This series of two hour performance improvement seminars addresses a common problem faced by organizations striving to improve safety results: SUPERVISION!

SESSION I

MIND-SHIFTING into Peak Performance

This presentation supported by best practice references and findings from performance research provides answers to the core question of excellence: “Why do some companies achieve peak safety performance while so many others struggle to maintain mediocrity?

Excellence companies, (the best) aren’t just ‘luckier than most’…they differ from their peers, (the rest) in two very different and distinct ways. First, they achieve significantly different (better) results, and second, they do significantly different (best practice) things…and realize the two are linked! These companies capitalize on what organizational researchers have recently confirmed: “Excellence isn’t the opposite of mediocrity; excellence is different!” High performing organizations have different beliefs about safety…They have a ‘Safety Excellence’ mindset!

This presentation explores the ‘Safety Excellence Mindset’…those critical differences in how excellence companies think…and what excellence companies do, to achieve superior results. The program begins with a Safety Excellence Mindset Quiz; ten marker questions designed to baseline current beliefs, and surface organizational ‘wiz-dumbs’ impeding operational safety results. The session then explores the corresponding ‘mind-shifts of excellence’ requisite to challenging the traditional ‘myth-conceptions of mediocrity’, and successfully embracing the ‘new knowledge of safety excellence’. Based in part on the Professional Safety cover article ‘Re-Braining Corporate Health and Safety’, this presentation offers new insights and pathways to attaining World-Class safety performance.   

As a result of attending this session, participants will:

• Be able to characterize the predominant ‘safety mind-set’ that prevails in their organization.

• Be able to identify specific safety ‘Wiz-dumbs’ (mindset obstacles) which impede safety improvement in their organization.

• Be able to identify and assess the twelve ‘mind-shifts of excellence’ requisite to moving their organization toward safety excellence.

• Be able to identify and prioritize opportunities for more creative and effective approaches to achieve operational safety excellence.

SESSION II

LEADING for Peak Performance

This seminar explores the significant impact that ‘leadership’ has on elevating human performance to achieve safety excellence. The session examines the key difference(s) between managing and leading, and the typical employee responses to each. Participants complete an ‘Organizational Leadership Assessment’, and an ‘Individual Leadership Profile’ which benchmarks perceptions of where the organization and their personal beliefs and practices are positioned along a ‘Leader – Manager’ spectrum. A reality discovered by many organizations is that they are; ‘over managed and under led’, resulting in less than optimum performance.

This session asks: “How did we ‘manage’ to get ourselves into this state of affairs?” and tracks the evolution of management science, and the key contributions of; --Fayol, Taylor, Mayo, Drucker, Peters, Deming, Covey, and Senge. The session then explores ‘Leader-Manager’ behavior by addressing five (5) key questions:

1) What is managing?
2) What is leading?
3) What are the differences?
4) What is the critical ‘common denominator’?…and
5) Which is most important to achieving performance excellence?

To answer these questions, three performance models are constructed:

• The Management Model

• The Leadership Model

• The High Performance Model

By reviewing the ‘focus points’ of each, participants recognize that Peak Performance is not an ‘and/or’ issue…Excellence requires both ‘Leadership & Management’. The program proceeds to identify the ‘Ten (10) Natural Laws of Leadership’, the single most important test of a true leader, and that leadership attribute most influential to ‘passing this test’—‘Employee Empowerment’. ‘Ten Guidelines’ of empowerment are reviewed.
.
The seminar concludes by profiling the organization’s current ‘Manager - Leader’ orientation, and reviewing change opportunities identified in employee (follower) surveys..
 

SESSION III

TEAMING for Peak Safety Performance

The management gurus all agree…what’s needed in business today aren’t more ‘teams’ (i.e., committees, steering teams, & task groups), but more ‘TEAMING’, (people unified and motivated to achieve high performance results…including accident free operations! All to often, good safety programs (policy), fall victim to poor implementation (systems & practices) driven by internal competition, role confusion, conflicting goals, individual agendas, and ‘win –lose’ reward systems that sub-optimize performance. If these debilitating (yet all to common) problems exist in your organization, then “TEAMING for Safety ‘X’-cellence” is for you.

