The world starts to expect more from you. With that advancement in your personal growth comes more responsibility, more expectations, more time commitment and the never-ending process of continuing to educate yourself. Not to mention all the thought management work that comes with it.

It’s meant to get harder because doing harder things makes you stronger. As you increase your strength, you make yourself ready for the next level. And so, the process repeats, on and on, and on again.

It’s meant to be this way because we are meant to grow by design. From birth we are created to learn, grow, adapt, get out of our comfort zone, keep trying new things we haven’t figured out how to succeed at yet, master things we are just starting to feel like we can pull off; and it never stops. 

We will get better, but it will get harder. Instead of longing for the day when life gets easier, we should embrace the hard work that comes with growth. We need to regularly remind ourselves that these hard times are happening on purpose. They are happening for us, not to us. 

People can go through some really hard crap. But they can also get through it. On the other side, if they grow from the experience, it strengthens them. When we feel resistance to the hard work, it doesn’t grow us. It weakens us. 

The resistance is the fear circuitry in our brains that has been developing since humans walked the earth. The part of us that sees hard times as a development exercise is still in kindergarten. That part of our brain is nowhere near as developed as the fear circuitry. 

We shouldn’t complain about hard work. We shouldn’t even tolerate it. We should embrace it and be thankful for it. Maybe we are still in the middle of dealing with it, but we need to remind ourselves often that hard times are to our benefit. If we learn to process the emotion that comes with it, we grow stronger.

One way this has shown up for me is in the form of criticism.

People seem to be less respectful than years past. Not everyone, but there does seem to be an increasing amount of disrespectful behavior in the classroom setting. I’m sure it’s attributed to a multitude of things. Some are mine to take ownership of. Some are outside stimuli.

We live in a world where anyone can post their criticisms online. Phrases such as “think before you speak” and “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me” are kind of lacking in today’s zeitgeist. People can be easily offended, the world tends to say you shouldn’t offend people, but rarely do people talk about the fact that no one can really offend you without you giving them permission first.

This, behavior of vocally criticizing anything you disagree with sometimes shows up in the classroom. Just like in the internet world, these vocal disagreements tend to be based on a small sound bite. They are not based on a thorough understanding of the subject matter.

They often seem to appear in the form of interruption. It’s rare that these strong criticisms come from someone raising their hand and asking if they could make a comment or ask a question. It’s most often mid-sentence, when I’m explaining a deep concept, that someone strongly interrupts and says, “you’re wrong” in some combination of words. Usually, I am trying to help these people gain a greater understanding to human performance. Still, many respond with “you are wrong” about what you are teaching.

It’s happening for me though. It’s not happening to me. It’s happening for me, serving me, teaching me new ways to deal with the experience. The more people tell me I am wrong, the more I learn methods to calm their emotions and point them to their prefrontal context in the moment. I’ve learned that allowing their resistance to be is one of the greatest forms of influence. If I resist their resistance, it strengthens their resolve.

Recently someone told me I was wrong about a human performance concept I was teaching. I responded with, “that’s ok if you disagree, I’m just going to let it go and move on to another topic”. Later at the break, the gentleman came up to me, calmly, wanting to learn more about the subject. 

It’s hard to let go when a room full of people are staring at you, watching someone tell you that you’re wrong about what you are teaching, watching how you respond. There’s a part of you that wants to prove to the entire class you are right. But learning to let go in different ways, to influence people to walk toward you instead of resisting you, has made me so much stronger. These loud disagreements I have dealt with have made me stronger.

Another example: Years ago, there was a certain class I would teach twice a year to a tough audience. I remember back then, telling my wife that it was the hardest job I would do every year. Now it’s one of the easiest classes I teach. Not giving up on doing a job I thought was so hard has strengthened me and become one of the easiest jobs I do. 

These are just a few examples of this concept. Dealing with burnout, disrespectful behavior, working longer hours, doing jobs you aren’t paid to do, all things that come with getting better at your work. Getting better is harder but the fruit is the strength you develop in the process.

Ed Mylett says he doesn’t pray for things to get better. He prays, “God make me stronger”. He knows the depth of this concept, that life gets richer because we get stronger by experiencing and growing from hard things. We shouldn’t pray for things to get easier. We should pray for life experiences to make us stronger.

There’s a 50/50 with that. You will grow, but you will experience hard things.

As I grow, I see that my role with the disrespectful behavior in the world is mostly about me and not the world. It’s on me to not let it trigger my dog-like, limbic brain. It’s on me to not feel disrespected because someone else is being disrespectful. It’s on me to be the example of how we can manage our thoughts and emotions.

If I can move toward understanding, and away from judging, I can always get better at managing hard experiences. Most often, when I experience disrespectful behavior going on the classroom, it is due to one of two things.

Either A, they are struggling with something personal that I know nothing about, or B, they are unfamiliar with the subject matter and it is stirring up emotions in them that they vent out with words.

Knowing that is becoming stronger. Judging their behavior is weakness. Understanding it is strength.

You never know what personal crap people are dealing with in their lives. But you do know that every one of your students, coworkers and peers are dealing with something that the rest of us know nothing about. Sometimes we learn these things or get a little window into them, but more often than not, we don’t know the half of it.

A friend of mine gave me a window into this recently. He brought up a class he was in, years ago, and mentioned how one of the students was being disrespectful to me. He said the guy asked him to lunch one day and, although hesitant to go, he went anyway.

During that lunch, he learned the guy was recently turned down for a promotion and he was dealing with a family issue. My friend wanted to share that it may...

Dr. Barry Borgerson is the pioneer in developing a comprehensive theory to understand and manage our many hidden mental mechanisms including those that create involuntary habits (auto-behaviors) and automatic thought patterns (auto-contexts) that control "soft" success factors in business.

He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D. in computer science (and one of his minors in the management of human resources). 

He is a long-time expert transformation coach who uses root-cause, mind-level transformation processes based on the first and so far only theory that models the many aspects of automatic human activities that determine the ability to achieve repeated business successes over long time horizons.

Dr. Borgerson built his coaching practice upon the assumption that we all operate in two modes – a thinking mode and an automatic mode. Therefore, we all operate as if we have two “selfs” – a thinking-self and an auto-self. He uses the 2Selfs Theory that models the thinking-self, which is where our intentions reside, and the auto-self, which controls our behavior habits (auto-behaviors) and organizational cultures (one form of auto-contexts). This allows systematic techniques to coach you to overcome your certainties associated with culture elements and the discomforts attached to transformational change.

Purchase his best selling book here: https://valuablechange.com/product/valuable-change-paperback/

When it comes to change – it’s a world filled with armies of consulting graduates sitting in dimly-lit rooms retroactively justifying why the latest ‘transformational’ initiative went ahead. The industry has over-complicated it. From obtuse jargon to untold reams of paperwork. It’s just become too hard, too confusing, too segregated and too academic. 

The thing is – You don’t have time for that. No change leader does. Change is hard enough without all that added complexity.

Brendon is converting others to a radical new idea…

Keep it simple.

As a leading expert in the field, Brendon Baker is the author of the best-seller Valuable Change, and has consulted on over $10 Billion in key transformation projects and programs across a range of industries and organizational sizes. This has included public infrastructure, business/cultural transformations, shared service implementations, organizational restructures, process overhauls, technology deployments, social policy & more.

Brendon Baker established the Valuable Change Co. with one central mission in mind: to Help Change Leaders Drive Real Value, but on his way found his secondary mission: Fight Unnecessary Complexity. Where change isn’t about delivering on-time or on-budget, but rather actually getting what you’re looking for out of it.

Brendon is based on the rural outskirts of Canberra, Australia, has a degree in Business Management and is the father of two young girls - so he’s likely running on coffee for this call. 

Brendon knew from the very beginning of his career that he didn’t want to do the same thing day in and day out. 

