The Leader Think Podcast: Recent Episodes
Philip Greisen
Helping businesses move towards an intentional culture that achieves the results they desire. We discuss concepts such as personal growth, coaching, culture change and leadership development. More information at leaderthink.com
A conversation on mental health in construction.
https://mysteadymind.com/
AGC Discount Code: AGCGA25
If we can't foresee every incident that will occur, can we make it safer to fail when they do?
Human Performance Lunch & Learn 1/12/23 11:30am:
https://www.agcga.org/Shared_Content/Events/Event_Display.aspx?EventKey=011223LNL
Smart rules are developed with subject matter experts, those who do the work where the rule must be applied.
Most high level training fails due to the lack of reflection. Without reflection we can never apply new wisdom to our unique, personal life experience. To achieve true growth and see real results, we must find time to reflect.
The better you get at your job or the work you do, the harder it gets because you are capable of more. You have advanced to a higher level. People see that increase in your capabilities and may give you more responsibility. You get better, but your work gets harder.
The world starts to expect more from you. With that advancement in your personal growth comes more responsibility, more expectations, more time commitment and the never-ending process of continuing to educate yourself. Not to mention all the thought management work that comes with it.
It’s meant to get harder because doing harder things makes you stronger. As you increase your strength, you make yourself ready for the next level. And so, the process repeats, on and on, and on again.
It’s meant to be this way because we are meant to grow by design. From birth we are created to learn, grow, adapt, get out of our comfort zone, keep trying new things we haven’t figured out how to succeed at yet, master things we are just starting to feel like we can pull off; and it never stops.
We will get better, but it will get harder. Instead of longing for the day when life gets easier, we should embrace the hard work that comes with growth. We need to regularly remind ourselves that these hard times are happening on purpose. They are happening for us, not to us.
People can go through some really hard crap. But they can also get through it. On the other side, if they grow from the experience, it strengthens them. When we feel resistance to the hard work, it doesn’t grow us. It weakens us.
The resistance is the fear circuitry in our brains that has been developing since humans walked the earth. The part of us that sees hard times as a development exercise is still in kindergarten. That part of our brain is nowhere near as developed as the fear circuitry.
We shouldn’t complain about hard work. We shouldn’t even tolerate it. We should embrace it and be thankful for it. Maybe we are still in the middle of dealing with it, but we need to remind ourselves often that hard times are to our benefit. If we learn to process the emotion that comes with it, we grow stronger.
One way this has shown up for me is in the form of criticism.
People seem to be less respectful than years past. Not everyone, but there does seem to be an increasing amount of disrespectful behavior in the classroom setting. I’m sure it’s attributed to a multitude of things. Some are mine to take ownership of. Some are outside stimuli.
We live in a world where anyone can post their criticisms online. Phrases such as “think before you speak” and “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me” are kind of lacking in today’s zeitgeist. People can be easily offended, the world tends to say you shouldn’t offend people, but rarely do people talk about the fact that no one can really offend you without you giving them permission first.
This, behavior of vocally criticizing anything you disagree with sometimes shows up in the classroom. Just like in the internet world, these vocal disagreements tend to be based on a small sound bite. They are not based on a thorough understanding of the subject matter.
They often seem to appear in the form of interruption. It’s rare that these strong criticisms come from someone raising their hand and asking if they could make a comment or ask a question. It’s most often mid-sentence, when I’m explaining a deep concept, that someone strongly interrupts and says, “you’re wrong” in some combination of words. Usually, I am trying to help these people gain a greater understanding to human performance. Still, many respond with “you are wrong” about what you are teaching.
It’s happening for me though. It’s not happening to me. It’s happening for me, serving me, teaching me new ways to deal with the experience. The more people tell me I am wrong, the more I learn methods to calm their emotions and point them to their prefrontal context in the moment. I’ve learned that allowing their resistance to be is one of the greatest forms of influence. If I resist their resistance, it strengthens their resolve.
Recently someone told me I was wrong about a human performance concept I was teaching. I responded with, “that’s ok if you disagree, I’m just going to let it go and move on to another topic”. Later at the break, the gentleman came up to me, calmly, wanting to learn more about the subject.
It’s hard to let go when a room full of people are staring at you, watching someone tell you that you’re wrong about what you are teaching, watching how you respond. There’s a part of you that wants to prove to the entire class you are right. But learning to let go in different ways, to influence people to walk toward you instead of resisting you, has made me so much stronger. These loud disagreements I have dealt with have made me stronger.
Another example: Years ago, there was a certain class I would teach twice a year to a tough audience. I remember back then, telling my wife that it was the hardest job I would do every year. Now it’s one of the easiest classes I teach. Not giving up on doing a job I thought was so hard has strengthened me and become one of the easiest jobs I do.
These are just a few examples of this concept. Dealing with burnout, disrespectful behavior, working longer hours, doing jobs you aren’t paid to do, all things that come with getting better at your work. Getting better is harder but the fruit is the strength you develop in the process.
Ed Mylett says he doesn’t pray for things to get better. He prays, “God make me stronger”. He knows the depth of this concept, that life gets richer because we get stronger by experiencing and growing from hard things. We shouldn’t pray for things to get easier. We should pray for life experiences to make us stronger.
There’s a 50/50 with that. You will grow, but you will experience hard things.
As I grow, I see that my role with the disrespectful behavior in the world is mostly about me and not the world. It’s on me to not let it trigger my dog-like, limbic brain. It’s on me to not feel disrespected because someone else is being disrespectful. It’s on me to be the example of how we can manage our thoughts and emotions.
If I can move toward understanding, and away from judging, I can always get better at managing hard experiences. Most often, when I experience disrespectful behavior going on the classroom, it is due to one of two things.
Either A, they are struggling with something personal that I know nothing about, or B, they are unfamiliar with the subject matter and it is stirring up emotions in them that they vent out with words.
Knowing that is becoming stronger. Judging their behavior is weakness. Understanding it is strength.
You never know what personal crap people are dealing with in their lives. But you do know that every one of your students, coworkers and peers are dealing with something that the rest of us know nothing about. Sometimes we learn these things or get a little window into them, but more often than not, we don’t know the half of it.
A friend of mine gave me a window into this recently. He brought up a class he was in, years ago, and mentioned how one of the students was being disrespectful to me. He said the guy asked him to lunch one day and, although hesitant to go, he went anyway.
During that lunch, he learned the guy was recently turned down for a promotion and he was dealing with a family issue. My friend wanted to share that it may have been part of the reason for his behavior in class.
Who knows? Maybe it was part of it, none of it, or all of it. Either way, the class was years ago. I have moved far along from that moment but, the lesson is still there. You never know what people are going through. We all have junk in our trunk, and sometimes you are the emotional punching bag for that junk when you are center stage.
So be it. Bring it on. God make me stronger. These experiences are by design for my own personal development.
Then there’s not being familiar with the subject matter. Human Performance is often that example for me. I’ve explained in other podcasts how challenging long held beliefs can create massive discomfort in the brain. Teaching Human Performance and leadership skills often triggers this discomfort. Even when you explain why people are so resistant to new ideas and science, people will still resist. The rational explanation doesn’t always calm the emotional element.
Kids tend to have their learning switch in the on position. That’s why they can learn a foreign language or how to play a musical instrument so quickly. Adults tend to have their learning switch in the off position. Anything that can challenge what they have long believed to be true is placing them out of their comfort zone at a subconscious level.
If you are the leader or instructor, you want to embrace discomfort to make yourself stronger, to flip your learning switch into the on position. For your audience, you want to understand that they may not be in the same place as you. Not everyone is doing thought work and mental management, intentionally forcing themselves out of their comfort zone on purpose. Most people that do this work had to search it out on their own. These skills are rarely taught in traditional education systems.
Weakness is judging people for having expected reactions in their brain. Strength is not only understanding why people act that way, but taking ownership for how you respond back to it.
If I hadn’t gone through years of dealing with these types of circumstances, I wouldn’t have that awareness today. These circumstances have happened for me, not to me. They have made me stronger in my self-awareness. I’ve gotten better at dealing with them. I’ve become stronger.
Patience and letting go are strong responses in these scenarios.
You can explain something deeply and five people will still interpret it different ways.
I’ve taught the same subject matter and one student came up to me a quietly whispered, “I know what you are doing, you are teaching the bible.” Another came up and said, “I know what you are doing, you are teaching mindfulness”. Another interpreted it as occupational psychology. One time a guy loudly questioned from the back row, “I’m still trying to figure out if you’re a Christian or an Atheist?”
Not everyone will understand you. Many will think they understand in their own unique way. It doesn’t matter. Your focus should be on your own intent more than trying to make sure everyone gets it or understands the background of where you are coming from.
“My intent is to help you. My intent is to introduce concepts that research shows can reduce fatalities. My intent is to teach concepts that improve performance.” What everyone gets out of it, or does with it, is on them.
Patience equals strength.
One strength I am developing from these experiences is definitely patience. Patience when people don’t get what I am trying to explain. Patience when I am the target of some personal issues I don’t even know about. Patience knowing some will be changed after they leave the classroom, and the seed I planted was enough. Patience that I may never see that seed watered, but I will see progression in our industry over time. Patience dealing with my own growth in these strength building times.
I am definitely not perfect with this, but I am on the path and see the fruit of doing the mental work. That is what I must focus on; the strength that comes from the development path. When I pray for God to make me stronger, development of my patience and increased self-awareness are the gifts I receive.
Recently a student told me I have the patience of a saint. He said that after the first day of a four-day, challenging class. There were several unique personalities cutting me off mid-sentence, disagreeing with commonly accepted science and many displays of disrespectful behavior. I was pretty patient with it at first but it did wear me down throughout the week. He may have changed his mind a little by day four, but at least I know I am developing that strength. I am on the path. I recognize this behavior is normal today and it’s on me to manage how I respond to it. I’m getting better and getting stronger.
God, I don’t ask for easy. I know you will not give me more than I can handle. So, God, make me stronger.
I hope you all get a chance to do something hard this week. Do hard, uncomfortable things knowing that it will make you better and it will make you stronger. Prove to yourself that you are capable of so much more.
Have a hard, awesome, strength-building week!
www.leaderthink.com
https://www.2selfs.com/index
Dr. Barry Borgerson is the pioneer in developing a comprehensive theory to understand and manage our many hidden mental mechanisms including those that create involuntary habits (auto-behaviors) and automatic thought patterns (auto-contexts) that control "soft" success factors in business.
He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D. in computer science (and one of his minors in the management of human resources).
He is a long-time expert transformation coach who uses root-cause, mind-level transformation processes based on the first and so far only theory that models the many aspects of automatic human activities that determine the ability to achieve repeated business successes over long time horizons.
Dr. Borgerson built his coaching practice upon the assumption that we all operate in two modes – a thinking mode and an automatic mode. Therefore, we all operate as if we have two “selfs” – a thinking-self and an auto-self. He uses the 2Selfs Theory that models the thinking-self, which is where our intentions reside, and the auto-self, which controls our behavior habits (auto-behaviors) and organizational cultures (one form of auto-contexts). This allows systematic techniques to coach you to overcome your certainties associated with culture elements and the discomforts attached to transformational change.
To learn more about Brendon Baker, visit his website at www.valuablechange.com
Purchase his best selling book here: https://valuablechange.com/product/valuable-change-paperback/
When it comes to change – it’s a world filled with armies of consulting graduates sitting in dimly-lit rooms retroactively justifying why the latest ‘transformational’ initiative went ahead. The industry has over-complicated it. From obtuse jargon to untold reams of paperwork. It’s just become too hard, too confusing, too segregated and too academic.
The thing is – You don’t have time for that. No change leader does. Change is hard enough without all that added complexity.
Brendon is converting others to a radical new idea…
Keep it simple.
As a leading expert in the field, Brendon Baker is the author of the best-seller Valuable Change, and has consulted on over $10 Billion in key transformation projects and programs across a range of industries and organizational sizes. This has included public infrastructure, business/cultural transformations, shared service implementations, organizational restructures, process overhauls, technology deployments, social policy & more.
Brendon Baker established the Valuable Change Co. with one central mission in mind: to Help Change Leaders Drive Real Value, but on his way found his secondary mission: Fight Unnecessary Complexity. Where change isn’t about delivering on-time or on-budget, but rather actually getting what you’re looking for out of it.
Brendon is based on the rural outskirts of Canberra, Australia, has a degree in Business Management and is the father of two young girls - so he’s likely running on coffee for this call.
Brendon knew from the very beginning of his career that he didn’t want to do the same thing day in and day out.
After an accelerated schooling due to various ‘gifted and talented’ school programs, and a short stint in event management, Brendon found his initial calling - in Project Management.
Earning his (metaphorical) stripes and scars on projects large and small across various sized organizations, Brendon then shifted into change consulting. In retrospect, Brendon has worn almost every different hat and performed almost every role that exists in the world of changing organizations.
Through all this, there were three recurring themes:
First, Brendon had a knack for seeing through the complexity to find the simple, and doing so had huge benefit for the change he was working with.
Second, Brendon was able to make complex concepts - accessible. And not just personally, but was able to help others repeatedly do the same.
And third, that broad, diverse experience meant that Brendon was able to help his clients connect together all of the essential elements needed for truly successful change.
It’s these themes that were at play as Brendon wrote his books (to date) - Valuable Change, and Creating High Value PMOs. Both of which were number 1 New Releases across multiple categories, with Valuable Change hitting bestseller status.
And it’s those themes that Brendon brings to his clients everyday as part of the Valuable Change Co.
Human Performance principle #6: Individuals achieve high levels of performance through encouragement and reinforcement.
Human Performance principle #5: Events can be avoided by learning. In this episode, Anthony Fincher and David Smith discuss their HP journey at Marathon Electric.
HP Principle #3 - Individual behaviors are influenced by culture and leadership.
That reminds me of a John Maxwell quote, “Leadership is influence, nothing more”.
So much of this is about gaining awareness of how the behaviors of leadership influence the behaviors of the workers. That influence can be intentional or unintentional. Either way, what workers do on your project is directly influenced by what leaders do. And I’m not just talking about wearing PPE. I’m talking about perceptions of equity in accountability, having a growth minded attitude, creating an environment of open communication, and why people are or aren’t engaged.
Since HP is concerned with becoming a learning culture, a critical component of leadership is continually growing your ability to influence others to add value to them.
The power of influence can be used for very selfish reasons. True leadership is using the power of influence to add value to others, not yourself. What’s good for the team is good for the leaders. They both benefit. However, in a world where me-me-me is something we see a lot of, this can be challenging.
John Maxwell says there is a leadership deficit in our world today. He says that our entire world is seeing more bad examples of leadership traits, from churches, to politicians, to companies, than examples of great leadership. We need to show the world what great leadership looks like. Unfortunately, there are less examples of great leadership than there are of poor leadership.
