Shifting the Safety Culture to Excellence

When we work together with our people, we can shift the safety culture.

The first part of this work is sharing all information and talking together about it. Another part is building trust and interdependence with the people as we openly discuss what is happening, what we are doing and why. The third part of this work is helping people to see the big picture and how important their part is to the success of the whole business.

These are the core elements of Self-Organizing Leadership. When we co-create our Safety Strategic Plan™ using the Process Enneagram©, we produce a living strategic plan that we use going forward. We keep it posted, talk about it weekly and modify it as things change.

We have found that walking around and talking with, rather than at, our people often feels new and awkward for many managers. It takes some practice and persistence.

Being in dialogue with the people makes us feel exposed and uncertain. Sometimes people ask questions we can’t answer. That is okay – just get the answer and go back to talk some more. This is not a spectator sport. There is a Spanish saying, “It is a lot easier to talk about the bull than be in the ring.” Yet, this walking around and talking and listening together is key to our success. In these conversations we are building the BOWL. This is the container that holds the organization together. It consists of our vision, mission, principles, standards, and expectations. As people learn to function within the BOWL, they find the freedom to create new solutions to problems, taking the lead to solve them and become leaders.

When the culture shifts in this way, the people begin to see other things that they can do to improve the business. Quality problems that were once ignored get solved. Cost problems that lingered get fixed. Customer issues among the plant and their customers, like delivery requirements, get solved. Turn-around times between production campaigns needed to clean and re-pipe the equipment drop from weeks to just days. I have seen all these things happen.

When the safety culture gets right then everything gets right! Moving to safety excellence becomes the leading wave for total cultural change to excellence.