After an accelerated schooling due to various ‘gifted and talented’ school programs, and a short stint in event management, Brendon found his initial calling - in Project Management.

Earning his (metaphorical) stripes and scars on projects large and small across various sized organizations, Brendon then shifted into change consulting. In retrospect, Brendon has worn almost every different hat and performed almost every role that exists in the world of changing organizations.

Through all this, there were three recurring themes: 

First, Brendon had a knack for seeing through the complexity to find the simple, and doing so had huge benefit for the change he was working with. 

Second, Brendon was able to make complex concepts - accessible. And not just personally, but was able to help others repeatedly do the same.

And third, that broad, diverse experience meant that Brendon was able to help his clients connect together all of the essential elements needed for truly successful change.

It’s these themes that were at play as Brendon wrote his books (to date) - Valuable Change, and Creating High Value PMOs. Both of which were number 1 New Releases across multiple categories, with Valuable Change hitting bestseller status.

And it’s those themes that Brendon brings to his clients everyday as part of the Valuable Change Co.

That reminds me of a John Maxwell quote, “Leadership is influence, nothing more”. 

So much of this is about gaining awareness of how the behaviors of leadership influence the behaviors of the workers. That influence can be intentional or unintentional. Either way, what workers do on your project is directly influenced by what leaders do. And I’m not just talking about wearing PPE. I’m talking about perceptions of equity in accountability, having a growth minded attitude, creating an environment of open communication, and why people are or aren’t engaged.

Since HP is concerned with becoming a learning culture, a critical component of leadership is continually growing your ability to influence others to add value to them.

The power of influence can be used for very selfish reasons. True leadership is using the power of influence to add value to others, not yourself. What’s good for the team is good for the leaders. They both benefit. However, in a world where me-me-me is something we see a lot of, this can be challenging. 

John Maxwell says there is a leadership deficit in our world today. He says that our entire world is seeing more bad examples of leadership traits, from churches, to politicians, to companies, than examples of great leadership. We need to show the world what great leadership looks like. Unfortunately, there are less examples of great leadership than there are of poor leadership.

As I mentioned earlier, this is often the hardest HP principle to implement. This one is an inside job. We need to change people from the inside out. We need to work on the organizational culture from the top down, not the bottom up.

Although the leadership principle can bear the most fruit, it is also the hardest to implement. Leadership is involved with emotional change, not technical change. That’s what makes it so hard. The leadership principle is concerned with changing people on the inside.

This is a hard path to go down, but the best things you experience in life are never the easy ones. It’s the hard stuff that produces the most satisfaction in the life experience. To help people become better people is not easy. But it’s also the most rewarding. 

From one view it’s a total paradox. But should it really be any other way? Greatness comes from struggle.  Through that lens, it should definitely be this way.

So, let’s look at some different ways that leadership influences behavior and how to improve upon it.

Modeling Safe Behaviors

I think the easiest one to start with is modeling the safety behaviors you want your people to display. It’s easy to talk about because I believe all of us have seen examples of this.

If the supervisor performs energized work without LOTO or following NFPA requirements, then that sends a powerful message to the workers. The rule doesn’t apply to supervision.

You can apply that to not using fall protection, not wearing PPE and the myriad of things I think all of us safety people have seen at some time in our career. I believe all of us know how important it is to do what we say others should do. At this point, lead by example and practice what you preach, have become a little cliché. However, actually doing these things is not always practiced in our world. Still, it’s imperative that we do what we want others to do.

We are all human, including managers and supervisors. But when we are in a leadership position, more is required of us. It’s hard for all of us to always do the right thing. This reminds me of another quote from John Maxwell, “The hardest person to lead is myself”.

We need to show ourselves grace, because all of us are human and all of us are failable. At the same time, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Beyond following rules, leaders must model the emotional intelligence we want our workforce to display. 

Communication

One example is communication. I often see in our culture assessment work managers desiring employees to communicate more about what they know. Managers often express a perception that employees just won’t speak up, or share, or bring things to their attention. If you want people to communicate more, you must learn how to influence those people to want to talk to you. 

My friend Shelli McCoy, who was on a previous podcast, studies how the vibrations we give off can attract others to us. I was talking to her about the type of people I attract tend to be struggling with something. She mentioned how I give off vibrations that make people think I genuinely care about their struggles and genuinely want to help them. This is an example of knowing how behavior influences the behavior of others.

Words can mean a lot but so much of communication is body language, or vibrations as my friend Shelli says. Our facial expressions, our posture, the way we hold out our hands, how we ask, how we respond, our tone of voice; all of these things influence the willingness of employees to share information. 

Are we talking about these things? Are we developing these skills? Are we measuring their effectiveness and holding people accountable for these traits? These leadership skills matter in the context of adopting Human Performance principles.

Buy-In

Another one I hear often is a perceived lack of buy-in. It might present itself as lack of buy-in from the worker level or middle management. The real question is why are they not buying in, and how am I selling it?

Sometimes I see where a percentage of management is bought in to HP and a percentage is not. People don’t buy-in to what they are told is valuable, they buy-in to what they believe is valuable. 

One of the best methods to increase buy-in is to be authentic with your own buy-in. You can’t convince someone to believe in something. People make their own choice whether or not they believe. However, your ability to influence buy-in is much greater when you believe it. People are much more likely to believe in something because the leader believes it to be true, not because they are told to believe it.

How leaders communicate the benefits of HP matters. If they come across as authentic, showing that they truly believe that HP will create a cultural shift that benefits the frontline worker, then the workforce is more likely to buy-in to this philosophy. If the leader is communicating some new safety stuff that we have to do to satisfy company requirements, there will be a lot less buy-in.

Not everyone in management will buy-in to HP immediately. But the buy-in we see at the frontline is directly related to this. Some of our leadership team will need more attention and time than others. Some will buy-in during the introductory class. Some may never buy in. What is imperative, is to be fully aware that leadership influences buy-in. Any gaps in that influence must be addressed through education, coaching and accountability.

Some of our most successful clients started the HP path by educating upper management first. Although many of them faced struggles and resistance with that approach, looking back they often mention how it was one of the most valuable things they did. When leadership is bought in, buy in from middle management and the frontline is so much easier. 

Engagement

Another one ...

After we gain awareness of error and system induced violations, how our brains are wired, and why inattention and complacency are natural; we become stronger at predicting error. We start to see this concept on a macro and a micro scale. This is a beautiful thing because when we can predict error, we are better equipped to defend against it. Sometimes we can even change the system to eliminate error.

Last time, we talked about different performance modes. Skill based mode is less prone for error. Rule and knowledge based modes are more prone for error. If people have to follow a bunch of rules within a procedure, there is a chance our brain will forget a step. If that procedure is unavailable, error is highly likely.

In a study of this by James Reason, people are 20 times more likely to make an error if a procedure is unavailable. If a worker is unfamiliar with a task, they are 17 times more likely to make an error. If they are in a hurry, 10 times more likely to error.

When we look at our systems through this lens, it becomes much more predictable where the next incident will occur. We can’t predict everything, but we can get better at predicting.

Fatigue

In construction, fatigue is a common, predictable, error-likely situation.

Fatigue has the same effect on your brain as alcohol. Although a hard concept to accept, we are often managing a bunch of drunk people. If they were drunk on alcohol, we would most likely kick them off the job (and hopefully get them some help). But fatigue drunkenness is a risk tolerance that our industry commonly accepts.

I’ll start with an extreme example. If a paving contractor has to work all day and into the night, to meet the demands of the client, within the limited resources of the company; they could feasibly be awake for 21 hours straight between work demands, the commute and the stuff everyone has to deal with at home. 

According to WorkSafeBC, that is the blood alcohol equivalent of .08%. The same number the State of Georgia uses to determine if you are too drunk to drive.

