Safety Leadership Training in the workplace | Blog

Consulting or Facilitating…Which Works Best?

June 10, 2025 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

Do you know the difference between consulting or facilitating?

If you google consulting or facilitating, here’s what you’ll find…

A consultant is a person who provides expert advice within a particular field, i.e., safety, quality, leadership, security, HR, etc. A facilitator, on the other hand, has a depth and breadth of expertise in process (that can be applied to most problem-solving situations). The organization has a good understanding of the subject matter, yet they need help processing the information and thinking it through to make the best decision for the organization. That’s a facilitator.

Consulting

Consultants are people who have studied a particular subject and developed a training method to sell it so they can make a living. Many people do this quite successfully. This is a pretty competitive business. Some big companies have developed out of successful consulting practices. Their goal is to apply their specific knowledge and fill the need that an organization, team or company may have.

In my experience when a safety consultant was hired to come into our plant, they were quite polished and presented their program very well. The people in my group would sit quietly listening to the offering and trying to make sense as it applied to our work. Often there would be good ideas and techniques presented. The consultants were clearly geared to fix us and make us work more safely.

But they had some big challenges. They did not know us as people, nor the real situations that we faced in our work. They did not care or have enough time to get to know anyone. They would spend a day or two and be off to their next client. Because of this their credibility was shaky. Trust levels were not very good.

As we listened to their presentations, we would begin to pick them apart in our minds. They were the experts so we could just sit back and listen (superficially). When they left, we would talk about how their ideas fit with us, or not. After a couple of days, we were doing things just as we had always done them with someone getting hurt now and then. If things did not work out, we would blame it on the consultant. It is fair, however, to note that there were often valuable nuggets of information that we gleaned and utilized.

The consultants had a very narrow focus on their particular task. They would try to get us to change the way we worked to be safer. I have found that ,over the years, trying to change and improve safety in an organization that struggles with bullies, tolerates lying and coverups, and other dysfunctional behaviors does not work. The dysfunctional behaviors crush the new ways of doing things and the new changes are not sustainable.

Facilitating

Facilitators are people who help us to solve our own problems. They are highly trained on the safety rules and procedures, but they do not give us a lecture.

The best facilitators were people from our own organization who knew us and helped us to talk together about how to work more safely and solve our own problems. However, we hired good facilitators to join us, too. We would sit together, walk around together, talk about the work, and develop the best way to get it done effectively and safely.

They would ask us questions and help us to think things through. They knew the right questions to ask. They were not there to dictate how to do something as if we had no brains. They were there as partners in the whole effort to work more effectively. We were self-organizing and solving our own problems.

When the facilitators were with us, we began to see things differently, to think differently, help each other, listen, and learn together. We took responsibility for ourselves, each other and the work; we cared. And we learned to keep improving by using after-action reviews.

Our facilitators were available all the time in case we had some questions or needed help. The facilitators were often people in supervision who partnered with us. Sometimes a front-line person like an operator or mechanic or secretary became skilled facilitators. They were skilled because they knew the best process (or framework or model) to effectively facilitate the group and its problem/concern.

We shared information about the work, the necessary tools and procedures, the hazards, the precautions we needed to take to be both compliant with the rules and able to do the work quickly and well. We made sure that people felt mentally and physically fit to do the work. Then when the job was done, we’d talk about how it went and how we could do it better next time.

As we worked this way, all the other aspects of our work culture became more positive and supportive. When the whole organizational culture becomes more positive and supportive, everything, including safety gets better.

To really improve the organization and the safety,
we need skilled facilitators!

What do you need for your organization? Consulting or facilitating?

Note: I would be remiss if I did not share that the Process Enneagram©, which I created 25 years ago, has turned out to be an extraordinary process tool for use in effecting positive organizational change. See my book, The Leadership Dance: Pathways to Extraordinary Organizational Effectiveness, on Amazon. Call me, I’ll be happy to help you learn to use this tool.

Leading Safety in the Midst of Change is Important for Business

May 10, 2025 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

The amount of change and the rate of change in the middle of DOGE is huge.

Different accounts and stories about what is happening swirl around like a storm. Organizations like NIOSH and OSHA are having to make adjustments for safety. Depending on the report, the stories of partial or even total elimination abound. Those of us outside the inner circles really do not know the details of what is happening, so we can get quite worked up about it all.

Some of the work being done in NIOSH may be vital in trying to improve workplace safety, but some of it may not be very important. From the outside, it is hard to tell. Hopefully any cuts in budget will focus on the less important work. NIOSH has been around for 50 years, and I’m told they’ve done much in the research end of safety and health.

As many of you know I have been asking why our fatality and injury rates are stuck at around 5,200 and 2.400,000 cases, respectively, for about the last 10 years. I do not know how the work of NIOSH directly impacts the workplace and in what ways their work has made the most difference. Based on the number of fatalities and injuries, you can make a case that NIOSH had very little impact so budget cutting may be the correct approach.

OSHA works closer to the actual workplace, thus having a more positive impact. But, again, the fatality and injury rates are not coming down so they may need to find out why that is.

I am more concerned about any OSHA budget cuts because OSHA is already spread very thin. OSHA has been around since 1970…can anyone say that our workplaces would be as safe as they are or that people would follow the safety rules that are in place without OSHA being the enforcer?

We Can Do a Lot Ourselves for Safety

Even though all the changes and cuts are happening, we can do a lot in our own workplaces at the local, company level to make a difference.

Workplace safety is a local issue, which we at the local level can impact regardless of all the other changes going on. What is the mindset we each can hold as to whether we will go home from the workplace today and every day with all our fingers, toes, legs, arms, eyes, and ears intact? What about how well we look out for our co-workers being able to also return home from work with body and mind wholeness?

We can work directly with our people to help improve the total safety performance.

We can help our organizations get a whole lot better in all aspects of our work, not just in safety. We need to help all the people in the whole workplace to work more purposefully together. We need to treat each other with respect. Listen to each other. Help each other to share information more abundantly. Listen carefully to each other so we can learn together. We need to help people find meaning in their work and have more satisfaction with themselves.

When we work together doing these kinds of things, the whole workplace becomes much more open and healthier.

People do not have to fear that they will get punished in some way when they speak up and make suggestions. These kinds of behaviors positively impact all we do. In an environment like this, we can all learn and grow together.

I think that the only way we can create sustainable improvements in safety is to create a climate where everything in the organization is improving. And where people work to keep each other safe.

When I was the Plant Manager at a big plant that was having terrible performance problems, we on the Leadership Team decided to become the best producer and supplier of chemicals to our customers through improving all aspects of our work.

We focused on safety. environmental performance, people development, quality, customer service, costs, and our relationship with our community. Our total culture improved dramatically over the next 4 years, our injury rate dropped by 97%, emissions dropped by 95%, productivity rose by 45%, and earnings rose by 300%.

In the Midst of Great Change, We Can Do a Lot To Get Better!

We can take charge and sail our ships successfully in this great storm!

Call me at 716-622-6467 and let’s discuss how!

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership, Safety Partnership Tagged With: business safety, business safety performance, engage employees in workplace safety, improvements in workplace safety, NIOSH, OSHA, safety and injury performance, safety and security in business, workplace safety, workplace safety training

How Vulnerable is Your Workplace to Violence?

April 10, 2025 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

The March 24, 2025 ASIS Newsletter by Scott Briscoe reports Characteristics of Fatal Workplace Violence Incidents.

You can click here to view this report on workplace violence incidents.

Most people will not experience a tragedy or workplace violence like this, but when this happens, everything changes immediately. Are you prepared to even think about this? Do you ever run a co-worker’s suicide scenario through your mind and wonder how you would handle it? The larger your work force is, the more likely you will have a suicide incident. Many people have firearms. What is the policy about firearms in your organization?

I have had several acquaintances at work (I was a chemist in a laboratory) who used lab chemicals like sodium cyanide to kill themselves at work. They were struggling with a lot of pressure at work and felt they were not being treated fairly. Their dreams were not being fulfilled and no one cared about them.

Do you have people in your organization struggling like this? Have you looked around to see if people are cared about and treated fairly? I had not looked around and was unaware of their struggles. Maybe I could have made a difference.

