Safety Leadership

Terry McSween, Ph.D.

These practices serve as the framework for supporting Values-Based Safety^®. Executives and Sponsors must model these behaviors for the teams involved in the Values-Based Safety^® implementation and for employees participating in the process. These behaviors will help you support the Design Team and Steering Committees in the organization as they bring about change the “right” way.

Safety Leadership Practice #1: Create Alignment

Alignment means that the behaviors and actions of all involved with Values-Based Safety^® are consistent with, and demonstrate the importance of, safety in the organization. Actions demonstrate that safety is “on the radar screen” for you and other leaders. Alignment is as much about your actions and decisions as it is about what you say.

Alignment is as much of a communication challenge as it is a design problem. Alignment always involves talking to many more individuals than is necessary for simply organizing an effort. The target population includes everyone who can help implement Values-Based Safety^® and those who can block implementation. Trying to get people to recognize and share the importance of safety as a value is a communication challenge that is different from getting them to understand short-term action plans.

Sample Behaviors:

Safety Leadership Practice #2: Communicate Value for Safety

CEOs estimate that they spend between 40 and 50 percent of their time communicating their organization’s values and visions. They use multiple examples to personalize their messages for different audiences – employees, peers, legislators, shareholders, community representatives, and other stakeholders. They use multiple media to get their messages to as broad an audience, as frequently as possible. And they stick with key messages for long periods of time. Leaders know the importance of staying the course with key enrolling messages that describe the vision, the Leader’s commitment, the actions required of others and the call to action.

Sample Behaviors:

Safety Leadership Practice #3: Build Support

The words “management support” have become almost cliché in discussing safety. We hear about the need for management support and “walking the talk.” The reason we hear so much about such support is that it is important, but often poorly defined. Often, management support is seen as delivering a series of messages about the importance of safety. However, building management support requires the same type of analysis and planning that goes into the Values-Based Safety® effort. Since commitment is an outcome of how well people are aligned and how well the communication process is working, a significant amount of time should be invested in those two areas.

Building commitment requires three things: (1) compelling information about the need for change, (2) clear request for actions supporting Values-Based Safety^® efforts, and (3) a contingency system that supports and reinforces action consistent with Values-Based Safety^®.

Sample Behaviors:

Safety Leadership Practice #4: Monitor the Process

The goal over the long term is to for Values-Based Safety^® to become internalized into how we do business. When this internalization happens, your role is to sponsor planned evaluation. Evaluation may be built into existing staff meetings and other ongoing management review activities, and may include specific milestone or process reviews. A variety of mechanisms, including focus groups, surveys, case studies, benchmarks, etc. should be used to investigate the success of the improvement.

It is hard to overstate the value of this type of activity. Often, once Values-Based Safety^® is deemed a success, an organization turns its attention to the next key initiative. The evaluation activity helps to prevent having improvements in the organization become weakened. When a good, well-executed process loses momentum, several potential negative side effects may result:

• Loss of confidence about the organization’s ability to implement other initiatives
• Feeling of “flavor-of-the-month”
• Rapid turnover of initiatives to the degree that the activity becomes the initiative—not the end result
• Stranglehold on the status-quo—people learn that the initiative will go away if they hold out long enough

The evaluation activity becomes the fuel that sustains momentum of the improvement. During the evaluation effort, the true impact of the effort is assessed through meetings with safety committee members, key leaders, and employees.

Sample Behaviors:

Safety Leadership Practice #5: Shape and Reinforce Behavior

A significant part of the role of Safety Leadership is to shape the team’s behavior, as well as the behavior of other leaders. Shaping and reinforcing behavior is important throughout the Values-Based Safety® process because it helps people transition into doing new things and doing things differently.

Your goal in shaping the behavior of your team is to enable them to be successful in shaping the behavior of their Steering Committees and employees. You target behaviors that will have high impact on safety, such as planning an effective process, identifying areas for improvement, promoting participation and developing and implementing action plans to address “monthly safe behavior focus”.

Sample Behaviors: