Did you hear the story about the Safety Elephant who roamed all over the place stomping people down, messing things up, and completely blocking the ability of the people from having the important safety conversations?
Yes, the elephant that got in the way of having the conversations that matter? You did? Oh, you have one of those too?
Safety First Elephants are big and smelly. Everyone knows they are there because they stink up the place, making it smell rotten. Elephants are also sneaky, often disguised, or even invisible. Sometimes they show up as the bully who tries to push everyone around and control the group. Sometimes it is a boss who just doesn’t seem to care. Sometimes it is “obliviousness” to what is really happening. Sometimes it is simply an undiscussable that has been allowed to fester. Anyone who tries to speak up about an important issue is silenced, put down, demeaned or ridiculed. The elephant just loves this. The elephants are in control! They are having a happy time!
You know that the elephant has a name…yet, you speak of it in whispers. (For the purpose of this Safety Flash, let’s call this elephant, Hiney – the H is for Hidden!) While Hiney is invisible or disguised, Hiney loves for you to talk about him/her in private, with a person you can trust. You might talk about Hiney in the restroom or by the water cooler. You make Hiney really quite visible in these conversations. But when you stay quiet in the situations that really matter – when you could constructively make an issue explicit, but you don’t – then Hiney remains very safe. So back in the workplace, Hiney keeps sneaking around, messing the place all up and stomping all over. Hiney is really very unfriendly – just loving it when someone gets hurt because you couldn’t talk about the real safety problem. Sometimes there are whole herds of Hiney’s!
Hiney is really very afraid of being made visible. If you just look Hiney (aka, the undiscussable) right in the eye and name the big, stinking elephant, everything changes! The big, cowardly, stinky, brutal Hiney seems to just melt away. You can talk about Hiney and work to fix the safety problem. There are courageous, safe ways to name and address the hidden elephants! Hiney can’t stand the light of the truth! Transparency hinders elephant herds. Fewer injuries and incidents will happen when you learn how to lift them up and address them. Call us…We’ll show you how!
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