As I mentioned earlier, this is often the hardest HP principle to implement. This one is an inside job. We need to change people from the inside out. We need to work on the organizational culture from the top down, not the bottom up.
Although the leadership principle can bear the most fruit, it is also the hardest to implement. Leadership is involved with emotional change, not technical change. That’s what makes it so hard. The leadership principle is concerned with changing people on the inside.
This is a hard path to go down, but the best things you experience in life are never the easy ones. It’s the hard stuff that produces the most satisfaction in the life experience. To help people become better people is not easy. But it’s also the most rewarding.
From one view it’s a total paradox. But should it really be any other way? Greatness comes from struggle. Through that lens, it should definitely be this way.
So, let’s look at some different ways that leadership influences behavior and how to improve upon it.
Modeling Safe Behaviors
I think the easiest one to start with is modeling the safety behaviors you want your people to display. It’s easy to talk about because I believe all of us have seen examples of this.
If the supervisor performs energized work without LOTO or following NFPA requirements, then that sends a powerful message to the workers. The rule doesn’t apply to supervision.
You can apply that to not using fall protection, not wearing PPE and the myriad of things I think all of us safety people have seen at some time in our career. I believe all of us know how important it is to do what we say others should do. At this point, lead by example and practice what you preach, have become a little cliché. However, actually doing these things is not always practiced in our world. Still, it’s imperative that we do what we want others to do.
We are all human, including managers and supervisors. But when we are in a leadership position, more is required of us. It’s hard for all of us to always do the right thing. This reminds me of another quote from John Maxwell, “The hardest person to lead is myself”.
We need to show ourselves grace, because all of us are human and all of us are failable. At the same time, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Beyond following rules, leaders must model the emotional intelligence we want our workforce to display.
Communication
One example is communication. I often see in our culture assessment work managers desiring employees to communicate more about what they know. Managers often express a perception that employees just won’t speak up, or share, or bring things to their attention. If you want people to communicate more, you must learn how to influence those people to want to talk to you.
My friend Shelli McCoy, who was on a previous podcast, studies how the vibrations we give off can attract others to us. I was talking to her about the type of people I attract tend to be struggling with something. She mentioned how I give off vibrations that make people think I genuinely care about their struggles and genuinely want to help them. This is an example of knowing how behavior influences the behavior of others.
Words can mean a lot but so much of communication is body language, or vibrations as my friend Shelli says. Our facial expressions, our posture, the way we hold out our hands, how we ask, how we respond, our tone of voice; all of these things influence the willingness of employees to share information.
Are we talking about these things? Are we developing these skills? Are we measuring their effectiveness and holding people accountable for these traits? These leadership skills matter in the context of adopting Human Performance principles.
Buy-In
Another one I hear often is a perceived lack of buy-in. It might present itself as lack of buy-in from the worker level or middle management. The real question is why are they not buying in, and how am I selling it?
Sometimes I see where a percentage of management is bought in to HP and a percentage is not. People don’t buy-in to what they are told is valuable, they buy-in to what they believe is valuable.
One of the best methods to increase buy-in is to be authentic with your own buy-in. You can’t convince someone to believe in something. People make their own choice whether or not they believe. However, your ability to influence buy-in is much greater when you believe it. People are much more likely to believe in something because the leader believes it to be true, not because they are told to believe it.
How leaders communicate the benefits of HP matters. If they come across as authentic, showing that they truly believe that HP will create a cultural shift that benefits the frontline worker, then the workforce is more likely to buy-in to this philosophy. If the leader is communicating some new safety stuff that we have to do to satisfy company requirements, there will be a lot less buy-in.
Not everyone in management will buy-in to HP immediately. But the buy-in we see at the frontline is directly related to this. Some of our leadership team will need more attention and time than others. Some will buy-in during the introductory class. Some may never buy in. What is imperative, is to be fully aware that leadership influences buy-in. Any gaps in that influence must be addressed through education, coaching and accountability.
Some of our most successful clients started the HP path by educating upper management first. Although many of them faced struggles and resistance with that approach, looking back they often mention how it was one of the most valuable things they did. When leadership is bought in, buy in from middle management and the frontline is so much easier.
Engagement
Another one I hear a lot is, “employees just aren’t engaged”. This leads us to question, how are we engaging them?
HP is concerned with becoming a learning culture. If we want people to be more engaged, we can influence this by becoming more intentional with engaging our people. You get a twofer out of this. People are more engaged when you engage more with them. But you also gain awareness to hazards, drift, and get better at predicting error when you engage with workers. If you want people to be more engaged, engage them more. Lead that effort. Don’t tell me, show me.
In a study by Sidney Yoshida, his iceberg of ignorance shows that managers are typically aware of 9% of the hazards the workforce faces. Frontline workers are aware of 100% of the hazards. When we engage our workers, we influence them to be more engaged. We also become stronger at predicting the error likely situations they face. Why wouldn’t we want to do this?
Leaders believe that everyone knows something that they don’t know. Everyone has the ability to teach me something. In the context of predicting error, I don’t want to come from a place behaving as if I know it all. I want to communicate from a learning attitude, that my people can teach me to better predict error.
My favorite is, “Tell me one thing I should know about safety on this job, that I need to work on”. Tally up what you hear about and put your effort toward the issue that was mentioned the most.
The insecure act as if they know it all. A know-it-all attitude is typically a disguise for insecurity.
Leaders display humility. A humble attitude gives off the vibrations that influence people to want to engage with you. True leaders have the humility to admit that everyone knows something that they don’t know. This attitude is combined with a genuine desire to learn from their people. When this attitude is genuine, your people will engage with you. But you can’t fake this. Most communication is subconscious body language. This humility, this learning attitude, must come from the heart.
Nepotism
Another leadership issue we see in our culture assessment work is nepotism. Although accountability is the engine that drives safety, it must be fair and consistent. A lot of HP is about ensuring discipline is fair, that it is only given for truly culpable behaviors. However, it must also be consistent.
Often discipline can be perceived as inconsistent when certain people get away with breaking a rule and others don’t. When a new employee receives harsher discipline than the supervisor’s brother in-law, it sends a powerful message. “Rules matter based on who you are” is a statement I have heard in many culture assessments.
No matter who you are, family relations, or position on the org chart; we must all be held to the same standard. Because of this, many organizations not only use a culpability flow chart to determine if discipline is warranted, they also have a team of people determine the outcome. One person given the role of judge, jury and executioner is bound to have some flaws.
It’s a lot quicker to give one individual the power to issue consequences for unsafe behavior. But if they don’t have the internal value system of ensuring discipline is fair and consistent, it can easily destroy your safety improvement efforts.
These concepts could also be applied to how individuals are promoted. If employees perceive promotions only occur for those that are “in the club”, then we clearly have some nepotism issues to address.
In an HP culture, systems are in place to ensure discipline is fair and consistent.
Teamwork
Another one is teamwork. When a member of our team fails, a supervisor may want to blame the worker. If we lack self-awareness of our limbic brain’s ability to judge, we may chalk it all up to a flawed worker. We don’t learn anything. A leader meditates on how they failed the worker. When our team is successful, a manager may take the credit. A leader gives all the credit to the team.
John Maxwell says (and I’m paraphrasing here) that when the team has poor results, he says “I failed you”. When the team does a good job, he says, “we did a good job”. When the team does a great job, he says, “you did a great job”.
That’s leadership. Taking credit for failure more than success.
Not everyone is emotionally ready for this. Judging behavior is not only normal in our workplace, it’s normal in American culture. It’s normal inside the brain of those who don’t study these concepts. It’s easy to look around the world and find people judging behavior. It’s rare to find people working hard to understand behaviors they don’t agree with.
Leaders do the mental work to minimize their ego, their insecurities, stand up and admit their flaws, their shortcomings, take ownership of bad days, and show deep gratitude to other people for what they contribute to the organization.
Unnatural
It’s important to mention that these skills are not natural. They are obtained. Although it is cliché to say that some people are born leaders, the truth is that leaders are made. Without a strong effort toward developing leadership skills, attempts at addressing all the other HP principles will fail.
Behavior is influenced by leadership. Whether it’s opening lines of communication, learning to avoid events, deepening our understanding of work in the field, managing cultural change; all these things are influenced by leadership.
Culture
Culture also influences individual behavior. Culture is created by leadership. At the same time, it is beneficial to draw awareness to how culture influences behavior. But remember, cultural influences on behavior are created by leadership influences on culture.
I’ve explained this concept on other podcasts, but as a refresh, social proof is a power influence on individual behavior. Whenever someone is unsure of the proper behavior, they tend to do what everyone else around them is doing. The right behavior is how everyone else behaves. That’s social proof.
People tend to have an unspoken understanding of what is allowable behavior and what is not. If everyone else breaks the rule from time to time, then it’s not really a rule, it’s a suggestion. If you see different subs communicating what you can’t get away with to each other, the culture is what’s influencing this.
Social proof is a strong influence on individual behavior. You can either harness that power or it will unintentionally influence individuals on its own. Either way, it will influence people. Are we intentional with how we manage and harness that power? Or are we unaware of it?
Some people think everyone should just do the right thing. Leaders understand that the culture of an organization influences what people do. Leadership and culture are deeply intertwined. Leaders create more leaders to harness the power of culture and social proof. A culture of leaders with learning attitudes, great communication skills, highly engaged and displaying buy-in influences supervisors and workers to do the same.
To harness the power of social proof we must start at the top and work our way down. Many managers desire an employee driven safety culture. But true culture change is a top-down effort with a vision to become bottom up.
To improve our culture, we must start with an intentional effort to develop leadership traits at the very top of the organization. When upper management is genuinely bought in, then we work on middle management. From there, the fruit will show up at the frontline.
It’s easy to say but rarely what happens in the real world. I am often tasked with teaching leadership traits to middle management. A common statement I hear in these classes is, “Management should be in this class”. The value of the class is often diminished because the perception is that the class is for middle management and not the top of the food chain. Without upper management support and genuine buy-in, why would middle management buy-in?
It’s normal for this to occur but also imperative that we communicate the return on investment of leadership development is always greater when we start at the top. It flows downward. It never has the cultural shift we desire if we skip the highest level of decision makers.
All of these HP principals work together. If you haven’t noticed already, there is a lot of overlap between these principles. But if there was one thing that deserves the most attention on this HP path, it’s the leadership component.
Leadership development must be an official system within an organization. These traits should be taught often, continually developed in the field through observation and coaching, and be part of an accountability program that effects pay increases and promotions.
Leadership drives culture and influences individual behavior. No matter how great the science of HP, without a focus on leadership, the implementation aspect will fail.
Today I am continuing our series on the six principles of human performance. This time we are covering principle #2, Error-likely situations are predictable.
After we gain awareness of error and system induced violations, how our brains are wired, and why inattention and complacency are natural; we become stronger at predicting error. We start to see this concept on a macro and a micro scale. This is a beautiful thing because when we can predict error, we are better equipped to defend against it. Sometimes we can even change the system to eliminate error.
Last time, we talked about different performance modes. Skill based mode is less prone for error. Rule and knowledge based modes are more prone for error. If people have to follow a bunch of rules within a procedure, there is a chance our brain will forget a step. If that procedure is unavailable, error is highly likely.
In a study of this by James Reason, people are 20 times more likely to make an error if a procedure is unavailable. If a worker is unfamiliar with a task, they are 17 times more likely to make an error. If they are in a hurry, 10 times more likely to error.
When we look at our systems through this lens, it becomes much more predictable where the next incident will occur. We can’t predict everything, but we can get better at predicting.
Fatigue
In construction, fatigue is a common, predictable, error-likely situation.
Fatigue has the same effect on your brain as alcohol. Although a hard concept to accept, we are often managing a bunch of drunk people. If they were drunk on alcohol, we would most likely kick them off the job (and hopefully get them some help). But fatigue drunkenness is a risk tolerance that our industry commonly accepts.
I’ll start with an extreme example. If a paving contractor has to work all day and into the night, to meet the demands of the client, within the limited resources of the company; they could feasibly be awake for 21 hours straight between work demands, the commute and the stuff everyone has to deal with at home.
According to WorkSafeBC, that is the blood alcohol equivalent of .08%. The same number the State of Georgia uses to determine if you are too drunk to drive.
It’s an extreme example, and not every contractor is working that many hours, but some do in our industry. There are people out there doing road construction whose brains are operating the same way as a legally drunk person. That is a predictable, error-likely situation.
A less extreme example, but even more common in our industry, is going 17 hours without sleep. If a worker has to pull a 12-hour shift, drive an hour to and from work, we are up to 14 hours, just with the job aspect alone. But what about their home life? Who doesn’t have crap to do at home? Marriage, parenting, house chores; we all have stuff we are responsible for outside of work too. So, if we give the worker 30 minutes in the morning to get out of bed and hit the road, and 2.5 hours after work to deal with life before they get back in bed, we are up to 17 hours without sleep.
In this example, the blood-alcohol equivalent is 0.05%. So, they could pass a breathalyzer but they are one beer away from being legally drunk. In other words, they may not be drunk yet, but the fatigue is still equal to people drinking on the job from a brain-based standpoint. Error is predictable.
Everyone has a different relationship with alcohol but I’ll throw myself under the bus for a minute. Intellectually, I know how much I can drink before I do something stupid. But I also understand my brain can’t make great rational decisions when alcohol is introduced to it.
Let’s say a person plans to have two drinks. Then they are more relaxed, “oh heck I’ll have one more”. At that point, moderation and good decision making go out the window. Why? Because our brain has stopped making good judgement. Next thing you know, you are drunk while never intending to get that way. It happens, because the alcohol impairs our ability to make good judgements.
I’m sure not everyone listening has done that, but I’m also sure some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.
From a brain perspective, that’s happening on the jobsite. The more fatigued someone is, the less likely they will make good decisions. If you know people are working a 12, then error-likely situations are predictable. Especially when they are operating under a rule or knowledge based mode.
Some companies are very concerned with work-rest schedules. Is a fatigue management plan part of your safety program? If long shifts are predictable in your organization, then fatigue management should be an official system. It would be good to review if fatigue is in the table of contents and how is it actually being managed in the real world.
Scope of Work
Scope of work is another error-likely situation. The more work flows away from our typical scope, the more likely error becomes. Being unfamiliar with the task, means the worker is 17 times more likely to make a mistake. Combine the fatigue issue we just covered and you can easily predict where we are headed.
If we typically build poured in place concrete jobs, and now we have a wood frame job, error is predictable. From a general contractor perspective, we are now managing a completely different set of contractors. We may have mastered formwork, shoring and concrete systems; but now we are dealing with a bunch of carpenters. As the scope of work changes, error becomes predictable.