Have you ever thought about having someone come into your workplace and kill someone? These things do not happen very often, but now and then someone gets killed and we do not know where that will happen.

About 43% of the incidents in this report are caused by people who do not have a relationship with the organization, which means we must always have a high level of situational awareness since we do not know where or when the attack will occur.

About 29% of the fatalities are by someone who has been terminated. This raises a bunch of questions about how your organization works with those who are terminated. This is a traumatic event for the person. Does your organization just dump the person onto the street with no help for them as they go forward with their lives? This is very scary for the person, and they may lash out at someone in the organization and kill them.

Some Things to Think About…

Does your organization provide some assistance for the person to help them to make this tough transition in their lives?
Is there any severance pay?
Do they really understand why they were terminated?
How do they talk with their loved ones?
Where do they go for medical coverage assistance?
Do they have any special needs situations at home that will be difficult to handle?
Where is the local unemployment assistance office located?
Will your HR people help them fill out the necessary forms?
Will you help them get a job at a place that is more suitable for them?
Do you refer them to a hiring agency?
Does your organization help with family counseling organizations to which you can refer them?

In some termination situations, the threat of violence can be quite immediate. Has your organization ever talked with the local police about this possibility and how to handle it? After several terminations of people from my plant, I would get around-the-clock protection from an off-duty police officer for a few days. These are stressful situations, and we need to be properly prepared. Each situation is different so the specific things you will do will be different from one place to another.

Some Guidelines for Workplace Violence

In these difficult situations, treat people with respect and care. Listen to them and try to understand their perspective and thinking, if you can. Put yourself into their shoes and think about what is happening to them. Talk with them about the transition and the problems they may face. Offer guidance about getting healthcare coverage, seeking new employment, and maybe new job training.

Hopefully, none of you will face these situations, but in case you do, some up-front thinking and conversations in your organization would be very helpful.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: fatal workplace incidents, fatalities in the workplace, safety in the workplace, security in the workplace, situational awareness in the workplace, suicides in the workplace, violence in the workplace, workplace fatalities, workplace security, workplace suicide, workplace terminations, workplace violence incidents

The Costs of Workplace Violence…Bigger Than You May Think

March 11, 2025 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

An important dimension of workplace safety is eliminating workplace violence.

Examples of this workplace violence are lack of respect, bullying, sexual harassment, fights, and even murders. These are all on a continuum of behaviors which get more and more serious across the progression.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, for 2022 (the most recent summary), there were 5,283 fatalities at work and 740 of these were homicides. The number of women who were murdered was 140, which is the second highest cause of death for women in the workplace. Murder was the 5th highest cause of death for men.

These are sad situations for the families and the business coworkers. These murders cost the businesses a lot of money and bad publicity. But bullying and sexual harassment cost the people and the businesses a whole lot more because they are so widespread.

A recent Gallop poll found that over 50% of all our businesses struggle with bullying and sexual harassment problems. Unfortunately, most businesses ignore these problems hoping they will go away. They won’t go away and they are eating up a lot of profits.

These behaviors cause a lot of suffering among the people and they eat up a lot of time in a number of ways.

A Deeper Look

Let’s consider an organization with 100 people, with an average salary of $25 per hour. The organization has decided to do some training, or it is required by the state in which they do business to do mandatory training. So they bring in a consultant and have a one hour training session for everyone. This may cost $3,000 for consultant fees and lost wages of the people sitting in the session. These sessions do not solve many problems, but management gets their “ticket” punched.

Based on the Gallop study, about 50 of these people in this organization are engaged in bullying and/or sexual harassment. Each time someone gets pushed around, they may lose a half an hour of work because they are upset. If there are 200 incidents a year, there is another $62,000 in lost wages; there are probably a lot more than just 200 incidents. Suppose 20 of these bullying events are serious enough that management and human resources gets involved. We have another $5,000-$10,000 a year in lost wages.

Sometimes someone eventually gets terminated so now human resources, legal, and management are involved. Then we need to replace that person so we could lose up to $15,000 for this event. All this stuff adds up and for this 100-person organization. the lost costs could be around $100,000 a year.

But there is even a potentially bigger loss that can happen.

When there is bullying and harassment behaviors in the organization, people won’t talk together unless they have to. When the organization is free of these dysfunctional behaviors, people talk together and learn. New ideas often emerge which can be big possibilities for new earnings. I have seen this happen with people generating big savings through improved procedures which none of us had even realized possible before the conversations. These sorts of improvements could easily exceed the losses from the bad behaviors.

For example, when I was the DuPont Belle, West Virginia Plant Manager, we had one operation that made a variety of products. These were all synthesized in the same equipment. We would run a campaign of one product, take the equipment apart, clean everything out, and put it back together. Then we would synthesize the next product, followed by another clean out; and so on, and so on.

The job of taking things apart, cleaning everything, and reassembling them was taking about 7 weeks. After we had rooted out the bullies and had formed teams, the people were talking openly together about how to improve things. One day I discovered that their team had been talking together about how to make improvements and had shortened the time between campaigns from 7 weeks to just 5-6 days. This enabled us to significantly expand our production capability, and it was free. A traditional approach would be to build new equipment, which would have cost several hundred thousand dollars.

Wrapping Up

Developing respect and driving out bullying, sexual harassment, and other dysfunctional behaviors like lying and cover ups, are not just nice things to be doing. There is a big impact on improving the morale and openness in the organization, which is very good. And there is also a big impact on the potential lower costs and higher earnings for the organization as new ideas emerge from their conversations.

When these dysfunctional behaviors are driven out, everything gets so much better for both the people and the business.

Call me (716-622-6467) or email me. Let’s chat about how your organization can make a marked difference for reducing workplace violence across the spectrum.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: bullying, bullying in the workplace, developing respect in the workplace, sexual harassment, sexual harassment in the workplace, violence in the workplace, workplace safety

If the Organization is Dysfunctional…Safety Can’t get Fixed

February 10, 2025 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

To really improve safety in an organization, the people (all the employees) need to come together and fix the whole system.

This is much more than just a safety issue in an organization. It is a “together” issue.

My Experiences:

Top-Down Organizations

I have been working in various aspects of safety for over 60 years. Almost all the organizations with which I have worked have been top-down managed. This approach has been used by armies, churches, governments, and businesses for centuries. Those in control, at the top, issue the orders and rules, the managers in the middle of the organization are expected to follow and impose these onto the people at the bottom of the organization.

This probably made sense when most of the population was poorly educated and illiterate. But now, here in the USA and other developed countries, this is not the case. Most of the people are fairly intelligent and manage their personal lives quite well. They raise families, buy homes and cars, have complex hobbies, etc. They know how to do a lot of things pretty well.

When these people work in top-down organizations where they are not treated with respect, told what to do, and are pushed around like the interchangeable parts of a machine, they are not usually very happy or productive. Dysfunctional behaviors and troubles like bullying, resistance to change, cutting corners, poor morale and performance, anger, and frustration cause huge losses, like terrible productivity and people quitting.

When safety improvement efforts like bringing in a consultant to fix the safety culture, or to improve safety practices like behavior-based safety, or improve participation are conducted, they often meet a lot of resistance and do not sustain themselves. Most people do not like to be pushed around and treated as if they do not have a brain.

In this environment, it is very difficult to make good safety improvements and very, very hard to sustain the programs. People keep getting hurt and killed.

Partner-Centered Leadership

In working in and leading organizations, I have found that people want to be treated with respect, listened to, share ideas, and learn together. These apply to people in all the various parts of the organization, not just safety.

Our Partner-Centered Leadership Workshops include a broad cross-section of people from around the organization and from different levels so that the whole of the organizational system is together for the work. We help people to see their organization as if it is a living system.

As the workshop process develops, the people can see the whole, the parts and the interaction of the parts, which opens-up all sorts of new, creative ideas. Everything is connected to everything else.

As they learn to work together in new ways, they co-create the changes they want to make and a new culture begins to emerge out of the conversations. The whole organization changes and improves, including their safety performance. The improvements are sustained through their ongoing conversations in the days and months after the workshop.

Results

In the big plant where I was the manager, the people improved their safety culture and cut the injury rate by 97% and increased earnings by 300%. We have seen similar changes in companies where we have conducted these workshops.

Conclusion

In highly functional organizations, safety, along with everything else, gets a lot better.

