August 30, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode of the "Leading and Learning Through Safety" podcast, Dr. Mark French reflects on his experience at the Kentucky Safety Conference, focusing on the critical intersection of physical and psychological safety in the workplace. He highlights the importance of safety professionals not only in ensuring a physically safe environment but also in fostering psychological safety, where team members feel secure enough to voice their concerns and ideas without fear of shame or degradation. French argues that physical safety lays the groundwork for psychological safety, which in turn promotes trust, creativity, and overall organizational effectiveness.
French also explores the challenges of leadership in safety roles, particularly the tension between organizational goals and the need to protect employees. He emphasizes the necessity of balancing the enforcement of safety procedures with the encouragement of open communication, allowing team members to report when processes are ineffective. This, according to French, is essential for creating a learning organization that continuously improves its safety culture.
The podcast also discusses the concept of the "crossroads of safety," where physical and psychological safety intersect. French identifies four scenarios based on the levels of these two aspects, ranging from environments where both are lacking, termed "fiction," to those where both are strong, termed "flourish." He stresses the importance of continuous improvement and the role of leadership in bridging gaps between management's perception and employees' reality, particularly in how safety efforts are communicated and implemented.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark French (00:01):
This week on the leading and learning through
safety podcast, I'm recappingthe Kentucky safety conference.
A great time, great energy, somegreat talks, and I want to kind
of go through some of mylearnings from that this week on
the podcast. You
Announcer (00:35):
Music. Welcome to the leading and learning through
safety podcast. Your host is DrMark French. Mark's passion is
helping organizations motivatetheir teams. This podcast is
focused on bringing out the bestin leadership through creating
strong values, learningopportunities, teamwork and
(00:56):
safety. Nothing is moreimportant than protecting your
people, safety creates anenvironment for empathy,
innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French. You
Mark French (01:31):
Music. Welcome to the leading and learning through
safety podcast. I am your host,Dr Mark French, and I am so
happy that you're joining methis week. So last week in
particular, I was at theKentucky safety conference. Had
a wonderful time. I love StateSafety conferences. I love
meeting up with people, similarfields, similar background.
(01:55):
We're all in it for one thing,and that's to protect people, to
prevent harm, to make ourworkplace a better place,
through engaging people, throughprotecting people, through
making sure we don't harm ourteam. It's sometimes in this
field, it can feel a little bitlonely, because it feels like
(02:16):
we're always in our spot in anorganization, sometimes always
advocating or saying no, orbeing that one for the
organization all the time. Andthen when we get around our
peers and we have realconversations, vulnerable
conversations, about the reallife, we're living together.
We're not alone in that. We'reworking together somewhere in
(02:38):
different stages. We've all seenso many different things, but
the themes, the leadershipthemes, the safety themes, all
come back together. We feelthat. We feel that, that that
rightfully so, some of thetension between the company and
(02:59):
protecting the people, we feelthat tension of making sure that
our team is motivated to followthe rules and safety procedures
of the organization. There'salways that tension back and
forth. How do we get in themiddle of it? How do we get into
that very center spot and reallyhelp be the influencer in the
(03:22):
organization. How do we be thatplace where we have a lot of
knowledge? We've been out there,we've seen it. How do we share
it? How do we motivate it? Howdo we create that? And that, of
course, has been the very middleof what I work on. My life's
passion. I guess that led me todo research that I did to look
into how we do this and then toshare that knowledge. So the
(03:45):
presentation that I had such anhonor of presenting this year at
the conference was calledsafety, the crossroads of
physical and psychological. Notto put too much more pressure on
the shoulders of a safetyprofessional. But it's
unbelievable when I think aboutthe fact of the responsibility
(04:06):
we carry from a fundamentalhuman need to be able to carry
that process of behavioralpsychological safety and
physical safety, because theyare linked together and cannot
be separated. It happens. We weprovide the safe environment,
but we also have to provide, notonly that physically safe
(04:28):
environment, the psychologicallysafe environment. And that's
where I walk through in thepresentation, more about that.
And this group in particular atthe Kentucky safety conference
had a lot of good questions,really challenged me on some of
the thinking that I wasn'tactually making the presentation
(04:49):
board, but took it to a newlevel. And I want to walk a
little bit through that, becauseto me, it's a very interesting
idea. It's a very interestingprocess, especially in hindsight
of some of the more neg.