On a smaller scale, the client has some safety rules that are different than most jobs we work on. The rules have become normalized on our other projects. They have become more subconscious. On this current project, we have to stop and think more often and are expected to make good decisions. Because of this, our prefrontal is doing the work and more prone for error.
Let’s say we normally work on a scaffold, without personal fall arrest, as long as all the guardrails are in place. Now we are working for a new client and they require personal fall arrest and guardrails at all times. Maybe they have the best intent ever. Maybe they are viewing safety through the lens of layers of defenses. At the same time, we are requiring our workforce to work differently. Someone is going to forget no matter how long the safety orientation was. Instead of getting mad that someone forgot we should expect them to forget.
Any change in the scope of work is an error likely situation, both on a macro and a micro scale.
Another one is operating different equipment. Normally a worker operates a CAT. Something goes wrong and we send it back to the shop for maintenance. In the meantime, we are provided with a Komatsu. The equipment operates differently, which means error is predictable.
Most of the time we use Genie, but this time rental company sent out JLG. Same thing. Change in equipment, controls operate differently, capacity numbers change, approved attachments change, operational rules change; error is predictable.
New equipment, new harnesses, new fall anchorage, hydraulic shoring vs. a trench box, new rigging manufacturer, new type of scaffold; all of these things are creating error-likely situations.
When we are aware of these things, we can predict them. Then we can implement defenses if we are forced to use new and different stuff. We might even be able to change the system to lessen the amount of different equipment people use. Either way, it’s that style of thinking we need to evolve. Do we get this concept, talk about it in meetings and do something about it?
Another one is systems that influence error-likely situations. Especially within the context of violations.
A common one that comes to mind is not having the right tools for the job. The reason it falls under the system category is that we commonly drift away from providing the right stuff to do the job.
We will cover drift as its own topic in the future, but as a simple explanation, humans are always looking for an easier way to accomplish a task. It’s another brain-concept. The difference between the perception of efficiency and taking a safety shortcut is usually based on the outcome. If the shortcut got the work done faster and no one got hurt, it was a good, efficient decision. If someone got hurt, it was a safety shortcut.
So back to the right tools for the job. Sometimes organizations start with great intent of determining the needs on a project, providing those needs and then going to work. Over time, people can drift away from doing this. An equipment manager can perceive that they have done this so many times in the past, they know the work, they know what the people need, and provide equipment based on past, similar projects.
Now the workers are faced with some new challenges. They’ve used scissor lifts on previous projects but they have some unique challenges on this job that require a boom lift or a one-man lift, and now they perceive that management wants them to get the work done with what they have. So, we end up seeing workers standing on the rails of the scissor lift to get the job done.
Some may think the workers should tell us when these situations arise. From their view, maybe they are thinking management never does a needs assessment anymore. What they really want is for us to figure it out with what we have. The system has drifted and evolved.
There are overlaps in these principles. People and organizations drift. What is the official system on paper can drift into the unspoken system that is not on paper. It’s normal and needs a recheck from time to time. Our industry is constantly evolving. Our systems evolve to. Sometimes, in directions we would prefer them not to.
We may have a system that requires us to sub out a portion of our work. A common one I see is subbing out the role of traffic control in the road building industry. Maybe due to budget concerns, the organization has determined that subbing out flaggers is more cost effective. But at the worker level, our team may be forced to use subpar traffic control. Now the overall job is normalizing risky behavior because of the workplace system.
Complexity of a system is a predictable error-likely situation. When workers are overloaded with information, they are 6 times more likely to make an error. The complexity of filling out a LOTO form, ensuring stored energy is dissipated, all locks and keys are where they should be, everything has been communicated to all parties involved, and everything has been timed at the appropriate moment, is very complex. That’s a lot to put on the brain. You should expect errors with LOTO. That’s why a peer check, or a buddy system, a second set of eyes, can be valuable when you predict error to occur.
You can train, measure and hold people accountable for doing LOTO procedures perfectly. But when you view this as a complex system in which error is likely, you will change the system based on expecting error to occur. If your system is modified with a second set of eyes doing a double check, you minimize the potential for a human to forget a step.
That same concept can be applied to personal fall arrest systems, confined space work or anything that is a complex system. Complexity breeds error-likely situations.
As you can see, through the eyes of human error, there are many things going on in our work that make error more predictable. When we look at our organization through this lens, we have a better success rate at reducing these errors.
It’s not about a one-and-done view. It’s about thinking this way. Thinking about error likely scenarios and accepting that its an ongoing process. Things will always be changing including the scope of work, the client’s requirements, the tools, the equipment, the way we do the work and the systems we work within.
When we meditate on these concepts, we can come up with methods to defend against the errors that are predictable to occur. Especially in construction, we can’t eliminate everything. There are some things we just don’t have control over. What we can do is accept those realities and put in better defenses for these predictable scenarios.
I want to leave you with one last thought on all of this. Here’s a quote from Jay Shetty:
“It’s a mistake to think that when we read a book, attend a class, and implement changes that we’ll fix everything.”
This quote can be applied to so many things in life. There is no universal plan for perfection. We are not perfect and neither are the systems we work in. The way we get there is by training our minds to think differently.
Life, work, systems; they are always going to take a detour. We should expect the organizational ship to swerve, to change, to evolve, to drift. If we think differently about error, we can improve how we react and how we respond, when those never-ending changes occur.
We are not searching for the magic one-and-done fix-all. There is no magic safety dust. Our focus should be on evolving the way we think about risk, violations and the potential for human error. At the end of the day, understanding human error and defending against it is mostly concerned with thinking differently.
Next time we’ll tackle my favorite principle, individual behaviors are influenced by culture and leadership. Till then, hope you have a beautiful day my friends.
For these next few podcasts, I want to share the six principles of human performance. I’ll cover each one, but they all go together. If HP is really part of our culture, then all six of them are required for deep understanding and a successful cultural shift. Some are harder than others, and we will address those issues. But combined, they are philosophies we must live by to truly implement human performance into our safety culture.
A side benefit is that HP is not just a safety thing. It’s an operational philosophy. Many of our clients who travel the HP path find it benefits all areas of performance in an organization.
Since we often have to sell safety culture improvement efforts to management, this should be communicated frequently. HP is not a safety thing, it’s an operational philosophy designed to improve all areas of organizational performance. When looking for management buy-in, it’s of great importance to speak their language. This is not insinuating that management doesn’t care about safety, it’s about speaking in a language that they speak often. How can we improve our organizational systems to increase performance? That is the main concept of HP.
So here are the six principles:
- People are fallible and even the best make mistakes
- Error-likely situations are predictable
- Individual behaviors are influenced by culture and leadership
- Organizations and people drift
- Events can be avoided by learning
- People achieve high levels of performance, based on encouragement and reinforcement.
Today, I’m going to focus on the first principle:
1. People are fallible and even the best make mistakes.
Here’s my favorite quote regarding this principle from Norman Cousins:
“To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species”
This is usually where education on human performance begins. We must start by generating awareness to all levels of the organization how the brain works. We need to educate our team on how external things influence our brains to determine the right path to follow. The old view seems to look at employee behavior as a moral decision that someone makes or doesn’t make.
But it’s much more complex than that. When we gain awareness into how our brains are wired, we can see that the choices between right and wrong are heavily influenced by a multitude of things. Often, at-risk behavior is actually perceived as a good idea in the mind of the worker. Other times, the brain was overloaded to the point it just couldn’t make a good decision, or at least the decision management would prefer the worker make.
Understanding the brain is imperative for HP to work. We can start with our brain. We must move away from the judgement mode inherent to our brain and move over to the knowledge mode of learning these concepts to ultimately enhance our performance.
There are many voices in the construction industry that believe people can choose not to be complacent and pay attention at all times. There are loud voices that believe not paying attention is an individual problem that can be trained or disciplined out of people.
The reality is it’s just not possible for humans to pay attention all the time. Attention is a finite resource. In the context of a jobsite, it’s even worse. There is so much going on within the typical jobsite that what a human can pay attention to is usually limited to right in front of them. Even then, the resource quickly runs out of fuel.
Our brain is equipped with the reticular activating system. Its purpose is to help us focus. The paradox is that it narrows our focus. It can be viewed as a positive thing so you can focus on the task at hand. The tradeoff is that it blurs out everything else around you.
In the context of a jobsite, your brain can do amazing work at focusing on what is directly in front of you. The tradeoff is you miss all these other things going on, other subcontractors, other components of your work that your brain has deemed less critical. You can’t train this out of your brain.
You can’t train your brain to be aware of everything going on around you, at every second of every day. Attention is a finite resource. You can train your brain to be more aware, to an extent, but you can’t train it to pay attention to everything at all times.
People struggle with this concept. There are loud voices saying that people can successfully multi-task. It’s actually more common that attention is jumping quickly from one task to another in mere seconds. Try to juggle and sing a song at the same time. Often, the perception of someone saying they are excellent at multi-tasking, is in reality their ability to quickly jump back and forth from one thing to another.
In the context of a jobsite, are people really calculating fall clearance distance and installing the shear connectors on the decking at the same time? Or are they focusing on installing the shear connector one second, and then adjusting their harness the next?
There is a common misperception that people often do two tasks at the exact same time, when they are actually jumping back and forth from different responsibilities at high speed. Am I hammering a nail at the exact same time I ensure my d-ring is between my shoulders? Or is my attention devoted to different things at different times. Maybe some people can do both at the same time. Most people jump back and forth.
Sometimes I teach how when you drive down the road, your brain helps you focus on the white and yellow lines to focus on the task at hand. But we can’t focus on every single tree we pass, every car about to pass us, and all the things flying by our eyes at a fast rate. If we did, our brain would overload. Some people get this with the example of missing their own exit. They were driving, focusing on the white and yellow lines, and inadvertently drove by their own exit. Sometimes you do focus on all the trees going by. And then you look down and realize you are outside the lines, or going 85 in a 65mph zone.
We are not focused on everything when we drive down the road. We are diverting our attention to different things, constantly moving back and forth with our attention.
The point is, our brain is designed to focus on one thing at a time. In the dynamic work of construction, focusing on scaffold components, tool inspections, personal fall arrest systems, rigging, safety paperwork and the actual job to do, all at the same time, is impossible to do without losing attention to something.
With the speed example I gave, the auto industry understands the science of this. Cruise control is an error reduction tool based on how our brains work. A human just can’t go the exact speed limit for long periods of time without becoming complacent. So, the car is designed with a tool to keep you in a specific range. It wasn’t designed based on the concept that people are lazy and stupid. It was based on the scientific understanding of how human brains are designed.
Let’s break that down a little deeper. Cruise control was not created out of the belief that some people are superior and some people are inferior. Cruise control came from the study of the human brain.
When we look at people like they are inferior because they didn’t pay attention to something, we are missing the point that even the very best make mistakes. No one is perfect. No one can be trained or disciplined into perfection. The best quarterback makes mistakes. The best musician misses a note. The best speaker stumbles on their words. Nobody is perfect.
As I mention often on this podcast, we have two brains. We have the limbic, more subconscious system, and the prefrontal more conscious system. Error can occur in both of these parts of our brain. However, it is more likely to occur in our prefrontal system.
When people have to think and make decisions, they are more likely to miss something. A complex task, such as LOTO, confined space or personal fall arrest is filled with decision making. There is decision making, not just with the safety aspect, but also the job they have to do. The more complex the work, the more decisions people have to make, the more prone for error the work becomes.
When people are doing less complex work, they can do the task without thinking about it very much. This means the work becomes more subconscious, so less error occurs. However, there is potential for complacency because of the very fact that the work is more subconscious. It’s boring. People can think about other things and accomplish the task at the same time. This can lead to complacency; however, less error typically occurs in this work.
There have been studies comparing assembly line work to construction work. On a macro scale, assembly line work is over and over again. It becomes repetitive and subconscious. It’s just less likely to screw up. Construction work is filled with decision making. This leads to a greater error rate because our non-perfect brains have to think and make good calls but often miss things. Combine that with all the things going on at work that influence those decisions.
Our workers aren’t always choosing between wrong and right. They are often choosing what they think is the best thing to do within imperfect circumstances. All this happens inside of a brain that quickly runs out of steam, or just overloads. An HP concept that we must see the truth within is that most people are trying to do a good job, they just happen to be placed inside of complex, imperfect systems.
The average assembly line worker makes about 5 errors per hour. The average construction worker makes 15-20 errors per hour. That….. is……normal.
Our brain is typically in one of three performance modes when at work: Skill based, rule based or knowledge based. Both rule and knowledge-based modes are operating in the prefrontal. Skill based work occurs mostly in the limbic brain.
When people have to follow a long list of rules, like in LOTO and confined space work, they are likely to make a mistake. Same thing with knowledge-based modes where they have to think about it and make a good decision, like how to install a beautiful personal fall arrest system.
The fact is our brains have not developed much from the caveman days when compared to the rate that technology has advanced. Our brains just can’t keep up with the speed of the complex, technological advancement of our current work. Because of this, a lot of HP is about managing the human brain, understanding how it is designed, and creating defenses for its known weaknesses.
Errors and violations
That brings us to the two main types of human failure that occur in the workplace: Errors and violations.
To miss something, not pay attention, forget a step in the work, not see something that someone else sees; those are all examples of normal errors that humans make because they are human. The way our brains are wired, it should be expected to make mistakes.
Violations are where people knowingly break a rule. These too are human failures, but they are also rarely culpable behaviors. Both error and violations are typically system induced. Most often, it’s the system people are placed within that creates the potential for error, not the person we placed in the system.
Violations are different than error because a person is knowingly breaking a rule. Violations are harder for mangers and supervisors to accept as system induced because the worker may be trained, have the tools, be provided with the equipment, etc. and still violate a rule. It becomes easier to judge the worker in these scenarios without the deeper knowledge of how systems influence behavior. Understanding why violating a rule makes sense to a worker, and why it was perceived as a good idea, takes a deep level of emotional intelligence and self-awareness.
To really grasp this concept is hard. There is the technical rational aspect of talking about goal conflicts within work. But at the same time, people have to work on their ego and its never-ending ability to judge others, to really get this concept. Both are required to gain deep awareness of HP. We have to teach people the science, but we also have to equip them with the emotional intelligence and self-awareness for it to really work.
Real work is full of goal conflicts. The goal in construction is to hurry up and get the job done to meet the schedule, while at the same time taking all the necessary time to do the work according to the rules. We have to accept that those two responsibilities are juggling acts that workers experience every single day on the job. One voice wants them to get quality work done at an acceptable pace that meets the schedule. The other voice wants them to follow every safety step, at every time, for every task. Within this juggling act, people make tradeoffs.
When people use their prefrontal cortex to think about what they are doing, make decisions with limited resources, they typically borrow from the safety resource to get the job done. If people are going to skip something, its typically a safety thing they skip.
Here’s a real-world, recent example of this. A foreman is asked to replace a bunch of sprinkler heads in an existing building where huge semi-trucks are being cleaned. The floor is sloped for needed water runoff in the facility. The trucks are lined up closely together, which makes using a boom lift impossible. The client doesn’t move any trucks out of the contractor’s way. The foreman is provided with scissor lifts to do the work.
So, what does this foreman do? He uses 2x12s to place under one side of the scissor lift due to the incline of the floor, to get the job done.
He knows he is violating a rule. But his perception is that it’s what management really wants, for him to get the job done in the imperfect circumstances he is faced Hwith. Is he frustrated? Of course, he is. He tells me how much anxiety he feels using the scissor lift in an unsafe manner. He doesn’t want to do the job this way. But between the client and his own organization, his perception is what management really wants is to get the job done with what he has. Don’t bitch about it. Just figure it out.
This is not an inferior person making a purposeful violation. This is a worker placed in a goal conflicting system, making a decision based on a perception of what management really wants. The decision may not be aligned with what management really wants, it’s based on a decision of the perception of what management really wants.
It’s important to understand, management is not inferior either in these scenarios. They are typically just unaware, or lack depth in their awareness, of how workers perceive the desires of management. Management may also be unaware of the realities of this job due to complex systems they are also placed within.
The point of this is not to judge anyone. The point is to be aware that these types of situations, these goal conflicts, are happening all the time, over and over again in construction work. It’s normal. It’s normal people, doing normal work in normally flawed systems.
If we can ensure our entire team is aware of the technical scientific side of this view, and equipped with the non-judgmental self-awareness side, then we can start whittling away at these system-induced violations.
As a safety profession, we have to stop looking for things people have done wrong. We have to start learning why their decision to violate a rule made sense to them. It’s the system that is influencing this decision making. What about the system is influencing this?
One of the most common system influences I see in our culture assessment work is a lack of understanding of field realities by management. Over and over again I see where the worker wants management to come out to the job and see the realities workers face in the field. “If that manager would just come out here to see what we are up against. If that manager would just spend a day in the field talking to us.”
What I have seen in this world most often, is that the worker doesn’t want to break the rule. Their perception is that they are being forced to, to get the job done.
In defense of management, they too have reasons why they don’t visit the job. We are constantly doing more with less resources in our industry. Time is finite. There are only so many hours in the day, and so many people are working longer hours, with increasing responsibilities, and with less resources available. Often, management doesn’t visit the job because they don’t have the time.
As industries are becoming more aware of this, I am seeing efforts to address it. Some of our clients are having “all out days” or scheduled visits to the jobsite to learn about these issues, communicate with workers, and try to get better at improving the systems.
Of course, it requires emotional intelligence to do this work. We have to know that our words can influence workers to hold back, or let it all out, based on how we communicate. That element is required within this concept. Sometimes, managers are sent out to the field without being equipped with the influence component. We must ensure our managers and supervisors are well prepared for this before we start scheduling their field visits.
So, in summary, people are failable and even the best make mistakes. To error is human nature. There are two types of human failures that commonly occur in our complex, dynamic work. The first is a simple mistake, a brain fart. The second is a violation. Although the worker is knowingly violating a rule, most often, it is perceived as a good idea. It is perceived as being efficient and what management really wants. Sometimes our brain just gets overloaded, or it is operating in a mode that is highly prone for error.
Both errors and violations are typically system induced. These are normal issues; normal people face on a day-to-day basis. These are not personal problems; these are system problems. We must ensure our entire team is well educated in these concepts. We must stop looking for where people went wrong and instead find where the system failed our people.
Next time we will cover how error-likely situations are predictable and how to get better at predicting them. Till then, have a beautiful day.
Sidney Dekker says that accountability only works when people are given authority over their responsibilities. Real work is full of responsibility-authority mismatches.
People are given task responsibilities with no purchasing authority over the equipment they use.
People are given knowledge responsibilities with no authority over the training they receive.
People are given workers to lead with no authority over the hiring or orientation process.
We can effectively hold people accountable as long we give them the authority to make the needed decisions on what they are responsible for.
Do we recognize these responsibility-authority mismatches in our everyday interactions?
Do we talk about it out loud? Or is it just the unspoken truth we keep inside?
Does management acknowledge these mismatches? Are they aware of them?
Are we doing something about it?
Some things we can work on, like training programs, purchasing authority and the hiring process. Some things we can’t control, like the client’s schedule. If we first gain awareness to these issues, we can focus on improving the system where possible. We can also use error reduction tools where we can’t.
That is the heart of human performance. Gaining awareness to system issues without judgement, recognizing the difference between systems we can control and imperfect circumstances we can minimize error within, talking the language out loud, and taking action.
Shelli McCoy and I discuss the concept of consciousness and how to better connect with it.
The ego is a powerful force, working at lightspeed, that has been developing in our brains since the days of the caveman. It takes work and regular exercise to diminish its power. It will always be a part of you, but it is not who you really are.
You are not your thoughts. The majority of your thoughts are the subconscious ego. But you can strengthen your ability to separate your true self from your thinking. It takes regular exercise. The more sets of exercises and the more types of exercises you do, the greater your ability to diminish the power of the ego.
Let’s face it, a lot of people don’t like safety professionals.
The system for becoming a safety professional is at root of why so many people dislike safety. But there is also great potential for us to transform the safety profession.
The main thing missing in the safety profession is the emotional intelligence to do the job.
Our current system tends to focus on laws, rules and technical requirements to follow. But this same system is severely lacking when it comes to developing leadership traits.
Great safety professionals have a high level of emotional intelligence. Those safety professionals that people can’t stand are typically lacking in this department. These self-awareness skills are what make a great safety professional great at their job.
The struggle is that we have to look outside the safety profession to obtain these skills. There is no BCSP certification for self-awareness. However, these skills have been the most beneficial of all in my career.
We have to develop ourselves to be the messengers. We can’t give what we don’t have. But if we do continually develop these skills in ourselves, we will come up with our own unique ideas for including them in the work we already do.
The more we do this, the more normalcy we will bring to hearing and discussing these concepts. Over time, we will transform our little sandbox in the world. The more of us that do it, the more our profession will transform. Others will see what we are doing and want a piece of it.
Wherever you are, you can start this transformation right now.
People often feel stuck when facing life’s challenges. That word, “stuck”, comes up a lot in conversations concerning the hardest problems of life.
It’s easy on the outside to just tell someone they need to snap out of it. Easy to say, hard to do. The more intense the problem, the harder it is to become unstuck.
When we attach ourselves to problem-based thoughts they can consume us. It can sound cliché to say that you should just take a break from it and return tomorrow with a fresh set of eyes, but that is exactly what we need to do. Distance produces clarity.
The solution is so much easier to see when you are detached from the problem because your brain isn’t being flooded with emotional and judgmental thoughts about it. The biggest part of the problem, or the problem itself, is often the attachment to it. People can’t escape the problem when they are consumed by it.
By allowing the problem to just be there, without latching on to it, we are giving ourselves the clarity of distance. Scheduled distance will produce new clarity. It can be as simple as telling yourself you will return to this issue tomorrow morning or creating a calendar event that says “relook at XYZ” for a future date.
Physical activity strengthens neural pathways in our brain. Going for a short walk strengthens this process in your brain. There is something magical about physically walking away from problems. Even though you may still have thoughts about them, the physical activity of your legs and feet walking away is strengthening your brain’s ability to stop obsessing about it. Then end result, no matter how big or small, is greater clarity.
Do something different. There is always something different you can do.
The skill of letting problems remain where they are will always yield some level of progress tomorrow. It’s the letting go that creates the progress. The more we let thought come and go, the less attached to our thoughts we become. The more physical activity we include in this process, the stronger our brains become at doing this work. The more distance we create between ourselves and the problem, the more clarity we have to see potential solutions for moving forward tomorrow.
An Hour of Your Life Back
Most mangers spend 2.5 hours a day managing drama. What if you could get one hour of your life back?
The research by Cy Wakeman shows that the average manager spends 2.5 hours a day listening to people complain about other people, new policies, new clients and other workplace problems without ever coaching people how to succeed within the imperfect circumstances that they must succeed in.
What if you could spend half that time coaching them, instead of just letting them vent? Could we shift that time toward solution-based thinking in a way that we are more productive with those conversations? What if we became so skilled at it, that each day, we got an hour of our life back? What could people accomplish with that time?
I believe we can do that. But to make it happen we have to develop our coaching skills and put them to work when the opportunity presents itself. And it will present itself. It will show up 2.5 hours a day.
It’s definitely challenging for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is a long-held belief that the open-door policy will improve communication. By telling people our door is open to discuss any workplace problems; we have invited a bunch of drama, with open arms, right into our personal space. It’s what we do with that open-door policy that matters.
We mean well when we announce the open-door policy, but in reality, we might end up prolonging the person’s suffering. All with good intent in our hearts.
When we let people vent their drama, without ever showing them that their thinking is at root of the problem, we end up encouraging them to stay in that state of suffering. In a way, we are telling them that it’s ok to feel that way.
It’s only ok temporarily. It’s normal for people to be hit with negative emotion. The world will not always work out in our favor. But it is not ok to dwell, and stay there forever. It’s normal for the limbic brain to engage automatically and emotionally judge workplace challenges. But we also have the responsibility to point people toward their prefrontal when those emotions are taking control of their lives.
It’s ok to feel bad. It’s ok to let off a little steam. But it is not ok to dwell, to obsess or to stay there forever.
This is a struggle for a lot of people. Managers mean well when they listen to the drama of their people. They can think that letting off steam is good for them. But to what extent? At what point does listening to people vent encourage them to stay in that poor pitiful me state? Are we actually hurting them by encouraging them to stay there? At what point does letting people vent turn into encouraging the victim mentality?
In her book No ego, Cy Wakeman says, “No one came through my open door to directly ask for coaching on handling sticky situations in a more effective, productive, and efficient way. I realized pretty quickly that the open door was a portal for drama. It catered to ego, fueled feelings of victimhood, and contributed to low morale.”
In her experience, the well-intended open-door policy ended up strengthening the ego and the victim mentality. The policy back fires because managers and supervisors aren’t developed into master coaches. At best, most of them attend a seminar or two on the subject, but they aren’t developed into coaching ninjas.
If a manager is unaware that circumstance is what can’t be changed, and that our thinking is the only thing we have true control over, and that our emotions are just a symptom of our thinking; then the actions our people take will be extremely limited in achieving the results we desire. Our managers need to be aware of this and teach it to the people they lead.
The skill of coaching isn’t just a morally good thing to do. It can show up as increased productivity and profit. What could managers do with that 2.5 hours spent feeding victimhood? What ROI would the organization see by developing our coaching ability? There is no return on investment for just listening to people complain. But there is an ROI on helping people manage their emotions.
Today I am going to discuss some universal topics that may come up in these dramatic, woe is me conversations and some potential methods to help coach people out of it.
How to influence the conversation is the hard part. There are so many books on the subject, so many teachers, so many ideas and so many concepts about how to do it. And they are all great! But none of them are the be-all-end-all solution.
The key is to keep learning new techniques, trying them out and developing the skill. The more techniques we acquire, the more tools we have to pull out when we need them, the more we develop and strengthen that muscle.
First up is circumstance:
Most people complain about what they don’t have the power to change. Most complaining is arguing against circumstance. They see themselves as a victim placed in a life that isn’t fair. Yet deep down, we all know that the world isn’t fair. It’s not meant to be fair. This is natural to experience but it’s also a complete waste of time.
The world will never be fair, bad things will happen, we will be treated poorly by our peers, clients and other contractors and we will be forced to do our best with unrealistic expectations. All normal in the life experience. Yet people still argue against it.
It’s the ego that argues against circumstance. It’s the victim inside all of us that complains that life isn’t fair. It’s not who we really are or have the potential to become. Most, genuine, good hearted people struggle with this. I struggle with this. But it’s still a complete waste of time to complain about what can’t be changed.
In Buddhism, the ego is described as the source of all suffering. We all have an ego lurking inside of us. When our ego is in the driver’s seat of our thinking, we find ourselves focused on what everyone else should do, instead of focusing on what we should do to succeed in the our current circumstance.
People feel stuck when they argue against circumstance. They feel drained, demotivated and it shows up in their actions. Our goal is to point people away from blaming circumstance, to stop entertaining the ego, and the victim mentality; and to focus on what they can do in a crappy situation.
We need to stop talking about what others do, or should have done, and focus the conversation on what we can and should do.
“What can you do?”
Or my favorite from No Ego, “What does great look like?”
“What’s the best possible (and realistic) outcome considering this crappy circumstance?”
And one that seems to work a lot with my construction groups: “How can we polish this turd?”
Once we identify the problem is true circumstance; as in, it happened in the past and we don’t have a time machine to fix it, or we are going to work with this client or contractor even if they are a total pain in the rear; once we identify that we truly can’t change the problem, then we have to move the conversation toward what can be done.
Having a gazillion different ways to ask “What can you do?” is the great first step. When they say “but” you say “what”. And fill in the rest with solution-based thinking.
“What’s the best fall protection you can install considering this odd structure?”
“What’s the best way you can improve communication with this disagreeable person?”
“What’s the best job you can do considering the budget we have for safety?”
Whatever the problem is, what does great look like, considering the circumstance?
The conversation should point them toward what they have the power to do themselves, not what other people should do. That’s where their power lies, in what they can do, not what somebody else should do.
They will tell you that people aren’t treating them fairly. They will tell you that they are being disrespected. They will tell you that someone stabbed them in the back. And all of it can be total truth!
It will be true that they got crapped on by someone. It will be true that they are being talked about behind their back. It will be true that they are being asked for more than what they initially agreed upon. It will be true that someone pulled the rug right out from under them.
That stuff happens, is happening right now, and will continue to happen. Life is not fair and never will be if we believe that people should always do the right thing. People will continually make bad decisions that affect our life experience. It’s what we do when those things happen to us that really matters. And it is supposed to happen to us to help us grow our ability to dimmish the power or our ego.
When Cy Wakeman became enlightened to the flaws of the open-door policy, she says she started changing the conversation. She says, “Instead of passively listening or directing, I began asking questions.”
Many believe that letting people vent is a good thing. It is to a certain extent but then quickly devolves into victimhood. We mean well, when we let them vent some steam, but if we do it too long, we strengthen their ego. We need to let them vent a little bit, to show them that we care and have empathy, that it is ok to experience negative emotion, but then we need to quickly shift the conversation toward dealing with it.
Cy goes on to list some sample questions she asks. The first two are “What do you know for sure” and “What is your part in this?”
What do you know for sure?
This one is important because most people have an innate ability to blow things out of proportion. We awfulize things. We make a bad day seem like the end of the world and most of the time it’s not near as bad as we make it out to be.
When we experience bad events, we tend to tell ourselves stories that worsen that actual circumstance. People can hear or misinterpret something and then they continue the story in their minds. When they do that, they can easily start coming up with beliefs about the situation that aren’t even real. They can be downright terrible.
A manager may ask someone to work on Saturday and then the person thinks they are trying to push them to the point they decide to quit their job. They can awfulize the situation in their mind and make up a false story that the manager hates them and is really just trying to get rid of them.
Maybe the manager dreads even asking the person to work Saturday. Maybe the manager is cringing the entire time because they expect the person to read them the wrong way.
What do we know for sure?
Can we point the person towards engaging their manger, to put to rest any insecurities they have? Can we influence the person to separate what they know for sure from what they may be making up in the mental stories they tell themselves?
Questions we could ask:
Have you mentioned all of this to your manager?
Do they know how you feel?
Do they know you think they are trying to get rid of you?
Have you ever talked to them about that?
We must help people separate what they know for sure, and learn more about what they don’t know. We must help them see how all of us can awfulize things…..and reassure them that its normal to do that. We just need to get better at recognizing that we are doing that.
So, the second question, “What is your part in this?”
We all play a part in the game. In the example I just gave you, the person played a part in the drama. They didn’t know the full story. They just continued the story in their brain and chose to believe it as truth.
If someone really is trying to make you quit your job, what are you doing about it? Do you say nothing and take it, and then just vent to other people about it? Are you going to let them succeed in this?
We all play a part in this. What part will we choose to play? That of the victim or that of the hero surviving in terrible circumstances? We need to remind people that we need to take a little ownership, even when someone really is treating us unfairly. If we can shift their thoughts back to what’s in their power, maybe they will take ownership in the matter.
“If they are really telling you that they are trying to get rid of you, how are you responding?”
“Does your response encourage them to push harder, or does your response make them feel they won’t succeed?”
We don’t want to tell them exactly what to say, but we want them to think about how they can respond to improve their circumstance. When the world throws rocks at us, we still have a part in it. We always have a part in how we respond. We need to constantly remind people of that. They always have a part in how they respond.
Another topic that may come up is the individual will explain that their best in the situation is not their very best! It’s not perfect. Duh! It’s not meant to be. We are polishing a turd over here. We are not expecting the absolute best situation of your life.
So what if it’s not your best? It’s still better than most other people’s best. It’s still great in its own way. Your best Kia is probably better than another person’s best Ferrari! Your team’s best, in a crappy situation, is a lot better than another team’s best on their best project ever.
Your great, regarding the unreasonable job schedule, is still great; even though it’s not your greatest great.
These are all just examples of how to discuss the concepts. Your best way to do it is also great. But I definitely encourage you to have multiple ways to communicate it, and keep adding more.
Here’s another topic that may come up in these conversations: This shouldn’t be happening. But the truth is, what is happening is supposed to be happening. It’s the way the life experience is supposed to work. It teaches us. These moments are supposed to happen so we can learn from them and grow.
This unrealistic schedule we committed to is supposed to be happening. Maybe management needs to go through this so they learn something in the process. Maybe the frontline needs to experience it to learn how to become more flexible. Maybe we need to go through it to learn to better manage our emotions. Maybe the point of all of it, is to go through it so some other people outside our everyday sphere can learn from it. Whatever is happening is supposed to be happening.
In the words of Byron Katie, “How do I know it was meant to happen that way? Because it did.”
However crappy it is, it is supposed to be happening.
That’s a hard one because really bad stuff happens in this world. Some people can never accept that bad things are supposed to happen. But no matter how bad the circumstance, we know for a fact that arguing that is should not have happened will only prolong suffering. There is no time machine to go back and change it.
This leads to another point: there are scales to circumstance. Maybe the circumstance is that it’s cold outside. Maybe the circumstance is someone just died on this job. It’s a lot easier to manage the emotions of not wanting it to be cold outside then those that come with the death of a peer. Yet both are similar in the fact that they are unchangeable circumstances.
The time and effort required to coach people will mirror the scale of the circumstance. The more severe, the more you will have to engage. That’s why we need so many different ways to communicate these concepts. When the scale is high, we don’t want to just keep regurgitating the same thing over and over. We need multiple ways to coach in hopes that one of them, or all of them together, finally trigger the aha moment for the person.
Within all of this, we also need to show grace. Both to ourselves, and to them. We need to teach people to give themselves grace. Grace is required because in the moment of dealing with emotions, you don’t deliver your best work. And that’s ok. When we show ourselves grace for not being at our best while dealing with emotion, or not doing our best when we are trying to coach someone, we can move more quickly back to our strength.
We need to let people vent their problems for a minute, so they know we care. We need to let people know that it is ok and normal to experience negative emotion. It’s the way our brains our wired. But we don’t need to stay there. We need to quickly shift the conversation toward our personal responsibility of how we respond.
We need to help people see that the situation is rarely as awful as they make it out to be. We need to help them differentiate between what they know for sure and the mental stories that have made up in their brains.
We need to help people see that they play a part in it regardless of the circumstance. Maybe the only part they play is how they respond, but we always play some sort of part in the problem.
We need to help people focus on what they can do instead of what they can’t do, and definitely give less focus to what other people should do.
Lastly, we need to give ourselves and our people a little grace. There is no perfect, just a path we go down filled with ups and downs. Celebrate the success and give a little grace during failures. All normal in the life experience.
I hope all of you continue to make the best out of these ever-changing circumstances. Much is out of our control. But at least we can always polish the turd.
Hey everybody. Today I am going to share some thoughts on determining system induced behavior and some common discussions I find myself in when teaching human performance.
Like so much of leadership, this one is an emotional journey. On one hand, we have this great new awareness for managing safety performance that we didn’t have when I started this career. Human performance has opened my eyes, helped me look at the world in a different way, helped me become more forgiving and inspired me to believe that we can finally make major change in the amount of death we experience every year.
At the same time, I continually watch people display resistance and negative emotion when teaching this subject. Most of it revolves around the shift from blaming the worker towards the new view of systems thinking. I continually watch people struggle with this so I wanted to share some thoughts in case you are having a similar experience.
Before we get in to determining if a behavior is system induced or the fault of the worker, I want to tackle the negative emotion that comes up often in these conversations.
The one I hear the most is a person says, “I get all the systems thinking but at what point do people need to hold themselves personally accountable?”.
That was exactly how it was said to me recently. I was teaching an intro to human performance session and a student asked me that question. When he asked it, you could feel the emotion behind his words. You could hear the frustration in his tone and volume projection. He was frustrated.
There are a couple things that come to mind that influence this frustration. One is how we communicate human performance and the other is that we are asking people to challenge long held belief systems. I truly believe that we need to take extra time to address both of these issues. Especially when looking for buy-in.
The first issue is we need to recognize that we are asking people to change the way they have been thinking for years, maybe even decades. I think a lot of us are guilty of communicating the need for soon, certain, negative consequences for at-risk behavior. I know I am guilty of communicating that in the past.
“Discipline for safety violations needs to be clear and consistent no matter who you are.” I have made that statement many times in my past but that was before gaining awareness of the science of human performance. Now I know. Now I have a responsibility to tweak my communication.
At the same time, I need to be cognizant of the fact that those I communicate with have been hearing that old view for a long time. I need to take extra time to explain how some of the things we have taught in the past regarding safety management have been disproven or expanded upon.
I also need to accept that you can’t just go deliver a new class on HP and expect it to automatically erase long held belief systems that have been preached for decades. People will need time to come around. They will need time to reflect on this new view, to process this new understanding and to see the concepts at play in their own work-life experience. It won’t happen overnight. We will have to continue preaching the new view, but we need a little patience because we can’t erase 30 years of old safety management theory overnight.
The second one is how we communicate.
People tune us out. People rarely take in everything you are saying and context is everything. As messengers, we are also limited in communicating the depth of our thoughts and knowledge with spoken word. I’ve mentioned before that the average person can think 600 words per minute but only speak about 100 words per minute. So, even when we have great intent, we typically only communicate 20% of the depth of what we know.
Things get lost in translation. We mean well but we are severely limited in verbal communication. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could communicate with telepathy and just upload everything we know to the other person’s brain? Well, we can’t. But we can improve our communications, gain awareness to what other people are hearing and then redirect.
The issue with communicating human error is that people who hear this message often think we are saying that nobody is responsible for their behavior anymore. It’s always the system that motivated the behavior and it’s never the worker’s fault…….and that is not true. But people often think that is what we are saying.
I understand why people think that way. We seem to communicate human error through a pendulum method that was hard left in the past and now we have swung the pendulum so hard to the right that what our people here is, “No one needs to be held accountable anymore”. That is not human performance thinking. Personal accountability is important.
But here’s why people misunderstand and hear that, even when we don’t intend it to be perceived that way. We have swung the pendulum so far to the right that we find ourselves saying:
“It’s the system, it’s the system, it’s the system.”
“It’s not the worker, it’s the system.”
“It’s not the workers fault, we just placed them in a situation designed to fail.”
I get why we do that. We do that because we want people to shift their thinking away from blaming the employee and focus more on the systems that influence at risk behavior. But we never mean that no at-risk behavior is the fault of the worker. We mean that most at-risk behavior is influenced by our systems.
Unfortunately, although we have great intent, our communications are often misunderstood.
When considering the research of Edward Demming and Sydney Decker, somewhere between 85-90% of the time, at-risk behavior is influenced by the workplace system. 10-15% of the time, it is the fault of the worker.
So, sometimes, it is the fault of the worker. It’s just that most of the time, or a large percentage of the time, the system is where we need to focus. But definitely not all the time.
For a lot of you, I know you are already there. You get that concept. But I think all of us can fall into that situation where we find ourselves communicating, “It’s not the worker, it’s the system”. But it is not absolute! There is no absolute when we communicate about human behavior. There are always variables.
This reminds me of line from a Star Wars movie, “Only the Sith deal in absolutes”. So, are we going to communicate like a Jedi or Darth Vader? We might want to take a note from Obi-Wan-Kenobi.
As I’ve noticed how my communications are interpreted in this human performance journey I have started communicating more about the “fault of the worker” truth. I find myself becoming more extreme with that communication like, “evil does exist”. In my last class I even mentioned atrocities like rape and molestation to reinforce the idea that there are bad people in this world. There are evil workers that purposely want to do the wrong thing, for all kinds of reasons that do not make sense, to sane people with a halfway decent morale compass.
Since so many people seem to hear that human performance means nobody is responsible for their behavior anymore, I truly believe we need to continually communicate that there are bad people in this world, it’s just that the greatest amount of at-risk behavior is influenced by the system, but definitely not all of it.
Once is not enough. If it’s a class or a meeting, nobody is listening to you 100% of the time. We need to say it over and over again, “Sometimes it is the fault of the worker. Most of the time it is the system.” But we also need to help people gain more insight into determining the difference. So, let’s go down that road for a bit.
Once we have explained the overall concept of systems thinking, people need tools that they can put to use right now. They need methods for determining system induced error today. They need methods that will work out in the field to help them make these determinations. There are already strong forces in their minds that make them want to blame the worker, like the limbic brain. The more we can help them see the difference between systems and personal problems, the more they will shift toward this operating philosophy.
My favorite is concerning firing someone: “If you fired this person today, would you never see that at-risk behavior again for the remainder of the project?”
Some call this the substitution theory. If you substituted another worker in the same situation, would the problem be resolved for good?
As an example, if you saw someone standing on the rails of a scissor-lift and fired them, would you never see that at-risk behavior again for the remainder of the project? You can insert whatever at-risk behavior that fits your job into that statement. Standing on the rails of a scissor lift, standing on a step-ladder, using a step-ladder as an extension ladder, not tied off, not using cave in protection….whatever fits your line of work.
We are trying to point them towards thinking about if this is a one-off, singular event, or a common at-risk behavior that is observed often in our culture. The more singular the observation, the more it might point toward culpable behavior. The more common the behavior, the more likely it is system induced.
This ties in to another concept: social proof. Social proof is a motivator of behavior. Whenever people are unsure of the correct behavior, they tend to look at what everyone else is doing and follow suit. This helps us determine the difference between system induced behavior and personal culpability. If a lot of workers display similar at-risk behavior, it’s a cultural problem not a personal problem.
Another method that might help is attempting to gauge how personally accountable a worker is. This requires knowing people. So, we have to know them and engage with them often to make a determination like this.
One thing I use a lot when determining if someone holds themselves personally accountable is in how the communicate. Do you notice the person talk more about what others should do, or when presented with challenging circumstances, do they talk more about what they can do? The more they talk about what other’s should do, the less personally accountable they are.
They may complain about how challenging their job is making everyone happy from a schedule standpoint and a safety standpoint but still, they are dealing with the circumstances given to them. That tells us they do have a higher level of personal accountability.
Of course, this puts the ownness on us to get to know them first. I can’t make that determination about someone I have never met before. I can only attempt to make that determination about someone I regularly engage with. I have to start by engaging with my workers to even begin the process.
As an example, let’s say I’m talking with a foreman and they didn’t have the right equipment for the task. What did they do about it? Did they take the time to consult with purchasing, or the safety department, or their manager, or all the above? If not, why not? Were they asked, “Can you get by with what you have?” Or were they told, “Buy whatever you want”, and just didn’t choose to do so?
So much can be learned with why. “Why do your actions make sense to you?” We can learn so much by their response. Do they respond with an “I don’t care about safety” response? Or do they respond with something pointing toward production pressures and goal conflicts they are having to choose between? When we ask why the behavior makes sense, at the same time withholding any judgements of their character, their response gives us the ammunition to make a better determination.
I wish this one were easy but it’s not. It’s actually quite normal to ask someone a question while having a goal of proving your existing theories about the person. That’s normal. It is a force we must work against in our brain. If you take a little time, you might see that force at play in yourself. It doesn’t mean you are bad, it’s just part of the function of our limbic brain. But we do have the power to shift toward our prefrontal and intentionally go into the conversation with “I’m not going to judge this person, I’m just going to listen to them, I really am going to consider their point of view and see if there is another truth there that I am unaware of.” Then, and only then, can we make a more enlightened determination.
A couple other concepts I use are substance abuse and theft. Sometimes I am extreme with this communication, but I do it to try make sure I am not swinging my systems thinking too hard to the right.
“Is the person drunk? Then fire them or get them some help.”
“Have they ever been caught stealing tools or product on the job? Then it’s a moral compass issue.”
If the person is drunk or high on drugs while displaying at-risk behavior then it’s a personal problem. If they are stealing from you, then it definitely is a worker problem.
Another thing that we should address is training. I often hear people say, “but they were trained”. The fact that someone was trained doesn’t mean it’s a personal problem. There might be things we can improve in the quality of our training. Having a card does not mean the system is perfect and everyone will do what they were trained to do. Never is someone personally responsible just because they were trained.
Training is flawed. People forget most of what they learned in training when they are not developed to use those tools in the real world. Training can often be viewed as a singular experience, especially classroom training. It’s quite normal for us to train people in classroom settings that occur over a few hours, a day, or a week at best.
One week of training without continual development in the field does not change behavior. Was the organization satisfied now that they had documentation that the person was trained? How were they evaluated putting the concepts into play in the field? Are workers trained but not displaying the desired behaviors in the field? Why? Is it normal to see trained people not following the rules? That points to a system problem, not a personal problem. Training alone is never an excuse to blame the worker.
Here's another one I love: “Was the consequence as intended?”
We have to start with the belief that a worker doesn’t want to get hurt. If the at-risk behavior results in an accident, then most likely, the individual didn’t want to get hurt.
There are people that intend to commit suicide. There are people that intend to get hurt because they are professional workers comp claimants. But most people don’t want to get hurt. Most people know that the schedule of benefits payment won’t be something they can retire on. If the worker was injured, we have to start from the belief that they didn’t want to get hurt. And if they did get hurt, they have already been punished for their actions, whether it’s their fault or due to the system.
To help with that, we should ask ourselves, “Could the task have been done in accordance with the rules?”
Did they have the right equipment available? If so, what hurtles did they have to jump through to get it? Did they just need to go to the Conex box to get what they need, or did they have to go through a complex process of obtaining a permit at the same time dealing with goal conflicts of production pressures from other voices? We might want to review our permitting process and see if there is something motivating a person to skip obtaining the proper equipment.
There is a lot of crossover with systems thinking. In the previous example we should also consider the forces of social proof and ask ourselves how other workers respond in this same scenario. Do other workers always obtain the proper equipment or is it normal to skip that step? This can help us determine if it is a situational violation or a cultural norm. If it is situational, coaching might be a better response than discipline.
Another concept to think about is organizational gain. Did the worker believe that violating a rule or displaying at-risk behavior would benefit the company? Did they think it would save the company money to do the task the way they did? Did they think it would make the client, or their direct supervisor, happy to meet a certain deadline?
Remember, construction by nature is a goal conflict in itself. Everyone is juggling the production, quality and safety balls all at the same time. If the at-risk behavior did benefit the company, coaching the worker on how we will back them up when safety conflicts with production goals is imperative. They need to know we have their back when these conflicts arise.
The last one I want to share is the mental lapse. Even the best people make mistakes. Everybody forgets and nobody does the right thing all the time, every single day.
When a worker violates a rule or does something risky, we need to think how out of the norm this is for them. Do they normally do it the right way? How often do they forget? Where is the needle on the scale? If they forget often, why do they forget? Is the system complex and could benefit from checklists or peer checks to combat the normal tendency to forget things?
As mentioned before, this is another one where we have to know our people well enough to make that determination. If they just made a mistake, they are blameless. Even checklists can fail at preventing human error.
If we know people have a great potential to forget a step then we might want to consider modifying our system to include some sort of peer check, like a second set of eyes to make sure people are less likely to forget or skip something. Personal fall arrest, confined space, lock out/tag out and calculating rigging capacity are all complex tasks that could benefit from a peer check to minimize mental lapses.
So, with all of this, people struggle with the new view of human performance. We have to remind them that adopting this new philosophy does not mean that nobody is personally accountable anymore. Culpable behavior does still occur. It’s just less often than system induced error in our complex, goal conflicting, work cultures.
We need to let people know that it is true that we are asking them to challenge long held belief systems; belief systems that we may have contributed to them believing in the first place.
We also have to educate people on the concepts of bias and how our limbic brain is always wanting to judge behavior….because it’s easier. But blaming workers doesn’t produce long lasting results. A great amount of self-awareness is required for implementing human performance into our safety culture.
But above all, we need to give people good tools that they can put to use out in the field. We need to give them good tools that help them determine if it’s the system, or if it’s a personal problem.
www.leaderthink.com
Jeff Harry shows individuals and companies how to tap into their true selves, to feel their happiest and most fulfilled — all by playing.
Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day.
Jeff is an international speaker who has presented at conferences such as INBOUND, SXSW, and Australia’s Pausefest, showing audiences how major issues in the workplace can be solved using play.
Jeff was selected by Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers of 2020 for his organizational development work around addressing toxicity in the workplace.
His playwork has been featured in the New York Times, AJ+, SoulPancake, the SF Chronicle, and CNN.
“While we spend most of our time pretending to be important, serious grownups, it's when we let go of that facade and just play, that the real magic happens. Fully embracing your own nerdy genius — whatever that is — gives you the power to make a difference and change lives.”
Jeff believes that we already have many of the answers we seek, and by simply unleashing our inner child, we can find our purpose and, in turn, help to create a better world.
For more about Jeff Harry visit: https://www.rediscoveryourplay.com/
www.leaderthink.com
Hey everybody. Today I want to talk about soak time in the context of personal growth.
Soak time is one of the most important components of experiencing true growth. Many people consume information, whether reading books, watching YouTube, listening to podcasts or attending courses. But the soak time is where you transform the information you have consumed and learn how to apply it in the workplace. It’s the step that happens between learning something new and putting that newly acquired knowledge into action.
On a previous podcast with Dr. Johanna Pagonis, we talked a lot about why most leadership training fails. One of those reasons is the lack of time given for reflection. That time for reflection, or soak time, is so important. Without it, we quickly forget the concepts we have consumed. But when we reflect, we create new brain maps that become part of how we think, act and live our lives. In these moments we are rewiring our brains. Again, reflection is the link between learning and doing.
We still have to act. We have to act upon what we learn, and reflect on, to strengthen the new maps in our brains. The action we take after the soak time is what exercises and strengthens the new muscle. So, all of it is important. They are three legs of the same stool: learning, reflecting and doing something with it. Those are the three components of personal growth.
For the rest of this podcast, I want to give you examples of this from my own personal growth experience. I will share some quotes from a book, and then share my personal reflections on the concepts and maybe even some examples of how I have put the concepts into action.
I’m going to use one of the most inspirational books I read in 2020 as an example: Quiet Leadership by Dr. David Rock. Sometimes when a book inspires me it doesn’t have the same effect on my peers but Quiet Leadership did. My friend Marty told me it was one of the best books he ever read. So, you might want to check it out if you are not familiar with his work.
So here goes:
Quote#1
To take any kind of committed action people need to think things through for themselves.
People experience a degree of inertia around thinking for themselves due to the energy required. The act of having an aha moment gives off the kind of energy needed for people to become motivated and willing to take action.
So much truth there. You can tell someone what they should think or do but it rarely has a lastly effect if it even works at all. When people think for themselves, they create new maps in their brain. When it is their idea, they are more likely to buy in to it.
You know, that’s actually how adults learn. They learn by connecting concepts that already exist in their brain, which is different than how children learn. Children have more empty space in their brains that can be filled with new ideas. But not adults. Adults make connections to what they already know. That’s why they need time to reflect but also the space to come up with their own ideas, or their own connections. It’s how they learn.
When that connection is made, their brain is filled with energy. I’ve felt that energy many times in life when learning new wisdom. Those moments where you think, “I wish I knew that 20 years ago”. That energy is inspirational, motivational. It just feels great.
That energy can be transformed into actions that make meaningful change in an organization or in an individual’s life. Or both. But the energy quickly dissipates if you don’t do anything with it, or strengthen the new map. Getting people to make a commitment when they experience that energy means they are more likely to act upon it.
When I read that statement, I reflected on times I would tell people what they should do to improve and they would usually respond back with excuses of why they couldn’t change. I thought about how I could get better with my communications. I thought about asking more “what can you do?” type questions instead of entertaining the barriers they face.
During this reflection I made commitments to myself on taking action. One, get better at letting the other person come up with all the potential solutions to their problem. Two, get better at letting go. By letting go, I mean hold back that part of me that wants to say “but” or “you should also consider” or anything else that is more about my idea than theirs.
So, here’s another one:
Quote #2
When we are trying to help a colleague think anything through, we make the unconscious assumption that the other persons brain works the same as ours. We then tell people what we would do and are convinced it’s what they should do.
Boy that one hit me hard. My brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s. Part of me wants to say I wish it did, but that isn’t true. People think differently than me for good reason. That quote made me think of a bible verse:
Romans 12-4
For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.
Some people are very analytical. Some are contemplative. Some are detail oriented and others are focused on the big picture. And all of us, together, are what make a beautiful world.
People don’t think the way I think. They don’t think about the things I think about. Everyone has different desires, passions and deal with life challenges in very different ways. We should celebrate out different we are, but we also need to respect that we are not all wired the same way.
This made me reflect on how one method of communicating a concept may be the perfect inspiration for someone, if their brain works similar to mine. But for another brain, my communication can totally suck.
I committed to taking action with this concept by learning multiple ways to communicate the same idea. The methods that aren’t so inspirational to me can be the perfect form of communication for someone else. None of us think the same way, and I must be agile, and flexible enough, to expand my level of influence with people.
How many ways can I come up with to communicate the same idea? The more the better, the greater my outreach, the greater my influence.
Quote#3
New habits take time but not that much. It doesn’t take long to create new habits. What’s hard is trying to uncreate them.
This time of year, a lot of people are making resolutions and trying to quit something……and it’s hard. But Dr. Rock is so right about creating new habits. It’s so much easier to start something, than it is to quit something.
Our brains are filled with hard wired information and changing the way we behave is just as hard as the wiring in our brain. But doing something new is relatively easy.
So, I kinda suck at diet. I’m not a big fast-food eater, but I’m definitely one of those people who cleans my plate. I suck at portion control. I’ve been cleaning my plate for 40+ years! Leaving some food on the plate is hard for me.
This year I started jogging. I’ve done minor weight lifting on and off again for years, went on walks, bike rides, but never was a jogger. But last year I decided to start a new habit: jogging. It blows my mind how easy it was to not just start jogging but to turn it into a habit. I don’t dread it. But trying not to clean my plate feels dreadful.
Now maybe you don’t relate to the example I just gave. It’s the concept that matters. Your reflection would most likely be very different than mine. The concept is that it is a lot easier to start something new than it is to quit something old.
And here’s why that matters: I am still making progress toward the overall goal which is to be in better shape, lose weight and have more energy. I see the progress in that goal. I’ve dropped two pant sizes and don’t feel as out of breath when I’m teaching all day. I’m still cleaning the plate but working towards my goal with measurable progress. I’ve experienced so much more success by starting something new that works toward my goal instead of trying to quit something I’ve been doing forever that works against my goal.
The same thing could be applied to the work environment. If we have been pointing out at-risk behavior or regulatory violations for years, it’s a deeply engrained habit that is hard to stop. We are trained to look for what is wrong, especially in safety performance. But if we can start a new habit of finding out why the at-risk behavior makes sense to people, then we are on the path towards developing a learning culture. We are headed in the direction of systems thinking.
We will still find ourselves telling people that they need to put their safety glasses on, or they’re not using fall protection correctly; but if we can start a new habit of just asking them why the behavior makes sense, then we will be closer to that organizational culture we want to see.
And here is the best part of all: when we create new habits, we weaken old ones that don’t serve us as well. When we create a new habit of talking to our people and learning why their behavior makes sense, we slowly stop judging at-risk behavior and we move the needle toward systems thinking. It’s a process, a long process, but it does work over time.
Starting something new instead of trying to stop something old is much more successful when trying to change. Instead of trying so hard to change the habits of our people, we need to get better at helping them develop new habits. That is where the cultural shift will occur.
Ok so, moving on. Here’s the next quote from Quiet Leadership:
Qoute#4
We have an unspoken conspiracy about not wanting to make anyone else uncomfortable, physically, mentally or emotionally. We’d much rather leave the status quo as it is. It’s almost on the level of a cultural taboo.
How true is that? Have you ever been in a meeting and someone said “don’t push too hard” or “don’t rock the boat”? We live in a society where we spend more time tip toeing around so we don’t offend someone instead of teaching people how to get good at being uncomfortable.
Great change is uncomfortable….to the point that it can trigger a fight or flight response in people.
This made me reflect on positive feedback in organizational performance. Positive feedback is severely lacking in our work cultures. There are tons of studies backing up this fact. Our own culture assessment work over the past 20 years shows the same thing. People spend most of their work lives hearing about what they did wrong instead of reinforcement for what they did right.
But even though all the scientific evidence shows that positive feedback is essential to behavior reinforcement, I continually watch people and entire organizations struggle with the concept.
Deep down we all know the saying about the carrot and stick, or catching more flies with honey; yet we still spend the majority of our time telling people what they did wrong instead of reinforcing what they did right.
People are so habitual in identifying bad behavior that it can actually be uncomfortable for them to give deep sincere feedback. For years I have conducted various positive feedback exercises in classes and watched people struggle with it.
I see it even in the volume of their voice projection. When pointing out people’s bad behavior they tend to speak loudly and sit forward. But during my positive feedback exercises, they tend to slump down in their chair and speak in a softer voice. It’s taking them out of their comfort zone.
I want people to get excited when they give positive feedback, to sing it out loud. But they typically don’t because it’s not comfortable.
This made me reflect on the importance of showing a little empathy to people when they try a new concept. To reassure them that no one starts out as an expert. But at the same time, let them know that the uncomfortable feeling isn’t just normal, it’s the signal that you are on the right path. If it feels uncomfortable, you are doing it right. You are on the right path toward significant change.
Recently I heard someone say, “we should be in a constant state of holy crap can I pull this off”. We need to get great at feeling uncomfortable.
Next quote:
Qoute#5
When you listen to people, unless you consciously choose a certain way to listen, you will listen to prove your existing theories about the person. Listen to people as though they have all the tools they need to be successful, and could simply benefit from exploring their thoughts and ideas out loud.
So much truth in this. I know I am biased as we all are. There have been times in my life I have listened to people while mentally documenting how what they are saying is backing up my bias about them.
Sometimes it can be hard to not see people as inferior when in reality everyone has the ability to grow and mature just like I do. I’m sure people in my life have thought that I would never get it, or never understand.
Instead of listening for confirmation biases, can we listen for potential? Can we help people think better?
Just yesterday I caught myself doing this the wrong way. A friend was telling me how “all jobs suck” in her chosen career. So, I started by giving advice in the form of a question. I was proving my existing theories about her, that she just isn’t seeing the answer, and I know it.