It’s an extreme example, and not every contractor is working that many hours, but some do in our industry. There are people out there doing road construction whose brains are operating the same way as a legally drunk person. That is a predictable, error-likely situation.

A less extreme example, but even more common in our industry, is going 17 hours without sleep. If a worker has to pull a 12-hour shift, drive an hour to and from work, we are up to 14 hours, just with the job aspect alone. But what about their home life? Who doesn’t have crap to do at home? Marriage, parenting, house chores; we all have stuff we are responsible for outside of work too. So, if we give the worker 30 minutes in the morning to get out of bed and hit the road, and 2.5 hours after work to deal with life before they get back in bed, we are up to 17 hours without sleep. 

In this example, the blood-alcohol equivalent is 0.05%. So, they could pass a breathalyzer but they are one beer away from being legally drunk. In other words, they may not be drunk yet, but the fatigue is still equal to people drinking on the job from a brain-based standpoint. Error is predictable.

Everyone has a different relationship with alcohol but I’ll throw myself under the bus for a minute. Intellectually, I know how much I can drink before I do something stupid. But I also understand my brain can’t make great rational decisions when alcohol is introduced to it.

Let’s say a person plans to have two drinks. Then they are more relaxed, “oh heck I’ll have one more”. At that point, moderation and good decision making go out the window. Why? Because our brain has stopped making good judgement. Next thing you know, you are drunk while never intending to get that way. It happens, because the alcohol impairs our ability to make good judgements.

I’m sure not everyone listening has done that, but I’m also sure some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

From a brain perspective, that’s happening on the jobsite. The more fatigued someone is, the less likely they will make good decisions. If you know people are working a 12, then error-likely situations are predictable. Especially when they are operating under a rule or knowledge based mode.

Some companies are very concerned with work-rest schedules. Is a fatigue management plan part of your safety program? If long shifts are predictable in your organization, then fatigue management should be an official system. It would be good to review if fatigue is in the table of contents and how is it actually being managed in the real world.

Scope of Work

Scope of work is another error-likely situation. The more work flows away from our typical scope, the more likely error becomes. Being unfamiliar with the task, means the worker is 17 times more likely to make a mistake. Combine the fatigue issue we just covered and you can easily predict where we are headed.

If we typically build poured in place concrete jobs, and now we have a wood frame job, error is predictable. From a general contractor perspective, we are now managing a completely different set of contractors. We may have mastered formwork, shoring and concrete systems; but now we are dealing with a bunch of carpenters. As the scope of work changes, error becomes predictable.

On a smaller scale, the client has some safety rules that are different than most jobs we work on. The rules have become normalized on our other projects. They have become more subconscious. On this current project, we have to stop and think more often and are expected to make good decisions. Because of this, our prefrontal is doing the work and more prone for error.

Let’s say we normally work on a scaffold, without personal fall arrest, as long as all the guardrails are in place. Now we are working for a new client and they require personal fall arrest and guardrails at all times. Maybe they have the best intent ever. Maybe they are viewing safety through the lens of layers of defenses. At the same time, we are requiring our workforce to work differently. Someone is going to forget no matter how long the safety orientation was. Instead of getting mad that someone forgot we should expect them to forget.

Any change in the scope of work is an error likely situation, both on a macro and a micro scale. 

Another one is operating different equipment. Normally a worker operates a CAT. Something goes wrong and we send it back to the shop for maintenance. In the meantime, we are provided with a Komatsu. The equipment operates differently, which means error is predictable.

Most of the time we use Genie, but this time rental company sent out JLG. Same thing. Change in equipment, controls operate differently, capacity numbers change, approved attachments change, operational rules change; error is predictable.

New equipment, new harnesses, new fall anchorage, hydraulic shoring vs. a trench box, new rigging manufacturer, new type of scaffold; all of these things are creating error-likely situations. 

When we are aware of these things, we can predict them. Then we can implement defenses if we are forced to use new and different stuff. We might even be able to change the system to lessen the amount of different equipment people use. Either way, it’s that style of thinking we need to evo...

A side benefit is that HP is not just a safety thing. It’s an operational philosophy. Many of our clients who travel the HP path find it benefits all areas of performance in an organization. 

Since we often have to sell safety culture improvement efforts to management, this should be communicated frequently. HP is not a safety thing, it’s an operational philosophy designed to improve all areas of organizational performance. When looking for management buy-in, it’s of great importance to speak their language. This is not insinuating that management doesn’t care about safety, it’s about speaking in a language that they speak often. How can we improve our organizational systems to increase performance? That is the main concept of HP.

So here are the six principles:

1. People are fallible and even the best make mistakes
2. Error-likely situations are predictable
3. Individual behaviors are influenced by culture and leadership
4. Organizations and people drift
5. Events can be avoided by learning
6. People achieve high levels of performance, based on encouragement and reinforcement.

Today, I’m going to focus on the first principle:

1.      People are fallible and even the best make mistakes.

Here’s my favorite quote regarding this principle from Norman Cousins:

“To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species”

This is usually where education on human performance begins. We must start by generating awareness to all levels of the organization how the brain works. We need to educate our team on how external things influence our brains to determine the right path to follow. The old view seems to look at employee behavior as a moral decision that someone makes or doesn’t make. 

But it’s much more complex than that. When we gain awareness into how our brains are wired, we can see that the choices between right and wrong are heavily influenced by a multitude of things. Often, at-risk behavior is actually perceived as a good idea in the mind of the worker. Other times, the brain was overloaded to the point it just couldn’t make a good decision, or at least the decision management would prefer the worker make. 

Understanding the brain is imperative for HP to work. We can start with our brain. We must move away from the judgement mode inherent to our brain and move over to the knowledge mode of learning these concepts to ultimately enhance our performance.

There are many voices in the construction industry that believe people can choose not to be complacent and pay attention at all times. There are loud voices that believe not paying attention is an individual problem that can be trained or disciplined out of people. 

The reality is it’s just not possible for humans to pay attention all the time. Attention is a finite resource. In the context of a jobsite, it’s even worse. There is so much going on within the typical jobsite that what a human can pay attention to is usually limited to right in front of them. Even then, the resource quickly runs out of fuel.

Our brain is equipped with the reticular activating system. Its purpose is to help us focus. The paradox is that it narrows our focus. It can be viewed as a positive thing so you can focus on the task at hand. The tradeoff is that it blurs out everything else around you.

In the context of a jobsite, your brain can do amazing work at focusing on what is directly in front of you. The tradeoff is you miss all these other things going on, other subcontractors, other components of your work that your brain has deemed less critical. You can’t train this out of your brain. 

You can’t train your brain to be aware of everything going on around you, at every second of every day. Attention is a finite resource. You can train your brain to be more aware, to an extent, but you can’t train it to pay attention to everything at all times.

People struggle with this concept. There are loud voices saying that people can successfully multi-task. It’s actually more common that attention is jumping quickly from one task to another in mere seconds. Try to juggle and sing a song at the same time. Often, the perception of someone saying they are excellent at multi-tasking, is in reality their ability to quickly jump back and forth from one thing to another. 

In the context of a jobsite, are people really calculating fall clearance distance and installing the shear connectors on the decking at the same time? Or are they focusing on installing the shear connector one second, and then adjusting their harness the next? 

There is a common misperception that people often do two tasks at the exact same time, when they are actually jumping back and forth from different responsibilities at high speed. Am I hammering a nail at the exact same time I ensure my d-ring is between my shoulders? Or is my attention devoted to different things at different times. Maybe some people can do both at the same time. Most people jump back and forth.

