leading lean: transforming your safety culture within ... · this paper was presented, upon...

This Paper was presented, upon invitation, at The Association for Manufacturing Excellence – Pacific Rim Conference,

Sofitel Convention Centre, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 14th-17th August, 2007

Leading Lean: Transforming your Safety Culture within Manufacturing during the 21st Century?

David G Broadbent Safety Psychologist TransformationalSafety.Com PO Box 250 MAITLAND NSW 2320 AUSTRALIA

Allow me to begin by recalling a situation which occurred for me whilst I was on vacation a few years ago. I happened to be visiting the Gold Coast of Queensland in Australia; one of the foremost tourist locations in Os. It just so happened that we had a few days of rain and the windscreen wipers on my vehicle were a little worse for wear. I completed a mini-risk assessment and determined it would be a good idea to replace the windscreen wipers. Having noticed a very large Dealer for my particular make of motor vehicle, in I went to collect a set of windscreen wipers. Up I walked to the counter and requested a set of wipers for a 2001 Holden Calais (a fairly standard motor vehicle in Os). Here is a précis of the developing conversation:-

Sales: “I am sorry Sir we do not have those in stock, I shall have to order them in for you.”

David: “Pardon?”

Sales: “Sir, we do not carry those wipers as a stock item. I shall have to order them in for you.”

David: “Is there anything special about my car; I would have thought all these models carry the same blades?”

Sales: “That’s right they do.”

David: “I am a little confused here. We are talking about a key consumable for all motor cars, which directly impact the safety of the vehicle, and it will take me how long to get them if I order?”

Sales: “Two days, at the most Sir”

David: “The rain shall have stopped by then” (A little rattled). “By the way why was it again that you guys don’t carry wiper blades again?”

Sales: “Management made a decision about a year ago that we had a lot of stock sitting on the shelves; so it was decided we needed to make things leaner. We identified those items that we did not have a regular demand for and put them on the “order only” list. Oh and rubber wiper blades can deteriorate just sitting on the shelf.”

“Shall I order a set for you now, Sir?”

David: “No thanks. I shall buy them at K-Mart” – A large retailer in Os.

Can you sense the frustration? Admittedly I suspect it shows a misunderstanding about a number of principles. What we have here is the outcome of a motor car dealer deciding that an item which did not have a high value throughput was best held back in the supply chain; somebody else should carry the “risk” and the stock. Now I would have to acknowledge that when they did their usage analysis it is quite likely that windscreen wiper blades have a low turnover rate throughout the year. The question I ask myself is, “when we are making decisions about issues of stock control, supply chain, etc. do we factor in the world ‘safety’?” I would suggest from the above example, it would seem not.



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The purpose of this Paper is to explore the application of the principles of transformational leadership, and particularly the Transformational Safety® Leadership Improvement System, as a value-add to the manufacturing process. To achieve this objective we shall be required to briefly consider an approach to manufacturing which has become of increasing interest (what an understatement) over the last decade or so. I am talking about “Lean Manufacturing”. At the outset I need to declare my credentials. I am not a recognised “expert” in Lean Manufacturing. I am though an internationally recognised thinker and communicator about organisational culture, leadership and their associations with the safety journey, and its outcomes.

“Lean Manufacturing” is part of a business wide strategy aimed to increase market share whilst at the same time attempting to minimise operating costs. In the face of ever increasing global competition businesses are forever driven to improve flexibility, sharpen market responsiveness, improve outputs, and whilst doing all of these things, reduce overall costs. Lean manufacturing is one of the primary means by which many organisations are trying to reach these goals.

Lean Manufacturing is thought by many to have been the brainchild of American Academics. It is, in fact, a term coined by the authors of “The Machine that Changed the World1” to describe an evolutionary concept, at a point in its history, applied with stunning effectiveness within the Toyota Corporation.

At the core of this strategy is a series of related processes aimed to continuously and relentlessly minimise the consumption of resources that add “no value” to a product.

Lean Manufacturing has its roots in the scientific management era of the first half of the 20th century. The work of Fredrick W Taylor, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth being fundamental to its development. By the 1950s, through concepts developed directly from their work, the United States had become the most productive economy on the planet. However, the management systems which had evolved, were powerful but by no means perfect. The method, as it was in those days, relied upon breaking all work related tasks down to their basic elements and devolving all problem solving upwards to management.

In effect, management managed and employees just did as they were told. No one asked them anything, or gave them any opportunity to be involved. These employees could well be thought of as “factory fodder”, all you needed was some sets of hands to perform predetermined tasks at predetermined times to get predetermined results. All pretty predetermined, really!

From a productivity point of view this was devastatingly effective and vastly superior to the so called “craftsman” approach which it had replaced. However, there was a price to be paid. It went from an approach which had recognised employees as “skilled” or “craftsman” to a culture where employees were thought of as “automatons” etc. Almost a bipolar approach to people; not dissimilar to McGregor’s somewhat dated thoughts about Theory X and Theory Y. As a consequence, labour relations deteriorated alarmingly and companies needed to spend huge amounts on labour relations departments and other consequences of the approach.

A further problem not appreciated at the time was that management was not sufficiently close to the effect of daily operations and thus huge inefficiencies began to develop in organisations. Excessive downtime in operations due to long and poor set up procedures, unexpected plant breakdowns due to poor maintenance. Excess inventory resulting from the difficulties of managing large complex plant and supply chains with fluctuating customer demands.

What we found was that the Japanese particularly focused on a number of areas and appeared to bring back some sense of sense to the equation. It is no surprise that Lean Manufacturing seems to have more roots within the Japanese tradition eg Toyota, and that

1 Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T., and Roos, D. (1991), “The Machine that Changed the World: The Story of Lean

Production”, New York: Harper Collins.



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one of the more widely recognised approaches has a basis in Kaizen. There is really nothing mysterious here. Kaizen (改善) is the Japanese word for "change for the better" or "improvement"; the English translation is "continuous improvement" or "continual improvement"

Kaizen is a daily activity whose purpose goes beyond improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanises the workplace, eliminates overly hard work (both mental and physical), and teaches people how to perform experiments using the scientific method and how to learn to spot and eliminate waste in business processes.

Kaizen must operate with three principles in place: process and results (not results-only); systemic thinking (i.e. big picture, not solely the narrow view); and non-judgmental, non-blaming (because blaming is wasteful).

People at all levels of an organisation participate in Kaizen, from the CEO down, as well as external stakeholders when applicable. The format for Kaizen can be individual, suggestion system, small group, or large group. In Toyota it is usually a transition within a workstation or local area and involves a small group in improving their own work environment and productivity.

Whilst Kaizen (in Toyota) usually delivers small improvements; the culture of continual small improvements and standardisation yields large results in a form of compound productivity improvement. Hence the English translation of Kaizen can be: "continuous improvement", or "continual improvement."

The "Sen" in Kaizen emphasises the learn-by-doing aspect of improving production. This philosophy re replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.

It is this aspect of Kaizen which is about the science of small improvements that we may be interested in from a safety perspective. There is no surprise that when many companies invest heavily in implementing a new and improved safety program that may do so with a great deal of investment, promotion, fanfare and finally, not uncommonly, “fizzle2”.

Let us go back a little to W Edwards Deming. Deming is universally known within manufacturing; and only really for a little over thirty (30) years. Deming's process involves a shift from ineffective management to effective management. For Deming, management involves leadership, culture change within organisations, and finally organisational learning3. These operating principles have been successfully tested in industrial organisations around the world. When we later explore in detail the process of transforming safety we shall see we are talking about heavily investing in safety leadership, safety culture and embracing these principles in such a powerful relationship focus, that the organisation just cant help becoming learning driven with respect to safety system development.

We shall now come forward to more contemporary times and again consider the experience of Toyota. In 2005 the American Society for Quality awarded the Deming Medal to the Toyota Corporation. In accepting the award Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, Chairman and former President (1982-1999) of Toyota, said:-

“…Dr. Deming came to Japan following World War II in order to teach industry leaders methods of statistical quality control, as well as to impart the significance of quality control in management and his overall management philosophy. He was an invaluable teacher…, playing an indispensable role in the development and revitalisation of post-war Japan.

Industrialists as well as academics earnestly began to study and implement Dr. Deming's theories and philosophy. Dr. Deming soon became widely known not only as a brilliant theorist, but also as a kind and modest man. In 1951, the Deming Prise was founded in order to promote the widespread practice of quality control based on Dr. Deming's philosophy.

2 When an event starts promisingly, but stalls and ends shortly afterwards, it is said to "fissle out". Source: Wikipedia 3 Deming, W.E. (2000), “The New Economics”, MIT Press: New York



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We at Toyota Motor Corporation introduced TQC in 1961, and in 1965 were awarded the Deming Application Prise…. As we continued to implement Dr. Deming's teachings, we were able to both raise the level of quality of our products as well as enhance our operations on the corporate level. I believe that TMC today is a result of our continued efforts to implement positive change in pursuit of the Deming Prise….

Now, we are faced with rapid global restructuring of both society and business. In the midst of these overwhelming changes, corporations faced with the challenge of providing value to a wide range of shareholders have begun to focus on quality innovations such as completely customer-oriented management practices, environmental preservation, and the upholding of corporate ethics.

The popular press invariably describes Deming as a quality guru; and this is undoubtedly true. He is almost considered a National Hero in Japan. This reflects the fact that many people became aware of Deming at the time that Japanese industrial production became associated with high quality more than it reflects Deming's own views. Deming's first major exposure in the West came at the end of the 1970’s with an NBC documentary by Reuven Frank titled, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We4." This presentation on prime time US television, coupled with an exceptional monograph entitled, “The Reckoning5”, served to bring Deming to the attention of Western industrial leaders who had been shocked to discover that Japanese manufacturing set the global quality standards of the era whilst also remaining competitive on price.

Deming came into wide public view for the first time. The circumstances of his emergence have him a deserved reputation in quality issues. The interesting observation here is that Deming never saw himself as a “quality guru” in any specific sense. Rather, he was a systemic thinker on management and leadership.

Deming did not advocate high quality in a narrow sense. He proposed principles for effective managerial leadership and good working practice. His central point was that applying these principles would make business and industry work as they should. Quality would emerge as one natural consequence amongst many others. It would surprise many that Deming has also commented about the causation of accidents.

Quality is a natural outcome of a system that Deming terms "profound knowledge6". Deming's method is based on the development of social, intellectual and psychological values operating in comprehensive organisation-wide systems that capture and reinforce the values and knowledge of an entire organisation. Deming saw organisations as organic entireties linked by the flow of knowledge. He understood and outlined the leadership criteria, human criteria, and ethical criteria that make it possible for knowledge to flow effectively through organisations.

"A system of profound knowledge," Deming writes,” appears ... in four parts, all related to each other: appreciation for a system; knowledge about variation; theory of knowledge; psychology.

"One need not be eminent in any part of profound knowledge in order to understand it and apply it. The fourteen (14) points for management in industry, in education, and government follow naturally as application of the system of profound knowledge, for transformation for the present style of Western management to one of optimisation. 6, p96".

Deming himself looked on his ideas as a combination of science, art, and philosophy. He considered the value of his 14 points to be "principles for the transformation of Western management 6, p18" and the "transformation of ... industry 6, p23".

Deming's view is that the outcome of any process is shaped by a system. Leaders must understand and shape the systems that give body to their organisations; human systems,

4 Reuven, F., Dobyns, L., Crawford-Mason, C., & Lockhart, R., (1980), “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We”, CC-M Productions

(To Order – Click Here) 5 Halberstam, D., (1986), “The Reckoning”, William Morrow & Co: New York 6 Deming, W. Edwards. (1993). “The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education”. Cambridge,

Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Centre for Advanced Engineering Study.



