Do-Have.”
The idea is that you need to be the type of person who will do the necessary
things to have the outcome you want. The order in which these are done is very
important. “Be” first and then “do.” The “have” will look after itself. Yet
most of us jump straight into the “do” phase. A short-term feeling of
achievement replaces the long-term improvement in output and gives us an
illusion of progress. When it doesn’t work, we do the next action and continue
to spin the wheels without gaining any traction. As noted here, it is who a
leader is that influences the most, rather than what they do.
So, how to overcome the bias for action?
When I begin a safety review with a leadership team, I start off with a
high-level conversation to get team alignment and understanding. This covers
what safety means to them, what their objectives are, why it matters, what they
are worried about and how it aligns with the rest of their business. This
develops into an emotional and sometimes surprising discussion. Particularly in
high risk industries, there are unfortunately few experienced leaders who have
not been touched in some way by a significant injury, a fatality or a major
health issue with a colleague. This conversation reconnects them with why it is
important and adds genuineness to their future involvement.
For this to be effective, it must not be a rushed conversation. In preparing
for a recent discussion, one of the participants had only one requirement –
that adequate time would be given to do it properly. When I receive a request
like that, I know it’s going to go well.
The New Zealand Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum states that,
“Leadership is about what you say, do and measure.” But there is an earlier
step. If what you say is not authentic and founded genuinely in who you are,
the message will be lost. While we cannot just discuss things for ever, senior
leaders need to be aware that their bias for action can be counter-productive.
To do safety differently, they need to spend more time on the “be” before
launching into the “do.”
How do leaders achieve this?
Transformational leadership is about clarity of vision and inspiration to
action. They need to be prepared to commit time, as individuals and as teams,
to thinking about what they are trying to achieve in safety and why. Such
considerations for an executive team or a board may include:
-
What is safety and what does it mean to us?
- Would our workforce describe us as caring for
their wellbeing?
- Are we asking about safety, or are we telling?
- Are we thoughtful in our response to the
business, or do we react to headline data?
- Are we bold enough to do the right things for
the right reasons? To leave the benchmarking herd and genuinely lead in doing
things differently?
Answering these questions with honesty and self-awareness lays a foundation
for returning safety to Dekker’s “ethical responsibility downwards.” This
context provides a stronger understanding of the subject matter and allows the
leadership team to be more effective in judging whether what they and their
business are doing is likely to achieve their safety vision.
This is a request to all business leaders.
Before you look at that next safety report and decide what to do, look at
yourself and decide who to be.
This article was originally published here.
