Odievision

When a mishap or near miss occurs, this culture seeks answers to:

“How do we prevent this from happening again?”

Creating this type of culture among your workforce is probably one of the biggest challenges you will face as a Target Leader. If mastered, you will truly rise to the top in overall operational excellence and safety. Responsible employees reflect inward for continuous personal and process improvement. They consider themselves as part of an overall system. They intermingle, react, respond, and behave within that system. Target Leaders embed the notion to be accountable, not held accountable. There is a difference. Each employee understands that they are a critical variable of the entire operational system, and each part within the system elicits and brings out certain human behaviors. A responsible work culture means each person is accountable unto themselves with the company’s equipment, training, rules, and policies.

Creating a culture of blame within an organization is certainly unintentional by leaders, but is none the less very harmful. This toxic culture is often created when after something happens, leadership seeks answers to:

“Who is at fault?”

This culture looks for a culprit instead of a cure. Employees are unwilling to reflect inward for solutions for fear of being made a scapegoat. They will not come forward and admit mistakes or close calls. If questioned about an incident /accident, they look to blame the equipment, someone else, lack of training, poor management, you name it. Getting employees to open up and discuss near misses, non-injury events, or close calls is vital as theses events usually serve as a precursor to future problems. Investigations often reveal that a few close calls happened before the actual mishap occurred. When the investigator asks the worker, “Why didn’t you speak up?” Answers generally range from:  “I thought they knew about it” (cop out) to “they would fault me for making a mistake” (culture of blame). As a Target Leader, you are the “they” the employees are referring to.

“Tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear!”
As a Target Leader, you must work at being an excellent communicator. This builds trust. Trust gets your people to honestly open up with you and share work issues, problems, or near misses. Keep it a conversation, not a confrontation. Accept what you need to hear.
“Tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear” were words often spoken by one of my favorite airline fleet chief pilots. As a Target Leader, he was perceived by the entire team of airline pilots as having a culture of open communication. He wanted to hear it all – the good, the bad, the ugly. We felt at ease discussing anything, including our own mistakes. We openly discussed problem areas, near misses, and procedural missteps in order to improve the overall system. He skillfully crafted a culture of accountability and responsibility among the rank and file pilots. We knew the difference between being blamed and being accountable and responsible.

I have noticed the following to be true: high performing organizations actively promote and support Target Leaders who are exceptional at:

1)  …emulating the organizations values and beliefs to make safety and operational excellence the overriding priority among the employees.
2)  …maintaining a balanced and healthy working relationship between the company and the employees doing the work.

The byproduct of these two items yields work behaviors from employees which ultimately defines the organization’s job culture. Target Leaders establish and maintain the culture of an organization, and the workers will work within the norms of that culture.

–Odie