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information systems, mechanical systems. Through years of practice and experimentation, he developed his fourteen points that make organisational systems effective:

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimise total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease cost.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul as well as supervision of production workers.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work productively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production sand in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low performance belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

11. Eliminate work standards and quotas on the factory floor. Substitute leadership. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, among other things, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Deming viewed the human beings who work in and comprise organisations in human terms. His system rests on solid ethical and psychological foundations.

Deming portrays human psychology in its fullest dimensions. His understanding of needs can be compared with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs7,8.

His thinking also significantly involves the issues of trust and shared value. More recently this can be more overtly observed within the leadership literature amongst those who similarly view work as a profoundly human experience. These “human issues” are central to the key leadership theories of recent years 9,10,11,12,13,14,15.

7 Maslow, A.H., (1998), “Toward a Psychology of Being”, Wiley:New York 8 Hershey, K.H., & Blanchard, P. (1969), “Management of Organisational Behaviour : Utilising Human Resources”, pp 22-

40, Prentice Hall. 9 Bennis, W., (1989). “On Becoming a Leader”. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 10 Bennis, W & Nannus B., (1985), ”Leaders: the Strategies for Taking Charge”, New York: Harper and Row, Publishers 11 Nannus, B., (1989). “The Leader's Edge”. Chicago: Contemporary Books.



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So what we find here is that from amongst the history of manufacturing, quality and lean there is a lot to be said about developing a more humanistic approach to leadership. The foremost model of leadership that has a heavy relationship focus is known as transformational leadership. There would appear to be two schools, if you like, that have attempted to isolate the key deliverables associated with transformational leadership. They are the approaches adopted by Kouzes and Posner and, that developed by Bernie Bass and Bruce Avolio. Whilst both approaches have merit, there is far more evidence that interrogates the value of the Bass and Avolio Model (known now as the Full Range Leadership Model). What we mean here is if we go to the peer reviewed journal databases we find that scientific method has been far more rigorously applied to The Full Range Leadership Model, than to the Kouzes and Posner approach. If we are looking for a humanistic approach to leadership development that can have some synergies within lean manufacturing and Kaizen then we have to give serious consideration to aligning ourselves with the most empirical (or scientific) of the Models available. After all, have we not already established that a significant aspect of Kaizen etc is one of applied scientific method within the world of workplace challenges?

So allow me to bring a measure of science to the world of safety, and then to incorporate this into a leaner approach.

Consider the professions of chemistry, physics, metallurgy, engineering etc (what are sometimes referred to as the “hard” professions due to their reliance upon the “hard” sciences.) What is it that drives those professions in terms of the work that they do? I would put it to you that it is the process of “empirical” or “scientific method”.

The scientific method involves following seven general steps in sequence. In some cases steps may be combined to reduce the number to five, but more often than not the procedure will consist of seven steps, with each step consisting of additional sub-steps. The basic steps are:

1. Make Observations 2. Ask Questions 3. Make a Hypothesis 4. Explore Methods of Testing 5. Experimentation 6. Examine Result 7. Reach Conclusions

And finally.....You may find that your progression of research and experimentation does not necessarily follow these steps exactly as given, and that's okay. The purpose of the scientific method is not to prescribe a routine which cannot be varied, but rather to provide a systematic method of asking questions, proposing hypothesis, and doing the testing to determine the correct answers. After testing your hypothesis, you may be unhappy with the results and may decide to retest your hypothesis with additional testing, propose another hypothesis, gather more data, or ask another question. Again entirely OK, as long as you continue to review the process you have just put in place a continuous improvement system, based fundamentally upon scientific method.

The scientific method is not cast in concrete. It is systematic, straightforward and easy enough to learn and use, in order that non-scientists can make use of it for their own interests. Interestingly, many scientific discoveries come about by accident, by getting unexpected results and accidentally asking questions that had not ever been asked before. 12 Kouses, James M. and Barry S. Posner. 1991. The Leadership Challenge. How to Get Extraordinary Things Done in

Organisations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. 13 Bass, Bernard M. (1990), "From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision."

Organisational Dynamics 18, No. 3, pp. 19-31 14 Avolio, Bruce J. and Bernard M. Bass. (2002) “Developing Potential Across a Full Range of Leadership: Cases on

Transactional and Transformational Leadership”. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 15 Bailey, James. (2001), "Leadership Lessons from Mount Rushmore: An Interview with James Macgregor Burns."

Leadership Quarterly, Vol 12, No. 1. p. 113.



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In order to make the point I am going to be occupationally harsh and choose as an example a profession which is known to be grounded in hard science i.e. engineering. There are also plenty of them within the manufacturing environment. Consider the path to management that many engineers take. Whilst not universal, for many it is a developmental process that largely is a reward for the demonstration of excellent technical skill in their profession, eg engineering (you could consider almost any profession here eg, law, accounting, plumbing, facilities management etc). Yet within almost all promotional pathways there comes a point where the competencies required start moving away from that of being a highly competent technical engineer, or lawyer, or accountant etc.

Consider further just some of the competencies that have been associated with leadership and management:-

Analysis

Individual Leadership (Influence)

Oral Communication

Customer Service Orientation

Initiative

Organisational Awareness

Delegation

Judgment

Quality Management

Developing Organisational Talent

Managing Work

Teamwork

Empowerment

Maximising Performance

Written Communication

Follow-up

Negotiation

Now lets us delve that little bit deeper into just two (2) of the above competencies.

Delegation

Allocating decision making authority and task responsibilities to appropriate employees; utilising employees' time, skills, and potential effectively.

In today's leaner business environment, managers must achieve significant results with fewer human resources, requiring that they redirect their efforts and those of their followers. Consequently, most managers and supervisors must assign work to others. Allocating tasks, responsibility, and authority in ways that achieve results and develop employees' talents and skills means relinquishing some control and sharing authority. Comprehending and internalising this concept of empowerment is the key to developing the participative style required in today's workplace.

The person who delegates effectively delegates tasks, targets, delegates with clarity, and delegates responsibility/action.

Key Behaviours Delegates Tasks

Identifies and recognises opportunities to delegate Assigns responsibility for action and/or authority to make decisions Displays trust and confidence in staff members that assigned tasks will

be completed satisfactorily Targets

Conveys persuasively the purpose and importance of the delegated task

Considers organisational values, employee's expertise and past contributions, and opportunities for development when delegating assignments

Delegates with Clarity Gives appropriate guidance and instruction Provides staff with the resources and support to complete

assignments



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Assigns tasks clearly, detailing required actions, constraints, deadlines, anticipated problems, and resource suggestions

Delegates Responsibility Action

Delegates responsibility and decision making to employees and demonstrates willingness to give up part of own authority and job responsibilities

Provides the level of authority needed to accomplish end results Gains employees' commitments to accepting new responsibilities

Individual Leadership (Influence)

Using appropriate interpersonal styles and methods to inspire and guide individuals toward goal achievement; modifying behaviour to accommodate tasks, situation, and individuals involved.

In today's workplace, people at all levels are being empowered to make and act on decisions that affect peers, leaders, and members of other groups, departments, or teams, as well as suppliers and customers. More than ever before, people need the skills to influence others so that ideas for improvement are communicated clearly and implemented successfully.

An individual who exhibits strong leadership skills establishes rapport, seeks information or suggestion, develops ideas, gains commitment, checks for understanding and agreement, and acknowledges people and concerns.

Key Behaviours

Establishes rapport

States the purpose and importance of any communication or interaction.

Presents useful information. Explains the specifics and benefits of an idea or proposal. Establishes and communicates a sense of direction. Encourages others' involvement.

Develops Ideas

Contributes substantive comments and solutions. Expands on or explores others' ideas, suggestions, comments, and

alternatives. Suggests alternative courses of action. Makes procedural suggestions.

Gains Commitment

Clarifies actions and responsibilities. Provides effective rational for inputs. Establishes follow-up. Encourages people to try a new process or new ways of doing their

jobs. Checks for Understanding and Agreement

Asks for support and/or approval. Reviews details, discussion outcomes, proposals, and follow-up

action. Summarises progress and clarifies information to ensure

understanding. Acknowledges People and Concerns Maintains or enhances others' self-esteem.



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Discloses own feelings, issues, and/or reservations. Expresses appreciation of others' effort and participation. Adapts approach or style to the individual(s) involved. Recognises others' ideas and contributions.

Seeks Information or Suggestions

Requests relevant data from others. Asks questions to challenge others' thinking and to gain agreement.

It’s not as simple as some might think, is it? The leaner an organisation gets the greater the level of amplification if any errors of leadership shall be experienced. This is an important point; don’t miss it!

How many then make a study of management and leadership best practice on their “way to the top”. I shall put it to you that we are talking about a relatively small number. Many develop their leadership competencies by “trial and error” and spend much of their time “protecting” their competencies; rather than developing them. I shall come back to this point also a little later.

Allow me to step back to our brief understanding into “hard” science or scientific method. We don’t give it a second thought that prior to determining the form of construction of a roof truss we shall have to do the math to ensure that it shall be able to tolerate all the demands that might be required of it. If we were to just build a cosmetic structure, without considering all the engineering required, then it is entirely likely that as soon as the structure is placed under some strain it shall literally fall on somebody’s head.

Now spend a moment thinking about the majority of safety systems out there! One of the most popular of the past couple of decades is behavioural safety. I am the first to cheer the development and implementation of behaviour based safety systems; they have acknowledged and enhanced the application of belief systems coupled with behavioural observation to deliver improved safety performance within an infinite number of organisations. Unfortunately many behavioural safety programs have grounding primarily in transactional management theory and when we crunch the numbers and look at the organisational gains associated with transactional management the outcome results are seemingly quite poor. Behaviour based safety systems that have contingent rewards systems associated with them would likely have better outcomes. Although when the strain gets too great they don’t deliver. In other words they fall on someone’s head.

So let’s think about what are some of the factors that might act as influencing vehicles as far as enhanced safety performance is concerned. What is it then that stops things falling on your head? One group from Australia have developed a model of safety performance which draws upon more traditional understandings around work performance in general16. They then go on to describe two (2) key aspects of safety performance as being:-

Safety Compliance - The term safety compliance is used to describe the core activities that need to be carried out by individuals to maintain workplace safety. These behaviours include adhering to standard work procedures and wearing personal protective equipment.

Safety Participation - The term safety participation is used to describe behaviours that do not directly contribute to an individual’s personal safety, but which do help to develop an environment that supports safety. These behaviours include activities such as participating in voluntary safety activities, helping co-workers with safety-related issues, and attending safety meetings.

If we want our people to apply discretionary effort toward safety in our workplaces then we have to be aiming for maximising “safety participation”.

16 Neal, A, & Griffin, M. (2002), Safety Climate and Safety Behaviour, Australian Journal of Management, Vol 27, pp. 67-76



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Often we might make the mistake here of thinking that if we get “safety compliance” out of our people we are halfway there. Afraid not! That would be an acceptable premise only if accident causation was a simplistic linear process. Unfortunately all that we know about the factors that contribute toward accidents, or system failures/events, suggest the exact opposite. Simply put accidents happen because a number of circumstances conspire to arrive at a particular point in time. Had any one of these circumstances decided to not arrive at that particular moment, then the control measures that hopefully were in place would probably have been effective. Often, because the accident never occurred, we actually never knew how close we came. Is it any wonder that many of us develop a sense of “it will never happen to me”; most likely because, to date, it never has.