Positive processes that I walkthrough on the podcast.
Similarly, most of the time I'mfinding a news story that's just
horrible and building that intoa leadership story. This time,
(05:11):
I'm actually going to gopositive. We're going to look at
how do we take what's out thereand really start looking at
where we are and gettingvulnerable about talking about
where we are as a people, as anorganization, as a culture. And
so let me take that step back ofwhat is the crossroads of
(05:33):
physical and psychological. Whatdoes that mean to stand in the
Crossroads as we as safetyprofessionals and as we as
leaders should stand there. Weshould first focus on safety,
because everything comes afterthat. So the crossroads, in my
research, what I found somegeneral themes there is it's the
(05:53):
crossroads of people and processthat we have a process that
needs to be followed to keepthem safe, but we need the
people to follow the process andalso let us know when the
process is not working. That'svulnerability, that's the
ability to be a learningorganization, an organization
that will hear the peopletalking, that will hear our team
(06:15):
members giving us advice on whatneeds to be improved. That's
psychological safety,fundamentally, the ability to
feel like your voice will beheard. The physical safety is
where we have the rules and thepolicies. It's risk and it's
reward. The risk is where thecompany wants to avoid or has an
(06:37):
appetite for a certain level ofrisk. The reward is, is that our
team sees our effort in tryingto create a safer place, and are
willing to engage, are willingto be better team members. And
this is goes back to Maslow'shierarchy of once food, water
and shelter is established, thenext phase is safety, physical
(06:58):
and psychological has to beestablished. Usually physical
first physical leads right intopsychological because once I
feel physically safe, I begin topsychologically trust what's
around me that builds intoteamwork, that builds into
wanting recognition and doingmore than it's expected, that
(07:18):
leads to creative problemsolving, all the things we want
for better cost, betterproductivity, better quality,
covering all of the safety,quality, delivery cost metrics.
It's mind and it's body. Westand in the Crossroads as
leaders and safetyprofessionals, especially those
(07:38):
who are lovers of safety thatcare and fundamentally
understand that leading that wayis important. We control where
the mind and the body, weprotect the body, and therefore
the mind is free to begin totrust. I'm going deep, I know,
but I'll get there, I promise.
(08:00):
And it's also one of the mostpowerful items that we have to
realize it is hard to alwayskeep this in the forefront, is
that we are both home and work.
We see it both. We see how theworkplace engages with that
human, with that individualperson, every day when we're out
there in the field, seeing thethings we see, we also see how
(08:21):
the home is brought into theworkplace. It cannot be helped.
There is no way to separate thehuman experience outside of work
to the human experience insideof work. They blend together.
They work together. They are apiece of the whole person. No
(08:42):
way to separate it. There's noway you can put it down and
bring you can focus on reducingthat impact. When you're aware
of it, you can't get rid of it.
If I've had a tough morningcoming into work, it may show
for a little bit. It may bleedthrough occasionally. If I've
(09:02):
had a wonderful day, I may cometo work with a different outlook
or attitude. Yeah, I can choosethat. That requires quite a bit
of self actualization, though,and again, I have to feel safe
vulnerable, like I trust my teamto even let that come through in
an effective way. It's verypowerful. It's a it's a little
(09:24):
daunting when we think about howconnected we are as a good
leader. Let me just go to beinga good leader of how connected
you have to be with your team,with your people, how connected
you have to be not that youagain, there's always the
exception. There's always alittle bit of argument on how
(09:47):
this works. But we have to beconnected in some form or
fashion to create themotivation, to create the
vulnerability, to create thesystems that need to be in place
for. Highly effective, highlysuccessful culture and
workplace. Let's continue thisconversation on the second half
(10:08):
of the leading and learningthrough safety podcast,
Stinger (10:13):
humanizing the workplace it is the leading and
learning through safety podcast,
Commercial (10:20):
dsda Consulting, learn you lead others. The Myers
Briggs Type Indicator is anamazing tool. Problem is that it
can be easily misinterpreted. DrMark French is MBTI certified
and ready to help you discoveryour inner strengths. The MBTI
assessment can help with teambuilding, stress management,
(10:43):
communication, conflictmanagement, and so much more,
individual and group sessionsare available to help you
discover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
consulting.com
Mark French (10:58):
Welcome back to the second half of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
Thanks for joining me, and let'scontinue our discussion on what
is the crossroads of safety.
