In the latest part of his SHP blog series, Tim Marsh describes a recent case study of his, that provided an outlook on how managers treat their staff.
Recently, a case study of a distribution site reminds me that building a strong culture of care, engagement and empowerment can be even simpler than clear thinking and good listening.
After undertaking thousands of safety culture surveys over the last two decades plus, in almost every industry there is, we have a new record holder. They scored off the scale, genuinely ‘generative’ (if you know the Parker and Hudson scale) and beating even the small Scandinavian utility company that held the previous high score.
And this was a genuine score validated with the deep dive verbatim. (We try and validate all scores, especially suspiciously high ones, with ‘can you give me an example of that?’ and ‘how did you feel about that?’, questions as describing examples and emotion make it increasingly difficult to hold to ‘scores I feel I should give if I know what’s good for me as I’m not sure that this process is as anonymous as they insist it is!’). But though our man, big John D, who has been undertaking culture surveys for 20 years or more tried hard he simply couldn’t budge them.
It turned out that the first thing the new manager did was to knock down some historical walls and barriers between departments by knocking down some actual walls so that they could see each other and communicate more quickly and easily. All the basics of transformational leadership were there of course: better communication; praise rather than criticism as a default, ditto coaching rather than telling – and generally always leading by example in a good way (all managers leading by example all day every day whether they want to be or not)!
Think before you speak, but start that thinking with objective analysis!
But the story this short piece is about relates to a small accident where a woman colleague’s (toe cap protected) foot got bruised. On the first day of the week off, her doctor had prescribed, she explained how the manager turned up at her house with a card, chocolates and flowers to say in person how mortified he was that someone had woken up that morning in pain, because of something that had happened at his site.
On the second day of her week-long recuperation, she unexpectedly limped into site announcing ‘give me some paperwork to do or something… I’m not sitting at home on my (let’s say ‘backside’) while the rest of the team is covering me!’.
Two closing thoughts:
Click here for more from Tim’s blog series…
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Also a pretty nice way of not having to report this as a RIDDOR by getting the lady back to work !
Ah Phil… you old cynic. I have to admit cynical thoughts crossed my mind too … (‘maybe he just found her attractive?’ …). I’m assured, however, that it simply fits a pattern of genuine, person focused behaviour driven by personal integrity. (And you do NOT get overall scores like that in a site where a cheeky bit of LTI data massaging occurs).
Nice article Tim, one that reminds me of what I tried to develop in people when developing mentors. Chip Bell and other noted developers of mentoring also wrote “Teat your people like plants, if you tend to them you will develop them properly”. Growing people is like growing a farm. You are the farmer and your people are the crops. If you cultivate the earth, and plant the seeds, keep out the weeds, your plants will flourish.
What a lovely way of putting it Tim !
I wonder how many managers would be scared of this kind of action ……’we can’t admit our involvement they’ll sue us!
it’s all about culture
thanks for the story – good material for safety managers to share with their managers
I suspect that – like everything else – it’s contextual Martin. If you have (already) built a high level of trust amongst a small and largely autonomous team then it’s far easier to do. (Else wariness of potential ‘unintended consequences’ might give pause for thought).
I left a national company recently, government-owned, there was no empathy there and the Director is moving on to a private utility company. I was off work after a knee operation and nothing from the company, no get well nothing. I think that speaks volumes not only about the company but the leaders too. We have a long way to go!
John (‘John’ I assume?) I think it’s entirely legitimate for a company to say ‘we only exist to make money for our shareholders/ provide a service … so whilst we really want you to enjoy working here and go home healthy of mind and body … we’d like you to be productive too”. On the other hand, what you describe isn’t close to legitimate.