This session of Supervising for Peak Safety Performance explores the concept of ‘TEAMING’ – the full continuum of issues requisite to moving an organization from traditionally managed ‘work groups’’ to high performance collaborative ‘teamwork’. The program examines high performance teams, and engages participants in exercises (personal and organizational), to identify opportunities for greater results through better ‘TEAMING’ (collaboration) for safety in their organizations.

The session starts with a ‘call for change’ (structure and practices) in how people are managed in today’s business process, and identifies opportunities to employ participative practices and high involvement systems to move employees from forced safety ‘responsibility’ to owned safety ‘Response Ability’. The many opportunities for ‘TEAMING’ in an organization are reviewed, as are the multiple benefits accrued by employees, employers, and business stakeholders. Participants explore the composition and characteristics of a high performance team, and examine key steps requisite to building a Safety ‘X’-cellence team.

As a result of attending this seminar, participants will:

• Understand the concept of ‘TEAMING’, and why it is important in today’s business environment.

• Be able to differentiate a traditional ‘work group’ from a high performance ‘team’ and identify their organization’s positioning along the ‘TEAMING’ continuum.

• Be able to recognize and overcome the single greatest impediment to effective ‘TEAMING’ in an organization.

• Understand the key elements requisite to building an ‘X’-Team for peak safety performance in their organization.

SESSION IV

BUILDING Character for Peak Performance
“Excellence is a Test of Character”

Does your company have a formal safety program? Conduct employee safety orientation? Invest heavily in safety training? Hold endless meetings? Have comprehensive safety rules and SOP’s? Keep file cabinets full of records? Do you do all these things…plus say your prayers, cross your fingers, and step over cracks, and still have accidents? If so, odds are your organization has a strong safety program, but weak ‘safety character’. Safety is ‘personal’; Excellence is a test of character—yours!

This program introduces participants to ‘Joe(sie)…an average supervisor…a real character! The session examines the concept of ‘safety character’…the ‘human dimensions’ of safety leadership; 1 What ‘S/he’ believes; 2 What ‘S/he’ says; and 3. What ‘S/he’ does, and the powerful impact these have on group performance (safe Vs unsafe) and operational results (accident-free Vs accident full).

The session utilizes assessments, and group exercises to aid participants in recognizing how their values, (basic beliefs) forge the core of their character, shape their actions, and influence the performance of others. Participants engage in three discovery sessions that help them peer through a reflective lens, to see themselves:

• “It’s Kinda the Same…Only Different” — Identifies how core values drive both ‘high performance’ and ‘low accident rates’.

• ‘S/he’s a Real Character” — Identifies the existence of ‘Say/Do’ gaps in the organization that may impede performance, and

• “A Test of Character” — Exposes organizational beliefs and values, which need be strengthened to achieve Safety Excellence.

When asked to share the single most important lesson learned from their decade long ‘Search for Excellence’, Tom Peters and Bob Waterman both concluded: “Figure out your Values”. This seminar helps Supervisors do just that!
 

SESSION V

DELIVERING CONSEQUENCES for Peak Performance

This presentation challenges the deeply held traditional beliefs concerning accident causation in the workplace, (unsafe employee acts) and the commonly employed ‘4-step’ remedy: 1 Training- (dumb employee), 2. Re-training- (really dumb employee), 3. Remedial Training- (how dumb are they?), and 4. Discipline- (they’re un-trainable!), to fix the problem - PEOPLE. SORRY! But, if repetitive at-risk behaviors are your problem, more training most likely isn’t your answer!

This session presents ‘The Story of Jesus’, plus findings from numerous other sources, which confirm that most accidents aren’t caused by knowledge deficits, but rather by performance deficiencies. In other words, employees, once trained, understand safe Vs unsafe, and commit unsafe acts for other reasons. Participants engage in an exercise that identifies the numerous ‘non-training’ causes of unsafe behavior and accidents in a workplace, i.e., the good reasons for poor performance in an organization.

Consequence delivery is the most powerful, yet least effectively used supervisory tool for improving safe workplace behavior. The session identifies the four consequence based performance strategies, and explains why a supervisor really has but one choice, if their task is to elevate performance, and produce better, higher, faster, cheaper…and safer results.

