Becoming a Trained Observer
I frequently reference the time where I was responsible for the behavior-based safety process in the manufacturing facility I worked for locally, as well as the support I provided other sites across North America, but I don’t think I’ve ever shared much about my initial exposure to the idea; two days of training to become a behavior-based safety “observer” in addition to my role operating a stamping press. I can’t say that I was very excited about sitting through two full days of training. The part I liked most about my job at that time was that there were very few things that could hinder the results I achieved throughout the day, so I was typically full speed ahead - all the time (at work and in basically everything I did away from work, too). Being confined to a chair in a training room for back-to-back days at that stage of my life was the closest thing I had experienced to torture.
I could go on for days about the opportunities I’ve had since, because I survived those two days and took some of the things I learned then to heart, but the main point I’ll call you attention to here is the importance of being able to recognize individual behaviors without attaching them to beliefs, motives, or intentions. Listening to what someone tells us can provide a tremendous amount of information, but the behaviors they choose on a daily basis - whether those behaviors coincide with or contradict their words - provide us with a complete picture of where their priorities lie, for whatever reason.
A core tenant of the behavior-based safety methodology was to watch a peer perform their job for at least ten minutes to develop a reasonable understanding of how they really do it. When the process was rolled out corporately, one of the major concerns was that folks would simply change their behavior while they were being observed, then revert back to any at-risk behaviors once the observation was complete; and that’s where habits come into play! We were trained to observe for at least ten minutes. Someone could likely avoid the risks they’d normally take for a few repetitions in their routine, but their habits nearly always took over after seven or eight minutes. The final few minutes of observation were nearly always where we’d get a complete picture of what their “normal” approach to any given task was.
The most valuable part of the behavior-based safety model was the feedback we were trained to provide to the individual we observed immediately after. It was our responsibility to explain the specific things they did to avoid or mitigate hazards and to point out any behaviors that exposed them to potential injury. In many cases, the individual being observed didn’t recognize how close they were to a slip, trip, cut, bump, or bruise. Sometimes though, after asking several of those open-ended questions I mentioned earlier, we were able to discover that the risk was indeed something they were aware of but they felt like this was something they had to do to get the job done; due to time pressure, lack of training to do it another way, or not having a feasible alternative.
For our purposes here, I’ll challenge you to consider a time where you’ve gotten out of bed in the morning and decided that getting stitches was something you wanted to do that day; your day just wouldn’t be complete otherwise… That’s ridiculous, right? No one would ever wake up with the intention of getting hurt and needing stitches! Regardless, people still choose behaviors every single day that leave them exposed to potentially injuring themselves in a way that requires stitches.
We’ll rarely hear someone say that safety isn’t important to them, but I’ve personally observed at-risk behavior thousands of times. Tying this back to the importance of a definite purpose, our team members will seldom tell us that they’re not interested in performing their best or creating a better lifestyle for their family. However, there will be times where their behaviors do not line up with the goals they’ve shared. While we should always be listening to what our team members tell us they value, or what they want to achieve, we’d do well to trust what their behaviors show us. If what they’ve shared is something far different than what their actions could possibly result in, part of our leadership responsibility lies in digging deeper to identify their individual purpose. When we see this type of disconnect, there’s always something behind it.
Action Speaks Louder Than Words
As a kid growing up, or even as an adult, how many times have you said this to someone (or heard it said); “Action speaks louder than words!”? Anytime I hear that in my head, it’s in the voice of Margaret from the original “Dennis the Menace” series or Judy Hensler from “Leave it to Beaver”, and packed with sarcasm! But regardless of how snarky either of those characters may have ever been in chirping that at Dennis or Beaver, the phrase itself holds true. As we lead our teams and work to help them identify their individual purpose, listening to what they’re telling us and learning to observe the behaviors that follow provides a solid foundation. All too often though, we’ll see significant disconnects between those two things. In complete transparency, I have an ongoing internal battle to not immediately write these folks off as dishonest. As easy as it would be for me to do that, I’d be dead wrong in many cases.
