Imagine a room of 100 adults, and I am teaching these adults basic math for the first time. I write on my whiteboard that 2+2 = 4. And I repeat this over and over.
Out of these 100 adults, there will be 10% that believe me because I am the teacher, and they understand they are there to learn from me. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the 10% that will never believe me or that 2+2 = 4. So that leaves the middle 80% of who I like to call the “fence sitters.” They want to believe it but are not quite a “believer” just yet because of something in their past. So rather than repeat 2+2=4 repeatedly, hoping to persuade more in the 80% group to believe it, I DEMONSTRATE it.
I take four apples out of my backpack. Since everyone in the room can count to ten – even the 10% non-believers, I set two apples down, and next to them, I set down two more apples, and I ask them all to count the total number of apples on the table. They correctly say four. So now I have DEMONSTRATED that two apples + two more apples =’s four apples total. I have DEMONSTRATED that 2+2=4.
Now what do we think happens in the 80% fence-sitting group?
Do they move toward the non-believers or the believers?
Suppose company leadership can ROUTINELY and REPEATEDLY DEMONSTRATE their desire for the safety of their workers, along with the rhetoric we all hear. In that case, this will make a world of difference in developing safety into a VALUE rather than a saying or a priority.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said… “
Your actions speak so loudly, I can not hear what you are saying.”
Workers need to SEE, HEAR, AND FEEL safety. Those 100 adults can see the apples on the table, walk up and touch the apples, and hear me explaining that 2+2 = 4. TOGETHER, I can make 90% of them believers.