So of course, when I gave my advice, she explained why it was actually terrible advice. She works for a government run agency. I suggested private industry and she explained how she had actually been down that road and the pay was worse than the government run agency she is with now. Yep, my existing theories were wrong.
When I caught myself, becoming aware that I was doing it wrong, I changed gears. I asked, “What is the best job you could have in your industry?” Her eyes lit up and then she started talking about what type of job would be better than what she currently has.
You see, she does have all the tools she needs to be successful. When thinking that way, the conversation wasn’t just more productive, it was more passionate as well. I could see her eyes get bigger when talking about what she thought was the best job in her chosen career, vs. her body language when telling her what I thought she should do.
Lesson learned: Believe that they have all the information they need. We just need to help them think it through, instead of telling them what they should do.
For the next quote from Dr. Rock, I want to share something that can help us all move from reflection to hard wiring new concepts in our brain.
Qoute#6
Applying any kind of physical activity to an insight strengthens the circuits holding it in place. Talking, writing, reading, drawing, filing.
This has been so true in my own life. Back in the 90’s when I was reading Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer books; they felt transformational in the moment while I was reading them. But I really didn’t know how to grow at the time. I would read a book but I didn’t take any notes. I didn’t even highlight anything. I just consumed the information.
I felt amazing while I was reading, but struggled to remember any of it. 30 years later I can’t even remember what was in those books. I should probably go back and re-read them.
But now that I know how to grow, I can easily share concepts with someone about a book I read 6 or 7 years ago. The major difference is not only the reflection time I give myself, but the physical act of writing my thoughts down. Maybe I’m typing on laptop, or thumbing things down in a note on my phone; but that physical activity is what strengthens the circuits in my brain. I see it working when I can quote a book that I read years ago. The concepts have become part of who I am.
So, in summary, consuming information is never enough. Whether it’s attending a class, or reading a book, or listening to a podcast; we need time to reflect on what we are learning. Otherwise, we will forget it as fast as we learn it.
Reflection is the link between learning and doing. If we don’t reflect on what we are learning, if we don’t take the time to see the concepts at play in our life experience, then it will show in the quality of our actions.
We need that soak time. We need to teach others why this lack of reflection is a major reason that training doesn’t achieve the results we want. People need time to reflect.
We also need to incorporate some sort of physical activity with this reflection time, so we can strengthen these new neural pathways in our brains. Write something down, draw a picture, do something physical to strengthen the circuitry.
I hope you all have a great new year, filled with intentional growth that becomes part of who you are and shows up in the form of changed behavior.
Learn, reflect, write, commit and act. These are the steps of personal growth.
www.leaderthink.com
“Why Leadership Training Fails” with Dr. Johanna Pagonis
Want to hear two leadership trainers talk about why leadership training doesn’t work? Don’t worry! We also discuss solutions, how to make the most of the training, the difference between a manager and a leader, and so much more!
Many times, people are presented with vague concepts in the classroom but then struggle applying them to their unique life experience. People need time to reflect on the concepts and they need to try them out in the real world, knowing that they wont always work during the first attempt. We also need to give ourselves grace when we fail try newly acquired ideas.
Leadership is a journey. The concepts are needles on a compass. They point in a direction but each organization is unique in how they can best apply the concepts and experience success. What works in a for profit organization may not work in a government entity. Flexibility is needed.
To learn more about Dr. Pagonis and Sinogap Solutions follow the links below:
Dr. Johanna Pagonis | Owner
Sinogap Solutions | Leadership Consulting
https://sinogapsolutions.com
https://learn.sinogapsolutions.com/pages/podcast
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpagonis/
To read her book, "Choose To Be a Leader Others Would Want To Follow":
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1777156106/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&psc=1
www.leaderthink.com
New Beginnings
We are in the midst of a new beginning. Whatever the other side of this looks like, I don’t expect us to return to the old version of normal. I think we will arrive to a new version of normal.
New beginnings are new opportunities. Many of my clients have told me how much smaller their workforces are, having to let people go, or just the struggles that come with working in an essential industry. There is an opportunity there, an opportunity to work on improving your culture, an opportunity to grow yourself, or rise in the ranks of your employer.
Change and new beginnings are always new opportunities. Unfortunately, the brain doesn’t always immediately embrace change. In fact, the brain usually interprets change as sadness and loss.
We have all been presented with a new changing environment, like it or not. That is our circumstance, the unchangeable in our world. It is what it is. But this change is also opportunity. We will be forced to adapt to a new way of doing work but at the same time we have the opportunity to improve ourselves, our culture and those around us at the same time.
I have discussed before how most change efforts fail or struggle when we fail to address the emotional component. Today I want to talk about the emotions that come with change and how we can engage them for a greater potential to succeed as we adapt to this new version of normal.
Change is Melancholy
Let’s face it. Change is hard. Change is painful. Change is melancholy. Change is typically associated with loss in the minds of your employees and your loved ones. Sure, some people who really have a handle on choosing their own thoughts can see the optimism and the opportunity that exists here. But most people interpret change as loss.
They are giving something up. They are giving up an old way of life. The new way of life will most likely have a new set of rules that comes along with it. Rules we can get our hand slapped for not following either purposefully because of some political beliefs or just simply forgetting to follow the new rules.
Those of you who study human performance, remember the blue line? We are living in the blue line right now.
As a refresher, whenever the work changes, a new system is implemented or we are placed in a new, changing environment, humans are more likely to make mistakes…..or errors…or violate rules. People are more likely to get hurt when the blue line takes a turn. Remember the blue line. The blue line tells us that not following a rule is more predictable to occur in these scenarios and very unlikely to be a true culpable behavior that deserves discipline.
If ever there was a time to cut our people some slack for struggling to follow all the new rules that come with these changing times, the time is now. We have to sympathize with the loss people are feeling and show a little tolerance for the increase in human error that will occur in these changing times.
But these rules must be followed to protect our people, right? Right…..but people aren’t robots right? Behavior is just a symptom of thought and emotion and the current circumstance, right?
Regardless of any rational-technical reason you give someone for the need for a change, their brain is still processing it as a loss. They are giving something up at the same time that they are saying “yes” to your new change. If we are not sympathetic to that emotion going on in the minds of the worker, or our neighbor for that matter, then we are ignoring a driving force behind the behaviors of the people we influence.
We have to give attention, and sympathy, to that emotion. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. But engaging with that feeling of loss can improve the life experience of the worker and lessen the organizational struggles that come with that loss.
When you implement a change in your organization, such as wearing more PPE, many of your employees are thinking this new system is going to make their job harder for the same amount of pay. Are we sympathizing with that feeling of loss that they are going through? Or do we just expect all the science behind respirators to be good enough factual data to enforce the change? Humans are deeper than science. Humans think about change, feel change and then behave based on how they think and feel.
But they have to wear a respirator, right? I can’t just look the other way when they forget to wear their respirator, right? Right…..in the simplest of the shallow layer of our limbic brain, that is true. But in the deeper layers of who we are, there are two things going on here, one: a sympathy for the loss our people are going through; two: a new set of rules that you want people to follow.
So first we show sympathy to the loss to let them know we give a crap about them. That is always step one of influence, to show people you actually care and feel for your people. You feel the loss with them. That caring, if it is truly genuine, opens the door for getting people to adapt to a new set of safety rules.
After we sympathize with the loss, we sell the new set of rules to the employee by focusing on the benefits to them, not the organization.
What’s in it for them? That should be our focus, not what’s in it for the company. There are so many unknowns here but as a simplistic example, “the respirator is to help protect your grandma you may see next weekend”, not “we are going to get OSHA fines or get in trouble with the GC”.
When selling these new requirements, these changes that make the workers job harder for the same amount of pay, these changes that are interpreted as loss in their minds, always focus on the benefits to them, not the company.
We must also not just tolerate failure, but embrace failure as our teacher. Change is never smooth. It’s messy and painful, but every failure you experience is teaching you something valuable. We must view failure as our teacher instead of some nasty thing to avoid.
We are living in the blue line; errors will occur frequently during this cultural shift we are going through. But each error, each little failure is teaching you something on how to prevent a future occurrence. Maybe it’s teaching you something simple like how you distribute respirators to the worker. Maybe it’s teaching you something about the type of respirators you give to your people.
The blue line is always teaching you something. You can choose to see the shallow layer of a human making a mistake, or you can look deeper into the teachable moment that failure is gifting you with. From there, you can look at the systems you have in place and potentially modify them to help the worker with these new changes they are navigating.
The blue line is not just the worker behavior, it is also the systems we implement to comply with these new requirements. It would be foolish to believe that our first attempts at complying with these new rules would be a perfect, gold star worthy, performance. Not only is the worker going to experience little failures in these changing times, management will also experience little failures with the polices we put out. To adapt and excel in these changing times we have to embrace the failures that come with them. Our policies on paper will not be perfect, they will need to be tweaked as we move along. We will continually learn how to best manage these changes if we keep a growth mindset. Our workers will also continually adapt, and get better, if we show them genuine sympathy for what they are going through. We have to embrace failure as our teacher.
Most people don’t view failure that way. Most people see failure as a bad thing. The truth is, failure is a blessing. The most successful people in this world don’t view failure as something they must avoid at all costs; they view failure as their friend. The view failure as their teacher.
Change also requires patience. That’s so tough in this “right now” culture we live in. People overestimate what can happen in a short term and underestimate what can happen in the long term.
There is this strange paradox that comes with time. Days can be so long but years fly by. In the middle of a work day, the struggle adapting to these changes can feel like time is standing still. But five years from now these challenges of adapting to these new changes will seem like a distant memory.
Leaders view time differently. The hard work you do today is an investment in tomorrow. We must be patient to see the results of our efforts, but the paradox is, you will see major change if you stick with it and look through a five-year-old lens.
The deeper truth is that life happens in the now. If my mind is so focused on getting to that point in the future where everyone is complying, the polices are ironed out and everything is at the new version of normal; then I’m missing so much of what is happening now.
I’m missing the opportunity to engage my people’s emotions…..that is happening now. I’m missing the opportunity to show them I genuinely care about the loss they are feeling…..now. I’m missing opportunities to truly influence, that exist now, in this present moment.
Anything great in this world is born from a place where the world is telling you, “that won’t work”. This tells us that you should expect judgement and resistance in these changing times.
People judge what they don’t understand. The more people understand something, the less judgmental they become. Some people are going to judge your engagement of people’s emotions, some will judge your sympathy with the loss employees feel, others will judge your forgiveness for the mistakes employees make adapting to these new, blue line, changes.
Whenever your efforts are being judged, remind yourself; that’s just someone who doesn’t get it yet. It doesn’t mean that they are right with any resistance to what you are trying to accomplish. It just means they don’t understand.
Expect resistance, expect judgement and ignore it as much as possible. Most often, the criticism is just someone who doesn’t understand the big picture of what you are doing.
Leadership is always about the big picture. The human element combined with the circumstances, the new rules, all these things are just individual components within a much larger picture. Not everyone will see the big picture. Ignore the judgment and the criticism that comes your way knowing that it is coming from a shallow understanding. But do the same for others, when you notice yourself judging what others do, refocus on gaining more understanding of why their behaviors make sense to them. We are all in this together.
Whatever challenges these new changes bring, I hope you all see them as opportunities to grow, lead and influence the people around you. Change is hard, change is loss, but change is also a new beginning filled with opportunity.
www.leaderthink.com
Whenever people are unsure of the correct behavior, what they should be doing, or how they should behave; they always look around them to what others are doing and most often follow suit. What is the expected behavior? Whatever everyone else is doing around here is the expected behavior.
Building social proof is the process of creating an environment that automatically influences the people within it, where the participants will either adapt to the culture or leave the culture. The culture has become stronger than any lone employee within it.
www.leaderthink.com
There are normal personal growth spurts that most everyone experiences. That moment you graduate high school, thought you knew everything and start to realize you don’t know much at all. The moment you are completely financially independent and look at your money in a totally different way, maybe appreciate all your parents did for you a little more. The moment you get married and the relationship evolves to something very different than what it was when you were dating. Becoming a parent for the first time; all examples of normal growth spurts.
A lot of growth starts with suffering. Some of the most enlightened people in this world started their path towards greatness through deep suffering. Suffering is an opportunity for change. Suffering creates a desire for change.
By not growing our brains and our level of wisdom we actually devolve. If we are constantly feeding our brains with new wisdom, new enlightenment, we are thinking about the concepts and seeing them at play in the world. When we stop feeding our brains we stop thinking in that same enlightened way. We actually move backwards toward old ways of looking at the world.
Growth requires dedicating time for it. If you are too busy to take on another responsibility then you have to remove something from your life to make room for it.
80% don’t meet expectations, 15% meet expectations, 5% exceed expectations. Which group do you want to be part of?
Grow like kudzu. Grow in a way where nothing can stop you.
Why Culture Change Efforts Fail
According to Philip Atkinson, in How to Become a Change Master, as many as 90% of major culture initiatives fail.
Without leadership, there is no change.
History of PROSAFE Culture Assessments
One of the first projects I ever worked on for PROSAFE was facilitating a culture assessment for the US Navy. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld had a mishap reduction policy for the military and we were able to participate in this effort through facilitation of our culture assessment process at various Navy bases across the country. For the past 20 years I have been heavily involved in culture assessments from the military, to chemical refineries, to various forms of construction companies from subcontractors to GCs.
It has been a highly enlightening experience. On one side of the fence, I was immersing myself in the laws and regulations, and equipment and technology related to the safety profession. On the other side of the fence I was learning so much about culture from the people who perform the work and those that manage the work.
It was amazing to me how the perceptions of the frontline were very different than the intentions of upper management. Where did middle management fall? Right in the middle. Most often, they shared some of the frustrations of the frontline combined with some of the great intentions of upper management.
So why do the majority of culture change efforts fail?
Many times, upper management doesn’t really understand what drives culture, how to change culture, or how hard and slow culture change actually is. This is not placing judgment on management. They simply don’t know what they don’t know.
One time I had a client call for some training services and after some conversation on the type of training needed the client made this statement, “I don’t want a safety program I want a safety culture”. Again, I am not placing judgment, just bringing to light the lack of awareness that may exist. The truth is, that client already had a safety culture. The words he used just didn’t match the thought he was having. The thought he was having was that he wanted a more improved safety culture than the one that currently existed in the organization.
I’m paraphrasing here but I’ve heard John Maxwell explain it like this: When companies say they want a culture, they already have one. What they really want is an intentional culture. What they currently have is an unintentional culture. An intentional culture is a constant uphill climb.
So let’s provide a little insight into what effective culture change efforts look like along with some struggles that companies may experience along the way.
Culture change is a Top-Down effort with a vision to become Bottom-Up.