Consider this: how often have you been part of a group that held a strong shared belief? Regardless of what that belief may have been, when enough influential members of that group speak strongly about it, there’s a natural tendency for others in the group to migrate in the same direction. I could go so many directions with examples of this - philosophy, religion, politicks, etc. - but let’s stick with something we’ve all likely experienced in the workplace; the standard approach to career progression. In What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!), I shared how I had frequently poked at my friend Phil about applying for supervisory and management roles. He had been one of the best assembly line leads in the facility for years; that would have been the next normal step, right? That’s exactly what I had seen a ton of other folks do, folks who had similar technical skill sets but had earned far less influence and respect from the teams they worked with. I’m sure there was a time or two where I even made the case that I thought he “deserved” to be a supervisor more than some of the ones who followed that path. Thankfully, for a lot of reasons I won’t go into now since I covered them in that chapter on “The Cost of a Poor Promotion”, Phil was strong enough to push back against what anyone else thought was best for him and back his beliefs (and words) with action. But how many times have we seen others apply for and accept roles because that’s the next step in the journey someone else painted on the back of their cereal box? And how often have we seen some of those same folks struggle mightily in leading the teams they took responsibility for, all while being completely miserable?
Now that you’re nodding your head, and probably picturing some folks you’ve seen do exactly what I just described, I want you to consider how much more often this happens with someone saying they’re interested in or motivated by something simply because they feel like that’s what they’re expected to say, then take action leading in a completely different direction… I’ll share once more that I’ve historically been really quick to consider this kind of variance between words and actions to be a character flaw; I saw it as dishonesty. While I’m sure you and I can each list our fair share of people who are prone to telling what Huck Finn referred to as “stretchers,” I now understand that many people do this in an attempt to avoid even the slightest bit of confrontation; they find a level of peace and harmony in maintaining the status-quo.
As leaders, recognizing the differences between what a team member shares through their words and tells us with their actions, and understanding what could be causing the variation, can be a huge piece of helping them latch onto a true definiteness of purpose.
Why the Mismatch?
The things we learn by asking our team members the right questions, then actually investing the time to listen to their replies, and by intentionally observing their behaviors provide a tremendous framework for understanding what makes them tick - even with the occasional mismatch between what they’ve shared as goals or desires and the actions they take toward those stated objectives. To earn authentic influence with our teams and to really help them work toward their own individual purpose, ideally one that connects well with our clearly stated organizational purpose, we simply can’t write off any mismatch we see between their words and actions as dishonest or uncommitted. We need to work to understand what’s really driving that difference.
My tolerance for “news” from the mainstream media is extremely low. The little bit I absorb during the 10-minute elliptical warm up I do on gym days is all I can stand. Even then, I do all I can to focus on the more realistic options - like videos of people falling down, or whatever - but at least half of those TVs in the gym at 6:30am are tuned to an agenda driven channel. The level of BS coming from any one of those channels at any time is more than enough reason for each of us to develop a belief that society as a whole is screwed. Much like that constant barrage of doom and gloom, my time in human resources exposed me to some of the most undesirable scenarios that I’ve ever had to deal with. Think about it, nobody goes to the HR guy with something good to say… Addressing so many unsavory situations, much like the so-called “news” that any given mainstream media outlet wanted to shove down our throats, left me a bit jaded toward people in general. I developed a keen eye for catching any possible disconnect between what someone said and what they did, and I was quick to form an opinion based on that.
With that in mind, I’ll share something that I truly believe - but something I have to intentionally remind myself of on a regular basis: the majority of people that you and I interact with on a daily basis are genuinely good people who are incredibly honest and very willing to work hard. Despite what the media attempts to feed us or what we experience from a specific cross section of society, there are indeed a lot more good people than there are bad. Praise God for that!
Here’s where you may be wondering how I can believe that and still reference the stats John Maxwell shared with me about the number of folks who fall short of meeting expectations; in August 2015, he told me that 80% of the people around will not fulfill what’s expected of them. Truth be told, I’m convinced that the percentage is actually higher today - but I still believe the vast majority of those people are good folks. I believe that particular disconnect stems from two things: unclear expectations on the front end and a lack of accountability on the back end. Couple that with not having a clear individual purpose driving them, or a definite organizational purpose to completely commit to, it’s kinda hard to even question many of them for not meeting expectations!
As we lead our teams, recognizing the mismatch between their words and actions, then working to understand where that comes from, will be a solid starting point in helping each of them identify their own individual purpose. Then we’ll have a baseline to work from in order to connect what drives them to what we’re working to achieve as an organization. I have no doubt that you’re thinking this sounds like something more complicated and more involved than you possibly have time for. With the right tools though, understanding what’s behind their words and behaviors, and providing the communication each team member needs to connect those dots in their own mind, can be an extremely simple process so we’ll dig into that soon!