No matter how many times we hear it, it must be too hard to believe. Employees who earn a living wage are not motivated by money. In 1987 Frederick Hertzberg’s famous HBR article, One More Time: how do you motivate employees? blew the socks off of a group of managers at Chase Bank corporate that I was talking to. The top three factors that led to extreme job satisfaction were 1) achievement, 2) recognition and 3) the work itself. The managers had guessed that money was the most important. It first appeared in 1968 and has been verified by modern researchers such as Daniel Pink and Simon Sinek.
Then came the neuroscience research that confirmed what social psychologists and philosophers knew long ago. Communication is limited if not impossible without a relationship of trust or respect between two people. Conversations share information; they also trigger physical and emotional changes in the brain that either open you up or close you down so that you speak from fear, caution, and anxiety. A conversation changes the brain with hormones. When we feel safe, valued and respected the brain triggers higher levels of dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, and other biochemicals that give us a sense of well-being. (Dimoka, 2010; Porges, 2015; Barsade, 2015; Stephens, et.al., 2020)[1]
Often management conducts surveys to find out what motivates employees or what kind of communication is most effective. One company got these results:
What is your preferred method for receiving future updates/information? The top two results included:
- 67.0% E-mail
- 48.1% From Supervisor
What would you prefer to receive as recognition and incentives for safe behavior? The top two responses included:
- 70.4% Gift cards
- 48.1% Personal recognition
- A simple thank you or acknowledgement came in last.
The company felt very certain that now they had the right information that would improve communication and engagement. We can rely on email as our primary way to communicate about the safety program. And, let’s use gift cards as our incentive that we hand out personally. Nothing could be further from the truth. Relying on emails to communicate and gift cards to recognize people is transitory at best.
To communicate with employees and motivate them, go beyond focus groups and questionnaires. Have conversations with individuals and small groups. If you are not connected at a relational level the information you get may not give you the full picture. Thus, if the first question were reworded to “How would you prefer to receive information that affects you?” the answer would probably not be email.
On the second question, What would you prefer to receive as recognition and incentives for safe behaviors? It is unlikely that the #1 answer would have been gift cards if the question had been, “What makes you feel valued and appreciated for your contributions? The #1 answer would not have been a gift card. Offering incentives for safe behaviors represents the lowest level of personal interactions. We have conditioned employees to think of safety as a series of behaviors when it is so much more. It is about awareness, caring for others, and holding each other accountable to high standards. None of this is possible without the existence of positive relationships in the workplace.
It is okay to do surveys but ask the right questions. Successful leaders are good at asking questions because they work from a set of beliefs about human nature. I call them the Eight Beliefs of Relationship-Centered Safety Leadership.
The Eight Beliefs of Relationship-Centered Safety Leadership
- Inclusion precedes accountability.
- Innovation, resilience, inclusion and accountability are interdependent.
- People are able and willing to contribute to the success of the enterprise.
- People will speak up to stop an unsafe situation if it is in their interest to do so.
- Relationships influence emotions, feelings and beliefs. These, in turn, influence the decisions that impact safety decisions.
- True communication takes place in the presence of relationship and trust.
- The information to prevent the next negative event is all around us, but our judgments prevent us from seeing, hearing or understanding the information when it contradicts what we believe to be true.
- Drift from procedure is a positive human adaptive behavior.
Introduction
As I present these beliefs, I want to make it clear that when I talk about building a relationship centered organization or safety program I am not saying that the only thing we need to be successful is good relationships. It is the foundation. It is what we have been calling the culture that provides the nourishment that your vision, initiatives, processes, and goals need to become a reality. While engineering, rules and regulations are important they will not engage commitment. It is only when people feel that valuing safety is necessary to being accepted, respected and included that safety will be brought into the decision-making processes that establish priorities in our organizations.
Belief #1: Inclusion precedes accountability
Inclusiveness drives out fear, exclusion creates silence and withdrawal.
There is no accountability in a fear-driven organization where people feel they don’t matter—that they are peripheral to the important work that needs to get done. Why would anyone be motivated to take on responsibility, go beyond minimum requirements, or contribute their creativity if he or she didn’t feel they were an important part of the solution? And, how do people know they are important at work? They know when they are included in decision-making; when their opinions are sought out and their work respected. They know it when they feel they are part of the trusted circle. These is the proof of inclusion.
Accountability is an outcome of inclusivity because there is no way to gain the information we need to answer people’s doubts outside of relationship. Resistance to change often shows up as lack of ownership and accountability. The effective listener engenders accountability because they are led to ask the questions that reveal the uncertainty, lack of clarity, and misunderstandings that block acceptance to change. When we ask people to make a commitment and hold themselves accountable they want to know why. When the answer to that question addresses how their actions will contribute to the success of the operation and assures that they will have what they need to succeed, the will to be accountable emerges.
Belief #2. Inclusion, resilience, innovation, and accountability are interdependent.
You can’t have one without the other.
Every organization must take some risk to get to innovation, and if we take risks then we need resilience because sometimes we fail. In safety the risk we most often ask people to take is speaking up. We ask them to stop others from working unsafely. We tell them to ask questions that could reveal that they have less knowledge or expertise than their peers. There are enormous psychological risks in speak up. So belief #2 begins with inclusion because inclusion engenders resilience. When we do not fear exclusion, we are more likely to bounce back from mistakes. We are more likely to ask questions rather than cover up our ignorance. When we feel psychologically safe, we are more resilient, so we are willing to keep trying new ways to meet goals. All this breeds accountability because we are motivated to commit to the goals we’ve bought into and wish to remain a member of the group.
Belief #3. People are able and willing to contribute to the success of the enterprise
Your beliefs about people can inspire or suppress safety excellence. Your reactions and resilience to mistakes and letdowns also inspire persistence or resignation.
If you aspire to next level performance the first area to look at is your own and other leader’s beliefs about what people are willing and capable of contributing. When I was in training to be a teacher I learned about experiments where teachers were told that a random group of children had a genius IQ. Those children invariably did much better in their test scores than the children who had not been labeled with a high IQ. All the children were exposed to the same lessons and materials. The only difference was the teacher’s belief about their ability to learn. I learned that we unconsciously treat people differently based on what we believe to be true about their capabilities.
Belief # 4. People will speak up to stop an unsafe situation if it is in their best interest to do so.
Are you thinking we could design a protocol to allow employees to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation?
A healthcare study (Maxfield et al. 2011) found that only 58% of 4200 nurses felt it was unsafe to speak up or were unable to get others to listen. They were in these situations a few times a month. Consequently fewer than 1/3 of the nurses had shared their concerns about medical errors with doctors. The study was done first in 2005 and the 2011 survey found that the situation had not changed even after tremendous efforts to create better procedures and to ensure that nurses felt empowered to speak up. Why was it so difficult for nurses to speak up? More than half cited being disrespected as their biggest concern. The nurses who were able to speak up took the responsibility to build relationships and learned to communicate in a way that they would be heard. It is interesting that the nurses took on that role, rather than the doctors or management.
Everyone wants employees who are willing to stop an unsafe action and take responsibility for safety but few understand that it cannot happen without strong relationships. If leaders do not take the time to have the right conversations, people will not build the trusting relationships they need to stop unsafe actions, report information needed to prevent the next failure.
Belief #5. Relationships influence emotions, feelings and beliefs. These, in turn, influence the decisions that impact safety activity.
Neuroscience has shown that emotions have the strongest influence in decision-making. Since relationships influence one’s emotions, our actions and behaviors are influenced by our relationships with others (Schwartz, Gaito and Lennick, 2011; Cozolino, 2014).
If managers and supervisors aren’t modeling the behaviors that show safety is an important value, if employees don’t seem to take personal responsibility for safety, neither threats nor discipline nor tools and checklists will get them to start. Shifting mindsets and behaviors is a change management issue, which means you must start with the vision and the why. Then people want to know your plan and how you will help them get there.
Building relationships isn’t about being “nice.” It is important to a company where the biggest threats might be a fatality or public catastrophe because fear of ridicule can stop people from bringing up safety concerns, stopping unsafe acts, or impede creative solutions that could help a company be both safe and meet deadlines.
Belief # 6. True communication takes place in the presence of relationship and trust.
If you want people in your organization to speak up to stop an unsafe action or address an unsafe condition, first build the safety net that will reduce the threat of exclusion or rejection. Our leaders need to learn and teach the skills to build inclusive relationships because it is a leadership responsibility to facilitate and role model them.
Why is this belief so important? Safety performance improves with the level of trust and open communication (Carrillo 1995, Smidts et al. 2001, Luria 2010). It also shows that employee engagement increases with the strength of relationship with their direct supervisor. Supervisors are important to success, but they cannot do it alone. Middle and upper managers must play their role in building relationships through social interaction. The challenge is that many managers, even supervisors say they don’t have time to talk to people 1-1. Since many leaders with the same responsibilities do find time, the real challenge is linking social interaction with personal inclusion in the minds of supervisors and managers.
Belief #7. The information to prevent the next negative event is all around us, but our judgments prevent us from seeing, hearing or understanding the information when it contradicts what we believe to be true.
The practice of non-judgment is essential to our success as we proceed in building positive relationships to create an environment that is safe for the expression of dissenting opinions, and where people feel valued and respected.
An important aspect of non-judgment is humility. Humble Inquiry (2013) by Edgar Schein is a wonderful illustration of the positive effect a leader has simply by asking questions to learn from others. Assuming a stance that one does not have all the answers opens the door for others to contribute. The opportunity for success grows exponentially because we have access to a lot more information.
Belief # 8. Drift from procedure is a positive human adaptive behavior.
Drift (slow deviation from procedure) and weak signals (faint trending signs) are terms being used to understand disasters like the Chernobyl and both the Challenger and Columbia explosions. (Dekker, 2011; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007). Scott Snook (2000) coined another useful term, practical drift, in his analysis of the friendly fire shoot down of two US Blackhawk helicopters in Iraq to identify the natural human tendency to drift from procedure when the connection to their value and purpose is lost.
The resolution of this dilemma lies not in setting up new procedures and systems to stop drift or collect weak signals. Drift cannot be stopped, nor should it be because it is a natural adaptive behavior also called continuous improvement when it leads to a positive outcome. Labeling it as unsafe behavior or violation of procedure does not stop drift. Two power companies that tried to institute disciplinary consequences for drift experienced a substantial lowering of trust and communication (Carrillo & Samuels 2014).
Leadership Actions to Develop and Sustain Relationship Centered Safety:
Call for a consultation to learn how one to one conversations can change organizational performance almost overnight by engaging and motivating employees.
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