This has been my presentationthat I gave this year at both
the Tennessee and the Kentuckysafety conferences, of course,
with some updates, with somechanges based on some
information from the from theaudience that was there who I'm
(11:21):
always honored to see peopleshow up wanting to hear me talk.
That's always a really, just ahumbling feeling to know that,
and I'm thankful for that aspart of the crossroads, the
crossroads of safety is physicaland psychological, where they
meet in the middle. That's wherewe stand as good leaders. So
physical safety is really easyin some ways to define. It's
(11:45):
essentially human harm. How dowe reduce it, eliminate it, get
rid of it. It's all about riskand human harm. How do we get
rid of it? Psychological safetyis a little bit more mushy.
We'll call it. It's a little bitdifferent, but ultimately, the
way I defined it, and when Iread through different
(12:05):
definitions and differenttheories on it, what I found was
that the core part of it, that Ithink feels most appropriate for
what we're talking about, is thefirst one, is that you can share
your ideas, thoughts andopinions without the fear of
being degraded or shame. Soyou're you feel okay going,
(12:25):
maybe it's not okay, or you feelokay going, I'm not okay today,
but I'll make it through. Butjust wanted to let you know it's
that ability and that feelingthat you can say those things
and maybe something will happenbecause of it, but at the very
least, you're not ashamed, oryou're not degraded, or you
don't have fear. It's also aclimate. It's characterized by
(12:47):
trust and respect, where peoplecan be comfortable being
themselves. That means they canbe comfortable saying, this is
I'm just not feeling it. Don'thave to give everything about
their home or what they've beengoing through. Maybe they're
just saying, Hey, I'm goingthrough some tough time. Times
and my mind's a littlewandering. Or they feel
(13:07):
perfectly fine going, thisdoesn't look safe today. I think
we need to reevaluate it. Sowhat are kind of the crossroads?
There's four blocks, in myopinion, of the crossroads of
safety, physical andpsychological. And those
crossroads have four blocks. Youhave low physical, low
(13:29):
psychological. I call thatfiction, because to me, that's
just a joke. There's nothingthere for you to even stand on.
You don't feel physically safe.
You don't feel psychologicallysafe. It just not there. The
next one is what I call faith.
It's low physical and highpsychological. That's good
(13:49):
intentions. You have a lot ofgreat intentions, failure to
execute, the failure to getthings off the ground, to get
things going. There's a fear,which is high physical, low
psychological. This is one ofthose where you feel that
bullying effect, where it's allone way, the company pushing
down, going, you will do this.
You will do it exactly the waywe say it, or there will be
(14:10):
punishment, and there's onlypunishment kind of the blame,
shame, retrain process. Andfinally, there's high physical
and high psychological This isthe one we're always driving
for. And once you're in that,you have to keep pushing for it.
You can't just stay there and behappy where you're at. You have
to keep driving. This iscontinuous improvement. This is
(14:33):
a learning organization. This isone where they're working to
make it safer and safer everyday, reduce the risk, and
they're also listening to theirteam. They're acting on that.
And there's a two waycommunication process that
builds trust, buildsresponsibility, builds
accountability, both ways. Andwhen I was doing the research,
(14:56):
when I was building the present.
The only thing in my mind was Iwas categor categorizing
organizations. I was looking atthe total organization. The
organization is either high orlow. Psychologically, the
organization was either high orlow in physical safety, the
(15:20):
question came up, and this isreally where I was trying to go
here. I'm three quarters of theway through my podcast, and I'm
finally getting to my point.
