The recent news from Boeing’s CEO regarding their cultural challenges reminded me of a discussion I had with one of my favorite plant managers, Dale Fannin, in 1996. It was an uncomfortable discussion, as I had my a_s handed to me, regarding all my “cheerleading” rather than being a safety leader.
Dale, as were two other PMs, was totally against all the safety banners and posters. He felt they were an attempt to fill a void in the safety movement. And he would be buried before he allowed any poster or banner to deliver his (and my) safety message.
“Our safety actions and safety decisions shape the culture around safety.”
If we want our team to believe we care about their wellbeing/safety then there is no better way to demonstrate that through our commitment to their safety. This demonstration must be verbal, but more important is that our actions/decisions reflect our words.
And yes, we will make mistakes in this journey, and no, we will NEVER have 100% agreement by 100% of the workforce. But even those who may disagree with a safety decision will admit that at least we had an OPEN and HONEST discussion about the hazard/risk.
There are just too many “silver bullets” in safety today and far too much slandering of what basic safety management can do for an organization. If someone who did not know any better spent 2 hours on-line reading about safety, they may come to think that we have been doing it all wrong for the past 50 years. Hogwash! As someone who has lived as a safety professional for over 33 years, I can say we were fundamentally better in the 1990s and 2000s than we are today. And I believe that is why we had better cultures around safety back then than we do today.
A lot can be achieved by “mastering” the OSHA compliance step in our journey to world-class safety performance, which is actually how we build our culture of safety. When we have mastered the art of meeting OSHA minimums and this has been VALIDATED with many audits, assessments, etc.; then we can move into managing safety elements via a Safety Management System (SMS). Both of these phases can take anywhere from 3-10 years; with a period where some programs are still a “compliance approach” and some are moving to a “management system” approach.
But remember this, workers SEE and HEAR ALL of this going on. Many, as many as want to be, are directly ENGAGED with this safety movement. There is NOT a single work shift that they are not “touched” by this safety movement in some way; oftentimes in numerous ways. This CONSISTENT opportunity to get involved in THEIR SAFETY and being touched by safety re-enforces all the rhetoric they are hearing from management. When they see and feel the same thing they are hearing, we are building TRUST and CREDIBILITY in safety. And that is how we build a culture of safety.
