The year is 1993, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill is sitting on his first board of directors at one of the world's largest companies. Just as the meeting was coming to an end, O'Neill asked, “Where is the safety report?” As the story goes, the safety report was not planned, but the question had significant ramifications. This set the company on a path that led to superior safety, embedding safety as a cultural value.
Below are four powerful questions board members should ask to similarly embed safety into their organization's culture.
1. How do we know we are making progress in preventing serious injuries and fatalities?
A good answer is: When we analyzed the incidence of serious and fatal injuries over the past five years, we found a statistically significant improvement. We don't report on this trend because we don't want to reduce deaths or life-altering injuries to statistics, but we do analyze it because it lets us know if people are recovering.
2. If you are improving, what are you doing that caused the improvement?
A good answer is: We don't know for sure yet, because this kind of causal relationship is difficult to establish. But we have a hypothesis and we are testing it. We believe the key mechanism is a combination of employee engagement and leader decision-making. In our experience, when this mechanism is healthy, organizational culture improves and exposure to critical and fatal events is reduced. This frees up employees' discretionary efforts and improves performance.
3. If not, how are you addressing the challenges?
A good answer is: We recognize that there are patterns in the data that we don't fully understand. While minor injuries are moving in the right direction, the likelihood of serious injury or death has not improved. Ironically, the decline in minor injuries creates a false sense of competency, which is itself a barrier. Our leaders are not arrogant, but many suffer from overconfidence bias, a natural consequence of their perceived success. BP's leaders were astonished after Deepwater Horizon, NASA's after Columbia, and Boeing's after the 737 MAX fiasco. They thought they could manage catastrophic risks better than they actually were. We are working hard to learn where we can improve. We identify several mechanisms associated with preventing serious injuries and fatalities and evaluate each business unit in relation to them. The strategy has already been developed and tested. Some business units are showing progress.
4. How do I know that senior leaders are serious about preventing serious injuries and fatalities?
Here's a good answer: No one would say that preventing fatalities isn't important, but we know that leaders vary in their ability to do so. Some of our senior leaders are exemplary and have the results to show for it. Other people live in different times and are prone to acts that denigrate cultures and undermine prevention efforts. We decided to assess the ability of all senior leaders to lead safely and create individual improvement plans. Our CEO took this as his responsibility and asked his direct reports to do the same. This is not a long or difficult process, but it is an important first step.
reveal the reaction
The responses you receive will inform your management team's ability to lead the way in improving the prevention of serious injuries and fatalities. The “good answers” above reflect the type of evidence you want to see.
• Handle leading and lagging indicators appropriately. Management expects to use statistical analysis of trends and correlations to determine whether improvement strategies are working. They should be valid leading and lagging indicators of improvement in serious injury and mortality rates. And those metrics must come from safety databases, employee data such as turnover and absenteeism, and operational data such as productivity and quality.
• Knowledge of evidence-based mechanisms to drive improvement. Listen to mechanisms for engaging employees in risk identification and problem solving. Hear about the effective use of data to prioritize improvement efforts. Hear about leveraging subject matter experts.
• Safety leadership practices. Safety leadership will be recognized in both the content and style of senior leaders' communications. Hear practical safety knowledge and a “systems perspective” on the causes of injuries. Try to maintain respectful interactions, especially when things are challenging or someone is hurt. Hear the compelling vision of taking an active role in strategic safety initiatives. Look for safety leadership to play a key role in selection decisions.
clear signal
The large effect of O'Neill's simple question, “Where is the safety report?” suggests that the question you ask may be less important than the signal sent by asking it. I am. In an instant, Mr. O'Neill established the view that shareholder value is maximized when organizations foster a culture that protects people from harm.