This feels normal, right? Thequestion came up is, what if the
management, the staff, theleaders of the organization, or
(15:40):
we'll call that, like thecompany, members, feel that
you're in one phase, and theworkers, the employees, the
culture there, feels like it'sanother. So for instance, the
example was, what if the companyfeels like they're doing a good
job, they're really trying, andthey're they have pretty good
physical safety. They feel likethey've opened up psychological
(16:02):
safety, so they're in a flourishphase, and trying to drive
improvement. You go out to thelet's call it the plant floor,
the shop floor, and you starttalking to people, and it feels
more like faith. It feels morelike, yeah, they want to be
safer, but yeah, we feel safe,telling you all these things,
but nothing are happening likewe have very high psychological
safety, we don't fear tellingyou what's wrong, but things
(16:23):
just don't seem to be gettingsafer. And it struck me that I
had never thought ofcategorizing it, not as a total
organization, but is there adisconnect between parts of the
organization, the parts that arecreating the policy, the pieces
that need to enact the policy,and the communication that goes
(16:46):
in between. And as a practicalidea that I came up with
thinking along the lines of, howdo you address that is getting
into the details a little bitindividually, and trying to see
what, what are the real symptomsof what they're diagnosing. So
if, if these types faithflourish fiction, if these are
(17:09):
diagnoses, for instance, whatare the symptoms? Let's ask
about the symptoms and see ifit's diagnosed correctly, rather
than saying, Hey, I think I havethis illness, but the symptoms
may say you have something else.
So the question would be, in afaith situation, where the
(17:30):
employees feel like it's allfaith and not a lot of action
are flourishing, where we'removing forward, the question
would be, why? What is it thatthat leads you to believe that
action isn't being taken? Andgive me a specific give me an
example of when that's happened,or if that's happened, and let's
(17:51):
talk through it and understandwhere the there's evidently a
communicational disconnect. Andhere's where great leadership
really comes into play. Is, arewe willing to see where the
communication breakdown hasoccurred, and how can we fix
that? How do we go andunderstand where we were
communicating, that we thoughtwe were communicating, but not
(18:13):
that's where we understand thesymptoms and then create more of
what we can do to improve it sowe bridge that gap between
flourish and faith by askingdetailed questions and seeing if
we can. Maybe it's just we needto promote the good stuff. We're
doing more. Maybe we're missinga few things and we need to
close up that system alwaysopportunities keep driving
(18:36):
improvement, especially insafety and leadership. Again, my
deepest thanks to all those whoattended. I deeply appreciate
all those that were willing tocome see me. Thank you for
listening to the podcast,especially, and of course, until
next time we chat, stay safe.
You.
Announcer (19:00):
You. Thank you for listening to the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
More content is available onlineat www dot tsda consulting.com
all the opinions expressed onthe podcast are solely
(19:22):
attributed to the individual andnot affiliated with any business
entity. This podcast is forinformational and entertainment
purposes. It is not a substitutefor proper policy, appropriate
training or legal advice. Youus. This has been. The leading
(19:59):
and learning through safetypodcast. You.
This week on the leading and learning through
safety podcast, I'm recappingthe Kentucky safety conference.
A great time, great energy, somegreat talks, and I want to kind
of go through some of mylearnings from that this week on
the podcast. You
Announcer (00:35):
Music. Welcome to the leading and learning through
safety podcast. Your host is DrMark French. Mark's passion is
helping organizations motivatetheir teams. This podcast is
focused on bringing out the bestin leadership through creating
strong values, learningopportunities, teamwork and
(00:56):
safety. Nothing is moreimportant than protecting your
people, safety creates anenvironment for empathy,
innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French. You
Mark French (01:31):
Music. Welcome to the leading and learning through
safety podcast. I am your host,Dr Mark French, and I am so
happy that you're joining methis week. So last week in
particular, I was at theKentucky safety conference. Had
a wonderful time. I love StateSafety conferences. I love
meeting up with people, similarfields, similar background.
(01:55):
We're all in it for one thing,and that's to protect people, to
prevent harm, to make ourworkplace a better place,
through engaging people, throughprotecting people, through
making sure we don't harm ourteam. It's sometimes in this
field, it can feel a little bitlonely, because it feels like
(02:16):
we're always in our spot in anorganization, sometimes always
advocating or saying no, orbeing that one for the
organization all the time. Andthen when we get around our
peers and we have realconversations, vulnerable
conversations, about the reallife, we're living together.
