Here’s What “Business Betterment” Looks Like…

February 10, 2017 By Leave a Comment

As I talk with Leaders, I often hear that things are so entrenched they cannot even conceive that this type of “betterment” can happen for them.

We know that it can, and we prove it over and over again, as we work with leaders, their teams, and their businesses.

CULTURE: We help to knock down the walls that have grown up between people and groups so that the arguments and fighting stop and they learn to value and help each other. We help to drill holes in the silos of production, HR, maintenance and finance so that people can talk to each other to get the information they need to do their jobs. We help to remove the barriers that are restricting the up and down flow of critical information, improving its accuracy, so the organization can function more easily. We help to remove the barriers between the people writing rules and procedures (the work- as-imagined) and those doing the front-line work (the work-as-done). We help people to see that most of the injuries and incidents are the result of patterns and processes that need improvement and shift away from a culture of blame and criticism.

SAFETY: I believe that we do not have a right to make our living in a place where it is okay to hurt people. When we make this our top belief, many fewer people get hurt and our economic performance is a lot better as well. As we learn to work this way the barriers and roadblocks melt away and new channels and connections emerge.

LOSS: Avoiding the losses and waste means that our businesses are more competitive and healthy. How much do you suppose an OSHA Lost Time Injury costs the business?

  • The pain and suffering is miserable.
  • There is the direct cost of the doctors, hospitals, medications, etc.
  • We loose time:
    • having to investigate the injury and incident.,
    • writing reports,
    • having an OSHA investigation,
    • perhaps the cost of challenging OSHA’s findings,
    • legal costs for the company attorneys,
    • preparing for a potential law suit,
    • the cost of lost production time,
    • the cost of bringing someone and train them to replace the injured person,
    • the cost of lost sales,
    • the cost of bad publicity,
    • the cost of lower morale among the people,
    • and so on.

BOTTOM LINE: When the safety gets right, everything else gets right as well. In this more positive culture, not only does the waste of injuries and incidents go away, people shift the way that they chose to work together resulting in other improvements like:

  • fewer arguments,
  • fewer grievances,
  • better meetings,
  • fewer meetings,
  • more suggestions for improving our systems and processes,
  • people taking the lead in helping to fix something that is not right,
  • new ideas for better customer service emerge,
  • lean manufacturing works better,
  • the quality of products and services get better,
  • absenteeism drops, and
  • people can work together to build a better future.

When the safety performance and culture get better, the organization thrives.

These are things that each organization can work on right now. In Partner-Centered Leadership, Richard N. Knowles & Associates can help organizations to achieve all these things. This does not require investment.

  • Get clear on your thinking and purpose.
  • Go into your organization talking with and listening to the people.
  • Help them to build on their ideas.
  • Let them know how important they are to the success of the business.
  • Do this with respect and honesty.

Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change.
~ Tom Peters

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process, Safety Partnership Tagged With: , ,

Releasing the Forces for Excellence

December 12, 2016 By Leave a Comment

safety excellenceAs this year comes to an end, we will be looking at our overall performance to see how we did and to plan for 2017. We will usually look at our injury statistics like the total recordable injury rate and try to determine how we performed. Often quite independently, others will look at other performance indicators to see how they came out. We act as if these are independent of each other, but in our organizations everything is connected so all aspects of performance influence each other. Everything happens through the people. All the parts are interconnected. Excellence in safety performance is strongly related to our total performance because it all works through the will of the people.

We traditionally try to apply safety and other metrics to our organizations in a machine-like fashion. We see that something needs to improve so we push harder as if we are pushing a wagon up hill. Too many regulators and managers sit in their offices trying to imagine what needs to be done and write a new procedure or rule so that things will be better. Then they issue edicts pushing everyone harder. However, the work as imagined is never the same as the work as done. Why do managers think that sitting, bound to their office chairs, that they know everything? How can they? Then at the end of 2017 we will do this all over again trying to understand why things did not get better. Around and around we go!

We break this vicious cycle by opening up ourselves to a different way of thinking, seeing and being.

safety managementWork-as-imagined and work-as-done are ideas developed by Erik Hollnagel in his book, Safety-I and Safety-II (2014. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., UK). Safety I is our traditional top-down management approach to safety management where rules and procedures are issued by those far from the actual work. This is like the approach discussed in the proceeding paragraph. I think that a lot of people are trying to do good safety work from the Safety I perspective, but the results are not improving fast enough.