The largest of questions then is: What do we need to do more of to maximise safety compliance and particularly safety participation within our workplaces? Once we get these aspects right, then those other outcomes we are interested in shall naturally follow. Sounds remarkably similar to Deming’s observation regarding his own approach to leadership.

Thus from our own research we argue the safety systems that fly couple aspects of Transformational Leadership within their behavioural paradigms.

At this point though let us leave the manufacturing and leadership research for a while and begin to cast our attention more directly at the impacts of leadership upon safety. After all if we acknowledge the “amplification” argument; it becomes even more critical in a lean environment to get this stuff as “right” as we can.

In other words if we are going to be talking about the impact of leadership behaviours on safety performance then we need to take a leaf out of the “hard” sciences; otherwise the engineers etc may find it difficult to believe! It is fairly commonly accepted that the relationship between management and safety outcome has some form of intricate linkage.17

When some researchers exploring safety climate/culture crunched their numbers they found some common relationships between a range of variables eg supervision & management, existence of a safety system, risk taking behaviour, work pressure, and work competence.18 A further group concluded when they looked at over a dozen safety climate outcome measures the common theme was “management safety activity”.19 The United States Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) have recognised the “power” of leadership and have defined “management leadership” as a key program element in safety system design.20 The U.K. Health and Safety Regulator apparently is aware of this and associates the organisational factors influencing safety culture as follows.

Senior management commitment.

Management style.

Visible management.

Good communication between all levels of employees (management action).

A balance of health and safety and production goals (management prioritisation).

Some well regarded Canadian researchers21 have argued that leadership is one of the most critical determinants of workplace safety performance. They go on to express the belief, supported by much research22,23, that leadership plays an integral role in developing and maintaining the safety climate within an organisation.

17 Health Education Authority (1999), More to Work than this - Developing and Sustaining Workplace health in the NHS. HEA.

London. 18 Flin, R. et al. (2000), Safety Climate: Identifying the Common Features, Safety Science, 34, 177 19 Guldenmund, F. (2000) The Nature of Safety Culture: A Review of Theory and Research, Safety Science, 34, 215. 20 Program Evaluation Profile (PEP), Occupational Safety & Health Administration, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW,

Washington, DC 20210 21 Barling and Sacharatos, A. (1999), High performance safety systems: Management practices for achieving optimal safety

performance, paper presented at the 25th annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Toronto, CANADA 22 Hoffman D.A. & Morgeson, F.P. (1999), Safety-related behavior as a social exchange: The role of perceived

organisational support and leader-member exchange, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 84, no. 2, pp. 286–296



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It doesn’t take a lot of time to see the relationship which is clearly self evident. The impact of management, and more importantly, leadership is a key “influencer” on any effective safety management system. We may have all sorts of reasons for not wanting to look in this mirror; nevertheless the “hard data” doesn’t lie.

Consider the further observation that “….the foundation to any process, policy, or cultural shift is built upon management’s total commitment to the change. Half hearted commitment to a new change will result in failure24”.

It has to be said that managers “behave badly” when they send the wrong signals to the workforce by their language and their actions, especially in relation to prioritisation and their time allocation. This last factor is probably the most crucial, as time is the most precious resource for senior managers. Remember Benjamin Franklin’s maxim, “time is money.”

Why is time so crucial? Because it is the strongest signal of commitment from busy managers with little time to spare. Just think about the issue as regards the staff meeting. When I teach time management to teams; some of the premises that often pop up are; arriving late is a sign of disrespect to the others present, or a marker of arrogance with the metalanguage being similar to “my time is more valuable than yours therefore I am more valuable than you”. Of course this may not be true; you might have slipped in the hall and had to get yourself back together. Nonetheless if you do not communicate that very overtly the “room” will generally think the worst of you.

If you are verbalising the importance of safety, yet you are being seen to “fit it in” around your other responsibilities; rather than fitting your “other priorities” around safety then you are going to be in for a rough ride.

It has also been noted that managers should frequently emphasise the importance of safety; regularly, loudly and with conviction (people are smart: lip service is often identified early).

“On a personal basis, managers at the most senior level demonstrate their commitment by their attention to regular review of the processes that bear on safety, by taking direct interest in the more significant questions of safety or product quality as they arise, and by frequent citation of the importance of safety and quality in communications to staff.25”

Let me throw in a quote attributed to Henry Kissinger (former US Secretary of State).

“If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere. “

Now let’s begin to have a closer look at where we are going by way of further exploring that relationship between empiricism and leadership theory. There are more theories about leadership than sand on the beach! Indeed most of us have our own unique approach that we would struggle to verbalise if asked to do so. That is probably not a bad thing to do; sit down and try and identify the foundations of your own leadership style26. Why do you manage/lead the way you do? Anyway enough of the “homework”.

All this stuff on leadership! Is it a bit of overkill? Just to help us confront that question, and not an unreasonable one, let us therefore explore one of the most seminal works I have read over the past several years. It is “Good to Great” by Jim Collins27. Whilst this book, based upon its own foundation of “hard” research, has all sorts of “ideas” that are worth exploring, it is a fundamental hypothesis that Collins was forced to reject which is of immense impact to our current story. Collins states that:-

23 Zohar, D. (2000), A group-level model of safety climate: Testing the effect of group climate on microaccidents in

manufacturing jobs, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 85, No. 4, pp. 587–96. 24 Philson, C.S. (1998), Workplace Safety Accountability, Occupational Health and Safety, Vol 67, No 4,

pp. 20-24 25 IAEA: (1997) Examples of Safety Culture Practices, Safety Report Series No. 1, Intl. Atomic Energy Authority, Vienna. 26 Visit www.theleadershipcollege.com to access a range of Self Assessments. 27 Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. Harper-Collins; New York.



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“I gave the research team explicit instructions to downplay the role of top executives so that we could avoid the simplistic “credit the leader”, or “blame the leader” common today” (p.21)

It is clear from Collins other comments that he attempted to maintain this position and strongly advocated it within meetings of the research team. As it turned out he had to “give it up”, the data was so obvious that it could not be brushed under the carpet; no matter how much he might have wanted to. Thank goodness for that! Out of this constant revisiting of the data was born the concept of the Level 5 Leader. It is shown that to take a business from

being a good business to being a great business requires a Level 5 Leader within the business at the time the transition is made. Enough said; read the book! The salient message is even when the professional business analyst (empiricist) enters an experiment from the perspective that they want to disprove something, the intrinsic role of leadership, and are forced to reject their preconceptions (hypothesis), we see scientific method at work. In other words Collins went in there looking for “rocket science” beyond the role of leadership and left with the “Level 5 leader being the most significant influencer to the system”.

So let me return yet again to this apparent, at times, management and leadership tug of war.

Leaders manage and managers lead, but the two activities are not synonymous…. Management functions can potentially provide some leadership; leadership activities can contribute to managing. Nevertheless, some managers do not lead, and some leaders do not manage". This is Bernard Bass’s assessment in his 1,200 page opus, "Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership". So by now we are at a stage where we can accept that they overlap, but they are not the same.

We are also at a stage where I can ask the question do we know how to create such climates of leadership that embrace our needs for safety. From the general leadership literature we surely do! Its called Full Range Leadership.

OK. So now we know how we act as managers and leaders has a direct and measurable impact upon our people. Do we know how much?

Yes we do! Information of that sort is priceless. It was Bernie Bass28 (there he is again) who was one of the instrumental thinkers behind the Full Range Leadership (FRLM™) approach to transformational leadership. Later Bruce Avolio29 took over the mantle and is currently one of the world’s leading thinkers in this field. Together they, in partnership with many international collaborators, developed an assessment tool which is known as the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)30,31. It is the MLQ which gives the Full Range Leadership Model a visible shape for many leaders and is able to show, with a level of unparalleled empirical certainty, how an individual leaders’ competencies are impacting upon those around them.

28 Bass, Bernard M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectation. New York: The Free Press. 29 Avolio, Bruce J. (1999). Full Leadership Development: Building the Vital Forces in Organisations. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage. 30 Bass, B. M. and Avolio, B. J. (1997), Full Range Leadership Development, Manual for Multifactor Leadership

Questionnaire, Mind Garden Inc., San Francisco. 31 Antonakis, J., Avolio, B.J., and Sivasubramaniam N. (2003), Context and Leadership: an Examination of the Nine-factor

Full-range Leadership Theory using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, The Leadership Quarterly, 14, pp 261–295



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Sound familiar? So let’s have a look at the key leadership competencies that make up this powerful understanding of how we lead our people to achieving beyond expectation.

Essentially the FRLM™ is able to identify nine predictive leadership competencies. These are:-

Passive/Avoidant Behaviours Laissez Faire (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Invisible Man32) “I’m really not concerned whether you do this or not…..doesn’t really matter to me””

Management by Exception – Passive (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Fireman32) ‘…I’m pretty laid back though if I happen to see something happening you can be sure I’ll let you know“

Transactional Management Behaviours Management by Exception – Active (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Policeman32) “I am systematically watching to see if you don’t …… you can be sure I’ll let you know”

32 Copyright © 2004, David G Broadbent – All Rights Reserved

This Laissez Faire manager is not really a leader as they tend to withdraw from the leadership role and offer little in terms of direction or support. They avoid making decisions, are disorganised and

let others do as they please.

This style of leadership, if you call it that, has an observable de-motivating effect on those they are supposed to be leading.

Passive MBE Leaders tend to be somewhat laissez-faire but take action when problems occur or mistakes are made. They are not systematic in the way they go about doing things

They avoid unnecessary change and only intervene when exceptional circumstances become apparent; in other words they are primarily reactive to situations such as process failures etc.

Just like the Laissez Fare; a Leader who uses a lot of MBE-P will have a de-motivating effect upon those around them.

In contrast the Active MBE Leader pays very close attention to any problems and has extensive and accurate monitoring and control systems in place to provide early warning of problems.

Taken on its own this style is ineffective in producing sustained performance. This style tends to produce only moderate performance in the short term. Those around the MBE-A see a leader

“watching” systematically and regularly.



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Contingent Reward (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Dealer32) “If you do as we agreed I’ll give you recognition & rewards….…”

Transformational Influencing Behaviours These are far more powerful for their ability to influence those around the leader than any of the transactional styles33.

There are five (5) related leadership styles which collectively and individually are called Transformational.

“Transformational leadership is a process of influencing in which leaders change their associate’s awareness of what is important, and move them to see themselves and the opportunities and challenges of their environment in a new way. Transformational leaders are proactive: they seek to optimise individual, group and organisational development and innovation, not just achieve performance "at expectations". They convince their associates to strive for higher levels of potential as well as higher levels of moral and ethical standards”34.

Research supports these transformational styles across cultures; different organisational types, and at different organisational levels35. SO HOW DO WE ACHIEVE “PERFORMANCE BEYOND EXPECTATION” Idealised Attributes (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The White Knight32) “I know we can achieve this…I am proud of you”

Individualised Consideration (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Carer32) “I care about your development as a person and professionally…”

33 Bass, B.M., Avolio, B., Jung, D.I., & Berson. Y. (2003), Predicting Unit Performance by Assessing Transformational and

Transactional Leadership, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vo.l 88, No 2., pp 207-218. 34 Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Feedback Report © 1996, 2002 by Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio, All rights

reserved. 35 Bass, B.M. (1997), Does the transactional/transformational leadership paradigm transcend organisational and national

boundaries? American Psychologist, Vol. 52, pp. 130-139.

This is the classic transactional style. The Leader who relies upon Contingent Reward sets clear goals and rewards accomplishment through a variety of ways. This means that their employees

perform up to the expected levels.

If you want to get your people to “go that extra mile” – a more transformational style is needed.