Workshops and group exercises help participants recognize and employ (and/or avoid) the four main performance management strategies: Re-enforcement (+) and (-); Punishment; and Extinction to influence work performance. This session also introduces a Consequences Grid that allows participants to classify performance management activities (by consequence type), thereby creating a custom reference for on floor application.
 

SESSION VI

COMMUNICATING for Peak Performance
Talking Safety Up, to Drive Losses Down!

“SNAFU”…”ERROR”…”MISTAKE”…”ACCIDENT”…”INJURY”…“OUCH”…DAMN!

Welcome to Your Organization, you say?

These terms, and many more like them, (including some choice French words as well) occur far to often in our common business vernacular. And, more times than not, when the dust settles, and investigations are complete, it’s not uncommon to hear: “We have a communication problem!” SORRY! But as Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) would say: “Missed it by that much!” ‘COMMUNICATION’ isn’t the problem; the problem is the problem!

Operational Errors, a/k/a ‘accidents, incidents, and near hits’, including those that result in human injury, are most generally caused by failings of management processes and systems; breakdowns in systems designed to plan, organize, direct, control, measure, monitor, reward, and most importantly lead an organization. Effective Communication isn’t the problem; it’s part of the solution!

This session identifies effective communication as a management tool to improve performance, i.e. fix what’s really broken, rarely the employee. The session begins with participants completing a twenty five-question Effective Communication baseline quiz to identify current beliefs about the relationship between communication and performance. The session then examines five key elements critical to effective communication, and identifies the multiple steps and important sequence which make effective communication an interactive process.

The session explores twelve communication principles, which can help supervisors improve individual and group work performance. An exercise entitled ‘The Messages We Send’ helps participants recognize communication as a complex full contact process consisting of far more than just pen, paper and words. The program concludes with a workshop that allows participants to craft a set of company specific communication guidelines for use in improving the flow of knowledge within the organization.
 

SESSION VII

GIVING FEEDBACK for Peak Performance

Designed to improve intervention and coaching skills of supervisors (and observers in a Behavioral Safety process), this presentation targets one of the most powerful shapers of safe work performance…Feedback! An old adage says: “The devil is in the details”. Well, so to is the key to safe work behavior. Far too often we look…but fail to see! We overlook critical details that, if left unattended and unchanged, could lead to accidents and injuries. A supervisor’s (or observer’s) role is far more involved that just seeing. To effectively minimize at-risk behavior, a supervisor must effectively provide the type of feedback that leads to desired behavior change…this is a learned skill.

The session starts out with a short, but convincing series of ‘Did you see that?’ challenges that demonstrate the importance…and difficulty of seeing details commonly before us. Since the primary purpose of supervision is to create change, (observe –intervene – improve), this presentation links a sequence of key performance issues: Observation (purpose); Communication (process); Change (targets), Behaviors (activities) and, Performance (outcomes). The key to this supervisory process is: ‘Giving Good Performance Feedback! Learning points explored during this session include:

• How good words and bad words trigger employee responses.

• Identifying the real change targets of a Behavioral Safety Process.

• The need to push change up the Accident Causation Continuum.

• The four performance strategies that offer but one choice.

• Why the odds are stacked against us, if we target accidents rather than behaviors.

• What an observer’s role is…and is not!

• How to minimize the impact of Reactivity in an observation process.

• The Seven types of feedback…and the five to watch out for!

• Principles for giving constructive and reinforcing feedback.

• The three ‘No But’ rules of effective performance feedback.

• How to identify the signs, types, and reasons for employee resistance.

• Twenty techniques for managing resistance in a behavior change process.

SESSION VIII

MOTIVATING Peak Performance
Moving the Organization from ‘Gotta' to 'Wanna’

This presentation addresses one of the most frustrating, and frequently asked questions in safety: “How do you motivate employees who just aren’t motivated?” and provides both a short, and detailed answer to this complex question. CAUTION—The answers aren’t all that new…they’ve just managed to elude most managers for over 50 years!

The session starts by exposing an unfortunate reality in many workplaces today…a reality aptly expressed by one frank (and honest) employee concerning life in the trenches: “There are two exciting days in a worker’s career—the day s/he gets hired, and the day s/he gets fired--all the other stuff in the middle, just kinda ‘SUCKS!” But, it doesn’t have to be that way. This seminar addresses: the difference—the difference between a motivated ‘high performance’ organization…and all the rest.