Sometimes I teach how when you drive down the road, your brain helps you focus on the white and yellow lines to focus on the task at hand. But we can’t focus on every single tree we pass, every car about to pass us, and all the things flying by our eyes at a fast rate. If we did, our brain would overload. Some people get this with the example of missing their own exit. They were driving, focusing on the white and yellow lines, and inadvertently drove by their own exit. Sometimes you do focus on all the trees going by. And then you look down and realize you are outside the lines, or going 85 in a 65mph zone.

We are not focused on everything when we drive down the road. We are diverting our attention to different things, constantly moving back and forth with our attention.

The point is, our brain is designed to focus on one thing at a time. In the dynamic work of construction, focusing on scaffold components, tool inspections, personal fall arrest systems, rigging, safety paperwork and the actual job to do, all at the same time, is impossible to do without losing attention to something.

With the speed example I gave, the auto industry understands the science of this. Cruise control is an error reduction tool based on how our brains work. A human just can’t go the exact speed limit for long periods of time without becoming complacent. So, the car is designed with a tool to keep you in a specific range. It wasn’t designed based on the concept that people are lazy and stupid. It was based on the scientific understanding of how human brains are designed.

Let’s break that down a little deeper. Cruise control was not created out of the belief that some people are superior and some people are inferior. Cruise control came from the study of the human brain. 

When we look at people like they are inferior because they didn’t pay attention to something, we are miss...

People are given task responsibilities with no purchasing authority over the equipment they use.

People are given knowledge responsibilities with no authority over the training they receive.

People are given workers to lead with no authority over the hiring or orientation process.

We can effectively hold people accountable as long we give them the authority to make the needed decisions on what they are responsible for. 

Do we recognize these responsibility-authority mismatches in our everyday interactions?

Do we talk about it out loud? Or is it just the unspoken truth we keep inside?

Does management acknowledge these mismatches? Are they aware of them?

Are we doing something about it?

Some things we can work on, like training programs, purchasing authority and the hiring process. Some things we can’t control, like the client’s schedule. If we first gain awareness to these issues, we can focus on improving the system where possible. We can also use error reduction tools where we can’t. 

That is the heart of human performance. Gaining awareness to system issues without judgement, recognizing the difference between systems we can control and imperfect circumstances we can minimize error within, talking the language out loud, and taking action.

You are not your thoughts. The majority of your thoughts are the subconscious ego. But you can strengthen your ability to separate your true self from your thinking. It takes regular exercise. The more sets of exercises and the more types of exercises you do, the greater your ability to diminish the power of the ego.

The system for becoming a safety professional is at root of why so many people dislike safety. But there is also great potential for us to transform the safety profession. 

The main thing missing in the safety profession is the emotional intelligence to do the job. 

Our current system tends to focus on laws, rules and technical requirements to follow. But this same system is severely lacking when it comes to developing leadership traits.

Great safety professionals have a high level of emotional intelligence. Those safety professionals that people can’t stand are typically lacking in this department. These self-awareness skills are what make a great safety professional great at their job.

The struggle is that we have to look outside the safety profession to obtain these skills. There is no BCSP certification for self-awareness. However, these skills have been the most beneficial of all in my career.

We have to develop ourselves to be the messengers. We can’t give what we don’t have. But if we do continually develop these skills in ourselves, we will come up with our own unique ideas for including them in the work we already do. 

The more we do this, the more normalcy we will bring to hearing and discussing these concepts. Over time, we will transform our little sandbox in the world. The more of us that do it, the more our profession will transform. Others will see what we are doing and want a piece of it. 

Wherever you are, you can start this transformation right now. 

It’s easy on the outside to just tell someone they need to snap out of it. Easy to say, hard to do. The more intense the problem, the harder it is to become unstuck.

When we attach ourselves to problem-based thoughts they can consume us. It can sound cliché to say that you should just take a break from it and return tomorrow with a fresh set of eyes, but that is exactly what we need to do. Distance produces clarity. 

The solution is so much easier to see when you are detached from the problem because your brain isn’t being flooded with emotional and judgmental thoughts about it. The biggest part of the problem, or the problem itself, is often the attachment to it. People can’t escape the problem when they are consumed by it.

By allowing the problem to just be there, without latching on to it, we are giving ourselves the clarity of distance. Scheduled distance will produce new clarity. It can be as simple as telling yourself you will return to this issue tomorrow morning or creating a calendar event that says “relook at XYZ” for a future date. 

Physical activity strengthens neural pathways in our brain. Going for a short walk strengthens this process in your brain. There is something magical about physically walking away from problems. Even though you may still have thoughts about them, the physical activity of your legs and feet walking away is strengthening your brain’s ability to stop obsessing about it. Then end result, no matter how big or small, is greater clarity.

Do something different. There is always something different you can do. 

The skill of letting problems remain where they are will always yield some level of progress tomorrow. It’s the letting go that creates the progress. The more we let thought come and go, the less attached to our thoughts we become. The more physical activity we include in this process, the stronger our brains become at doing this work. The more distance we create between ourselves and the problem, the more clarity we have to see potential solutions for moving forward tomorrow.

Most mangers spend 2.5 hours a day managing drama. What if you could get one hour of your life back?

The research by Cy Wakeman shows that the average manager spends 2.5 hours a day listening to people complain about other people, new policies, new clients and other workplace problems without ever coaching people how to succeed within the imperfect circumstances that they must succeed in.

What if you could spend half that time coaching them, instead of just letting them vent? Could we shift that time toward solution-based thinking in a way that we are more productive with those conversations? What if we became so skilled at it, that each day, we got an hour of our life back? What could people accomplish with that time?

I believe we can do that. But to make it happen we have to develop our coaching skills and put them to work when the opportunity presents itself. And it will present itself. It will show up 2.5 hours a day.

It’s definitely challenging for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is a long-held belief that the open-door policy will improve communication. By telling people our door is open to discuss any workplace problems; we have invited a bunch of drama, with open arms, right into our personal space. It’s what we do with that open-door policy that matters.

We mean well when we announce the open-door policy, but in reality, we might end up prolonging the person’s suffering. All with good intent in our hearts. 

When we let people vent their drama, without ever showing them that their thinking is at root of the problem, we end up encouraging them to stay in that state of suffering. In a way, we are telling them that it’s ok to feel that way. 

It’s only ok temporarily. It’s normal for people to be hit with negative emotion. The world will not always work out in our favor. But it is not ok to dwell, and stay there forever. It’s normal for the limbic brain to engage automatically and emotionally judge workplace challenges. But we also have the responsibility to point people toward their prefrontal when those emotions are taking control of their lives. 

It’s ok to feel bad. It’s ok to let off a little steam. But it is not ok to dwell, to obsess or to stay there forever.

This is a struggle for a lot of people. Managers mean well when they listen to the drama of their people. They can think that letting off steam is good for them. But to what extent? At what point does listening to people vent encourage them to stay in that poor pitiful me state? Are we actually hurting them by encouraging them to stay there? At what point does letting people vent turn into encouraging the victim mentality?

In her book No ego, Cy Wakeman says, “No one came through my open door to directly ask for coaching on handling sticky situations in a more effective, productive, and efficient way. I realized pretty quickly that the open door was a portal for drama. It catered to ego, fueled feelings of victimhood, and contributed to low morale.”

In her experience, the well-intended open-door policy ended up strengthening the ego and the victim mentality. The policy back fires because managers and supervisors aren’t developed into master coaches. At best, most of them attend a seminar or two on the subject, but they aren’t developed into coaching ninjas. 

If a manager is unaware that circumstance is what can’t be changed, and that our thinking is the only thing we have true control over, and that our emotions are just a symptom of our thinking; then the actions our people take will be extremely limited in achieving the results we desire. Our managers need to be aware of this and teach it to the people they lead.

The skill of coaching isn’t just a morally good thing to do. It can show up as increased productivity and profit. What could managers do with that 2.5 hours spent feeding victimhood? What ROI would the organization see by developing our coaching ability? There is no return on investment for just listening to people complain. But there is an ROI on helping people manage their emotions.

Today I am going to discuss some universal topics that may come up in these dramatic, woe is me conversations and some potential methods to help coach people out of it.

How to influence the conversation is the hard part. There are so many books on the subject, so many teachers, so many ideas and so many concepts about how to do it. And they are all great! But none of them are the be-all-end-all solution.

The key is to keep learning new techniques, trying them out and developing the skill. The more techniques we acquire, the more tools we have to pull out when we need them, the more we develop and strengthen that muscle.

First up is circumstance: 

Most people complain about what they don’t have the power to change. Most complaining is arguing against circumstance. They see themselves as a victim placed in a life that isn’t fair. Yet deep down, we all know that the world isn’t fair. It’s not meant to be fair. This is natural to experience but it’s also a complete waste of time. 

The world will never be fair, bad things will happen, we will be treated poorly by our peers, clients and other contractors and we will be forced to do our best with unrealistic expectations. All normal in the life experience. Yet people still argue against it.

It’s the ego that argues against circumstance. It’s the victim inside all of us that complains that life isn’t fair. It’s not who we really are or have the potential to become. Most, genuine, good hearted people struggle with this. I struggle with this. But it’s still a complete waste of time to complain about what can’t be changed.

In Buddhism, the ego is described as the source of all suffering. We all have an ego lurking inside of us. When our ego is in the driver’s seat of our thinking, we find ourselves focused on what everyone else should do, instead of focusing on what we should do to succeed in the our current circumstance.

People feel stuck when they argue against circumstance. They feel drained, demotivated and it shows up in their actions. Our goal is to point people away from blaming circumstance, to stop entertaining the ego, and the victim mentality; and to focus on what they can do in a crappy situation.

We need to stop talking about what others do, or should have done, and focus the conversation on what we can and should do.

“What can you do?” 

Or my favorite from No Ego, “What does great look like?”

“What’s the best possible (and realistic) outcome considering this crappy circumstance?”

And one that seems to work a lot with my construction groups: “How can we polish this turd?”

Once we identify the problem is true circumstance; as in, it happened in the past and we don’t have a time machine to fix it, or we are going to work with this client or contractor even if they are a total pain in the rear; once we identify that we truly can’t change the problem, then we have to move the conversation toward what can be done.

Having a gazillion different ways to ask “What can you do?” is the great first step. When they say “but” you say “what”. And fill in the rest with ...

Like so much of leadership, this one is an emotional journey. On one hand, we have this great new awareness for managing safety performance that we didn’t have when I started this career. Human performance has opened my eyes, helped me look at the world in a different way, helped me become more forgiving and inspired me to believe that we can finally make major change in the amount of death we experience every year.

At the same time, I continually watch people display resistance and negative emotion when teaching this subject. Most of it revolves around the shift from blaming the worker towards the new view of systems thinking. I continually watch people struggle with this so I wanted to share some thoughts in case you are having a similar experience.

Before we get in to determining if a behavior is system induced or the fault of the worker, I want to tackle the negative emotion that comes up often in these conversations.

The one I hear the most is a person says, “I get all the systems thinking but at what point do people need to hold themselves personally accountable?”.

That was exactly how it was said to me recently. I was teaching an intro to human performance session and a student asked me that question. When he asked it, you could feel the emotion behind his words. You could hear the frustration in his tone and volume projection. He was frustrated.

There are a couple things that come to mind that influence this frustration. One is how we communicate human performance and the other is that we are asking people to challenge long held belief systems. I truly believe that we need to take extra time to address both of these issues. Especially when looking for buy-in.

The first issue is we need to recognize that we are asking people to change the way they have been thinking for years, maybe even decades. I think a lot of us are guilty of communicating the need for soon, certain, negative consequences for at-risk behavior. I know I am guilty of communicating that in the past. 

“Discipline for safety violations needs to be clear and consistent no matter who you are.” I have made that statement many times in my past but that was before gaining awareness of the science of human performance. Now I know. Now I have a responsibility to tweak my communication.

At the same time, I need to be cognizant of the fact that those I communicate with have been hearing that old view for a long time. I need to take extra time to explain how some of the things we have taught in the past regarding safety management have been disproven or expanded upon. 

I also need to accept that you can’t just go deliver a new class on HP and expect it to automatically erase long held belief systems that have been preached for decades. People will need time to come around. They will need time to reflect on this new view, to process this new understanding and to see the concepts at play in their own work-life experience. It won’t happen overnight. We will have to continue preaching the new view, but we need a little patience because we can’t erase 30 years of old safety management theory overnight.

The second one is how we communicate.

People tune us out. People rarely take in everything you are saying and context is everything. As messengers, we are also limited in communicating the depth of our thoughts and knowledge with spoken word. I’ve mentioned before that the average person can think 600 words per minute but only speak about 100 words per minute. So, even when we have great intent, we typically only communicate 20% of the depth of what we know. 

Things get lost in translation. We mean well but we are severely limited in verbal communication. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could communicate with telepathy and just upload everything we know to the other person’s brain? Well, we can’t. But we can improve our communications, gain awareness to what other people are hearing and then redirect.

The issue with communicating human error is that people who hear this message often think we are saying that nobody is responsible for their behavior anymore. It’s always the system that motivated the behavior and it’s never the worker’s fault…….and that is not true. But people often think that is what we are saying. 

I understand why people think that way. We seem to communicate human error through a pendulum method that was hard left in the past and now we have swung the pendulum so hard to the right that what our people here is, “No one needs to be held accountable anymore”. That is not human performance thinking. Personal accountability is important.

But here’s why people misunderstand and hear that, even when we don’t intend it to be perceived that way. We have swung the pendulum so far to the right that we find ourselves saying:

“It’s the system, it’s the system, it’s the system.”

“It’s not the worker, it’s the system.”

“It’s not the workers fault, we just placed them in a situation designed to fail.”

I get why we do that. We do that because we want people to shift their thinking away from blaming the employee and focus more on the systems that influence at risk behavior. But we never mean that no at-risk behavior is the fault of the worker. We mean that most at-risk behavior is influenced by our systems.

Unfortunately, although we have great intent, our communications are often misunderstood.

When considering the research of Edward Demming and Sydney Decker, somewhere between 85-90% of the time, at-risk behavior is influenced by the workplace system. 10-15% of the time, it is the fault of the worker. 

So, sometimes, it is the fault of the worker. It’s just that most of the time, or a large percentage of the time, the system is where we need to focus. But definitely not all the time.

For a lot of you, I know you are already there. You get that concept. But I think all of us can fall into that situation where we find ourselves communicating, “It’s not the worker, it’s the system”. But it is not absolute! There is no absolute when we communicate about human behavior. There are always variables.

This reminds me of line from a Star Wars movie, “Only the Sith deal in absolutes”. So, are we going to communicate like a Jedi or Darth Vader? We might want to take a note from Obi-Wan-Kenobi.

As I’ve noticed how my communications are interpreted in this human performance journey I have started communicating more about the “fault of the worker” truth. I find myself becoming more extreme with that communication like, “evil does exist”. In my last class I even mentioned atrocities like rape and molestation to reinforce the idea that there are bad people in this world. There are evil workers that purposely want to do the wrong thing, for all kinds of reasons that do not make sense, to sane people with a halfway decent morale compass.

Since so many people seem to hear that human performance means nobody is responsible for their behavior anymore, I truly believe we need to continually communicate that there are bad people in this world, it’s just that the greatest amount of at-risk behavior is influenced by the system, but definitely not all of it. 

Once is not enough. If it’s a class or a meeting, nobody is listening to you 100% of the time. We need to say it over and over again, “Sometimes it is the fault o...

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Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day. 

Jeff is an international speaker who has presented at conferences such as INBOUND, SXSW, and Australia’s Pausefest, showing audiences how major issues in the workplace can be solved using play.

Jeff was selected by Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers of 2020 for his organizational development work around addressing toxicity in the workplace.

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His playwork has been featured in the New York Times, AJ+, SoulPancake, the SF Chronicle, and CNN.
 
“While we spend most of our time pretending to be important, serious grownups, it's when we let go of that facade and just play, that the real magic happens. Fully embracing your own nerdy genius — whatever that is — gives you the power to make a difference and change lives.” 

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Jeff believes that we already have many of the answers we seek, and by simply unleashing our inner child, we can find our purpose and, in turn, help to create a better world. 

For more about Jeff Harry visit: https://www.rediscoveryourplay.com/

www.leaderthink.com

Soak time is one of the most important components of experiencing true growth. Many people consume information, whether reading books, watching YouTube, listening to podcasts or attending courses. But the soak time is where you transform the information you have consumed and learn how to apply it in the workplace. It’s the step that happens between learning something new and putting that newly acquired knowledge into action.

On a previous podcast with Dr. Johanna Pagonis, we talked a lot about why most leadership training fails. One of those reasons is the lack of time given for reflection. That time for reflection, or soak time, is so important. Without it, we quickly forget the concepts we have consumed. But when we reflect, we create new brain maps that become part of how we think, act and live our lives. In these moments we are rewiring our brains. Again, reflection is the link between learning and doing.

We still have to act. We have to act upon what we learn, and reflect on, to strengthen the new maps in our brains. The action we take after the soak time is what exercises and strengthens the new muscle. So, all of it is important. They are three legs of the same stool: learning, reflecting and doing something with it. Those are the three components of personal growth.

For the rest of this podcast, I want to give you examples of this from my own personal growth experience. I will share some quotes from a book, and then share my personal reflections on the concepts and maybe even some examples of how I have put the concepts into action. 

I’m going to use one of the most inspirational books I read in 2020 as an example: Quiet Leadership by Dr. David Rock. Sometimes when a book inspires me it doesn’t have the same effect on my peers but Quiet Leadership did. My friend Marty told me it was one of the best books he ever read. So, you might want to check it out if you are not familiar with his work.

So here goes:

Quote#1

To take any kind of committed action people need to think things through for themselves.

People experience a degree of inertia around thinking for themselves due to the energy required. The act of having an aha moment gives off the kind of energy needed for people to become motivated and willing to take action.

So much truth there. You can tell someone what they should think or do but it rarely has a lastly effect if it even works at all. When people think for themselves, they create new maps in their brain. When it is their idea, they are more likely to buy in to it. 

You know, that’s actually how adults learn. They learn by connecting concepts that already exist in their brain, which is different than how children learn. Children have more empty space in their brains that can be filled with new ideas. But not adults. Adults make connections to what they already know. That’s why they need time to reflect but also the space to come up with their own ideas, or their own connections. It’s how they learn.

When that connection is made, their brain is filled with energy. I’ve felt that energy many times in life when learning new wisdom. Those moments where you think, “I wish I knew that 20 years ago”. That energy is inspirational, motivational. It just feels great.

That energy can be transformed into actions that make meaningful change in an organization or in an individual’s life. Or both. But the energy quickly dissipates if you don’t do anything with it, or strengthen the new map. Getting people to make a commitment when they experience that energy means they are more likely to act upon it.

When I read that statement, I reflected on times I would tell people what they should do to improve and they would usually respond back with excuses of why they couldn’t change. I thought about how I could get better with my communications. I thought about asking more “what can you do?” type questions instead of entertaining the barriers they face. 

During this reflection I made commitments to myself on taking action. One, get better at letting the other person come up with all the potential solutions to their problem. Two, get better at letting go. By letting go, I mean hold back that part of me that wants to say “but” or “you should also consider” or anything else that is more about my idea than theirs.

So, here’s another one: 

Quote #2

When we are trying to help a colleague think anything through, we make the unconscious assumption that the other persons brain works the same as ours. We then tell people what we would do and are convinced it’s what they should do.

Boy that one hit me hard. My brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s. Part of me wants to say I wish it did, but that isn’t true. People think differently than me for good reason. That quote made me think of a bible verse:

Romans 12-4

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

Some people are very analytical. Some are contemplative. Some are detail oriented and others are focused on the big picture. And all of us, together, are what make a beautiful world. 

People don’t think the way I think. They don’t think about the things I think about. Everyone has different desires, passions and deal with life challenges in very different ways. We should celebrate out different we are, but we also need to respect that we are not all wired the same way.

This made me reflect on how one method of communicating a concept may be the perfect inspiration for someone, if their brain works similar to mine. But for another brain, my communication can totally suck.

I committed to taking action with this concept by learning multiple ways to communicate the same idea. The methods that aren’t so inspirational to me can be the perfect form of communication for someone else. None of us think the same way, and I must be agile, and flexible enough, to expand my level of influence with people. 

How many ways can I come up with to communicate the same idea? The more the better, the greater my outreach, the greater my influence.

Quote#3

New habits take time but not that much. It doesn’t take long to create new habits. What’s hard is trying to uncreate them.

This time of year, a lot of people are making resolutions and trying to quit something……and it’s hard. But Dr. Rock is so right about creating new habits. It’s so much easier to start something, than it is to quit something. 

Our brains are filled with hard wired information and changing the way we behave is just as hard as the wiring in our brain. But doing something new is relatively easy.

So, I kinda suck at diet. I’m not a big fast-food eater, but I’m definitely one of those people who cleans my plate. I suck at portion control. I’ve been cleaning my plate for 40+ years! Leaving some food on the plate is hard for me.

This year I started jogging. I’ve done minor weight lifting on and off again for years, went on walks, bike rides, but never was a jogger. But last year I decided to start a new habit: jogging. It blows my mind how easy it was to not just start joggi...

Want to hear two leadership trainers talk about why leadership training doesn’t work? Don’t worry! We also discuss solutions, how to make the most of the training, the difference between a manager and a leader, and so much more!

Many times, people are presented with vague concepts in the classroom but then struggle applying them to their unique life experience. People need time to reflect on the concepts and they need to try them out in the real world, knowing that they wont always work during the first attempt. We also need to give ourselves grace when we fail try newly acquired ideas.

Leadership is a journey. The concepts are needles on a compass. They point in a direction but each organization is unique in how they can best apply the concepts and experience success. What works in a for profit organization may not work in a government entity. Flexibility is needed.

To learn more about Dr. Pagonis and Sinogap Solutions follow the links below:

Dr.  Johanna Pagonis | Owner

Sinogap Solutions | Leadership Consulting

https://sinogapsolutions.com

https://learn.sinogapsolutions.com/pages/podcast
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpagonis/

To read her book, "Choose To Be a Leader Others Would Want To Follow":
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1777156106/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&psc=1

New Beginnings

We are in the midst of a new beginning. Whatever the other side of this looks like, I don’t expect us to return to the old version of normal. I think we will arrive to a new version of normal. 

New beginnings are new opportunities. Many of my clients have told me how much smaller their workforces are, having to let people go, or just the struggles that come with working in an essential industry. There is an opportunity there, an opportunity to work on improving your culture, an opportunity to grow yourself, or rise in the ranks of your employer. 

Change and new beginnings are always new opportunities. Unfortunately, the brain doesn’t always immediately embrace change. In fact, the brain usually interprets change as sadness and loss. 

We have all been presented with a new changing environment, like it or not. That is our circumstance, the unchangeable in our world. It is what it is. But this change is also opportunity. We will be forced to adapt to a new way of doing work but at the same time we have the opportunity to improve ourselves, our culture and those around us at the same time. 

I have discussed before how most change efforts fail or struggle when we fail to address the emotional component. Today I want to talk about the emotions that come with change and how we can engage them for a greater potential to succeed as we adapt to this new version of normal.

Change is Melancholy

Let’s face it. Change is hard. Change is painful. Change is melancholy. Change is typically associated with loss in the minds of your employees and your loved ones. Sure, some people who really have a handle on choosing their own thoughts can see the optimism and the opportunity that exists here. But most people interpret change as loss. 

They are giving something up. They are giving up an old way of life. The new way of life will most likely have a new set of rules that comes along with it. Rules we can get our hand slapped for not following either purposefully because of some political beliefs or just simply forgetting to follow the new rules.

Those of you who study human performance, remember the blue line? We are living in the blue line right now. 

As a refresher, whenever the work changes, a new system is implemented or we are placed in a new, changing environment, humans are more likely to make mistakes…..or errors…or violate rules. People are more likely to get hurt when the blue line takes a turn. Remember the blue line. The blue line tells us that not following a rule is more predictable to occur in these scenarios and very unlikely to be a true culpable behavior that deserves discipline. 

If ever there was a time to cut our people some slack for struggling to follow all the new rules that come with these changing times, the time is now. We have to sympathize with the loss people are feeling and show a little tolerance for the increase in human error that will occur in these changing times.

But these rules must be followed to protect our people, right? Right…..but people aren’t robots right? Behavior is just a symptom of thought and emotion and the current circumstance, right?

Regardless of any rational-technical reason you give someone for the need for a change, their brain is still processing it as a loss. They are giving something up at the same time that they are saying “yes” to your new change. If we are not sympathetic to that emotion going on in the minds of the worker, or our neighbor for that matter, then we are ignoring a driving force behind the behaviors of the people we influence. 

We have to give attention, and sympathy, to that emotion. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. But engaging with that feeling of loss can improve the life experience of the worker and lessen the organizational struggles that come with that loss.

When you implement a change in your organization, such as wearing more PPE, many of your employees are thinking this new system is going to make their job harder for the same amount of pay. Are we sympathizing with that feeling of loss that they are going through? Or do we just expect all the science behind respirators to be good enough factual data to enforce the change? Humans are deeper than science. Humans think about change, feel change and then behave based on how they think and feel.

But they have to wear a respirator, right? I can’t just look the other way when they forget to wear their respirator, right? Right…..in the simplest of the shallow layer of our limbic brain, that is true. But in the deeper layers of who we are, there are two things going on here, one: a sympathy for the loss our people are going through; two: a new set of rules that you want people to follow.

So first we show sympathy to the loss to let them know we give a crap about them. That is always step one of influence, to show people you actually care and feel for your people. You feel the loss with them. That caring, if it is truly genuine, opens the door for getting people to adapt to a new set of safety rules.

After we sympathize with the loss, we sell the new set of rules to the employee by focusing on the benefits to them, not the organization. 

What’s in it for them? That should be our focus, not what’s in it for the company. There are so many unknowns here but as a simplistic example, “the respirator is to help protect your grandma you may see next weekend”, not “we are going to get OSHA fines or get in trouble with the GC”.

When selling these new requirements, these changes that make the workers job harder for the same amount of pay, these changes that are interpreted as loss in their minds, always focus on the benefits to them, not the company.

We must also not just tolerate failure, but embrace failure as our teacher. Change is never smooth. It’s messy and painful, but every failure you experience is teaching you something valuable. We must view failure as our teacher instead of some nasty thing to avoid. 

We are living in the blue line; errors will occur frequently during this cultural shift we are going through. But each error, each little failure is teaching you something on how to prevent a future occurrence. Maybe it’s teaching you something simple like how you distribute respirators to the worker. Maybe it’s teaching you something about the type of respirators you give to your people. 

The blue line is always teaching you something. You can choose to see the shallow layer of a human making a mistake, or you can look deeper into the teachable moment that failure is gifting you with. From there, you can look at the systems you have in place and potentially modify them to help the worker with these new changes they are navigating. 

The blue line is not just the worker behavior, it is also the systems we implement to comply with these new requirements. It would be foolish to believe that our first attempts at complying with these new rules would be a perfect, gold star worthy, performance. Not only is the worker going to experience little failures in these changing times, management will also experience little failures with the polices we put out. To adapt and excel in these changing times we have to embrace the failures that come with them. Our policies on paper will not be perfect, they will need to be tweaked as we move along. We will continually learn how to best manage these changes if we keep a growt...

Building social proof is the process of creating an environment that automatically influences the people within it, where the participants will either adapt to the culture or leave the culture. The culture has become stronger than any lone employee within it.

www.leaderthink.com

A lot of growth starts with suffering. Some of the most enlightened people in this world started their path towards greatness through deep suffering. Suffering is an opportunity for change. Suffering creates a desire for change. 

By not growing our brains and our level of wisdom we actually devolve. If we are constantly feeding our brains with new wisdom, new enlightenment, we are thinking about the concepts and seeing them at play in the world. When we stop feeding our brains we stop thinking in that same enlightened way. We actually move backwards toward old ways of looking at the world.

Growth requires dedicating time for it. If you are too busy to take on another responsibility then you have to remove something from your life to make room for it.

80% don’t meet expectations, 15% meet expectations, 5% exceed expectations. Which group do you want to be part of?

Grow like kudzu. Grow in a way where nothing can stop you. 

According to Philip Atkinson, in How to Become a Change Master, as many as 90% of major culture initiatives fail.
 
Without leadership, there is no change.

History of PROSAFE Culture Assessments

One of the first projects I ever worked on for PROSAFE was facilitating a culture assessment for the US Navy. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld had a mishap reduction policy for the military and we were able to participate in this effort through facilitation of our culture assessment process at various Navy bases across the country. For the past 20 years I have been heavily involved in culture assessments from the military, to chemical refineries, to various forms of construction companies from subcontractors to GCs.

It has been a highly enlightening experience. On one side of the fence, I was immersing myself in the laws and regulations, and equipment and technology related to the safety profession. On the other side of the fence I was learning so much about culture from the people who perform the work and those that manage the work. 

It was amazing to me how the perceptions of the frontline were very different than the intentions of upper management. Where did middle management fall? Right in the middle. Most often, they shared some of the frustrations of the frontline combined with some of the great intentions of upper management.

So why do the majority of culture change efforts fail?

Many times, upper management doesn’t really understand what drives culture, how to change culture, or how hard and slow culture change actually is. This is not placing judgment on management. They simply don’t know what they don’t know. 

One time I had a client call for some training services and after some conversation on the type of training needed the client made this statement, “I don’t want a safety program I want a safety culture”. Again, I am not placing judgment, just bringing to light the lack of awareness that may exist. The truth is, that client already had a safety culture. The words he used just didn’t match the thought he was having. The thought he was having was that he wanted a more improved safety culture than the one that currently existed in the organization.

I’m paraphrasing here but I’ve heard John Maxwell explain it like this: When companies say they want a culture, they already have one. What they really want is an intentional culture. What they currently have is an unintentional culture. An intentional culture is a constant uphill climb.

So let’s provide a little insight into what effective culture change efforts look like along with some struggles that companies may experience along the way.

Culture change is a Top-Down effort with a vision to become Bottom-Up.

Many organizations focus on the frontline employees when they want to change their culture. This is expected when the culture they want to change is the culture they see in their employees. Management is also looking at various departments in other ways on a frequent basis. How is this department performing financially, quality wise, safety performance, etc.? It’s only natural for management to look down the org chart when wanting to make a culture shift. But unfortunately that is the least effective effort to implement. Employees and middle managers are products of the management driven culture.

Consider this example; I have worked with several different subcontractors that work for most of the main large general contractors in our area. I always ask them, “Which general contractor has the strongest safety culture? Which has the weakest?” It’s interesting how the answers are almost always the same.