The underlying assumption in the transaction is a sense of cooperation “you do this for me and I’ll do that for you.”

The Leader who demonstrates Idealised Attributes appears determined with a sense of purpose. A positive role model who demonstrates out of the ordinary capability.

Leaders like this are often described as charismatic with a high degree of morality, trust and integrity.

The IC Leader is caring and empathetic and provides challenges and opportunities for others.

They assist those around them move beyond their own expectations.



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Intellectual Stimulation (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Innovator32) “Give yourself the freedom to think creatively about this….you never know what you might achieve”

Inspirational Motivation (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Motivator32) “I have no doubt you can achieve this, just look how well you’ve done in the past……”

Idealised Behaviours (Transformational Safety® Descriptor – The Missionary32) “I have every confidence that we can all do this together”

The application of the transformational influencing behaviours has been shown to result in extra effort beyond expectation. All the transformational influencing behaviours are related; yet they are also demonstrably distinct. They create a greater readiness for change, greater flexibility, greater capacity for innovation etc.

Further application of these transformational leadership behaviours results in more inclusive ways of dealing with diverse interests to build common commitments to shared visions.

So we have now briefly described the FRLM™ factors and you are likely to have seen some aspects of your own style within them. Now we get to the real important stuff. How do we relate your own leadership competencies within the FRLM™ to the outputs of your own people? First though we need to go back and crunch some numbers!

What is displayed at Table 1 is known as a Correlation Matrix. Essentially a correlation is a numerical descriptor of the relationship between two variables. For example we know that not everybody who smokes dies of smoking related illness; although we recognise that there is a significant relationship between smoking and death (Correlation 0.68). If everybody who smoked died then the correlation would be 1.00. If there was no relationship at all between smoking and death then the correlation would be 0.00. That is the briefest introduction to statistics that you are ever likely to encounter although it is necessary so that you appreciate the “power”, of the information in the following Tables36.

36 Brown, W., Birnstihl, E.A., & Wheeler, D.W. (1996), Leading Without Authority: An Examination of the Impact of

Transformational Leadership Cooperative Extension Work Groups and Teams, Journal of Extension, Vol 34, No 5.

This study was conducted using the four factor model of the MLQ. The current model utilises the five factor model described previously.

Intellectual Stimulation allows the Leader to encourage others to think through issues and problems for themselves so that they develop their own abilities.

Frequently used by parents, this is a less common approach in organisations; and yet it is extremely powerful.

The Leader who utilises Inspirational Motivation excels at convincing those around them of their abilities, this type of leader has the ability to motivate people to achieve superior performance

beyond expectation.

They create a readiness for change and encourage a broad range of interests.

The Leader who utilises Idealised Behaviours expresses a sense of mission that results in high levels of trust and ethics amongst those around them.

In turn those around the IB Leader perform beyond expectation in the most challenging of

circumstances with high levels of commitment and self sacrifice.



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At first glance this might look a bit daunting. Hang in there it really isn’t. We’re just going to have a bit of a look at some of the numbers. Let’s start at the bottom of the Matrix. What is the correlation between an Inactive Laissez Faire management style and the amount of extra effort put in by the Leaders people?

How about trying another one? What is the correlation (or relationship) between the transactional style Management by Exception and Organisational Effectiveness, Management by Exception and Job Satisfaction?

Now traditional Transformational Leadership, and more specifically the FRLM™ of Bass and Avolio, does not specifically target the world of safety. It has more recently though been used as a method of trying to get inside the leadership subtext in operation within organisations.

Table 1: Correlation of Leadership Characteristics with Organisational Outcomes

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Organisational Outcomes

Amount of Extra Effort

Relations to Higher-Ups

Effectiveness Job Satisfaction

Unit Job Organisational

Transformational Leadership Characteristics:

Idealised Influence

+0.95 +0.90 +0.76 +0.80 +0.96 +0.80

Inspirational Motivation

+0.98 +0.86 +0.85 +0.75 +0.89 +0.76

Intellectual Stimulation

+0.92 +0.75 +0.71 +0.62 +0.77 +0.72

Individualised Consideration

+0.97 +0.76 +0.76 +0.77 +0.83 +0.75

Table 2: Correlation of Leadership Characteristics with Organisational Outcomes

TRANSACTIONAL & INACTIVE LEADERSHIP

Organisational Outcomes

Amount of Extra Effort

Relations to Higher-Ups

Effectiveness Job Satisfaction

Unit Job Organisational

Transactional Leadership Characteristics:

Contingent Reward

+0.77 +0.60 +0.69 +0.60 +0.64 +0.75

Management by Exception

0.00 +0.06 +0.38 -0.11 -0.05 +0.36

Inactive Leadership

Laissez Faire -0.23 -0.11 +0.10 +0.10 -0.49 -0.07



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Having said that the FRLM, with the use of its diagnostic tool the MLQ has been used to explore some significant safety relationships. The most well known of these is the work of Julian Barling37. Within this watershed research Barling found a sound relationship between the application of transformational leadership, as determined by the MLQ, and a range of safety specific metrics.

Within 2004 the author presented much of this thinking to the global community of psychologists at the Twenty-eighth (28th) International Congress of Psychology, in Beijing, China. A common observation from this forum surrounded the fact that whilst it was beginning to be increasingly acknowledged that the application of transformational leadership competencies were being seen to impact safety; there was nothing available which truly attempted to get inside the picture from a safety specific perspective. In other words there was no instrument available that would enable an organisation to map its transformational competencies using a safety specific framework.

The Transformational Safety® Culture & Leadership Model was thus developed to address this gap. The Transformational Safety® Culture & Leadership Model though is a safety specific regime designed to bring into clarity the specific safety behaviours which contribute to the development and sustainability of optimal transformational safety® cultures.

The Transformational Safety® Culture & Leadership Improvement System is based upon the thinking of Joseph Rost, James McGregor Burns and the later revolutionary work of Professors Bernie Bass and Bruce Avolio. We have built on the powerful work that has come before with a specific targeting of safety leadership behaviours. The scale items have been developed around the authors own experience in applied safety management and observation of safety cultures, whilst also being synergistically related to the constructs developed by Professors Bass and Avolio, though with a powerful safety leadership focus.

The TransformationalSafety.Com safety leadership constructs are: The Invisible Man

The Fire-fighter

The Policeman

The Dealer

The Motivator

The Knight

The Innovator

The Carer

The Missionary The leadership behaviours explored within the instrument are related to worlds best practice safety leadership research. Some of the leading safety researchers in the World are supporting the theoretical direction of The Transformational Safety® Culture & Leadership Improvement System ; by way of their own publishing. Professor Rhona Flynn (University of Aberdeen - Scotland), Professor Julian Barling (Queens University - Canada), and Professor Dov Zohar (Visiting Professor - University of Lincoln/Nebraska) are just a few.

What we have here are two survey instruments which allow an organisation to interrogate the culture of the business from within a specific safety framework. The Transformational Safety® Culture Survey is based upon an instrument developed for the off-shore oil industry; whilst the Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey38 is grounded within transformational leadership theory itself. As previously indicated, it has the ability to be synergistically related to the constructs found within Bass and Avolio’s FRLM, whilst being a different animal itself.

37 Barling, J., Loughlin, C., & Kelloway, E.K. (2002). “Development and test of a model linking safety-specific transformational

leadership and occupational safety.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 488-496. 38 Broadbent, D.G. (2005), “The Transformational Safety Leadership Survey - Abridged, Publisher:

TransformationalSafety.Com



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What the transformational safety® leadership constructs mean? The Invisible Man

In the world of safety “invisibility” is not a leadership trait that we should be aspiring to. You can often identify invisible safety leaders by the sheer fact that you never seem to be able to find them around. We know from myriads of organisational research that this leadership trait provides a negative impact on the organisations safety culture. Organisations that demonstrate significant behaviours of avoidance such as that indicated by The Invisible Man contribute directly to dangerous workplaces. On the Safety Leader-Plex you prefer to see your results as close to the Amber Sone as possible.

The Fireman

What is it that a Fireman does? They sit in their fire station doing whatever they do in there. It is only when there is a fire that you see the “rubber on the road”. It might be said that a fireman is for the most part “hard to find”; although they do pop-up when there is a safety incident that demands their attention. When things have settled down they disappear back to the fire station. If you are seeing some similarities here with The Invisible Man you are right on the money. Like The Invisible Man it can be shown that organisations full of Fireman are likely to be defined as “at risk”. We want to see minimal fireman-like safety leadership behaviours within the organisation. Again you prefer to see your results as close to the Amber Sone as possible.

The Policeman

What is it that a Policeman does? Their primary attention is on looking for breaches of the law etc. In the Transformational Safety® Leadership System “policemen” are about ensuring that we are following regulations, SOP’s, work instructions etc. When you look at the Policeman Leader-Plex slice you shall notice something a little different. We actually do want “police-like” leadership behaviours demonstrated by our safety leaders, although we need to be careful

we are not doing it “too much”. In strongly autocratic police like cultures we find people complying with SOP’s etc only when they feel “watched”. Too much “policing” also destroys initiative and thinking within the minds of staff; something which we actually want to encourage in the safest of transformational cultures. The Dealer

“Dealing” is arguably the fundamental basis upon which most of our organisations are based. It explores aspects of safety leadership behaviours that are consistent literally with doing deals. That may seem a little abstract yet we do this all the time. Consider that most of us go to work and expect to be paid for what we do. In other words we have a fundamental relationship with our employer that is based on “doing a deal” from the very beginning. Within some safety systems there are aspects of “reward”; eg the safety points systems, the

safety “bingo’s” etc. and they have been shown to have some efficacy. Dealing within a safety culture works;, probably because it is something which we fundamentally understand. As indicated we do it all the time, both at work and at home. Like policing though we can do it too much. If something is about getting something back, particularly material, for anything we do we become very mercenary in our approach. We also create cultures that are strongly demarcated; which, in itself, can create large safety holes within the safety system.



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The Knight What is it that Knight’s have been known for, particularly in medieval times? Hopefully you are thinking about a person who is highly ethical and practices what they preach, lead’s by example, and “walks the talk”. To some degree Knights might also stand out from the crowd (though not always). The Knight is the first of the transformational safety® leadership constructs. You will note the Best Practice Sones have shifted. We actually cannot experience too much transformational safety® leadership behaviours within our work environment. Ideally we wish to see a consistent demonstration of transformational safety® leadership behaviours peppered throughout the culture of the organisation. In other words we want to be “seen in the green” as much as possible. We do not to be “dead in red” and we can live with being in the Amber Sone.

The Carer

This TransformationalSafety construct pretty much speaks for itself. Cultures demonstrating the very important “caring” behaviours show people who actually know each other beyond the superficial “masks” that many of us initially wear at work. Caring safety leadership is further indicated by safety leaders who are genuinely interested and concerned about the contributions of their followers. Caring TransformationalSafety leaders go out of their way to treat the followers as individuals. There is definitely no “pack” mentality in the minds of these leaders. The “caring” leader is trusted by their followers. People within the business know they can

approach people within this culture without fear of retribution. They know that outcomes shall be fair and equitable. The Carer construct should not be misinterpreted as being “soft”. It is about being considerate and concerned for the individual safety needs of followers. The Innovator

Innovation is about thinking. It is about actively promoting and encouraging a culture of learning at both the individual and group level. Safety Leaders who demonstrate an innovative style are regularly challenging their followers to develop solutions to safety issues themselves or in partnership with their colleagues. It is NOT about telling how things “should” or “must” be done. The Innovator demonstrates trust in the intellectual development of their people.

Whilst it is tempting to “save time” by just telling people how to do it; there is a lot more to be gained by encouraging people toward independent and supported learning. In the safety world continuous improvement is gained by having a transformational balance of innovation within safety development. The Motivator

The Motivator is exactly as it sounds. It is about safety leadership behaviours that are dynamic in motivating followers toward improved safety performance. Leaders who demonstrate behaviours consistent with The Motivator are powerfully positive about the safety journey and are inspirational in their approach to safety. They often mix their “motivational’ behaviours with those attached to “innovation”. Such organisations often find their safety systems respond exothemically to such behaviours.

The Missionary

The Missionary is all about let’s get this done together. Heavily team focussed in their approach they advocate a great deal of confidence that the safety goals of the business are achievable. They demonstrate a strong sense of “mission”, and are sometimes thought of as being a bit charismatic or “over the top”. This sense of sealousness is often understood and “forgiven” as followers certainly can see the sense of genuine concern for safe outcomes that The Missionary demonstrates. There is a strong requirement for consistency with Missionaries. It is very difficult to “fake” these behaviours as cultures are generally extremely adapt at identifying any machiavellian missionaries within their midst.



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Now that we have reviewed the constructs which collectively are recognised as The Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey it is important to further develop the position as to why the application of this specific model of safety leadership can be the point of difference in developing an optimal safety culture; particularly within a lean manufacturing environment. To achieve this we need to review some of the history of accident causation and then later the “vibrating cheese” model put forward by the author at the New Zealand National Safety Awards during 2007.

How often have you heard behavioural safety advocates saying things like “ninety percent of your accidents are caused by unsafe behaviours; therefore if we can modify the unsafe behaviours we get rid of the accidents”. Now, this is actually nothing new. It is actually the work of H. W. Heinrich. Heinrich was an Assistant Superintendent of the Engineering and Inspection Division of Travellers Insurance Company during the 1930's and 1940's. Thus the claim that 90% (or a similar number) of injuries are due to unsafe acts is a “straight lift” of Heinrich's work.

Heinrich's conclusions though were based on poorly investigated supervisor accident reports, which pretty much held workers accountable for their own injuries; accident causation, as a science, did not exist at the time. Heinrich actually concluded that 88% of all industrial accidents were primarily caused by unsafe acts (his actual data only gave 70%). DuPont suggest that 96% of injuries and illnesses are caused by unsafe acts. Behaviour Science Technology (BST) has stated that between 80% and 95% of all accidents are caused by unsafe behaviours. When we really try and explore the science behind these claims we find a fair bit of “poetic licence” being used.

Almost all of the behavioural safety advocates conveniently leave out the rest of Heinrich’s findings. For example if we take the time to read the original work we can see that another of his conclusions, "ancestry and social environment are factors in every accident39", does not seem to receive much airplay; despite it being the first domino in the sequence; and this is a

sequential model! We also find that many conveniently forget to identify the second domino (accidents are the fault of the person concerned). One of the regular criticisms of BBS programs is that workers feel that it is “fault based” and part of a “blame game”. We spend quite some time trying to convince workforces this is not the case, when maybe it is partly so?

It has been said, somewhat unfairly I believe, that Heinrich was both racist and strongly class conscious within his conclusions40. If we are going to allow such a criticism to stand then we also have to discard the conclusions of almost all of the scientific thinkers of the 1920’s, 1930’, and even the 1940’s. Even within my own field of applied psychology we have been equally effective in taking the same path of the times41. Psychologists at the time were very keen to support the hypothesis that intelligence was race related42. It’s only a small step to jump from that view, to linking intelligence (read problem solving) to thinking about accident causation.

39 Heinrich, H.W., (1936). “Industrial Accident Prevention”, McGraw Hill, New York, NY. 40 McDonald, G., (2006). “The Origin and Fallacies of Behaviour Based Safety - A TWU Perspective”, Published by the

TWU Health and Safety Department, 1700 Broadway, Second Floor, New York, NY 41 Gould, S.J. (1996). “The Mismeasure of Man”, WW Norton and Company, New York: NY 42 Gossett, T.F., (1965). “Race: The history of an idea in America”, New Yorlk: Schocken Books



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Whilst you might feel that I have been somewhat critical of Heinrich’s work I would beg to differ. What I have done, ever so briefly, is consider the basic premise from the position of current safety science; a way of thinking that was unavailable to Heinrich. This giant amongst men was a product of his time and the world owes limitless gratitude to this man for his attention to a field that had been often timed ignored.

Another more contemporary investigator in the world of safety though is James T Reason. We often find him floating about within many business safety systems. What often surprises me is often we find Reason within BBS systems as well; again if we read his own work he was not a great advocate of BBS. Indeed the Reason Model was far more focused on identifying latent or underlying conditions that were primarily the purview of management etc. In 2003 though he began to change his tune somewhat; suggesting that in “highly protected environments” we might have reached a point of diminishing returns and something else is called for43.

For James Reason it all happened sometime in the 1970’s, whilst he was preparing a cup of tea. At the same time his cat was crawling up his leg indicating its own need for sustenance. Reason states he then proceeded to open the tin of cat food and, without thought or regard, loaded up the teapot. Not only that, the “moggy” had its first taste of Chinese green tea.

As a cognitive psychologist, Reason suddenly realised a new research topic was literally under his nose. In tracing the causes of absent minded incidents, Reason began an exploration of human error. Three decades later, Reason has become a leading expert on error and one of the recognised architects of the tools used to improve safety in the workplace.

The key development around Reason’s work is “The Swiss Cheese” model. Unlike Heinrich’s Domino Model, which was considered to be very sequential (knocking over one domino before you get to the next one), Reason suggests the accident is actually a product of a number of events that are continually occurring, and it is when these events (holes in the cheese) line-up that an accident/incident occurs. In other words, the need for sequencing in causation has been removed, and more open acknowledgement of other factors influencing the system, allows for a somewhat gentler approach to the problem of causation.

This is a very simplistic view of Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model, although it can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it. There are untold articles and monographs exploring Reason’s work and they are well worth reviewing44,45,46. Again we find that many behavioural safety advocates are quick to identify the cheese slices concerned with risk appreciation, personal attitudes, work practices etc. Only more recently have we begun to see some more serious consideration of the more global contextual environment in which both the dominoes and the cheese co-exist47. Reason himself has made this point48 over and over again. When

43 Reason, J.T., (2003). “Aviation psychology in the 20th century – did we really make a difference”, Australian Aviation

Psychology Symposium, December 12t -5th 2003, Sydney, Australia 44 Johnson, W., & Palanque, P. (2004). “Human Error, Safety And System Development”, Kluwer Academic Publishers,

3300 AH Dordercht, THE NETHERLANDS 45 Partington, A. (2003). “Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice”, Routledge:London 46 Reason, J. T. (1990). “Human Error”, Cambridge University Press, 47 Young, M., Shorock, S., Faulkner, J., & Braithwaite, G. (2004). “Who moved my ‘swiss’ cheese? The (r)evolution of

human factors in transport safety investigation” , International Society of Air Safety Investigators Annual Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, 29th Aug – 2nd Sept, 2004.

48 Reason, J.T., (1997). “Managing the risks of organisational accidents”, Ashgate Publishing Company: Hampshire, England



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we look at a number of industrial environments that are known to invest heavily in safety programming we find they are beginning to see a recognition of the need to approach the dominos and the cheese from a different direction.

Falconer, within a body of work exploring one of the most risk protected industries, military service, has published extensively in the area of “soft skills” as a fundamental requirement often overlooked49. Conclusions were that “culture” is a construct not given enough attention, and it is high time more attention was paid. Similarly the question of “culture” has been explored within the oil and gas industries for some time with strong conclusions supporting the view that culture is a significant protagonist within the causation argument50,51,52. For a moment let’s consider a low margin industry such as “facilities management”; becoming increasingly popular as businesses try and rationalise to their core business and seek to “out source” just about everything else, and generally look for low price alternatives. In such a harsh environment, where safety performance becomes a point of difference between competitors (at least on the paperwork) we see increasing attention being paid to culture related constructs53.

For the purpose of clarity lets not forget Heinrich basically stated these sorts of things as his first (1st) domino; “social environment” is certainly applicable to the cultural environment within the workplace. As to the question of “ancestry” I am going to suggest that the myths and histories associated with a workplace provide an organisational ancestry in and of itself. This view is an extension of the seminal work of Edgar Schein and his work on the impact of myth within organisational life54. I am sure you can see where we are going with this. The construct of safety culture has a clear place even within Heinrich's domino theory of accident causation. Not only does it have a clear place it has the primary place; i.e. safety culture has a clear relationship with domino 1.

Moving back to the cheese for a moment. Let me put it to you that the cheese identified by Jim Reason is not a two dimensional construct as commonly thought. If we accept that we have all these cheese slices with holes in them (potential system failures) it stands to reason (no

pun intended) that the speed at which the slices move around the plane is going to have a direct relationship with the number of times the holes are going to line up; and when they do you have

49 Falconer, B., (2005). “Cultural Changes in military aviation: Soft Issues at the Sharp End”. Human Factors and

Aerospace Safety Journal, 5 (1), pp. 61-79. 50 Laing, R., (2003). “Safety in the Oil and Gas Industry - An Operator's Experience”, Construction Safety Awards,

London December 9, 2003 51 Flin, R. & Mearns, K. (2002). “Factoring the human into safety: Translating research into practice”. In B. Wilpert & B.

Fahlbruch (Eds) Systems safety - Challenges and Pitfalls of Intervention. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 52 McDonald, R., (1997). “Empowering and Motivating Grassroots Staff to Take Ownership of Safety Management”,

Offshore Safety Management Conference, Marcliffe Hotel, Aberdeen, 29th September 1997 53 Birsstejn, T., (2006). “Establishing Best Practice Strategies To Optimise The Performance Of Your Contractors: Tackling

The Soft Issues Not Usually Contained Within A Contract”, The 5th Annual Pan European Assett Management and Plant Maintenance Summit, October 2006

54 Schein, E. (1992). “Organisational culture and leadership” .2nd Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass



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an accident/incident (system event). So what is it that determines the lateral movement of the cheese? Surprise, surprise. I am going to put it to you that the culture that exists within the organisation is that which provides these controls (system stability). In other words the healthier and robust is your safety culture the less movement or vibration of the cheese. You have just been introduced to the “vibrating cheese” model of accident causation.

I am sure you have seen the journey coming around the mountains and where have we ended up. We have ended up, thus far, looking within manufacturing history, leadership, management, applied safety research, models of accident causation. Within all of these small journeys we find a common element; the human condition. Deming, Maslow, Bass, Avolio, Kouzes, Posner, Collins, Bennis, and Broadbent all seem to reading from the same, or very similar, songbooks. Such acknowledgement requires leaders within the business to take far closer looks at their own safety behaviours. Before we start dealing with that “sacred cow” let’s take a small deviation in the journey; to use more appropriate language we might call it a small detour.

Those who are regularly exposed to my own work shall know that I have been known to become a little lateral in my approach to the subject at hand. To this end let us take a brief journey into the world of Karl Popper and the philosophy of science. Popper is arguably the most influential scientific thinker of the 20th Century.

We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of the fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating. This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies. (Paraphrased from Karl Popper55).

The way in which we believe things occur determines how we will respond and attempt to manage them. An analysis of accident causation in many ways is an examination of our own philosophies and/or prejudices. It is therefore culture, time and place specific. If one believes that people are dying from the plague because of selective retribution from God for past sins, then the way this risk is managed will be different from the society, which believes in germ theory.

So let’s spend a moment considering how we attain these philosophies. Knowledge is acquired and processed in the context of world views, of systems of knowledge and of cultures which people share and regularly confirm to each other (I hope you thought that bit was important). It is built into existing frames of reference, evaluated and selected, and meaning is attached to it, and tied into the historical experience of a given social environment. It is neither autonomous nor objective but rather bound into those social conditions under which people live, and influenced by the social position of an individual in his or her society and their respective material living conditions. The sociology of knowledge has provided ample evidence for this and many empirical studies have explored the images of society held by different social strata and professional groups56. Such paradigms which are relatively resistant against change do also exist in science, as Thomas Kuhn has argued57.

In everyday life, we accept a statement as “true” if it is confirmed by the rules of everyday experience, if it seems reasonable, if it is held true by people we love and respect, or if it is confirmed by secondary information. A statement is taken to be “scientifically true” if it has been published in a highly reputable volume and is taken for granted by respected scientists, or if it has been tested according to the rules of scientific methodology. Karl Popper insists that the truth of a statement can never be objectively confirmed in scientific rigour and that the scientific method exists to falsify well-established hypotheses, and thus gradually narrows the field of potential truth58. It does not count very much in real practical research sadly, because new hypotheses are being continuously generated and tested in the hope of

55 Popper, K., (2002). “The Logic of Scientific Discovery,” Routledge Classics: Taylor & Francis Books 56 Mannheim, K., (1956). “Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge”, Routledge & Kegan Paul: London 57 Kuhn, T (1996). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, University of Chicago Press 58 Popper, Karl. (1960). “The Poverty of Historicism”. Routledge & Kegan Paul: London



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verification (not falsification), while sets of well established hypotheses being falsified is the exception. In other words those of us sitting in the Universities are more concerned about supporting what we believe, and often designing our experimentation etc. with our “philosophies and prejudices” in mind. Not quite the way it is supposed to work. Safety research is rarely any different.

In extra-scientific everyday life, sensual experience, the opinion of a reference group, although sadly it is mostly the mass media, prove to be the relevant proofs of truth. In most of the sciences the empirical proof of truth is made by statistical tests based on probability theory, while quoting from the bible, or from a classical author has lost its persuasiveness (although in some cultures this measure of truth still exists).

How about we end our detour into the philosophy of science at that point. If there was a point it was to point out that there is a great deal of flexibility in regards to what constitutes a “true” theory. I would put it to you that such applies equally powerfully to the “theories” of accident causation and their safety related outcomes.

If you really want to try and stretch those little things called synapses and neurones let’s play with another “sacred cow”; the concept of Zero Injury.

1. Do you believe it is attainable? 2. On what fundamental belief do you base this conclusion? 3. Is it based upon your historical experience? 4. Is it what you want to achieve for business outcomes? 5. Is it something you focus upon for a competitive advantage? 6. Is it just “right”?

You therefore have a number of competing philosophies which all have their own prejudices attached to them. Let me suggest to you that large numbers of your workforces generally do not believe that Zero Injury is attainable; despite your best efforts, at times, to convince them otherwise. Why do we know this with some certainty? Because of the many people who have been asked this question directly and anonymously (n>20,000)59.

To consider this from a quality perspective just reflect on the principles of the Six Sigma approach. This is one of the most aggressive quality systems available and it statistically acknowledges that “perfection” is unattainable; although success can be “pretty close”60. If we apply Six Sigma to Zero Injury we are forced to acknowledge that we shall always have a system event within the sixth sigma; not zero (pretty close though). This does not mean your goal should not be Zero Injury; you might need to think about that for a while.

Allow me to approach this from a slightly different angle. What I have coined the “world view of accidental influence”.

On Tuesday October 18th 2006 Angelo Margiotta was sitting at his breakfast table enjoying his tea and toast when suddenly the roof of his home exploded61. There but for the grace of God was the end of Angelo’s life. A large ten (10) inch bolt had suddenly penetrated the roof cavity of his home. Now consider Angelo’s situation from the increasingly common view that all incidents/accidents are preventable. Further, consider Angelo’s experience specifically from Angelo’s world view. What control measures could Angelo have reasonably put in place to avoid this occurrence.

1. Slept in 2. Skipped breakfast 3. Worn Helmet

4. Whatever else you can come up with…………………………

59 Pitzer, C., (1999). “Safety Culture Survey Report – Minerals Council of Australia”, Publication of The Minerals Council of

Australia, PO Box 4497, KINGSTON, ACT, 2604, AUSTRALIA 60 Pande, P.S., Neuman, R.P. Cavanaugh, R.S. (2000). “The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Top

Companies are Honing Their Performance”, McGraw Hill, New York:NY 61 Jones, G., (2006). “Falling bolt lost from jumbo hits mans home”, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney: Australia, October 19th



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I would propose that from Angelo’s own “world” there was nothing that he could do. There was absolutely nothing that Angelo could do or say that, from the perspective of his own “world”, would have any influence on the outcome. Indeed there are so many competing influences on the outcome of that bolt that it is actually ludicrous to allocate any responsibility toward causation toward poor old Angelo. Yet we so often do. We have been habituated to find the easiest explainable solution to the outcome. This

situation is influenced by so many “worlds”. Immediately surrounding Angelo’s experience are a range of possible factors that may work co-operatively or exclusively to result in the system event (looks and sounds remarkably like Jim’s Swiss Cheese). Within each of these factors there are also all sorts of influences acting upon each of those which may function co-operatively or exclusively to result in the system event. Sounds repetitive? It is! And it occurs continually and invisibly around each of us. Of course we need to function within our own “worlds” to be as safe and sound as possible (well we don’t have to, but it’s nice); even if we do so optimally, that does not protect us from the invasive influence of another “world” that might not be that far away.

There will be those that shall say there is a behavioural influence somewhere within those “worlds” that has been the trigger for the event. It is difficult to argue against that position, there probably was. At the same time there may have been all sorts of behavioural events that “should” have triggered an event, yet did not. Why not? The “Cheese” did not line up!

Our employees, who we are telling that Zero Injury is actually achievable, fundamentally and intuitively know this not to be true, from their own world view. We have not even considered this “cow” from the perspective of the Heisenberg principle, let alone considering the “observer effect” (another gem sitting inside quantum mechanics).

That concludes our sojourn into the world of Popper and the “worlds” of Angelo Margiotta. There is value in remembering here the source of our “philosophies” or “truths” and that maybe there are no real “absolute truths”; even within the worlds of safety, culture, leadership, and even manufacturing. I’ll bet you never thought for an instance that you would run into any philosophy of science at The Association for Manufacturing Excellence – Pacific Rim Conference.

Right now we need to come back to the primary purpose of this paper. Believe me the “swings and roundabouts” do help keep those synapse firing.

Transforming safety cultures within lean environments becomes even more critical the leaner the initial transitions have been. By definition the further that an organisation has been on the lean path the less “waste”, “fat”, “excess” etc should be present. Take an extreme lean view at left and see what this image has you thinking?

In the world of safety we prefer to see some degree of multiple redundancies within safety systems. What this means is that we want to see existing a number of controls that each may independently act as a “stop” to any



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system event that might be lurking about waiting for that path through the “Cheese”. For example the Boeing 747 has up to four (4) system controls for many of its on-board systems62. Within traditional manufacturing environments the consequences would rarely be seen as significant enough to warrant this level of control. The concern though is that when we have a philosophical approach to production which is, essentially, to minimise any act, practice etc. that does not “add value” to the product, we confront a risk that we may take this so far as to remove some of those redundant systems. They may well appear to not be “adding value”. Why because we have not seen them “called upon”.

The obvious conclusion then is to travel right back to Deming, and his comments concerning culture and leadership. Let’s do more than that. Let’s acknowledge that many commentators who think about this whole lean manufacturing thing happen to be saying the same thing63. Add to that a recent survey conducted by the Association for Manufacturing Excellence which identified “working culture” as the hottest topic on the horizon64. So it stands to reason we need to hone this target to the world of safety. That is “safety culture”, or more specifically “safety leadership culture”.

Earlier in this dissertation we have explored a great deal of empirical support for transformational leadership as being the soundest vehicle for completing this journey. We also have seen how the development of the Transformational Safety® Culture and Leadership Improvement System is the worlds only focussed safety driven cultural interrogation tool which allows us to achieve this particular objective. So now let’s see how it works!

It is beyond question that the optimal safety cultures typically provide the necessary support for employees to strive beyond minimal efforts. Organisations relying on conventional safety and leadership approaches often fail to inspire the necessary safety-related behaviours and attitudes in their employees eg, employee engagement, resilience, etc. In addition, these organisations have difficulty identifying, and then removing barriers to safety excellence. Although most individuals possess the necessary values and intentions, their actual behaviours may not support an effective safety culture. More recently Broadbent developed the Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System65.

The Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System has as its prime objective, one of assisting organisations gain an understanding and appreciation of their own unique safety culture, along with providing proven insights toward strategies which enable employees to close the gap between their values, intentions, and actual behaviours. The state-of-the-art application of a survey protocol targeting safety leadership behaviours, which have a foundation within transformational leadership theory, is instrumental in developing a culture which shall maximise the sustainability of effective safety behaviours within your workforce. The Transformational Safety® Survey is the only instrument available in the world which deliberately targets safety specific transformational leadership behaviours, and in so doing is able to map safety leadership improvement goals within a robust cultural framework.

The most obvious strategy, which is pretty hard to miss, is that organisations develop a transformational safety® culture throughout their organisation, and I mean at ALL levels, which shall then directly impact upon the way that all the safety “speed bumps” and “collisions” are resolved. So how do you determine where the organisation is as regards the goals of optimal safety culture and its transformational safety® leadership framework? Firstly we need to gain an appreciation as to where the organisation is placed against these unique parameters of Safety Culture and Safety Leadership. The Transformational Safety® Survey, an integral component of The Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System, has

62 Dell, G., (1999), “Safe Place or Safe Person: A Dichotomy or is it?”, Safety Science Monitor, Vol l3. 63 Emiliani M.L. & Stec, D.J., (2005), “Leaders Lost in Transformation,” Leadership and Organizational Development

Journal, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 370-387. 64 Hall, R.W., (2007), “The Culture Thing”, Target, Vol 23, No 1. pp. 4-5. 65 Broadbent, D.G. (2006), “Leading your Safety Culture toward Best Practice; Integrating the Transformational Safety®

Culture Improvement System within Traditional BBS Programs”, Proceedings of Safety In Action ‘06, Melbourne Exhibition Centre, AUSTRALIA, 16th – 18th May 2006



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two primary components that have been strategically integrated to allow an organisation to gather this information quite seamlessly, a third component is developed to explore site specific workplace behaviours. If you have a closer look at the model presented you can see aspects of the more traditional behavioural safety systems; particularly when we look at Site Specific Workplace Behaviours. A fundamental premise here is the acknowledgement that the leadership behaviours demonstrated within the organisation, particularly the safety leadership behaviours, have a critical impact within the psycho-behavioural triggers of operational workforces.

Part A of the Transformational Safety® Survey is targeted at the construct of Safety Culture. It uses a Likert scale survey methodology, in conjunction with formal 1:1 survey structure to interrogate a number of well validated cultural dimensions. Using the unique safety-plex© to display the results, organisations are able to compare their safety culture against work units, departments, geographical locations, etc. The actual items of the Transformational Safety® Survey are components of a fully researched and factor analysed safety culture instrument. Part A of The Transformational Safety® Survey was developed by The University of Loughborough's school of Safety Science66. When developing transformational safety® within an organisations’ culture we are always trying to move our cultural dimensions toward, or ideally inside, the “green sone”.

