Kevin Burns Blog

To be a safety leader, you have to be better at the job than the others.

The best organizations give world-class safety performance. They don't do it with a mediocre effort, mediocre standards or mediocre supervisors and safety people. They do it by surpassing industry average targets, a focused engagement with employees and with safety people and supervisors on top of their game. Those companies search out and employ supervisors and managers who set a higher standard for themselves. They seek out those who want to inspire their own crews to be better, to reach farther, to achieve at a higher level.

You don’t build championship teams by shooting for the middle of industry averages. You don’t instill a positive safety culture by settling for average performance. To lead, you have to do not just what others are not doing, but by doing what they’re not even prepared to do.

World-class safety is driven by wanting higher standards. Higher standards drive greater effort. Greater effort is driven by higher-performing safety people and supervisors. World-class safety is not achieved by a mediocre effort, standards or people who don’t seek to be exceptional. Without exceptional people and standards, you're shooting for mediocrity. You will become world-class by luck.

Here's the problem. Not every safety person is a high-performer. Like every other industry and profession, there are below-average and average performers. Then, there’s the top echelon; the elite - the leaders. Which of those sounds like you? How about a short self-assessment?

Safety complacency is addressed at the ultra-local level; at the front-line. That’s where the complacency takes place. That’s where it gets fixed.

Who could have ever foreseen that you could get so good at your work that complacency would become a safety issue? Safety processes and procedures are done so well that your crews have become exceptional safety performers. And because they do work they can be proud of, they take satisfaction in how well they do the job. That satisfaction can create complacency.

It’s not your fault that you never saw it coming. You followed the processes and procedures, the rules and regulation so well that you got into the habit of always doing it well. They are not negative habits. They are the same positive habits that are creating a safety risk.

Consulting and speaking clients have discussed complacency-creep with me. They gush about their people, competent teams who do excellent work. But, niggling issues are starting to show up in the form of small mistakes, and memory and judgment lapses. They are afraid that the small issues have the potential to become more serious. That’s complacency-creep sneaking in.

The longer crews work on the job together, the more they get into a kind of rhythm working together. But that rhythm can become a routine. And where there is routine, there is rote: doing the job robotically. “Auto-pilot.”

Complacency is not something that is fixed or repaired or even addressed at the senior management level. Complacency is addressed at the ultra-local level; at the front-line between supervisor and employee. That’s where the complacency takes place. That’s where it gets fixed.

People-View is how you talk about your crew to other supervisors or even your buddies behind the crew members' backs.

“Keep it simple and as short as possible. These guys don’t want a lot of information and they won’t remember most of it anyway. And don’t make it too complex or it’ll go right over their heads. And don’t give them too many breaks or they’ll take their time coming back. Some of them might even take off from the meeting. You can’t trust them. They’ll take a shortcut if they can find one.”

Is that the people-view for your crew? Is this how you talk about your crew to other supervisors or even your buddies behind the crew members' backs? Is that what you would say to an outside speaker or guest getting ready to address your people?

People-view is how you view people - specifically your people, your co-workers. People-view is the predetermined opinions you have about either the people you work with or those you do business with. That includes job site contractors and subcontractors.

Command-and-control is the default management style for supervisors and safety people who lack basic safety leadership skills. Chapter and verse from the rule book is easy because there is no arguing the rules. Supervisors and safety people, the unskilled ones, are quick to write up job site infractions. Like a cop at the side of the highway, they get compliance through enforcement and threat. They view everyone under them as potential law-breakers. You can’t build a relationship of trust and respect with a people-view like this.

If you think your people aren’t capable of grasping safety concepts, that will affect how you treat them. It will, more importantly, affect the relationship you have with them.

How do you view your crews and employees? Here are four self-test questions to help you identify your own people view:

Safety people and supervisors who lack a healthy dose of willingness to engage crew members on a human level will limit both themselves and their crews.

Safety people and supervisors who lack a healthy dose of willingness to engage crew members on a human level will limit both themselves and their crews. It doesn’t happen on purpose, but it happens. The inexperienced supervisor who doesn’t know how to motivate and develop individuals on the job, ultimately has a harder time getting the job done. If there is no strategy to continuously improve employees, there’s little chance of improving the organization as a whole, and that includes safety.

If you want to improve safety meetings, you have to improve the level of respect you have for your people first. 

Mark Cuban, television personality and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks once said, “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” He might be onto something there. Safety people would make a bigger effort if they got paid for the quality of their safety meetings.

But that’s not happening anytime soon. So, for now, you will have to accept that safety meetings are notorious time killers. They usually start late, discuss too many topics, and end up running long. Poor planning combined with poor presentation skills make them difficult to endure.

If your people can’t wait to attend the next safety meeting, and are excited when it’s meeting day, then you’re doing it right. But that’s not you is it? So how about you invest a few minutes and give some consideration to some new ideas. Like a good safety meeting, it’ll be short and to the point.

Here are three easy steps that can transform your safety meetings from boring to engaging - and build respect: