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Safety: NOT Lost in Translation
June 9, 2015 3:16:03 PM

It was just after mid-morning break and leadership representatives from CB Radios-R-Us were beginning to assemble for the weekly safety round-up meeting. On this day, a handful of new employees were experiencing for the first time the unique style in which CB Radios-R-Us conducts all meetings. Let’s listen in:

Hank, Plant Manager at CB Radios-R-Us sits at the end of the long conference table and leans into his microphone to begin the meeting. Many of the attendees are not yet seated and ready for the meeting.

“Good morning all! Let’s begin our meeting. I have a 10-44 that is urgent. Does everyone in here got your ears on?” 

A resounding “10-4 Mr. Hank!” echoes through the room as folks take their seats.

“Let’s try to behave ourselves today. We’ve got a 10-12 situation and we want to make a good impression. Gene, give us a 10-36!” commands Hank.

“9:05 am, sir,” hollers Gene from the back of the room.

“9:05…we’re five minutes late!” Hank disappointedly shakes his head, giving a scolding look toward his audience.

“I’m sorry, sir! We had a 10-43 at the break room this morning that prevented many of us getting to the meeting on time. We’re ready now for the 10-65,” announces Jose in a respectful but not so apologetic tone.

“Okay, okay…let’s get started. Close the door Gene. We may cover some 10-35 and we don’t want any 10-77 to result from misdirected 10-5.” Hank pauses for a moment as Gene closes the door with a loud thud. 

A moment later, April quickly jumps up from her chair and makes a B-line for the door. “Sorry Mr. Hank an emergency 10-100 came over me and I got to go!”

The three new employees in the meeting give bewildered looks toward each other and wondered how they were going to understand anything at this meeting.

New employees at CB Radios-R-Us may not get the safety message because they are unfamiliar with 10 codes; hence, not translate the meaning.  Can good safety communication be smothered by creativity?  It’s possible!  Management-to-employee safety communication is critical, especially for establishing safety culture.  Many companies with whom I work have a high-level safety commitment. The challenge I see is harvesting that high-level commitment to the ranks below the management team. This management-to-employee message is where safety gets lost in translation! 

For those of you that enrolled in a communications class in the past, you may remember a communications model that looks like this:

Comms_Model

In this model, a sender (in this case, management) encodes a safety message. Next, the receiver (let’s say the employees) decodes the message as he or she receives it. At this point, a response is generated and feedback is hopefully received, affirming the message delivered its defined purpose. All the while, noise threatens the intended message in various ways. 

To apply this model, the safety message management sends arrives at its target perfectly accurate and feedback is received, affirming the success of the communication. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out this way. For example, did you know that studies have shown that fewer than 25% of employees that identify safety concerns actually speak up about them? To confirm, management has made it clear that everyone that sees a hazard is supposed to speak up. Why this outcome? Could it be a fear of retaliation, not wanting to make waves or not being heard — possibly all of the above? It’s hard to know. The bottom line is 75% of people choose not to call out hazards! Mysteriously, accountability for carrying out the point of the communication gets lost in the message to report hazards.       

The internet may not be large enough to list all of the reasons why a message does not produce a desired effect. In a June 2010 issue of Professional Safety magazine, Pamela Ferrante outlines some “pitfalls in message delivery” in her article titled “Risk & Crisis Communications.” According to Ferrante, the safety message may not produce a desired outcome because the message itself is too abstract and/or it contains rambling or examples and visual aids that are confusing or ineffective. She goes on to suggest some pitfalls that could threaten the trust a receiver has in the message’s source are the message attacks the audience, blames, it’s inappropriate, the message contains ridiculous promises or contains negative language. 

In a meeting I attended recently, a high-level manager proceeded to blame his audience. As he did so, I witnessed his safety message fall flat on the floor as those in attendance began to pay more attention to their own defensive thoughts that, at the point of blame, blocked the manager’s safety message.  That manager’s message became lost in translation. Unfortunately for that manager, the trust he possessed at the beginning of the meeting was lost after the choice of his blaming words he employed for his message.  I love this quote that emphasizes the importance of our language: “Language is the dress of thought.  Every time you talk, your mind is on parade.” (Anonymous) In this manager’s case, his language “dressed” his thought in an adversarial way, alienating his audience and misdirecting his safety message entirely. 

Every day, managers communicate powerfully and send clear messages about safety. When management’s message is received by trusting employees who then -in turn – magnify the point of the message and hold each other accountable, feedback is received and safety is achieved.  Another name for this phenomenon is peer accountability.  Matt Forck, author of Tailgate 101: Proven Stories to Begin Each Job Strong and Finish Safe, also calls this type of feedback “peer-to-peer accountability.”        

Peer-to-peer accountability works like this: Take the previously-mentioned example about speaking up about hazards. A manager tells her employees that it is everyone’s responsibility to point out hazards when they see them and encourages them to report hazards using their incident reporting process. Those same employees engage each other restating the objective and hold each other accountable to make it happen. After the meeting, two employees step over a trip hazard on their walk back to their work area. They stop, turn back and coordinate who will speak up about the hazard.  Mission accomplished!

In his article in the December 2011 issue of Professional Safety, Mr. Forock suggests a four step model for peer-to-peer accountability:     

  1. Turn peer-to-peer feedback into a skill set that is defined and even proceduralized.  Why not?  We write procedures for most everything else!  A well-written procedure breaks down the process into easy-to-follow steps benefiting those that are natural communicators as well as those that have difficulty.  

  2. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback and practice it constantly in your organization.  Replace sit-and-listen meetings with meetings that contain peer-to-peer exchange opportunities.

  3. Redefine the supervisor’s role with safety to include the responsibility of patterning peer-to-peer feedback. That supervisor will now look for evidence that peer-to-peer feedback is occurring and working as intended.  As the supervisor listens to these exchanges he will verify the correctness of the message.

  4. Finally, monitor the process for effectiveness, embrace it and let it spill over to the entire organization.

The point of implementing peer-to-peer accountability is to foster feedback that has a side benefit of support at lower organizational levels.  This sort of feedback requires trust and unifies an organization top to bottom to a common goal of safety.  If a communications model like peer-to-peer accountability is embraced and built upon a foundation of trust, there is a greater chance safety messages originating from a source and directed at a receiver will result in intended changed behavior, hence, creating safety.  You will receive a resounding 10-39 and rest assured you achieved a 10-4!  (Translated: 10-39 = message received and 10-4 = understood). 

Safety communication must not get lost in translation. If a clear message of safety is sent and saves a life, then it’s worth the extra effort ensuring “noise” doesn’t threaten your point. Let us resolve to improve how we communicate the message of safety today!   

To read more about MAU’s safety services, click here

Sources:
Pamela Ferrante, Risk & Crisis Communication Essential Skills for today’s SH&E Professional, Professional Safety Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers, June 2010, pages 38 – 45, print

Matt Forck, Leading in Accountability – A New Model for Safety Success, Professional Safety Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers, December 2011, pages 50 – 51, print