Stop for Safety

Following a series of injuries in one area, David Thomas gathered members of our BAE Systems, Inc. Ship Repair team to focus on safety and to discuss injuries, hazards, and what we can do to prevent them. These meet-ups drive a culture that prioritizes safety. (I was fortunate to have an opportunity to participate, along with leadership from our customer and the ship’s officers and crew.)

If you want to proactively advance safety at your site, you should be empowered to host these meet-ups at your company, too. Here’s how to do it:

• Get buy-in and manage up. It can be difficult to convince your leaders to stop operations. It is a big financial burden to turn off your production lines. Be transparent about what has happened and the trends you are seeing. Once you have the endorsement of your leader, ensure you cascade his or her sense of urgency and criticality to all people managers who will participate.
• Be timely. If you are having safety issues, the worst thing you can do is wait. Once you notice a pattern or experience a major injury, initiate a meet-up within a few days. This way, the feedback you receive is timely enough to fix any unsafe conditions or procedures that may be in place before another incident happens.
• Know your audience. Give your employees the floor. Really listen and invite your teams to radical candor while operations have stopped. Gather as much feedback as you can to make meaningful process changes and drive substantial outcomes. Make the content you share relevant to those participating so they can identify with the concern and urgency.
• Encourage community. When it comes down to it, safety needs to be everyone’s responsibility. Employees who look out for their peers, intervene in the moment, and report larger concerns can be the eyes and ears on the ground that prevent incidents. People + policies and procedures = success.
• Be deliberate. Don’t hold a meet-up every time something happens. It should be a rare, severe, urgent outcome that makes your employees realize something really big is happening. The event won’t be as impactful if your team becomes numb to the experience.

Your passion and persistence—and what you instill in your employees—can drive lasting and life-altering change in your organization. What you do might save a life.

I promise you, you won’t regret it.