The program first asks participants to consider: “Why Motivation? What’s the end game?” (Which, by the way, has nothing to do with employee attitudes). The session then addresses the truth of high performance --this truth: “Motivation is not the problem”, and challenges participants to look beyond the convenient excuse (employees) to seek the deeper truths—the systemic causes of low performance…(values, manager practices, and performance systems).

A short history on the evolution of management science (Maslow, Hertzberg, Lickert, Blake and Mouton, Mayo, Skinner, Peters, Covey and Deming) is presented to firm up participant’s understanding of predominant practices and motivational opportunities. This summary emphasizes that motivation is not a program, campaign, or contest, but rather a systemic process…the process of effectively leading “PEOPLE!’ Key questions examined in this session include:

• How can we identify and quantify a ‘Blaming Vs Supportive’ workplace?

• What really motivates workers?

• What five tests determine if performance problems are motivational?

• Is FEAR a good motivator?

• Is the ‘CRAP’ quotient impeding performance in your organization?

• Do incentives work?

• What is the ‘Golden Rule’ of Continuous Motivation?
   

SESSION IX

DIAGNOSING Performance Problems
A Workshop for D.O.P.E.S.
(Diagnosing Organizational Performance Error Sources)

To move safety to the next level in an organization, managers must shift their ‘Locus of Control’ and become more effective in identifying and driving accident causation upward in the organization… to its core sources of policy creation, decision-making, and funding. This typically doesn’t happen in a front line accident investigation process. Think about it, if you were a first line supervisor (taking it from all directions), would you tell your boss’s boss that s/he was a problem, which contributed to a major loss in your operation? Most likely not, I tried once and got canned. That’s why repetitive accident types (and their causes) persist in many organizations. One insightful Risk Manager put it this way: “We’re good problem solvers, give us a problem we’ve solved before, and we’ll solve it again!” Sound familiar?

If repetitive accidents and injuries continue in your organization, or if phrases like: ”Employee was careless”… “Employee wasn’t paying attention,…“Advised employee that disciplinary action would be taken if s/he was stupid again!” are common in your accident reports then, this core-cause recognition program is for you.

This workshop helps participants see beyond accident symptoms and proximate causes to recognize core organizational causes. The session guides participants through a process of identifying typical at-risk behaviors and conditions, determining proximate cause(s), seeking systemic causation, and ultimately, sourcing organizational responsibility for process correction, control, and improvement to prevent recurrence…generally not the employee, ah, victim, ah, claimant ah, litigant.

The session tracks incident causation and visually identifies and allocates accident prevention opportunity up the organization… “Hey, don’t point that thing at me!”
 

SESSION X

‘CARPE DIEM’ for Peak Performance

This summary session addresses three critical learning points: ‘Leaders are made not born’, ‘Leadership is a function, not a position’, and ‘Leadership offers opportunity and rewards to all…not just a chosen few’. Utilizing a video for facilitated case study, the session emphasizes that a leader is ultimately determined by the actions they take! The session frames ‘leadership’ as a role, earned (from below) by deeds, rather than a power bestowed (from above) by position.

This session’s main objective is to assist organizations in building leadership capability throughout its ranks…most importantly on the front line. The program, explores ten critical leadership attributes—what effective leaders do! Through video scenarios, and facilitated ‘Q & A’ sessions, participants identify key differences between ‘managing’ and ‘leading’…and see the corresponding subordinate responses, management reactions, and organizational outcomes of each. In this session, participants gain greater insight and understanding on:

• Why performance improvement requires more than good management.

• The critical differences between ‘managing’ and ‘leading’.

• The vital roles of ‘vision and values’ in establishing leadership.

• The ‘3C’s’ of Leadership—Courage; Confrontation; and Change.

• The ‘Paradox of Leadership’.

• The ‘TWO’… and only two tests of a real leader.

• The ten key attributes of an effective leader…and

• The high price of ‘good leadership’ in a poor organization!

If you want to improve Supervisory leadership skills and results…

‘Carpe Diem!’