We're not alone in that. We'reworking together somewhere in
(02:38):
different stages. We've all seenso many different things, but
the themes, the leadershipthemes, the safety themes, all
come back together. We feelthat. We feel that, that that
rightfully so, some of thetension between the company and
(02:59):
protecting the people, we feelthat tension of making sure that
our team is motivated to followthe rules and safety procedures
of the organization. There'salways that tension back and
forth. How do we get in themiddle of it? How do we get into
that very center spot and reallyhelp be the influencer in the
(03:22):
organization. How do we be thatplace where we have a lot of
knowledge? We've been out there,we've seen it. How do we share
it? How do we motivate it? Howdo we create that? And that, of
course, has been the very middleof what I work on. My life's
passion. I guess that led me todo research that I did to look
into how we do this and then toshare that knowledge. So the
(03:45):
presentation that I had such anhonor of presenting this year at
the conference was calledsafety, the crossroads of
physical and psychological. Notto put too much more pressure on
the shoulders of a safetyprofessional. But it's
unbelievable when I think aboutthe fact of the responsibility
(04:06):
we carry from a fundamentalhuman need to be able to carry
that process of behavioralpsychological safety and
physical safety, because theyare linked together and cannot
be separated. It happens. We weprovide the safe environment,
but we also have to provide, notonly that physically safe
(04:28):
environment, the psychologicallysafe environment. And that's
where I walk through in thepresentation, more about that.
And this group in particular atthe Kentucky safety conference
had a lot of good questions,really challenged me on some of
the thinking that I wasn'tactually making the presentation
(04:49):
board, but took it to a newlevel. And I want to walk a
little bit through that, becauseto me, it's a very interesting
idea. It's a very interestingprocess, especially in hindsight
of some of the more neg.
Positive processes that I walkthrough on the podcast.
Similarly, most of the time I'mfinding a news story that's just
horrible and building that intoa leadership story. This time,
(05:11):
I'm actually going to gopositive. We're going to look at
how do we take what's out thereand really start looking at
where we are and gettingvulnerable about talking about
where we are as a people, as anorganization, as a culture. And
so let me take that step back ofwhat is the crossroads of
(05:33):
physical and psychological. Whatdoes that mean to stand in the
Crossroads as we as safetyprofessionals and as we as
leaders should stand there. Weshould first focus on safety,
because everything comes afterthat. So the crossroads, in my
research, what I found somegeneral themes there is it's the
(05:53):
crossroads of people and processthat we have a process that
needs to be followed to keepthem safe, but we need the
people to follow the process andalso let us know when the
process is not working. That'svulnerability, that's the
ability to be a learningorganization, an organization
that will hear the peopletalking, that will hear our team
(06:15):
members giving us advice on whatneeds to be improved. That's
psychological safety,fundamentally, the ability to
feel like your voice will beheard. The physical safety is
where we have the rules and thepolicies. It's risk and it's
reward. The risk is where thecompany wants to avoid or has an
(06:37):
appetite for a certain level ofrisk. The reward is, is that our
team sees our effort in tryingto create a safer place, and are
willing to engage, are willingto be better team members. And
this is goes back to Maslow'shierarchy of once food, water
and shelter is established, thenext phase is safety, physical
(06:58):
and psychological has to beestablished. Usually physical
first physical leads right intopsychological because once I
feel physically safe, I begin topsychologically trust what's
around me that builds intoteamwork, that builds into
wanting recognition and doingmore than it's expected, that
(07:18):
leads to creative problemsolving, all the things we want
for better cost, betterproductivity, better quality,
covering all of the safety,quality, delivery cost metrics.
It's mind and it's body. Westand in the Crossroads as
leaders and safetyprofessionals, especially those
(07:38):
who are lovers of safety thatcare and fundamentally
understand that leading that wayis important. We control where
the mind and the body, weprotect the body, and therefore
the mind is free to begin totrust. I'm going deep, I know,
but I'll get there, I promise.
(08:00):
And it's also one of the mostpowerful items that we have to
realize it is hard to alwayskeep this in the forefront, is
that we are both home and work.
We see it both. We see how theworkplace engages with that
human, with that individualperson, every day when we're out
there in the field, seeing thethings we see, we also see how
(08:21):
the home is brought into theworkplace. It cannot be helped.