A lot of leaders are looking for the silver bullet to be able to lead in all situations, and to especially make needed safety improvements and to effect extraordinary change. There is a way: it is a framework we teach (Process Enneagram), which works because it is highly principle-based and partner-centered. And, because it is a tool for dealing with complex situations and multiple variables.

Call me (716-622-6467) – our team can help you learn and apply this effective leadership tool.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: communicating with employees, employee feedback in organizations, engaging employees, improving business performance, injury rates in organizations, organization safety, Partner-centered Leadership, safety culture, safety in organizations

Being in the System and Partner-Centered Leadership

January 10, 2025 By Richard N. Knowles Leave a Comment

When I was assigned as the Plant Manager of this large (1,300 people) chemical plant, I had a formidable challenge, which is why I developed Partner-Centered Leadership approach.

This was about the poorest performing of DuPont’s 150 plants world-wide.

Note: “In the system” means to be wholly integrated with, rather than apart from.

I had been Plant Manager of the DuPont Plant in Niagara Falls, NY, so this change was a challenge for me and for the Belle Plant people. I did not know the people or the culture of West Virginia and I was told by my VP to improve all aspects of the plant’s performance or face a potential shutdown with the loss of 1,300 jobs.

I was an outsider – no one trusted me, and they were strongly opposed to change. It was ugly at first, with several death threats and other stuff.

I knew that the traditional top-down management approach would not work; it had failed with others for years. I knew that I had to personally engage with all the people, build trust, and share with them why we had to change in a way where the people would want to listen. I had to change from my top-down approach and have the courage to go into the plant every day and personally talk with everyone – sharing information, cheerleading, learning about them, their work, their lives, and instilling a caring about our collective future.

I heard a lot of anger, gripes and frustration so I had to listen and learn.

I walked the plant every day for about 5 hours a day. Gradually, the tensions began to go down. Many of the conversations I had were simple one-on-one interactions. I also held two business meetings each week in different shops, control rooms, and offices; the minutes of these were published within 30 hours so that communications increased.

I found that most of the people were quite intelligent, knew their work, and were frustrated by the top-down management they had experienced – where they were treated as if they did not have a brain and had to be told what to do. They had been treated condescendingly. I treated them not as employees but as “people”, which made a huge shift – genuine people – all on the same team.

After about a year, things were beginning to change. Our mission was to be the best we could be in safety performance, environmental performance, quality, costs, customer service, and interactions with our neighboring community. We were treating each other with respect, listening to each other, asking questions, learning and solving problems faster than we ever imagined.

After four years, the changes were quite significant. Our injury rate had dropped by 97%, emissions to the environment (as reported to the EPA) were down 95%, productivity was up 45%, and earnings were up 300%. I talked with the people about all these things, but they came up with making the needed improvements.

It was wonderful to see people grow, learn, solve problems, and make a big difference. My job was to set the conditions so that they could thrive. We continued to improve all during my 8 years of being with the people and in the system.

My leadership process was sharing information abundantly, treating people with respect, listening and learning, and helping people see the importance of their contributions to the success of the whole plant. They sustained their 0.3 total injury rate performance for 15 years after I had left the plant.

Partner-Centered Leadership – The Process

It was in these intense experiences at the Belle Plant that I developed the Partner-Centered Leadership approach, as well as the Process Enneagram tool that was so effective in helping us to lead well.

Partner-Centered Leadership is a dynamical way to lead organizations. It is built on the fact that there is deep knowledge among the people, which is a huge resource to the organization, and most people want to contribute. Using the Partner-Centered Leadership approach, this resource can be opened up – providing new ideas, better ways of working, new business possibilities, personal growth of individuals, high morale, and the business getting much stronger.

For this to be successful, managers and supervisors must have the courage to lead by example, be more open, creating, leading and sustaining a culture of openness, honesty and truly caring about each other. Leaders need to understand that strong, purposeful relationships among the people must be cultivated and nurtured. They must treat each other with respect, listen, talk together and continuously learn.

Everyone needs to be open to feedback and improvement. Everyone could talk with anyone. Leaders co-create, with the people, a shared mission, develop their agreed upon standards of behavior which apply to everyone, and share information abundantly about all aspects of the business and how we are all doing as they work together. As the leaders lead by example, there will be more and more people joining in to help. Success is contagious.

