There are four tips I have to really shift an organization into a new way of thinking. I call them paradigm shifters. I have stolen from the best and I have used Steve Covey’s values which are expressed in almost every major religious organization and are thousands of years old and they hold true throughout human history.
The first paradigm shifter is you must seek to understand another person’s point of view. You have to walk in their shoes and see things the way they see them in order to understand them and not to fix blame. So often senior management blames stupid workers for not following health and safety rules and procedures but when you seek to understand you often find that your rules and procedures are contradictory, don’t make sense and often are hazardous in what you are asking them to do. It introduces new hazards which by not following them they can work safely or they can work efficiently and well.
Another paradigm shifter that management should think about and one of my tips is to sharpen the saw. If you are going to be a leader in health and safety you need to understand it. So take courses. Strive to model good health and safety behaviors. Strive to learn the latest theories and methodologies you can employ to drive your company to the next level.
Steve Covey’s son has written a whole book on this about the trust factor. Be congruent. If you want people to follow you, you must make sure that you are doing what you want them to do. You have to be true to this. It is not enough to say, “I support health and safety as long as it doesn’t interfere with productivity, training or quality.”
You have got to have a system in place where people trust you, you sharpen the saw, you seek to understand, you don’t fix blame because when you blame people they shut down or they try and blame someone else. You want to have a culture of integrity and in order to have a culture of integrity you have to walk the talk, which is easier than it sounds.
So those are my tips to creating an effective paradigm shifting health and safety management system.