There is no way to separate thehuman experience outside of work
to the human experience insideof work. They blend together.
They work together. They are apiece of the whole person. No
(08:42):
way to separate it. There's noway you can put it down and
bring you can focus on reducingthat impact. When you're aware
of it, you can't get rid of it.
If I've had a tough morningcoming into work, it may show
for a little bit. It may bleedthrough occasionally. If I've
(09:02):
had a wonderful day, I may cometo work with a different outlook
or attitude. Yeah, I can choosethat. That requires quite a bit
of self actualization, though,and again, I have to feel safe
vulnerable, like I trust my teamto even let that come through in
an effective way. It's verypowerful. It's a it's a little
(09:24):
daunting when we think about howconnected we are as a good
leader. Let me just go to beinga good leader of how connected
you have to be with your team,with your people, how connected
you have to be not that youagain, there's always the
exception. There's always alittle bit of argument on how
(09:47):
this works. But we have to beconnected in some form or
fashion to create themotivation, to create the
vulnerability, to create thesystems that need to be in place
for. Highly effective, highlysuccessful culture and
workplace. Let's continue thisconversation on the second half
(10:08):
of the leading and learningthrough safety podcast,
Stinger (10:13):
humanizing the workplace it is the leading and
learning through safety podcast,
Commercial (10:20):
dsda Consulting, learn you lead others. The Myers
Briggs Type Indicator is anamazing tool. Problem is that it
can be easily misinterpreted. DrMark French is MBTI certified
and ready to help you discoveryour inner strengths. The MBTI
assessment can help with teambuilding, stress management,
(10:43):
communication, conflictmanagement, and so much more,
individual and group sessionsare available to help you
discover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
consulting.com
Mark French (10:58):
Welcome back to the second half of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
Thanks for joining me, and let'scontinue our discussion on what
is the crossroads of safety.
This has been my presentationthat I gave this year at both
the Tennessee and the Kentuckysafety conferences, of course,
with some updates, with somechanges based on some
information from the from theaudience that was there who I'm
(11:21):
always honored to see peopleshow up wanting to hear me talk.
That's always a really, just ahumbling feeling to know that,
and I'm thankful for that aspart of the crossroads, the
crossroads of safety is physicaland psychological, where they
meet in the middle. That's wherewe stand as good leaders. So
physical safety is really easyin some ways to define. It's
(11:45):
essentially human harm. How dowe reduce it, eliminate it, get
rid of it. It's all about riskand human harm. How do we get
rid of it? Psychological safetyis a little bit more mushy.
We'll call it. It's a little bitdifferent, but ultimately, the
way I defined it, and when Iread through different
(12:05):
definitions and differenttheories on it, what I found was
that the core part of it, that Ithink feels most appropriate for
what we're talking about, is thefirst one, is that you can share
your ideas, thoughts andopinions without the fear of
being degraded or shame. Soyou're you feel okay going,
(12:25):
maybe it's not okay, or you feelokay going, I'm not okay today,
but I'll make it through. Butjust wanted to let you know it's
that ability and that feelingthat you can say those things
and maybe something will happenbecause of it, but at the very
least, you're not ashamed, oryou're not degraded, or you
don't have fear. It's also aclimate. It's characterized by
(12:47):
trust and respect, where peoplecan be comfortable being
themselves. That means they canbe comfortable saying, this is
I'm just not feeling it. Don'thave to give everything about
their home or what they've beengoing through. Maybe they're
just saying, Hey, I'm goingthrough some tough time. Times
and my mind's a littlewandering. Or they feel
(13:07):
perfectly fine going, thisdoesn't look safe today. I think
we need to reevaluate it. Sowhat are kind of the crossroads?
There's four blocks, in myopinion, of the crossroads of
safety, physical andpsychological. And those
crossroads have four blocks. Youhave low physical, low
(13:29):
psychological. I call thatfiction, because to me, that's
just a joke. There's nothingthere for you to even stand on.
You don't feel physically safe.
You don't feel psychologicallysafe. It just not there. The
next one is what I call faith.
It's low physical and highpsychological. That's good
(13:49):
intentions. You have a lot ofgreat intentions, failure to
execute, the failure to getthings off the ground, to get
things going. There's a fear,which is high physical, low
psychological. This is one ofthose where you feel that
bullying effect, where it's allone way, the company pushing
down, going, you will do this.