Many organizations focus on the frontline employees when they want to change their culture. This is expected when the culture they want to change is the culture they see in their employees. Management is also looking at various departments in other ways on a frequent basis. How is this department performing financially, quality wise, safety performance, etc.? It’s only natural for management to look down the org chart when wanting to make a culture shift. But unfortunately that is the least effective effort to implement. Employees and middle managers are products of the management driven culture.
Consider this example; I have worked with several different subcontractors that work for most of the main large general contractors in our area. I always ask them, “Which general contractor has the strongest safety culture? Which has the weakest?” It’s interesting how the answers are almost always the same.
These projects consist of several hundred workers at any given time. The greatest percentage of warm bodies on the project are subcontractors. A very small percentage of human beings on these projects are general contractor management. Who drives the culture the most? The small group of managers at the top.
Changing culture starts at the very top; from there it flows into middle management and finally arrives at the front line. Many organizations want an employee driven culture, but it starts at the top.
Culture change is a wide arching overall approach vs. a targeted effort
Culture change is strategic, not tactical. You can’t fix a strategic problem with a tactical approach. Implementing tactical approaches, such as new programs, does not achieve the wide-ranging strategy of changing culture. How a program is implemented and its success is directly tied to the status of the current culture.
It’s easy to fall into the targeted approach trap. If management feels that the problem with the culture is select groups of employees, then it is only natural for them to try to change these small groups of employees. But again, these small groups of employees are products of the current culture, not drivers of the culture bus.
Culture Change Is Slow
This requires patience. In our “right now” world it is hard to develop the patience, celebrate the small wins and give the effort and time required to see the change. With our culture assessment clients we always recommend they wait at least 3-4 years before seeing any positive results in a future assessment.
Let’s say upper management decides to come up with a strong plan for changing culture. First they may come up with some required leadership, or coaching, or human error training for upper management and a separate version for middle managers. Developing the training plan, getting everyone through the training and then seeing the results of that training at the frontline level could take at least a year to even see a hint of it.
Training alone will not create a significant cultural shift. After the training, supervisors will most likely need coaching in the field to reinforce the concepts presented in the training. The time and resources for an effort such as this are great. For the frontline employee to actually witness these efforts in the field will take time.
Real, intentional culture change is slow……and requires a lot of patience.
Change Is Hard
It actually goes against the way our brains are wired. To make a change initiative a habit or normal behavior within the culture requires doing it 10,000 times, not 10, not 100. This actually requires creating a new neural pathway in the brain that becomes preferred over the old behavior.
If we send management to a class on effective coaching techniques it won’t result in effective coaches. A class is a great start but it is only one small effort made toward the change. It just generates awareness to coaching techniques.
The attendees of the class have to do the actual coaching in the field, get feedback from someone with expertise on the matter and continue to make it a normal behavior in their day to day activities. There must also be true accountability in some form for these new desired behaviors.
Great culture change efforts are never a one and done approach. They are focused so much more on the journey than on the destination.
Culture change is combining a technical approach with an emotional approach
There are technical things that need to be addressed within a culture change effort. Maybe how purchasing is handled, systems that don’t work that need to be revised or replaced. Maybe systems need to be created that don’t already exist. But all of these examples also require an emotional approach.
Questions that employees may be asking themselves:
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Does this new procedure take away control from my position?
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Will this new system implemented make my job harder, for the same pay?
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Will this change effort cause my position in the company to lose value?
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Should I be looking for a new job?
Even if management knows the answer is “No” to all of these questions, does the employee really know that? Is this emotional issue being addressed in the culture change effort? All these questions are related to fear. What are we doing to alleviate the fears of our employees as we initiate a culture change effort? If we are not doing anything about the emotional issue, we have a large portion of our organization that is already unexcited about putting any effort into the change.
Culture change requires whole brain thinking, combining practical steps with managing emotion. We need to apply rational-technical thinking, but equally balanced with political-behavioral thinking. Not only do we need intentional efforts for the technical side of the effort, we must be intentional with the emotional side as well.
The Need for Leadership Development
In all of our assessments over the past two decades, I can’t help but notice a commonality regardless of what type of industry we would assess. Whenever the results of an assessment were extremely positive, upper management was also extremely engaged in their own personal growth, learning effective leadership skills and constantly trying to better themselves.
Whenever the results of the assessments were very poor, there was no true, intentional effort to educate, observe and coach managers on effective leadership skills.
If you wanted to “target your efforts” for the purpose of culture change, the best target would be the personal growth of upper management, followed by a deep effort in developing middle management.
As said earlier, culture change requires rational-technical thinking combined with political-behavioral thinking. Leadership development is focused on the political-behavioral side. If this aspect of the effort is not given full attention, the rational-technical side can actually be hurt in the process. You can have the greatest new system in the world but if you don’t have the emotional buy-in of those driving the process it may just get pencil whipped and not even actually be used as intended…….even if it appears it is being implemented on paper.
Here’s an example of this: I have a client who has a system for assessing the work area before performing the task. In this example, a concrete truck driver is supposed to get out of their vehicle and assess the area before pouring concrete. They have a form that reminds them of issues to look for, overhead power lines, etc. Sounds good right? To rational-technical thinking it does. But what about the emotional side?
So here is what the concrete drive actually does. He pulls up to the job, pours the concrete and then pulls over out of the way before he leaves the project. He then fills out his assessment. Nuts right? Not really. There’s always more to the story.
When the concrete driver arrives to the job, the customer is screaming at him to get the concrete poured, rain is coming, or some other production pressure is behind the words of the customer. Management is checking on the driver, going through his assessments, making sure he has one for each pour. So to satisfy the customer and management, the driver pours the concrete first, and assesses the hazards of pouring it after it has already been poured. Why this craziness? Because the political-behavioral aspects of the system were not addressed. All we end up with is another useless piece of paper that makes management feel good that they are accomplishing change but the only true accomplishment is loading up the worker with more paperwork.
Now this assessment could be a great system, but only if the emotional side is also addressed. Hence the need for an intentional effort focused on leadership development, listening and communication skills, the power of influence, reading people, coaching, etc.
Underestimating the Power of Vision
Another issue that can greatly affect culture change efforts is underestimating the power of vision, or lack thereof. Does the vision paint a crystal clear picture of where the company wants to go? Is the vision broken down into little chunks where each participant can clearly see their part in the effort? What are the steps we will take along the way? What will the result actually look like? What are the challenges that we will face? Who are all the players that will lead this effort? How will they lead it?
When people want to give a great example of a vision that led to achieving the desired result, many point to President John F. Kennedy’s speech on taking America to the moon. In his speech he paints a crystal clear picture of the desired destination but with an excellent description of the challenges and each step along the way. When he talks about the rockets needed to accomplish the goal, he describes the details, how hard it will be, how it has never been done before. His vision speech inspired the nation and achieved the result desired.
Who’s driving the bus?
Since effective leadership and personal growth are requirements within a culture change effort it is imperative that the right people are leading the effort. In his book, Good to Great, James Collins says you need “The right people on the bus in the right seats….and the wrong ones off the bus.” This is more complex than just selecting the right people on day one. You may find that you have several differing personalities where some are the right fit today, some are in need of development and others are just not ready to lead the effort at this stage.
There are typically four emotional responses to any change efforts made by the organization:
· Enthusiasts
· Fence sitters
· Early adaptors
· Resistors
Enthusiasts typically have immediate buy in. They believe in the idea. They are jumping out of their seats to get to work and make the change.
Fence sitters are the ones who have seen efforts come and go in the past. This effort is perceived as the “new flavor of the month.” They view the effort as temporary. Here today, gone tomorrow, something different will show up in its place a few months down the road.
Early adapters will buy in after a little development. We need to pour in to this group as they can heavily influence the fence sitters.
Then there are resistors. There will be some who just do not want to change or adapt, at least not in this moment. Maybe they will eventually become late adaptors. Maybe they will not adapt. Regardless of their own life path, they cannot be allowed to drive the bus or they will constantly be pulling the effort off course.
Have you ever been driving your car and needed a wheel alignment? Remember how you were constantly pulling the steering wheel to drive straight down the road? That is the same effect of allowing resistors to lead a culture change effort. While some are working toward the goal, others may be working against it.
This one is hard. When you truly care about your employees it is hard to remove people from your organization that are hurting your culture. You can feel a responsibility for that employee’s wellbeing, a direct responsibility to how that individual feeds their family. But if you decide to keep them onboard, even if they refuse to grow, you can only go so far with your efforts. There is a ceiling to the growth you will achieve.
The #1 Focus is Leadership
So with all of these issues, the number one area of focus is a strong, consistent and intentional effort in the area of leadership development. It must include training for generating awareness, but it must also include observations in the field for continual development. And without accountability for the desired change, results will be minimal at best. What gets measured gets done.
20 years ago Behavior Based Safety was the popular buzz phrase at the time. It was a great idea to generate awareness and learn from the behaviors of employees. We would conduct culture assessments of companies that were trying to implement BBS systems and struggling. Most often the results would show that although BBS was a great system, it was dependent on leadership to support it.
Today we are consistently talking about the great science and understanding of human error. But I find myself saying a similar statement all the time: “Human error is a great science, but the science only works in your organization if you have the leadership to support it.”
If you want to change your culture, start at the top.
The loudest voices in the room are the negative ones. They are quick, biased and they don’t contemplate the truth. Not in the moment anyway. They need time for that.
They first allow the reactional, emotional, and primal brain to speak. Allowing their analytical and focused prefrontal cortex to speak would be slow and inefficient.
So, is it any wonder you hear loud negative voices consistently more than positive voices? When you hear those negative voices can you see through them? Do you see where they are coming from? The words you hear are not the best of that human in front of you. They are the most undeveloped and primal part of them. Can you see past that or at least recognize it for what it is?
When someone speaks to you with loud negativity, does it affect you in any way? Do you think negative thoughts when someone speaks to you in a loud negative voice? That’s like a caveman speaking to a caveman. Limbic brain reacting to another limbic brain.
What is it not? It is definitely not an analytical, conscious enlightened prefrontal cortex speaking.
Positive voices are slow to speak. They have awareness of their thoughts, contemplate, do the work and then speak.
They are analytical….so they tend to ask questions. They desire more information on the subject instead of immediately forming an opinion.
They are less biased, less judgmental. So, they tend to discuss the positives and negatives of any subject. They see the yin and yang that exists in most everything.
Positive words come from the pre frontal cortex maybe even the soul.
We are bombarded with negative voices.The news, social media, the entertainment machine, other people around us, who we love dearly no doubt.
That’s what makes it so difficult to separate yourself and your own thinking from all the negative noise thrown at you on a consistent basis. Your limbic brain is designed to be on the lookout for threats. Here comes an entire army of negativity running towards you.
Your brain has a built-in auto pilot function to quickly react to such negativity. So, it does what it is designed to do, react. How does it react? In the exact same way as the army heading for you. Negative, reactional, emotional.
Can you see through the noise of the primal brain’s voice when they speak? Behind it is a deep human, a soul who is so much more than the words that are spoken in the moment.
Don’t give up. Give them the time to process the info with their pre frontal. They need it. The reason they need it is that they aren’t weak. Which is a good thing…..even if frustrating.
First recognize the facts. Most often the loudest voice is not the best part of the person speaking. It is as if their caveman brain is speaking to you.
Should you let those quick loud negative voices influence your emotions or judge them? That would be like letting a child control the emotion of an adult. That happens to all of us by the way.
But if you are a parent do you understand the need to not get emotional when your child gets emotional? What happens in that scenario? If you react in an emotional negative way when your child is feeling emotional and negative, what happens? Does it calm the child down? Or feed the negativity?
Is it not the same thing in training setting with adult students and adult instructors? Student vocalizes the primal thoughts of their limbic brain. Trainer reacts with same negative limbic brain. What is the outcome? Progress and coming to a common ground? Or does that negativity feed and grow?
One of us has to cut off the food supply. Might as well be you right?
See it for what it is. Some of this negativity can be coming from things that have nothing to do with you at all. You are just the emotional punching bag that fits the bill today.
Behind anger there is always pain. They could be hurting inside. Who knows what all they have been through? Everyone around you is going through some kind of suffering. And that suffering that they are going through is a suffering that most if not all of their neighbors are unaware of. Most of us are under a tremendous amount of stress.
I’m the one who has the responsibility to bring the positivity to the room! That is my job. My purpose is to bring it! Why would greatness be easy and celebrated with a ton of back slapping.
You are speaking a message that is quieter and different than the loud voice of the world.
Don’t judge it! Don’t react to it. Allow it to be. It will instantly diminish.
If you react to it in an emotional way you feed it, the negativity grows stronger.
If you turn the other cheek to it, it instantly begins to diminish.
If you pay close attention to the thoughts you have, do you see this same process in yourself? Do you have negative thoughts? Maybe they are thoughts you keep to yourself. Can you recognize when they are coming from that reactive cave man brain of yours? Can you see the difference when you process any situation with your prefrontal cortex?
What if you had the ability to set your prefrontal to come on at specific times in your life when you need it most? The good news is you can! The same technology we have today…that some people think is all negative…..has the ability to engage your prefrontal cortex whenever you desire.
You have to plan positive thoughts. Negative thoughts are on auto pilot.
Program positive thinking in your calendar. There are times when I have an office day and I take a look through my calendar. What are the specific moments when I need to engage my prefrontal cortex? 5-10 minutes before I begin a seminar? Immediately before the after-lunch session? Immediately before I interview a manager during a culture assessment?
What are those moments for you? Can you look ahead in your calendar and program your phone to switch on the prefrontal cortex at specific highly relevant moments? What would you program your phone to do? I program inspirational leadership or enlightenment quotes to go off at these times. Sometimes I just write a message to myself. Whatever I think I need to hear right before I begin that activity.
This is really just a twist on an old concept of putting post it notes on your bathroom mirror. Great minds of done this before, programming their brain first thing in the morning. Now we have the ability to program them throughout the day. What a blessing?
In summary, negative voices are not highly analytical unbiased brains talking to us. See through them. Behind them is a deeper human being. One who has the ability to use their prefrontal cortex. Don’t judge them, help them. Can you guide their thought towards the prefrontal? Can you bring awareness to them of this concept? If you can maybe they will share it with others.
The main concept of coaching is to draw from within. To help the individual see the issue, whatever it may be, inside themselves. That’s half of coaching. The other half is to help the individual see the answer is also inside of them. Ironically, that is also the main reason many people struggle with coaching.
It is not directing, telling or pouring into. Pouring into others is a form of learning. We go to lectures, seminars or sermons and listen. However, that is not what coaching is about. Coaching is about helping people come up with their own answers.
Coaching is not directing. The answer is in the individual. They just aren’t aware of it yet.