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently reported that the rate for nonfatal injuries and illnesses per 100 people dropped to 3.0 in 2015 from 3.2 in 2014 and 3.3 in 2013. That is a 10% drop over three years. That is way too slow! In 2015 2,900,000 injuries were reported. That is WAY TOO MANY people getting hurt. In an earlier paper the BLS reported that the number of fatalities has hovered around 4,700 people a year for the last 5 years. This is WAY TOO MANY!

This is not just a US problem. For example, Worksafe, New Zealand recently reported that the health and safety laws have had little effect on reducing fatalities further.

While driving safety from the top has had benefits historically, the effort is having less and less impact. But when we change our approach to working with the people to co-create our future, things change for the better quite quickly. This is true! It’s proven!

In the work of Richard N. Knowles and Associates, we approach the organization as if it is a living organism. Time after time coming out of our Safety Excellence Workshops, the performance improves quickly. When we engage with the people this way and help them to co-create their safety future, building on the positive strengths of the people, safety and all other aspects of their work get better quickly. For example, when I was the Plant Manager at the DuPont Belle Plant in West Virginia we worked this way, and our injury rates dropped by over 95% and earnings rose 300% in just three years. This is similar to Hollnagel’s Safety II approach.

Whenever we, at Richard N. Knowles Associates, work in organizations the safety and total performance improves quickly. Everything happens through the force of the will of the people. We release this force helping the people to co-create their shared future. Then we show them how to sustain their work for the years ahead. All dimensions of the business improve; costs are lower, productivity is higher, morale is better and far more people are working safely.

Call us at 716-622-6467 so you can release the positive, creative forces in your organizations quickly!

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , ,

Working with Multi-Generations in our Workplaces – Safely!

October 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment

Historical context:
workerConsider the Golden Gate Suspension Bridge (San Francisco) built between 1933 and 1937, an architectural marvel, thought to be impossible because in order to bridge that 6,700 ft. strait, in the middle of the bay channel, against strong tides, fierce winds, and thick fog, meant overcoming almost impossible odds. But it was built, with a grand opening in May of 1937, deemed, at the time of its completion, to be the tallest suspension bridge in the world as well as the longest. A man named Joseph Strauss engineered many new ideas, including developing safety devices such as movable netting, which saved 19 lives; though in all, there were 11 men lost during this construction. Thousands of men – workers of varying ages and from varied ethnic groups – came together to complete this project. (They had to listen and learn to be successful together.)

high-scalersConsider the feat of building the monumental Hoover Dam (1931-1936) – a miracle of technology and engineering. No dam project of this scale had ever been attempted before. There were 21,000 people working at that site with approximately 100 industrial deaths. The walls for this structure – that would uphold the weight of the dam – required workers called “high-scalers” who excavated the cliffs, dangling on ropes from the rim of the canyon. Can you even fathom this?

niagara-power-projectConsider the great Niagara Power Project (1957-1961). During construction, over 12 million cubic yards of rock were excavated. A total of 20 workers died. When it opened in 1961, it was the Western world’s largest hydropower facility. Many people, including from the “greatest generation” and the “traditionalist generation,” worked together on this project. It was a 24/7, multi-year project.

Note that the Niagara Power Project, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam construction (detailed above) all occurred before OSHA was in existence – the protections were sparse so people (young and old) had to especially look out for each other! Each of these great projects, nonetheless, took lives – workers that did not come home to their loved ones.

Today’s multigenerational Workplace – with Greater Safety Emphasis and Engagement

Fast forward to today…to your workplace…a different time and place…where people of multi-generations also come together for a purpose – to complete the work of your respective business (safely). Managing multi-generational workforces is an art in itself.

  • Young workers want to contribute and make a quick impact, valuing inclusion
  • The middle generation needs to believe in the mission – it has to make sense – they have to see the “why” of it
  • The older employees don’t like ambivalence; they’re looking for clarity, straight-forwardness, and no wishy-washy explanations

Does that make success (together) impossible? Absolutely not. The common denominator is that all people, regardless of their labeled generation, want to be accepted for who they are, to have their contribution valued, and to feel a part of the team/business endeavor. All want to go home from work safe. The need for their brother’s/sister’s keeper remains paramount.

In today’s workplaces, we often have a co-worker population that can represent age ranges of forty-plus years. With that range comes a host of different experiences, expectations and perspectives, and technology prowess. (All good; all offer ways to learn from each other.)

Everyone in the workplace came to there because of the employment opportunity – the opportunity to make a living – in order to provide for themselves and their families. (That’s a collective no-brainer…and the place to start in safety-mindedness – so we can all keep earning a living with all our parts, hands, toes, eyes, ears, etc. all in-tact, every day, regardless of what generation we touch.)

