When confronted with the challenge of finding the starting thread in any safety engagement, the cliched act of jumping into a dip check assessment has become stereotyped. Each organisation is unique in terms of culture and its operating point on the maturity curve. There is no pre determined copy-book style to block paste . One has to understand the organisation bottom up. The depth of understanding of safety at all levels starting from the top leadership level is key.
CXO selections are not necessarily swift with Safety on top of the list of interview questions. Hence the top leadership is a mixed bag of varied understanding and definitive appreciation of the subject.
I have seen that in many organisations the leadership commitment is not always very lacklustre but the moot point is the hued perception of what really is the need of the hour . There is always a deathly silence in the room when this question crops up. Questions orbit around – “Where do we start?”. “Who would tell us what to do next?”. “What should or short term focus be?”. “What should be our long term goals?”.
In order to get answers to these one has to dig deep into the level of engagement at all layers. The diligence and the grain alignment on Safety. One has to hit the trenches and have deep conversations and make necessary interventions to prove the point. Gauge the depth of awareness of every aspect of the tenets of Safety. Capture the aspect of risk perception and coalesce top organisational risks. Create buzz around those risks with formation of COE teams and train and drive the teams to get cracking on those risks with benchmarked solutions.
Great Leadership orientation converges on metrics that capture the culture and constantly nudge the organisation towards building that culture brick by brick , through actions that reinforce values . Get leadership to engage on shop floor and make them feel the pulse. Many such actions can aggregate to architecting solutions to Successful Safety Journeys.
SHYAM SUNDER.
Emprocon Consultants LLP 