You will do it exactly the waywe say it, or there will be
(14:10):
punishment, and there's onlypunishment kind of the blame,
shame, retrain process. Andfinally, there's high physical
and high psychological This isthe one we're always driving
for. And once you're in that,you have to keep pushing for it.
You can't just stay there and behappy where you're at. You have
to keep driving. This iscontinuous improvement. This is
(14:33):
a learning organization. This isone where they're working to
make it safer and safer everyday, reduce the risk, and
they're also listening to theirteam. They're acting on that.
And there's a two waycommunication process that
builds trust, buildsresponsibility, builds
accountability, both ways. Andwhen I was doing the research,
(14:56):
when I was building the present.
The only thing in my mind was Iwas categor categorizing
organizations. I was looking atthe total organization. The
organization is either high orlow. Psychologically, the
organization was either high orlow in physical safety, the
(15:20):
question came up, and this isreally where I was trying to go
here. I'm three quarters of theway through my podcast, and I'm
finally getting to my point.
This feels normal, right? Thequestion came up is, what if the
management, the staff, theleaders of the organization, or
(15:40):
we'll call that, like thecompany, members, feel that
you're in one phase, and theworkers, the employees, the
culture there, feels like it'sanother. So for instance, the
example was, what if the companyfeels like they're doing a good
job, they're really trying, andthey're they have pretty good
physical safety. They feel likethey've opened up psychological
(16:02):
safety, so they're in a flourishphase, and trying to drive
improvement. You go out to thelet's call it the plant floor,
the shop floor, and you starttalking to people, and it feels
more like faith. It feels morelike, yeah, they want to be
safer, but yeah, we feel safe,telling you all these things,
but nothing are happening likewe have very high psychological
safety, we don't fear tellingyou what's wrong, but things
(16:23):
just don't seem to be gettingsafer. And it struck me that I
had never thought ofcategorizing it, not as a total
organization, but is there adisconnect between parts of the
organization, the parts that arecreating the policy, the pieces
that need to enact the policy,and the communication that goes
(16:46):
in between. And as a practicalidea that I came up with
thinking along the lines of, howdo you address that is getting
into the details a little bitindividually, and trying to see
what, what are the real symptomsof what they're diagnosing. So
if, if these types faithflourish fiction, if these are
(17:09):
diagnoses, for instance, whatare the symptoms? Let's ask
about the symptoms and see ifit's diagnosed correctly, rather
than saying, Hey, I think I havethis illness, but the symptoms
may say you have something else.
So the question would be, in afaith situation, where the
(17:30):
employees feel like it's allfaith and not a lot of action
are flourishing, where we'removing forward, the question
would be, why? What is it thatthat leads you to believe that
action isn't being taken? Andgive me a specific give me an
example of when that's happened,or if that's happened, and let's
(17:51):
talk through it and understandwhere the there's evidently a
communicational disconnect. Andhere's where great leadership
really comes into play. Is, arewe willing to see where the
communication breakdown hasoccurred, and how can we fix
that? How do we go andunderstand where we were
communicating, that we thoughtwe were communicating, but not
(18:13):
that's where we understand thesymptoms and then create more of
what we can do to improve it sowe bridge that gap between
flourish and faith by askingdetailed questions and seeing if
we can. Maybe it's just we needto promote the good stuff. We're
doing more. Maybe we're missinga few things and we need to
close up that system alwaysopportunities keep driving
(18:36):
improvement, especially insafety and leadership. Again, my
deepest thanks to all those whoattended. I deeply appreciate
all those that were willing tocome see me. Thank you for
listening to the podcast,especially, and of course, until
next time we chat, stay safe.
You.
Announcer (19:00):
You. Thank you for listening to the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
More content is available onlineat www dot tsda consulting.com
all the opinions expressed onthe podcast are solely
(19:22):
attributed to the individual andnot affiliated with any business
entity. This podcast is forinformational and entertainment
purposes. It is not a substitutefor proper policy, appropriate
training or legal advice. Youus. This has been. The leading
(19:59):
and learning through safetypodcast. You.
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