Granted, there are some differences in how teamwork is viewed, loyalty to the job and dealing with change, work-life balance, diversity, rewards and recognition, decision-making, personal growth and development – yet all of these differences are surmountable. Consider too, that all of these differences pale in comparison to the generations that went before, who demonstrated that when working together, toward a clear purpose, were able to complete the type of monumental projects described earlier in this article. To do what they did, required extraordinary teamwork.

I’m reminded of the (illustrative) story of four people going gulf fishing in a boat – a Traditionalist, a Boomer, an X-er, and a Millennial. All of a sudden the boat’s captain fell over dead with a heart attack and, in that process, did something destructive to the boat’s motor key mechanism as he fell over, as well as hitting the radio – breaking its channel mechanism. The boat stalled – dead in the water. Fully adrift.

So the combination of four people had to figure out how they’d get back to shore. Each of them devised a workable plan and got to work. The Traditionalist quickly determined what he could salvage from the boat to make more workable oars for paddling back to the shoreline and readied safety flares for expected overhead helicopters or airplanes; he also knew, instinctively, their directional status, fully understanding the sun’s position in the sky.

The Boomer hunted for and found the boat’s engine manual and was troubleshooting the starting mechanism, and how to bypass it – to restart the engine – plus was troubleshooting the boat’s radio, etc.

The X-er immediately used his phone’s GPS coordinates and was preparing to call in to the Coast Guard for help. The Millennial quickly text messaged an SOS to the Coast Guard with emphasis for HELP!

We often resort to solving problems with the technology to which we are most accustomed. In this illustration, each method had value. Each had potential to solve the problem and return the group to shore! Each person, regardless of his/her generational label, has something important to offer – a way of thinking about things. We each have ideas to offer for solving problems in our workplace; we are each other’s brother/sister in the workplace. We are all in the same boat!

We all can learn from each other, especially in safety. We all can listen to each other. History teaches good lessons. We all can share our concerns, our expectations, our perspectives, our technologies…for the betterment of the success of whatever it is that we came together to do (together).

We, at R.N. Knowles & Associates, work with leaders, teams, organizations, and businesses, helping them to solve their complex problems (together). We know that complex situations require new ways of thinking and being. We also are keen on the use of the Process Enneagram© because it is the proven “tool of complexity” that helps leaders and their teams resolve their complex issues (together and quickly). It allows for extensive input, ideas, perspectives, realities, understanding, and acceptance of various ideas, sharing and learning…so that we bridge perception differences and viewpoint gaps around any complex issue that you are facing. When we learn from our individual talents and work as a team, there is no limit to our potential achievements – including our collective safety!

Call us at 716-622-6467and we’ll show you how it can work for your organization, too.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: , , ,

Breaking the Pattern – Allowing the New to Emerge…via The Partner-Centered Safety Leadership Workshop

September 12, 2016 By Leave a Comment

goldfishIn many of our newsletters, I have talked about helping organizations co-create their safety future using the Process Enneagram© complexity tool in our Partner-Centered Safety Leadership Workshops. This is a powerful tool to help bring the people together around their safety challenges – breaking the old patterns, and co-creating a better, safer future (together).

Here is a brief description about how our Partner-Centered Safety Leadership Workshop takes place:

In a recent workshop, a cross-section of the people, including their manager, came together for a day. There were about 19 people present. We began with the question, “How do we improve our safety performance?” With this as our central focus, we engaged the people with the Process Enneagram©. Everyone participated in developing their living, strategic safety plan over the next four hours in an interactive dialogue in which everyone participated, including delving into the issues and behavioral patterns that keep recurring.

Together, the group determined what new commitments needed to be made (by all of the team) in order to get where they wanted to be, together – to achieve the best results for a safe workplace.

We then asked the people to identify what the top four things were that they needed to immediately work on and develop a plan of action. Then, they self-organized into four teams of about equal size to work on their respective topic. After about two hours, each team reported out to the entire workshop group, sharing their ideas and plans to improve safety and to solve their problem. They identified their leader, the team members, their plan of action and when they would be meeting again to do their work.

After the workshop, the participants shared what had happened with all the others in the organization who had not attended, asking for ideas for improvement.

In order to sustain this work, their manager needed to talk with all of them frequently about the progress of their teams. The manager supported each team with the resources and contacts they needed to do their work. About once a month, all the teams came together and reviewed their progress with each of the other teams and the manager. Open communications with the rest of the organization kept everyone informed of the progress.

