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 lose 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.
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.
Cultural improvement: bullying, harassment and dysfunction decrease.
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.
Change is happening all the time!
Changes are coming fast and furious. Everything seems to be changing all around us. This can cause unsettling feelings and a loss of control. However, in the middle of all this change, one area that can be steady for us is our relationships with each other.
If we have a good agreement about how we are going to work together including things like respect, listening, helping, learning together, these can provide us the stability we need.
These are like the pole in a subway car. With everything around us bouncing and moving, holding the pole provides the stability we need.
We can treat each other with respect,no matter what is happening in the world around us; this is within our control.
Artificial intelligence and robots, block chains and bitcoins, the opioid epidemic, political strife, and workplace violence, international worries and potential conflicts are some of the challenges facing all of us. There is a critical need for people, in all walks of life, to come together to openly and honestly talk about our challenges, share our thinking and learn together. We do not have to be blindly swept along. We can make decisions and do the things that we need to do to help to make the world a better place.
When I talk about safety. my thinking goes well beyond the traditional safety numbers, training and procedures. It includes ideas about respect and how everyone has agreed to work together. It includes ideas about personal responsibility, integrity and dedication to helping everyone improve. It includes openness, honesty and sharing information abundantly. It includes ideas about the deeper, often hidden patterns of behavior which have a profound impact on the work environment and drive much of the behavior. It includes the fact that the managers and leaders have the largest impact on their organization’s performance. It includes the understanding that managers focus on reliability, stability, predictability and control as they try to maintain the status quo and that leaders focus on the people, change and the future sharing information abundantly, treating people with respect and helping people find meaning in their work. Both good leaders and managers are needed.
Our businesses, our schools and hospitals, our governments, and not-for-profits, at all levels, are fractured and coming apart. Change is coming faster and faster. So many people seem to be trying to cope by pulling into their shells and trying to push the turmoil all away. The trust levels among all the various groups is very low. So many loud voices are pushing their version of the “truth” that it is almost impossible to tell who is being honest and should be listened to. How do we find the truth?
In thinking about your own place of work, what do you suppose it would be like if people did some of the things mentioned earlier in this newsletter? Do you think that you could begin talking with others about building a more respectful environment? What do you think it would be like if you could openly talk together about the important issues like improving the safety of your job? What would it be like if the managers and supervisors talked frequently about with everyone about how the business was doing the challenges from the competition? What would it be like if you knew that someone was looking out for your back? What would it be like if you felt you were in an environment of trust? What would it be like if people really asked important questions and talked about them? What would it be like if people in upper management asked you for your honest opinion and really listened? That’s called breaking the iceberg and engaging in authentic conversations!
