Do This One Thing to Change Your Safety Culture

You’ve seen those headlines on Youtube videos, right? Do this one thing…to lose weight, to grow your hair back, to get rich. I did click on a link once that bombarded me with a 45-minute video showering me with much more than this one thing. Primarily, it meant parting with my money.

Do you ever feel that way about ads and articles in the Harvard Business Review or McKensie and Co. on how to change your culture? I would love to believe everything I read about the success described, but I can’t.  I’ve spent 25 years in the field working with the realities of on-site delivery. I found things don’t often go according to plan on the people end. It does work to cut costs and downsize. 

If you are still reading this article you are one of the folks left to deal with those realities. Like any practical person interested in re-establishing a sense of normalcy and getting the work done you might be looking for some way forward that makes sense.

So, here it is: stop changing culture and start building or re-building relationships. How? Become sensitized to the level of psychological safety* in the people around you and learn how to promote it. There is only one way to do this and it is through personal conversations 1-1 and in small groups.

If you are in a position to influence leaders in your organization your challenge is convincing managers that this activity is worth their time. It can also be hard to overcome natural personality preferences. You can hire someone like me to help you with this. Or you can learn more about it by reading books on the topic such as mine, The Relationship Factor in Safety Leadership. To get a sense of what is involved, please read on.  

I would like to keep “psychological safety” from falling into the same meaningless pit with “safety culture.” Preventing serious injuries, fatalities and catastrophic failures isn’t only about trust and psychological safety. If we fall into that trap then we’ll not progress past it’s all about the “safety culture” or “human error” or “safety management systems.” Humanity, life itself, is too complex to fit into a predictive model.

Stop changing culture and start building or re-building relationships

I’ve been telling leaders that if you start doing this one thing you will transform your organization’s performance in every area, not only safety. My emphasis is on starting 1-1 conversations with direct reports. What happens next can’t be scripted. You can be assured that you’ll miss the clues that would lead you to take right action if you aren’t fully present, listening and asking questions.

To do this you’ll have to stop thinking about building a culture and start thinking about building a "social network." The idea of social systems or social processes to explain the impact of human dynamics on organizations is an old one. Culture is only one of those social systems—the hardest one to change. 

Edgar Schein popularized the idea of "organizational culture." It helped people understand how dynamics such as hierarchy (leadership and social status), language, dress and customs applies to organizations. Yet, as he pointed out, culture is so much deeper. The invisible beliefs and assumptions are hard to identify and cannot be controlled. Paying attention to relationships and social interactions offer a much more concrete approach to influence people and organizations. 

Paying attention to relationships and social interactions offer a much more concrete approach to influence people and organizations 

The way we treat each other, talk to each other (social interaction) adds to or takes away from psychological safety. The human brain is very sensitive to the signs of inclusion (I’m safe because I belong) or exclusion (loss of security).  

Once we establish psychological safety the social field has been prepared to plant the desired values, vision, systems and processes. So success depends on an alignment or optimization of both social and technical systems. How to do this? Stop changing and building cultures. Start having 1-1 conversations to establish relationship, common purpose and clear priorities.

Leaders already do this in certain areas.  As one HSE professional said, “Speak to any operators at a steel mill and they may not be able to tell you what the safety rule for touching suspended loads is, but they will be able to tell you that any delays in production costs the company ￡80 per minute.” How did they get this message so clearly? 

The term "psychological safety” is much more useful than “safety culture.” It is a term that describes a very important aspect of any system to protect the environment, animals and human beings. It isn't philosophical. It is as real as our physical body. There is no separation between psychological and physical safety. They are one and the same. 

If you are feeling threatened physically or mentally your awareness diminishes, your problem solving abilities diminish, you can't learn, you are more concerned with covering your behind than contributing or working safely. Having a bunch of employees who don't feel psychologically safe is like having them show up with one arm tied behind their back.   

The leader sets the tone for psychological safety. Currently, it is not considered part of a safety professional's job to look after workers' psychological safety. Those who are able to it are successful at engaging employees.

*Psychological safety means that people feel they are being treated in a way that lets them know they belong, that they are included. If you love learning you can read this early paper on the topic. https://www.talenteck.com/academic/Kahn-1990.pdf

For questions or help on delivering this message please contact me via www.carrilloconsultants.com