These projects consist of several hundred workers at any given time. The greatest percentage of warm bodies on the project are subcontractors. A very small percentage of human beings on these projects are general contractor management. Who drives the culture the most? The small group of managers at the top.

Changing culture starts at the very top; from there it flows into middle management and finally arrives at the front line. Many organizations want an employee driven culture, but it starts at the top.

Culture change is a wide arching overall approach vs. a targeted effort

Culture change is strategic, not tactical. You can’t fix a strategic problem with a tactical approach. Implementing tactical approaches, such as new programs, does not achieve the wide-ranging strategy of changing culture. How a program is implemented and its success is directly tied to the status of the current culture. 

It’s easy to fall into the targeted approach trap. If management feels that the problem with the culture is select groups of employees, then it is only natural for them to try to change these small groups of employees. But again, these small groups of employees are products of the current culture, not drivers of the culture bus.

Culture Change Is Slow

This requires patience. In our “right now” world it is hard to develop the patience, celebrate the small wins and give the effort and time required to see the change. With our culture assessment clients we always recommend they wait at least 3-4 years before seeing any positive results in a future assessment. 

Let’s say upper management decides to come up with a strong plan for changing culture. First they may come up with some required leadership, or coaching, or human error training for upper management and a separate version for middle managers. Developing the training plan, getting everyone through the training and then seeing the results of that training at the frontline level could take at least a year to even see a hint of it.

Training alone will not create a significant cultural shift. After the training, supervisors will most likely need coaching in the field to reinforce the concepts presented in the training. The time and resources for an effort such as this are great. For the frontline employee to actually witness these efforts in the field will take time.

Real, intentional culture change is slow……and requires a lot of patience.

Change Is Hard

It actually goes against the way our brains are wired. To make a change initiative a habit or normal behavior within the culture requires doing it 10,000 times, not 10, not 100. This actually requires  creating a new neural pathway in the brain that becomes preferred over the old behavior.

If we send management to a class on effective coaching techniques it won’t result in effective coaches. A class is a great start but it is only one small effort made toward the change. It just generates awareness to coaching techniques. 

The attendees of the class have to do the actual coaching in the field, get feedback from someone with expertise on the matter and continue to make it a normal behavior in their day to day activities. There must also be true accountability in some form for these new desired behaviors.

Great culture change efforts are never a one and done approach. They are focused so much more on the journey than on the destination.

Culture change is combining a technical approach with an emotional approach

There are technical things that need to be addressed within a culture change effort. Maybe how purchasing is handled, systems that don’t wo...

They first allow the reactional, emotional, and primal brain to speak. Allowing their analytical and focused prefrontal cortex to speak would be slow and inefficient. 

So, is it any wonder you hear loud negative voices consistently more than positive voices? When you hear those negative voices can you see through them? Do you see where they are coming from? The words you hear are not the best of that human in front of you. They are the most undeveloped and primal part of them. Can you see past that or at least recognize it for what it is?

When someone speaks to you with loud negativity, does it affect you in any way? Do you think negative thoughts when someone speaks to you in a loud negative voice? That’s like a caveman speaking to a caveman. Limbic brain reacting to another limbic brain.

What is it not? It is definitely not an analytical, conscious enlightened prefrontal cortex speaking.

Positive voices are slow to speak. They have awareness of their thoughts, contemplate, do the work and then speak. 

They are analytical….so they tend to ask questions. They desire more information on the subject instead of immediately forming an opinion.

They are less biased, less judgmental. So, they tend to discuss the positives and negatives of any subject. They see the yin and yang that exists in most everything.

Positive words come from the pre frontal cortex maybe even the soul. 

We are bombarded with negative voices.The news, social media, the entertainment machine, other people around us, who we love dearly no doubt. 

That’s what makes it so difficult to separate yourself and your own thinking from all the negative noise thrown at you on a consistent basis. Your limbic brain is designed to be on the lookout for threats. Here comes an entire army of negativity running towards you. 

Your brain has a built-in auto pilot function to quickly react to such negativity. So, it does what it is designed to do, react. How does it react? In the exact same way as the army heading for you. Negative, reactional, emotional.

Can you see through the noise of the primal brain’s voice when they speak? Behind it is a deep human, a soul who is so much more than the words that are spoken in the moment.

Don’t give up. Give them the time to process the info with their pre frontal. They need it. The reason they need it is that they aren’t weak. Which is a good thing…..even if frustrating.

First recognize the facts. Most often the loudest voice is not the best part of the person speaking. It is as if their caveman brain is speaking to you.

Should you let those quick loud negative voices influence your emotions or judge them? That would be like letting a child control the emotion of an adult. That happens to all of us by the way. 

But if you are a parent do you understand the need to not get emotional when your child gets emotional? What happens in that scenario? If you react in an emotional negative way when your child is feeling emotional and negative, what happens? Does it calm the child down? Or feed the negativity?

Is it not the same thing in training setting with adult students and adult instructors? Student vocalizes the primal thoughts of their limbic brain. Trainer reacts with same negative limbic brain. What is the outcome? Progress and coming to a common ground? Or does that negativity feed and grow?

One of us has to cut off the food supply. Might as well be you right?

See it for what it is. Some of this negativity can be coming from things that have nothing to do with you at all. You are just the emotional punching bag that fits the bill today. 

Behind anger there is always pain. They could be hurting inside. Who knows what all they have been through? Everyone around you is going through some kind of suffering. And that suffering that they are going through is a suffering that most if not all of their neighbors are unaware of. Most of us are under a tremendous amount of stress.

I’m the one who has the responsibility to bring the positivity to the room! That is my job. My purpose is to bring it! Why would greatness be easy and celebrated with a ton of back slapping.

You are speaking a message that is quieter and different than the loud voice of the world.

Don’t judge it! Don’t react to it. Allow it to be. It will instantly diminish.

If you react to it in an emotional way you feed it, the negativity grows stronger.

If you turn the other cheek to it, it instantly begins to diminish.

If you pay close attention to the thoughts you have, do you see this same process in yourself? Do you have negative thoughts? Maybe they are thoughts you keep to yourself. Can you recognize when they are coming from that reactive cave man brain of yours? Can you see the difference when you process any situation with your prefrontal cortex?

What if you had the ability to set your prefrontal to come on at specific times in your life when you need it most? The good news is you can! The same technology we have today…that some people think is all negative…..has the ability to engage your prefrontal cortex whenever you desire.

You have to plan positive thoughts.  Negative thoughts are on auto pilot. 

Program positive thinking in your calendar. There are times when I have an office day and I take a look through my calendar. What are the specific moments when I need to engage my prefrontal cortex? 5-10 minutes before I begin a seminar? Immediately before the after-lunch session? Immediately before I interview a manager during a culture assessment?

What are those moments for you? Can you look ahead in your calendar and program your phone to switch on the prefrontal cortex at specific highly relevant moments? What would you program your phone to do? I program inspirational leadership or enlightenment quotes to go off at these times. Sometimes I just write a message to myself. Whatever I think I need to hear right before I begin that activity.

This is really just a twist on an old concept of putting post it notes on your bathroom mirror. Great minds of done this before, programming their brain first thing in the morning. Now we have the ability to program them throughout the day. What a blessing?

In summary, negative voices are not highly analytical unbiased brains talking to us. See through them. Behind them is a deeper human being. One who has the ability to use their prefrontal cortex. Don’t judge them, help them. Can you guide their thought towards the prefrontal? Can you bring awareness to them of this concept? If you can maybe they will share it with others.

It is not directing, telling or pouring into. Pouring into others is a form of learning. We go to lectures, seminars or sermons and listen. However, that is not what coaching is about. Coaching is about helping people come up with their own answers.

Coaching is not directing. The answer is in the individual. They just aren’t aware of it yet.