Pointing The Finger at Others

One of the most inspirational people I ever worked with was Brock, our safety guy. Brock was (and still is) the kind of guy who brought down the injury rates at every work site he ended up working at.

In the early 2000's I was responsible for 14 work crews repairing the Calgary water main system. When we weren’t repairing water main breaks (about one per day) we were also doing other maintenance work that involved working in trenches, using heavy equipment, and working in traffic.

I had about 140 people who reported to me through 12 supervisors; a lot of responsibility for a 30-something, wet behind the ears, engineer.

 I was starting to become very concerned about the number of people who were getting hurt on the job, and that’s where Brock came in. Brock was responsible for our safety program.

We had many discussions about how we could reduce our accident rate, which was averaging about one lost-time accident per month. We both agreed the goal should be zero, not per month, but zero per year, period. I was starting to wonder if we needed to look at layoffs or others ways to “persuade” people to work safer.

Brock’s advice has stuck with me throughout the years.

He said “Tom, any time you point the finger at someone else, three fingers point straight back at you”.

Think about that for a second. Let that sink in.

As Brock elaborated to me, I had to make sure I had done three things properly before I started telling people who worked for me that they had screwed up. Those three things were (and still are):

1)     Was I clear on expectations to the folks working for me? Had I actually told them that I expected them to work safely?

2)     Had I given them the tools, equipment and training they needed to do their jobs properly?

3)     Finally, had I checked up on them to make sure they were doing fine?

I took Brock’s advice to heart. We started a zero lost time accident program that immediately dropped our accident rates in half. I also started popping out to the job sites one or two times a week to check up on the guys. The guys appreciated seeing me taking an interest in their work (most of them anyways) and I learned a lot about repairing water mains from them. I also had a dedicated support staff who made sure the front-line workers had the right tools and equipment to work safely.

We, all 141 of us, started to turn things around.

So, the next time you’re tempted to point the finger at someone else in your life take the high road.

Ask yourself about the three fingers pointing straight back at you. As a leader you should be comfortable making sure you’ve answered yes to the three questions before coming down hard on someone else.

Hope you’re doing well.