The manager talked with everyone in the organization about their Safety Strategic Plan, sharing information abundantly, listening carefully, and building credibility. He/she also spent time with each team to understand their work. The manager often helped the teams to contact others in the organization or suppliers so they could make progress. The manager created the environment of open communications and trust to make all this happen and to sustain the work.

When Claire and I returned to this organization after about four months, each team met with us to discuss their progress, frustrations and successes. Every team had made progress and everyone was talking about how to help the organization improve. Several teams had completed their initial project and had begun to work on the next piece of work to help the organization get stronger and safer. Almost everyone in the organization was talking about ways to help to improve the organization’s safety performance. Clearly, the organization had markedly improved, moving forward to a better, safer workplace for everyone. And they co-created that future (together).

Discover how your organization can see safety turnarounds quickly. For more information, contact us at 716-622-6467.

Filed Under: Safety Leadership Process, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: , ,

Conceptualize “Caring” in Your Workplace! Then Conceptualize “Tragic Fatality” in Your Workplace!

August 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment

construction safetyEighty (80) pages and counting…that’s how far I got while perusing the numerous pages for the 2015 fatalities logged on OSHA reports – there were still many names and circumstances yet to read.

Each one of the entries represents a real person – who has a name, a family, a job, and was doing a task within his/her workplace. I also looked at the OSHA count for 2014 and the total fatalities in the workplace that year numbered 4,821.

Think about this tragic loss of life. 4,821 is a big number made up of 1+1+1+1 + another, another, another, and each single number is not just a number…it is connected to a personal name. Having recently visited the 911 Memorial in New York City, it really drives home the importance of an individual – a named individual. The visual has such meaning.

Making a living shouldn’t have to cost you your life. As Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health notes,workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses are preventable.

Employers and Employees share responsibility for safety. We say that we care. We know that we care deeply when we are touched by the closeness of a tragic injury to someone we know – we’re able to put a face and a name to the number. Yet, how many times have you tuned out during a safety meeting, thinking that the subject was boring, or giving only lip-service, believing it can’t happen here.

If only we all understood that every single safety rule has been written in blood. Meaning someone, somewhere, somehow was hurt badly enough that rules emerged to prevent a recurrence. Yet, the OSHA logs keep growing, showing real time statistics. We have a lot of caring to demonstrate!

Conceptualize real caring. What does it look like in your workplace? In the 80’s, there was something called a “Unity Triangle,” which was a useful model…to strive for commitment within a team structure in a way that demonstrates caring, understanding and openness (all three) so that individual growth is stimulated while team efforts are increasingly directed toward achieving safe workplaces, and organizational alignment of goals.

The learning is this:

Unity-Triangle

Ponder this: We can have safe workplaces. We can have involved, caring, individual, safe-minded employees. We can understand that safety rules are written in blood and we can be open about connecting with our coworkers to keep learning and remaining diligent in keeping each other safe. We can be open to reaching out in ways we may not have done before; we can be open to achieving full Safety alignment…by everyone in the workplace, in our teams, individually and collectively.

That’s unity…that’s being aligned on the principle that making a living (anywhere) shouldn’t have to cost a real person his/her life…none of us are numbers. We are a Team, with named individuals, committed to the betterment of our collective workplace.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: ,

Shifting the Way We Look at Organizations

July 11, 2016 By Leave a Comment

On June 29, 2016, I presented a paper at the American Society of Safety Engineers 2016 Professional Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It was titled “Partner-Centered Safety: A New Leadership Approach for Safety Excellence.”

Richard-ASSE-Conference2016

My message to those who attended my session was that the Bureau of Labor safety statics show the rate of improvement in reducing injuries in the workplace has slowed down since about 2009 and the rate of improvement for deaths has stopped; about 4,600-4,700 people are being killed at work each year.

The safety professionals and managers are putting a lot of effort into improving the safety performance in our workplaces, but we seem to be stuck. I think that the problem is that we are approaching organizations as if they are just complicated systems rather than as complex systems.

current-view-of-organizations

The complicated view of organizations has served us well, and a lot of progress has been achieved. Now we need to move forward in our thinking.

When we view our organizations as complex systems, a better description of the way organizations actually behave emerges.

more-realistic-view

While many people crave reliability, predictability, stability, and control for their organizations, this is rarely achieved. Our organizations are full of movement, feedback, changes, and surprises. Nothing sits still; everything is in motion.