The leaders need to help everyone see the system in which they are working so they are able to see the parts, the interaction of the parts, and how they can work most effectively together. Just focusing on one problem after another is like playing “Whack-A-More” and the problems never go away. When we can see the system, talk about it together, discover key interactions, we are much more likely to solve the underlying problems and achieve real improvement. As we all learn together, more and more people self-organize around, form ad hoc teams and solve problems themselves.

Partner-Centered Leadership – the Process Enneagram Tool

The Process Enneagram is a highly effective tool the leader can use with everyone to help to see the system and develop better ways of working together. In using it ,we can see our problems from 9 simple perspectives: see the parts, the whole and the interaction of the parts, and how they interact.

Here is a picture of the Process Enneagram tool. I have made the theory and use of the Process Enneagram open source on my YouTube site.

Give me a call at 716-622-6467 and let’s chat about how you can learn and apply this process in your work.

Filed Under: Safety Leadership Process, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: communicating to employees, employee feedback in businesses, engaging employees, growth in businesses, improving business performance, leadership communication, leadership process, organization processes, Partner-centered Leadership, Process Enneagram

Why Are So Many People Being Killed and Injured at Work?

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

A New Safety Leadership Paradigm is Needed

This is a question I have been thinking about for quite some time. There are lots of good people working to improve our safety performance, yet the numbers hardly change from one year to the next. In reading Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962), the idea of a paradigm shift comes to mind. A paradigm shift is when the basic concepts and practices of a particular area of study need to change. Perhaps a change in the way we approach total safety performance is needed; we need a safety leadership paradigm change!

Background: Our Current Safety Management Paradigm

For years we have looked at the structure of organizations as if they are machines focusing on things, equipment and tools, even seeing people (the employees) as if they were merely interchangeable parts of the machine. Since the advent of OSHA, this approach has really improved the total safety performance of most organizations, yet across our industry we now seem to be stuck. The underlying pattern is one driven by fear of failure and punishment. The energy is driven down from the top with little feedback. Most people resist processes of power and change being imposed on them. Information flow is restricted to a “need to know” basis. Perhaps we have improved total safety performance about as much as we can using this approach. I know from my own experience as a plant manager in leading this way, that improving and sustaining the safety performance is slow and difficult.

Partner-Centered Leadership: A New Safety Leadership Paradigm

I spent a lot of my time as the plant manager studying how and why organizations work or not. The ideas coming out of the new insights about complexity, chaos, and complex adaptive systems offered a different way to lead. I learned to see organizations as if they are living systems and a new paradigm formed. I saw people as caring and partners in our work together. The relationships with and among the people became the most important feature of our work. People want to be respected. They want to be heard. They have ideas they want to share. They know more about their work specific work than I did as the Plant Manager.

We shared information abundantly providing almost constant feedback to each other. We co-created our future using a guided conversational process called “The Process Enneagram” (see my YouTube videos to learn about this process). We learned Self-Organizing Leadership and developed the Partner-Centered Leadership approach¹. People took responsibility for their work and new ideas constantly emerged as we talked together. Change happened as we learned to work together in new ways finding the results of work getting better and better. The collective intelligence of the people blossomed.

The people (everyone) and I had to learn to work this way as we worked together. We gradually found that the safety performance (TRIFR down 97% in 4 years) and everything else improved. As we learned about Self-Organizing Leadership, we realized that as people self-organized around their work that the system needed to be held together with a container that allowed the flow of information and energy but did not overcontrol the system. I called this container “The Bowl.” Some people talk about needing “guide rails,” which is also a useful idea.

A Comparison of the Managing and Partner-Centered Leadership

I wrote a paper for Professional Safety in 2022 about our work at our plant and comparing the effectiveness of the Managing and Partner-Centered Leadership processes². It clearly showed the superiority of the Partner-Centered Leadership process.

The Partner-Centered Leadership process may very well be the new paradigm that is needed to greatly reduce the number of people being killed (~5,200/year) and injured (~2,400,000 people/year).

