According to BASF EHS Hub Manager Leonard Schooler, clear communications by leadership is a fundamental component of excellence in safety. However, the unfortunate reality is the best intentions of leaders are often undermined by the mixed messages they unintentionally send.
“I’ve been in the industry for about 40 years, and I’ve seen a lot of things. But I’ve never met a leader who didn’t care about safety,” Schooler said, addressing delegates to the Texas/Louisiana EHS Seminar, held recently in Galveston, Texas. “There’s been tremendous progress in our industry in the last 30 or 40 years, but if we’re going to take it to the next level and get where we should be, we’re going to have to become more cognizant of the messages we send. And when I’m talking about ‘leaders,’ I’m not just talking about the CEO of the company or plant managers.
“We’re all guilty of sending mixed messages, and there are a lot of different ways we do this.”
Schooler specifically cited management’s response to accidents, which sometimes conveys the perception of “lack of trust” in their employees. Therefore, leaders must work to build trust with their teams.
“The ability to correct wrong messages is a function of trust,” Schooler said. “We’re all trustworthy people, right? Why should somebody not trust us?
“Correct mistakes as soon as you realize them. When it comes to communications, we all make mistakes.”
Another aspect leaders should avoid when communicating with their crews is implying they “don’t want to know” about problems or concerns individuals may be experiencing on the worksite.
“This is the worst thing,” Schooler said. “You can’t fix what you don’t know.”
Schooler observed it’s a matter of human nature for people to take risks. Even though “it’s natural to want to get things done,” he continued, leaders should also be sensitive to how they discuss schedules and deadlines in order to avoid rushing workers, which may result in risky behavior.
Should risky behavior occur, it is incumbent upon managers to respond to it and to follow proper procedure to correct the behavior as soon as it is observed.
Leaders can further avoid sending mixed messages by creating a culture of reporting and reducing risk and rewarding both.
“Think about everything you do, don’t do, say and don’t say,” Schooler said. “These things have an impact. Assume at least some of your people heard a different message than you intended.”
Schooler also encouraged leaders to actively seek feedback from their employees and colleagues.
“Don’t just focus on managing safety,” he said. “Also focus on leading safety.”
Individual belief systems and how rewards and goals are set can contribute to misdirection, as well.
“When you think about almost everything we do in business, we are successful because we measure success,” Schooler noted. “We measure production, whether it’s chemicals, materials or whatever you’re producing. We talk about how much we’ve sold and the profits we’ve made, and how we’re going to make more. Does a salesperson measure sales they don’t get? No. Nobody measures the production they didn’t make.”
Conversely, in the EHS field, Schooler explained, the opposite approach to achievement is applied.
“With EHS, we tend to measure our failures instead of our success,” he said. “The problem with that is if you’re ever going to get to a place where you don’t have any injuries, first you have to believe it’s possible.
“We have to believe ‘no injuries’ is possible. There’s not a single thing you can think of that’s been difficult to achieve that you first didn’t have somebody who believed it was possible to do.”
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