When I learned to view my organization as a complex system, everything improved. Our injury rate dropped by ~97%, earnings rose ~300%, emissions dropped ~88%, and productivity rose ~45%.

My experience in leading the organization as if it was a complicated system was difficult and strenuous. I felt that I had to push everything to get the work accomplished safely, and we never achieved success. When I shifted to a complexity view of the organization, everything became easier to lead, my work was more effective and the improvements were dramatic. In working with the organization as a complex system, the people opened up, the conversations were more purposeful, and energy and creativity were released. All dimensions of the business improved and the people were pleased and proud of their achievements.

There is a lot in making this shift in perspective. I think that everyone can learn to work this way. I would be happy to talk with any of you about this and help you on your own journeys.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , ,

Complexity & Change are the New Normal: Leading the Way

June 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment

Those organizations that are achieving safety excellence recognize that they must:

  • Abundantly share all information about their safety, environmental and business performance,
  • Engage openly and honestly with everyone building trust and interdependence and,
  • Help everyone to get a sense of their collective whole and see their part in achieving total success.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand is on the pathway to safety excellence. We worked with Carl Stent, the NIWA National Manager, Safety and Wellbeing, in a series of 7 full-day workshops involving over 100 managers and scientists to develop clarity and focus on the best ways to help their people working remotely, like in the Antarctic, to make the best possible decisions and work safely – every day, every task.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

This (picture above) is their Operations Leadership Team who met with us in Wellington for two days at the beginning of our work with NIWA. We helped them to see that organizations are complex, adapting, self-organizing networks of people. Using the Process Enneagram©, our proprietary complexity tool for having the focused and disciplined conversations, they were able to effectively address their opening question, “How do we build and sustain an effective safety culture across our organization?”

The energy and excitement built during the day as information, ideas and breakthroughs emerged during the workshop. The Process Enneagram© map they created is serving as their living strategic safety plan.

We conducted workshops in six NIWA Centers across New Zealand, giving us an opportunity to meet a lot of outstanding people and to see a lot of their beautiful country. We also conducted one public and one private workshop which were also extremely successful in opening people up to the ideas of complexity and to approaching safety from this perspective. With Carl Stent’s ongoing, excellent support, NIWA is on the road to safety excellence!

Filed Under: Safety Leadership Process, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: ,

Buddy Benches

May 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment

buddy-benchThere was a video on Facebook a few weeks ago about Buddy Benches being placed in schoolyards. The video explained the importance of the communication and training that is essential to their use and effectiveness.

The essence of the Buddy Bench is for inclusion and safety. Kids who feel alone and have no one to enjoy their recess time with are encouraged to sit on the bench – as a signal that he/she is in need of a friend, a buddy, a playgroup to join. Conversely, when the Buddy Bench has a person sitting on it, the kids who are enjoying their recess time, are chartered to practice being a Buddy…by sharing friendship, to invite the person into their group, to ask what might be troubling the bench-sitter, to provide protection from a bully; the list of helpful acts extended from the community of kids towards the person in need of a buddy is heartwarming.Buddy Benches serve as a safe place for kids who are feeling bullied or for kids to make new friends.

In exploring Buddy Benches, I learned that they are multiplying; they are in many school districts across the country. Some Boy Scout troops are now making Buddy Benches for schools for their badge-earning credits. The Buddy Bench is a simple idea to lessen loneliness, to counter bullying, and to foster friendship and a sense of belonging. Buddy Benches provide the symbolic learning space for both asking for help and, in return, receiving the extended hand of friendship.

After learning about this uplifting idea, I thought about inclusion within our workplaces and about being our brother’s/sister’s keeper – simply because it is the right thing to do – ensuring we have each other’s back. I thought about OSHA’s workplace bullying guidance, the connection to the General Duty Clause, and knowing that escalating workplace bullying, harassment, and intimidation is linked to poorer safety performance as well as employee mental and physical wellbeing. And, of course, I thought about employee accountability – we are each accountable for our behaviors. I thought about the culture of our workplaces being strongly related to the worst behaviors we are willing to tolerate. I thought about that old book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” by Robert Fulghum. Remember those simple truths?

How our work worlds would be improved if we all adhered to the same basic rules as children: sharing, being kind to one another, no hitting, cleaning up after themselves, learning together, etc. Maybe we need to place something like Buddy Benches in our workplaces. What do you think?

Filed Under: Safety Leadership, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , ,

We do “Safety” Because We Care

April 11, 2016 By Leave a Comment

Bok-Tower-GardensAt one of the highest geographical points in Florida, at Lake Wales, is a large, 205-ft high, carillon tower. It is beautiful, as are the gardens surrounding this tower structure, made of glistening coquina stone. The tower and gardens were a gift from benefactor Edward W. Bok, who cared deeply about nature, beauty and sanctuary spaces. Millions of visitors have traversed this place of solace since it opened in 1929. Edward Bok was all about CARING for future generations – to be able to enjoy peace and beauty. His tribute signature is this:

“Make you the world a bit better or more beautiful because you have lived in it.”
~ Edward W. Bok (1929)

Our safety work (at R.N. Knowles & Associates) has taken us to many places over the last few months. We’re reminded, as we’ve interacted with many people, and visited many workplaces, that Safety is about caring deeply. Likened to Edward Bok’s inspiration about caring about the world of beauty and leaving his legacy, let’s substitute the word safety for beauty, and leave our positive safety legacy for our respective workplaces. What if everyone in our workplaces chose to care deeply about safety?

What if this statement became your chosen signature phrase?

“Make your work-world a bit better and more safe because you have lived in it.” (2016)

We all make choices – every day – as we live and work in our workplaces. We do “Safety” because we care deeply – stemming from a core concern for others.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: ,

Awakening the Third Force – In Safety – It’s time!

March 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment

No, this isn’t about Star-Wars! And it is not about following the Jedi Path. This is a way of thinking with roots going back to Maslow around unifying forces.

For our workplaces, this is about the way we think about safety, the way we engage around safety, and the way we bring a third unifying force to the whole culture of safety.It’s the missing link in our respective workplaces. Without it, we tend to stay engulfed in a culture of compliance, yet despite trying and trying, we never reach excellence. Without it, we keep repeating the same mistakes – round and round we go.

With it, however, we intentionally move forward. We establish the culture that is committed to safety, inclusively cares about and connects with everyone, continually learns, and develops a depth of safety.

With it, safety has a constant aliveness. Without it, safety remains a by-the-way.

Read on to learn more about this “IT”…the Third Force of Safety!

The Awakening of the Third Force

I spoke at the American Society of Safety Engineers, Region IV, Professional Development Conference in Tampa, Florida on February 27, 2016.

Dick Knowles with Pamela PerrichI spoke about Partner-Centered Safety™ and the importance of this as the quickest way to achieve sustainable safety excellence. As many of you know, I have written and spoken about this many times over the last several years. The information and data I share clearly shows that this approach to leading safety is very powerful, producing improved results quite quickly. Many of you have seen the terrific results the people at the DuPont, Belle Plant achieved. This approach has a very strong scientific basis in complex adaptive systems theory.

It was exciting to see and hear one of the speakers at this PDC also beginning to talk about improving safety using a complex adaptive systems approach. This speaker had heard Sydney Dekker speak about this way of engaging the organization at an ASSE National PDC in 2014 and had gone to Australia to meet with Dekker. While they like the ideas of this approach, they do not have the tools to make the connections and bring the networks of people effectively connect with the physical work and come to life.

Several other speakers spoke about the importance of working more closely with the people, developing more trust and interdependence. There is developing excitement about this way of working together.

The Awareness is Growing!

There seems to be a growing awareness that working with the people makes a positive difference. While no one has developed the tools to actually engage and bring the people together into a highly focused and purposeful conversation as we do using the Process Enneagram©, a positive shift to fully engaging the people and achieving safety excellence appears to be starting to happen.

In my presentation, that was very well received, I introduced a new diagram about bringing the safety and business technology together with the people side of the enterprise releasing the Third Force (Partnering) to achieve Total Business and Safety Excellence. For over 100 years, the business, productivity, and the safety technology (the quantitative, rules, procedures, machines, etc.) of our work has driven our organizations. The people have often been pushed and driven to function like they were just parts of a great machine. When we shift our way of thinking and doing, we can effectively bring the people into the work using a complex adaptive systems approach and specifically the Process Enneagram Safety Excellence workshops, a whole new level of sustainable performance is created.

Total business excellence

In the Safety Excellence Workshops, using the Process Enneagram© (seeSafetyExcellenceForBusiness.com and RNKnowlesAssociates.com), the people discover and co-create new ways to work together and develop the excitement and commitment for sustainable safety excellence to be achieved.

The Third Force in Safety is Partnering – bringing the strengths of our business and safety knowledge and tools together with the goodness of and power of the people to achieve sustainable, excellent results. It is an active force, a compelling force – collaborative, focused, conversational, committed, and caring…and it works!

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , ,
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