Please seriously consider this and let’s work to get a lot better. This is not just trying harder; it is really about doing things differently and more effectively.

Please give me a call and let’s talk about how this can happen for your organization.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: creating a safe workplace, engage employees in workplace safety, leadership safety role in the workplace, Partner-centered Leadership, safety in the workplace, safety management, working safely in the workplace, workplace safety

An Invitation to Make A Difference

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

In many of my posts, I have talked about the high number of people being killed and injured at work.

There are many safety professionals and others working to improve safety, yet the number of deaths and lost time injuries remains relatively constant at about 5,200 deaths and 2,500,000 lost time injuries a year. We need to make a difference in the workplace.

I am not seeming to have much impact in reducing these numbers (by myself) and am wondering about gathering some interested, knowledgeable, professional people together in Zoom conversations to explore possible ways to reduce the number of deaths and injuries. I’m looking for people who care deeply about this too.

I do not know if anything will come out of these conversations of concern, but there is a real possibility we could accomplish something to help reduce these tragedies. I would be willing to host these conversations.

Let’s Make a Difference!

If we can look at this from a systems perspective, important ideas and real possibilities will likely emerge. The systems approach will give us a much deeper perspective of the whole system than we normally use, and this could lead to some really good ideas and possibilities.

If any of you readers want to give the conversations of concern a try, please contact me at RNKnowles@aol.com. I’ll see what we can put together. I have an expectation that we can make a difference.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: creating a safe workplace, engage employees in workplace safety, leadership safety role in the workplace, make a difference in safety, safety in the workplace, working safely in the workplace, workplace safety

Overcome feelings of Impatience in the Workplace

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

When leadership can help employees overcome feelings of impatience, frustration and anger, the energy and creativity of the people emerges, enabling much quicker, better decisions and more effective work to take place.

Impatience

In a long road trip over this Labor Day Weekend, we got stuck in an hour-long traffic jam on a very busy Interstate Highway. The GPS message was “Your route is closed.” We were sitting on the 3-lane highway with big trucks all around us and there was no way out.

My impatience level went way up as we just sat without knowing anything about the stoppage or a possible alternative way out. Other car drivers were also getting impatient and beginning to make poor decisions. For example, several impatient drivers wiggled thru tight spaces, actually turning their respective vehicles around – then began their journey against the normal traffic flow, maneuvering along the shoulder to get to the last exit we had passed so they could get off the Interstate and go around the holdup on secondary roads.

We just waited with the trucks to see what was going to happen. After about an hour the traffic began to move and open up. We never saw the source of the holdup, but we had a sigh of relief to be able to move forward again.

Ruminations

I began to think about the times in my own career when things got bogged down or we had had an incident that stopped everything. I struggled with these same feelings of impatience. Everyone was impatient and frustrated. Some people wanted to just push through before we had given things enough consideration to understand what was wrong and see a way out of the problem. Others spent time in their offices, away from the situation, trying to dictate solutions; it is easy to come up with possible solutions when you do not know what is really going on. This really became frustrating when the corporate people tried to tell us how to solve our problem. Others wanted to cut through the safety procedures since they felt the procedures were getting in our way.

We were all impatient, anxious, angry, struggling with a strong sense of urgency and frustration. This is a dangerous situation where it is very easy to make dreadful mistakes. The people working close to the problem feel acute pressure to solve the problem and get going. They are extremely aware that their managers want to get going. Their managers are also under a lot of pressure from their managers or from sales or from customers to get going.

The people working close to the problem are aware of all these pressures, but also know that they have to do things right so no one gets hurt, so the process will really run correctly when things are restored, and so there will not be a new safety or environmental incident on startup.

Leadership’s Role

In these situations of high frustration and impatience, the people close to the work need to be helped and supported by their management and leaders.

As a Plant Manager, my role was to create a safe space for those working close to the problem to think things through, organize themselves, plan the restoration processes, and make the other decisions needed to get back up and running safely. The operators, mechanics, engineers, and safety people know what needs to be done, so as the Plant Manager, my role was to create a safe space where they could do their work. I also reminded them to work with high safety, environmental and customer standards, helping each other to do their best in the situation.