Part B of The Transformational Safety® Survey is based upon the thinking of Joseph Rost67, James McGregor Burns68 and the later developmental work of Professors Bernie Bass69 and Bruce Avolio70. In this component of The Transformational Safety® Survey System we build on the powerful work that has come before with a specific targeting of safety leadership behaviours. Part B has been developed around the authors own experience in applied safety management and observation of safety cultures, whilst also being synergistically related to the constructs developed by Professors Bass and Avolio, though with a powerful safety leadership focus.

66 Cox., S., & Cheyne, A.J.T., (2000), “Assessing safety culture in offshore environments”, Safety Science, 34, pp. 111-

129 67 Rost, J., (1991), “Leadership in the twenty first century”, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport: CT 68 Burns, J.M., (1978), “Leadership”, Harper and Roe Publishers, New York:NY 69 Bass, B.M., (1985), “Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations”, New York: Free Press 70 Avolio, Bruce J. (1999), “Full Leadership Development: Building the Vital Forces in Organisations” Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.

2.00

4.00

6.00

8.00

10.00Communication

Personal Priority/Need for Safety

Supportive Environment

Priority of Safety

Competence

Personal Appreciation of Risk

Managing Change

Work Environment

Co-operationInvolvement

Safe Behaviours

Systems Compliance

Management Commitment

Shared Values

Management Style

Safety Rules

Accidents & Incidents



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Sample Items from Part B of The Transformational Safety® Survey

13. My line/manager supervisor talks in such a way that I believe the safety goals set for this

workplace are actually achievable

14. My line manager/supervisor will always collect a wide range of opinions when considering

matters of workplace safety

15. When my managers and supervisors are talking to me about workplace safety I feel they are

genuinely interested in what I have to say

16. My line manager/supervisor is very clear about who has to be doing what to make the workplace

as safe as possible

17. My line manager/supervisor keeps a record of all safety issues at the workplace and speaks

about them often

18. My line manager/supervisor is pretty much “hands-off” when it comes to safety

Sample Items from Part B of The Transformational Safety® Survey

Within Part B we take advantage of the same colour metaphor that was used in Part A.

What we know from the huge research base that explores the impacts of transformational leadership competencies on outcomes is that there are different levels of application which constitute best practice. We know that the highly transactional competencies of “policing” and “dealing” are required though within only a certain degree of application. A culture which is essentially grounded within “policing” shall be highly autocratic, involve a lot of injury hiding, and likely develop an underlying sense of dishonesty.

When it comes to the transformational safety® dimensions we do not wish to see any in red (to be in red is “dead”), or if they have to be present, only in infinitesimal proportions. Those Amber Zones indicate presence of safety leadership behaviours that are required in an effective safety system, though they are not being displayed optimally. It is when your transformational safety® leadership behaviours are shown to be demonstrably “green” that you are giving your safety system the power of transformational leadership

competencies. Part B of The Transformational Safety® Survey has the ability to separate the result profiles based upon level of leadership within the organisation. This is critical data if an organisation is attempting to determine the levels of leadership within the organisation that shall most benefit from targeted transformational safety® interventions.

The Transformational Safety® Survey is able to be provided using a range of delivery systems. By far the most powerful and valid administration of The Transformational Safety® Survey is using the patented wireless delivery system. Wireless delivery allows there to be no impacts associated with literacy, and allows complete anonymity; maximising more robust result profiles.

2.00

4.00

6.00

8.00

10.00The Invisible Man

The Fireman

The Policeman

The Dealer

The White KnightThe Carer

The Innovator

The Motivator

The Missionary



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Having completed The Transformational Safety® Survey organisations are well placed to assess their position toward a Best Practice transformational safety® system. Part C (customised behavioural safety indicators) also allows the organisation to map its own unique outcome measures (beyond those traditional LTIFR metrics).

Let us now have a look at some graphical representations of how Transformational Safety® Culture Survey results can assist organisations place their safety cultures into some sort of developmental context. If one looks at the image presented we find that those organisations who demonstrate a profile with a lot of red safety leadership behaviours (primary behaviours consistent with The Invisible Man and The Fireman) are actually demonstrating a safety culture which is significantly "at risk". Whilst they might occasionally delve into some of the transactional leadership competencies this is generally inconsistent in its application. Rarely do cultures based upon invisibility and fire fighting develop toward a healthier safety culture without some sort of cathartic impact.

Let us move on to a transactional based culture. These cultures are heavily based around observed behaviours and dealing with the employees, by way of risk/reward systems. There are regularly both overt and covert reward systems in place. It has to be said that the regulatory compliance pressures and statistical measurement systems often encouraged (read legally required) by authorities, encourages the maintenance of these more traditional systems.

The more traditional safety systems have islands of recognition around the values associated with particular leaders. Why do some team leaders have “safer” work teams than others doing the same or similar work. It has been shown it is not because of the “size of the stick”. It is the quality of the leader.

The contrasts, or inconsistencies in approach, often continue to show themselves though. These types of cultures also tend to show ‘icebergs of avoidance’. In other words there are occasions where the passive-avoidant approaches of invisibility and fire-fighting continue to show some presence. This is a significant problem and is frequently a source

Passive-Avoidant

The Invisible Man The Fireman

Dangerous Workplaces

Transactional Leadership

The Policeman

The Dealer

Expected Effort Only

Average Safety

Performance

Transformational Leadership

The Motivator

The Knight The Innovator

The Carer The Missionary

Heightened Desire to reach safety

leadership outcomes

Exceptional Safety Performance

At Risk Safety Culture

Visual depiction of the impacts of Transformational Safety® Leadership Behavioural Competencies upon Safety Culture

OptimalSafety Culture

Passive-Avoidant




The Policeman

The Dealer


Average Safety

Performance


The Motivator




leadership outcomes


Traditional BBS Programs


OptimalSafety Culture



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of concern for those running these programs.

We often here managers saying things like, “they have done it right before heaps of times, why did they take a shortcut today”, “surely they know by now we want to know about repairs that are needed”. Similarly we equally frequently hear operational employees saying things like, “they just kept telling us how many millions this order is worth and the company needs to deliver on time to win the contract”, “every time I tell them we need new tools you’d think I’d broken it on purpose. You might feel these statements are exclusive, and they are, and they occurred in the same workplace, and they were made about the same incidents. I am also hoping you are seeing the failures of safety leadership present here.

It is evident from this graphical depiction where transformational safety® leadership behaviours need to develop. The whole “oval of influence” needs to consistently move toward the right and encompass more of the transformational safety® leadership behaviours.

Note well, a highly functioning transformational safety® culture does not discard the transactional styles of “policing” and “dealing”. We recognise these are effective approaches when utilised strategically within a primarily transformational culture.

The goal of any transformational safety® culture is to “live in the green”. As you can see it is fine to visit the “amber Zone” when circumstances require, and we know there are times when that may well be the case. They

are strategic visits though. What you will notice is that there are no visits to the red. Once again we think of this Model as wanting to be “seen on green”. We do not have any desire to be “dead in red”.

It is when these actions occur, more often than not, that the system begins to reap the rewards so regularly associated with transformational culture.

If we take this even a further step forward we are now also able to look inside the beliefs of our work environments to gain a far more focussed understanding of how the business sees itself in regard to engineering toward a transformational safety® leadership culture. This way of looking at “transformational safety®” provides a very simple and visual way of appreciating a very powerful set of beliefs about safety leadership functioning within the business.

Now it is appropriate to place all of this into a visible construct that delineates the impacts of different concentrations of transformational safety® leadership behaviours on the overall safety performance of the organisation.

It is also now possible, using the analysis of transformational safety® leadership competencies within an organisation, to map that organisation’s position on The Transformational Safety® Maturity Model.

Passive-Avoidant




The Policeman

The Dealer


Average Safety

Performance


The Motivator




leadership outcomes


Transformational Safety Culture


Optimal Safety Culture



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The Transformational Safety® Maturity Model is very roughly based around the paradigm of noted humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow. Essentially at the bottom of the pyramid we have the most basic safety management behaviours that might be implemented. We have seen how this particular group of safety leadership behaviours are actually dangerous. With contemporary research showing this to be true, organisations that knowingly continue to operate cultures consistent with “invisibility”, in particular, may well place themselves in precarious positions, should regularity authorities take an interest in their safety systems. One only has to explore the outcomes of numerous incident investigations conducted globally71,72,73,74. A very recent publication is well worth exploring, Andrew Hopkins explores the very real impacts that poor leadership had upon the Gretley Mine Disaster in NSW Australia which resulted in multiple fatalities75.

As we move upward on the pyramid we begin to see more appropriate safety leadership behaviours coming into play within the business itself. The fact that these are being independently observed by the workforce is concurrently positively impacting the overall safety culture of the organisation.

Through the preceding landscape we have explored the evidence supporting the argument that your leadership behaviours have a clear and measurable impact upon the outcomes being experienced by, and within, your business. Of this there can be no doubt. We have specifically looked, in some detail at the world of lean manufacturing and incorporated understandings from within that framework. When strolling through the mire of leadership theory we have seen evidence which places transformational leadership well and truly in a league if its own. In other words, we have seen the very powerful impact that effective

71 The CAIB Report (2003), The Columbia Accident Investigation Report, Columbia Accident Investigation Board, US Doc No

CAIB PA 40-03, Copies of the CAIB Final Report can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).

72 Mac, P (1999), “The Longford Catastrophe: what price safety?”, The Guardian, No. 964, 28th July, 1999. p12 73 Dawson, D & Brooks B. (1999), “The Esso Longford Gas Plant Accident”; Report of the Longford Royal Commission,

Government Printing Office, Melbourne, Victoria 74 Hopkins, A (2002). “Lessons from Longford: The Trial”, CCH Australia, ISBN 1-86468-688-X 75 Hopkins, A., (2007), “Lessons from Gretley: Mindful leadership and the law” CCH Australia



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leadership, particularly transformational leadership, has been shown to have within corporate outcomes generally, and more particularly within the real world outcomes of safety.

I have attempted to demonstrate, from a number of sources, the powerful probative value of safety culture as a foundational element within any workplace safety system. When we consider the need to have systems operating optimally within organisations that are running within lean contexts this becomes more evident. The issue of “amplification” of error has been noted. There is now no doubt that without an effective safety culture the evidence clearly shows that you could end up having the most number of fatalities and severe injuries within your industry76.

We have introduced the world’s only safety culture assessment/improvement system which has been strategically developed to interrogate the constructs of safety leadership from a transformational perspective.

At this point your patience is to be rewarded. Have a shot at completing the Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey – Individual Form (Abridged). This is not, in any way, a replacement for the more structured culture system. It does though allow you to gauge a basic understanding of where your own particular safety leadership approach may sit against the Transformational Safety® leadership competencies. If you find yourself away from the “green”; just concentrate on demonstrating more consistently those behaviours isolated by the items where you may be “struggling”. It really isn’t “rocket science”.

Finally By adopting an integrated approach to the implementation of Transformational Safety® within your organisation’s cultural systems, the evidence clearly shows direct and indirect impacts upon safety outcome measures77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84. In striving toward a Best Practice implementation of Transformational Safety® 85 the integration of the Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System would be the strategy of choice.

76 Bergman, L., & Barstow, D., (2003). “A Dangerous Business”, A FRONTLINE co-production with The New York Times

and The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 77 Geyer, A.L. & Steyrer, J. (1998). “Transformational Leadership, Classical Leadership Dimensions and Performance

Indicators in Savings Banks”. Leadership Quarterly, 47, 397-420. 78 Sarros, J.C. and Santora, J.C. (2001). “Personal Values and Executive Leadership: Global Comparisons and Practical

Implications”, Paper presented at the 2001 Academy of Business and Administrative Sciences International Conference, Quebec City, CANADA, 12th – 14th July 2001

79 Page, A., (2004). “Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses”, National Academies Press, New Your:NY

80 Krause, T., & Hidley, J., (2004). “The Art of Collaboration”, Perspectives in Behavioural Performance Improvement, July/August.

81 Yule, S.J., Flin, R., & Mearns, K. (2002), “Managing Director Influence on Safety Performance”, Proceedings of the 25th Congress of Applied Psychology, SINGAPORE

82 Yule, S. (2002). “Do Transformational Leaders lead Safer Businesses”, Proceedings of the 25th Congress of Applied Psychology, SINGAPORE

83 Flin, R., & Yule, S. (2004), “Leadership for Safety – Industrial Experience”, Qual Saf Health Care, 13 (Suppl II): pp 45-51. 84 Barling, J., Moutinho, K., & Kelloway, K.E., (2006), “Transformational leadership and group performance: The mediating

role of affective commitment”, Working Paper 00-07, Queens School of Business, Queens University, ONTARIO: CANADA

85 Copyright © 2007, David G Broadbent – All Rights Reserved:

David G Broadbent asserts his rights, in accordance with the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, to be known as the author of the concept “Transformational Safety” and “Transformational Safety System”.

The phrase Transformational Safety® is a registered trademark and incorporates The Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System, The Transformational Safety® Survey, and The Integrated Safety Culture Assessment© Model incorporating the Observational Protocol.



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David G Broadbent Technical Safety Specialist – Global

David G Broadbent Technical Safety Specialist – Global TransformationalSafety.Com Alliance House 12 Ken Tubman Drive, MAITLAND, NSW, 2320 AUSTRALIA Tel: +612 49343653 E-mail: [email protected] Skype: d.g.broadbent

PROFILE A highly experienced and innovative corporate and counselling psychologist who has synthesised these frameworks into a value adding experience for a large and varied customer base. David is very focused upon the needs of his customers and this is evidenced by a business that continues to prosper within a referral network created by customer satisfaction. David has highly developed interpersonal and groupwork skills and this has resulted in recognition both nationally and internationally for his pragmatic ability to deliver the most complex information in an entertaining and successful style. David’s expertise in the world of occupational safety is highly regarded and he is regularly sought after as a speaker at conference venues and corporate events throughout the World. David is the Creator of the internationally recognised Transformational Safety Model and regularly assists organisations assess and develop their safety management systems toward worlds Best Practice.

SKILLS SUMMARY Metallurgist, in a “past life”, makes David one of the very few Safety Psychologist’s in the

world with such a powerful industrial history.

Highly experienced Groupwork Facilitator.

Demonstrated Program Development skills within a variety of industrial environments.

Leadership Development and Change Management strategist within organisational settings.

Developed and implemented the POWER© Management Systems; an integrated management skillset collection.

Development and provision of Safety Management Systems for both domestic and international consumption.

Creator of the SAFE-T-NET Technologies; which is an integrated suite of safety products that place safety system development within an empirically based psycho-behavioural framework – and in multiple languages as well!

Internationally recognised as one of the foremost commentators on Full Range Leadership and associations with corporate and safety outcomes.

Industrial History and a pragmatic ability to relate within all levels of an organisation; from the Stock Room to the Board Room.

Industry leader in the development of Trauma Recovery Solutions within organisational frameworks.

Experienced presenter to both small groups and large convention centres.


CAREER HIGHLIGHTS Director of Strategic Management Systems; a customer focused organisational

psychology practice.

Development of a trauma education package for one of Australia’s largest multi-national corporations.

Creator of The Transformational Safety System©; the World’s only integrated safety culture assessment system incorporating Transformational Leadership© Theory.

Creator of the SAFE-T-NET Technologies; a fully integrated multi-lingual relationship based safety development system.

QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor of Arts (Psych-Hons) - 1987

Certificate IV in Assessment & Workplace Training – 2000

Advanced Trauma Specialist – International Critical Incident Stress Foundation - 2000

Advanced Coach – MLQ Leadership Development Systems – 2001

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY Managing Director - Strategic Management Systems Pty Ltd Incorporating: The Leadership College – Leadership Development Solutions throughout the Asia-Pacific The Safety Site – International Provider of Integrated Workplace Safety Systems DG Broadbent & Associates – Organisational and Counselling Psychologists TransformationalSafety.Com – Integrated Safety Culture Analysis and Reporting Key Deliverables: Leadership Development Designed the Lead to Succeed© Program - An outcome oriented leadership development program

incorporating Full Range Leadership principles.

Developed Good to Greater© - The Asia-Pacific’s first experiential workshop incorporating the seminal works of Jim Collins’ Good to Great.

Developed Project to Success© - A Project Management education primer with particular emphasis upon integrated leadership competencies.

Created the ATLAS© Paradigm: A leadership competency framework for developmental coaching.

Safety Culture Analysis Developed and implemented the Integrated Safety Culture Assessment© model drawing upon

contemporary safety culture research.

Regularly provides strategic advice to both domestic and international clients in regard to safety enhancement programs.

Developed and provides a cross-cultural multi-lingual safety culture assessment system.

Created The Transformational Safety System©: The worlds first fully integrated safety culture enhancement system incorporating Full Range Leadership Theory.

Created the Process Safety Questionnaire (PSQ) – the Worlds first integrated Process Safety perception survey instrument.


Occupational Health and Safety Assisted a key regional employer reduce their workers compensation exposure from $1,200,000 to

$60,000 across three (3) years.

Assisted a key regional employer improve their occupational injury return to work rate from 35% to 100% within a twelve (12) month cycle.

Developed an integrated EAP/Injury Management System for a high stress work environment which improved return to rates from 0% to >80% within a twelve (12) month cycle.

NSW Workcover accredited Rehabilitation Provider with the highest sustained Return to Work Rate for the preceding fifteen (15) years.

Has assisted global corporations with review and design of safety management systems.

Designed and implemented the globally recognised Safety-Net Technologies – an internet based safety system library targeted at maximising employee engagement with “The System”.

Internationally qualified to audit against ISO18001: Occupational Health Management System Development and Implementation.

Nationally qualified to audit against AS/NZS 4801:2001: Occupational health and safety management systems - Specification with guidance for use.

Coaching Foundation Member of the International Association of Coaches (IAC).

Regularly provide corporate interventions using industry recognised coaching frameworks; eg GROW, ACHIEVE, and the IAC-15 Proficiencies.

Risk Assessment Development and implementation of Australia’s only risk management training programs based

upon Operational Risk Management (ORM) principles: the risk management protocols utilised by the US Navy Seals.

Regularly conducts Risk Assessments/Incident Investigations for numerous organisations.

Trauma Management Provider of Trauma Recovery Solutions throughout Australia

Advanced qualifications in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM)

Technical Adviser to the AMCOR Global Trauma Education Program – involved film scripting, on-camera involvement, and individual training of actors etc

Creation and publication of the “Managing Trauma in the Workplace” Employers Guide – individually licensed to workplaces.

PAPERS PRESENTED “Leading the Way to Optimal Safety Performance”, A Global Developmental Workshop for the International Council of Mining and Metals, The One Great George Street, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, 24th- 25th March 2011

“Developing a Functional Safety Culture through High Reliability Operations”, Health & Safety: Cultivating High Reliability Organisations in Africa: South African Academy of Occupational Safety and Health, Southern Sun Grayston Hotel, SANDTON:JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, 26th – 27th January 2011

“The Development of The Transformational Safety Culture Improvement System and its application to safety improvement within the Petrochemical Sector”, XXVIIIth International Congress of Applied Psychology, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 11th – 16th July 2010

“Transformational Safety Leadership: It all comes home to South Africa – From Bass to Broadbent”, A Professional Development Workshop convened by Murray & Roberts Cementation, Lonmin Resources and the South African Chamber of Mines, Lonmin Game Farm, RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, 23rd September 2009


“Situational Awareness and Collective Mindfulness: A powerful combination to address Human Error outcomes in South Africa”, The 6th Annual SAFEmap Africa Competency Based Safety Conference, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, 18th September 2009

“Culture & Leadership: An exothermic business transaction”. TRANS-NET Professional Development Symposium, Corporate Training Centre, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, 17th September 2009

“Developing an effective Safety Culture framework within a global business identity”, The Vesuvius Asia Pacific Safety Symposia, The Sarjuna Resort, KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, 4th – 7th August 2009

“Effective Safety Leadership - Transforming Safety Leadership within High Reliability Organisations”, The 4th Total Safety Culture Conference, Amora Hotel, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 28th – 31st July 2009

“Oh !@#$!, Where did that come from”, Keynote Address, Safety Institute of Australia Queensland Conference, Brisbane Conference and Exhibition Centre, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA, June 18th 2009

“Misdirection, ,misperception, and misunderstanding: An experiential journey through some of the “white noise” surrounding behavioural safety systems,” 2nd Annual BBS in Heavy Industries ASPAC Conference, Rendezvous Hotel, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 27th-28th November 2008

“Transformational Safety and Local Government: The Challenges of Transitional Environments,” The Workplace Health and Safety Conference 2008 ; The Times They Are A Changing, Local Government Association of Queensland, Gold Coast International Hotel, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, AUSTRALIA, 7th – 9th May 2008

“Transforming Safety on the Veldt: A safari through the land of safety leadership with special reference to the South African context?” The SAFEmap Africa Competency Based Safety Symposium, Airport Sun International, Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA, 14th September, 2007

“Leading Lean: Transforming your Safety Culture within Manufacturing during the 21st Century?” The Association for Manufacturing Excellence – Pacific Rim Conference, Sofitel Convention Centre, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 14th-17th August, 2007

“Safety Culture, Employee Participation and Engagement “, SAFEGUARD National Health and Safety Conference, SkyCity Convention Centre, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, 30th April - 1st May 2007

“What kind of Safety Leader are you?”, SAFEGUARD National Health and Safety Conference, SkyCity Convention Centre, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, 30th April - 1st May 2007

“Transforming Safety – Beyond Behaviour and Towards Belief”, Keynote Address, New Zealand National Workplace Health & Safety Awards, SkyCity Convention Centre, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, 1st May 2007

“Safety Leadership and the Cultural Framework: Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling of Safety Performance”, Safety in Action 2007, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 20th – 22nd March 2007

“Leading your business toward the Holy Grail: A transformational exploration of how your leadership impacts safety performance", The Safety Conference 2006, Sydney Olympic Centre, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 17th – 19th October 2006

“Leading your Safety Culture toward Best Practice: Integrating the Transformational Safety Culture Improvement System within traditional BBS Programs”, Safety in Action 2006, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 16th – 18th May 2006

“Maximising Safety Performance via Leadership Behaviours”, 28th International World Congress of Psychology, BEIJING, CHINA, 8th -13th August 2004

“Leadership Styles and their Impact upon Safety Outcomes”, Transfield-Worley Best Practice Conference, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, 22nd – 23rd March 2004

“Managing Traumatic Incidents in the Workplace”, Futuresafe 2001, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA, 6th -8th June 2001


“Critical Incident Stress Management in the Workplace”, Huntersafe 2001 - Managing Workplace Risk, Newcastle City Hall, NEWCASTLE, AUSTRALIA, 8th – 9th March, 2001

"Occupational stress and rehabilitation; The need to give 'em EAP's", Third National Employee Assistance Professionals Association of Australia Conference, 9th -10th November, 1994, AIRPORT SHERATON, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

"Occupational Stress Management: A practitioners perspective", Professional training developed for Queensland Psychology