As we shared information on the progress to solve the problem and the things around it, we also helped to maintain respect and caring among everyone and gave credit to them as progress was made. These made a big, positive difference.

When we can minimize the feelings of impatience, frustration and anger, the energy and creativity of the people emerges, enabling much quicker, better decisions and more effective work to take place. This is Partner-Centered Leadership in action!

Call me at 716-622-6467 and I’ll be pleased to talk to you about Partner-Centered Leadership. It is the way forward.

Filed Under: Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process, Safety Partnership Tagged With: creating a safe workplace, engage employees in workplace safety, impatience in the workplace, leadership safety role in the workplace, overcoming frustration in the workplace, Partner-centered Leadership, safety in the workplace, working safely in the workplace, workplace safety

Why Are People Getting Killed At Work?

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

Indifference… At a local event this past week, I asked a friend who is involved in safety work the question, why are people getting killed at work? He quickly came up with this answer.

“A lot fewer people are being killed than it used to be before OSHA. There has been a lot of progress. We must be at about the best we can do.“

Then the conversation moved off to the Olympics. He just brushed this off as no longer important.

But this is important to the approximately 5,200 families who have had someone in their family killed. This experience remains with the family forever. And this 5,200 total number is an every year statistic!

Those of you reading my newsletters know that I am constantly trying to help people reduce injuries and deaths by building Partner-Centered Leadership and sharing real case studies that have been published in Professional Safety. We can reduce the numbers of injuries and fatalities, and we shouldn’t just push this problem aside with indifference.

Leaders Lacking Insights About What Is Possible

At a recent graduation celebration gathering, I was talking with a family member who has a very responsible safety leadership job in a large company, about my efforts to have fewer people killed at work. We talked about Partner-Centered Leadership and having everyone involved, co-creating our shared futures and taking more responsibility for the whole business efforts, including safety.

I was asked, “How do you work this way across widely dispersed sites?” This is a challenge for sure. The way I see it, this effort has to begin with the CEO and the Leadership Team. They need to talk about Partner-Centered Leadership and walk the talk at every site visit so people can understand that they mean it. The top people need to personally engage the lower levels in learning to lead this way and insist that everyone is involved. The CEO and Leadership Team should do some of the training of the lower-level people.

If someone does not get on board, then some tough decisions need to be made. The message should be that this is the way the company is going to do business going forward. But equally important is helping everyone to see that going home to one’s family at the end of the workday with all one’s body parts intact – no injuries, no incidents, is the absolute answer to What’s in it for me?

My mantra when I was a plant manager was, “I don’t have a right to make my living where it is okay for you to get hurt!” Does anyone have this right? The methodology for success is to engage people – for supervision across the board, up and down the organization to learn how to ask process questions. When it comes to safety, leaders who are in denial, or pretending one “doesn’t know” just doesn’t cut it. Asking process questions can ensure accountability.

We then talked about why there was so much resistance to these ideas. Based on some hard systems thinking, I think that the whole US safety industry with all the training, audits, fines, blame, etc. is driven by FEAR! This idea can be startling. Examining safety from a systems perspective was a different idea – particularly noting that fear was a key driver.

The problem with a culture being driven by fear is that it is very difficult to learn and do new things. Just about everyone is concentrated on covering their backside rather than talking together in an environment that is safe enough to explore new ideas together. When we work together using Partner-Centered Leadership, we can open up the vast knowledge that is lying hidden in our organizations. When we treat people with respect, listen and learn together, amazing new ideas and possibilities bubble up.

Everything changes! Productivity goes up. Earnings go up, Safety improves. The culture becomes one where almost everyone is learning, growing, taking more responsibility and producing great results. New possibilities emerge which often lead to much better earnings.

Partner-Centered Leadership

When the CEO and the Leadership Team learn what is possible and how to work this way with authenticity and caring, this can spread throughout their organization and achieve significantly better results. It takes some effort and dedication, but there is no need for new capital investment. In a sense, Partner-Centered Leadership is free!

Contact me (716-622-6467) and let’s discuss how this can work for you and your organization.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: business safety, creating a safety culture, employee engagement, employee safety, engage employees in workplace safety, injury-free workplaces, reducing risks in the workplace, safety in the workplace, working safely in the workplace, workplace safety