Building Trust and Safety in the Workplace
Shownotes
Today I want to talk to you about a topic that has been pivotal in my career and in my passion for all things communication, manufacturing and championing people in business. And that is Visible Felt Leadership.
An incredibly important and valuable concept that you can embrace and use in your business to help you to show you care, change and strengthen your culture and ultimately future-proof your business.
The key benefits of felt leadership
When you lead with safety you change the whole way of doing business and approach.
It helps break down barriers and opens up two-way communications and constructive conversations.
It creates trust within your business and with your key stakeholders
It helps you to build a strong and engaged team.
Develops a “great” brand and builds credibility- to attract the right kind of people and long term customers who expect safety to be at a high standard.
It demonstrates respect and support for your employees
It is a great way of learning more the behind the senes from all parts of the business
and ultimately improves your bottom line.
Lucy Rennie Resources:
Future-Proof your Business Webinar 18th April - free interactive workshop
https://www.iamlucyrennie.com - free downloadable resources, other episodes and more information about how to work with Lucy.
Join me in my membership The Future-Proof Club®️ here -
Come and join me and lots of other small business owners like you in my FREE Facebook group: CWP (Communicate with Purpose) Group | Facebook
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[00:00:00] Lucy Rennie: Welcome to the Future Proof of Business podcast. I'm your host Lucy Rennie. And first of all, I just wanted to apologize to you for missing an episode last week. And apologise to Jo, my amazing Jedi producer. Yeah, it's one of those weeks where because I hadn't managed to get ahead because I've been juggling lots of different things recently client work took priority and that's just the decision that I had to make.
[00:00:23] Lucy Rennie: Client work and family family priorities. And Yeah, I'm here on Saturday morning just before I go off for the day at Take Parts where my daughter is about to have her first principal role on stage. So my tummy is a bit of a bit of a rollercoaster, as you can imagine. I am here recording this episode for you.
[00:00:42] Lucy Rennie: So yeah, and. What else did I want to tell you? I also wanted to tell you that I have got now the Millennium Falcon on my roof and it's been life changing. So for all of those people who followed know that my Wi Fi has been dire and it's been an absolute nightmare over the last gosh five years since we moved here.
[00:00:59] Lucy Rennie: I think even with BT business, they could guarantee us just like maybe 14 MBPS and zero upload. We used to laugh with Joey, the podcast, that actually it took a day to upload it to where she is in Lanzarote to be able to edit it. Whereas I could go to the hairdressers and within 10 minutes, if I uploaded it there, it was done.
[00:01:17] Lucy Rennie: Whereas now. We have found the best thing ever and it's literally, it's a Starlink if you're interested. And yeah, if you want to know what it's, what it is, just ping me a message. I'll send you some information, but it's literally a big, excuse me, satellite dish kind of thing on the roof of the house that is literally zoom, beaming down wifi from.
[00:01:35] Lucy Rennie: from the universe and it's life changing in every way, whether that's just the removing of the stress and the worries of what might happen when something goes wrong with the Wi Fi. It's just life changing. Anyway, that's enough of me catching up with where we are today. But yeah, genuinely if you're struggling because you live on a side of a hill like me in the countryside Let me know and I will send you
some information.
[00:01:58] Lucy Rennie: Coming back to today's episode I actually wanted to talk to you today about a topic that genuinely has been really pivotal in my career and Has been part of what's created the passion that I have for all things communication, for people, for manufacturing and just really creating that joy for what you do in an engaged team and loving, business and all those things.
[00:02:20] Lucy Rennie: And it's also what, Being part of, or is at the heart of my inside out approach that I yeah, I talk about pretty much all the time and that I use to work with the majority of my SME clients. And this topic is what's called visible felt leadership. Now, I'm not sure if you've heard of it before, or maybe you do use this concept in your business today.
[00:02:39] Lucy Rennie: But wherever you are on the journey, I think it's incredibly important and it's a really valuable tool that you can embrace. In whatever business actually that you are that you have and you can really use it to, to show your care, to change and strengthen the culture, your culture. And ultimately, it's a massive driver in helping you to future proof your business and create a business that runs well, into the future.
[00:03:03] Lucy Rennie: That's sustainable and yeah, in all the right ways. If you have. And you are using it already, then, use this as a lot of reminder and a nudge because having, a refresh or just that little nudge, the power of that and remind, remembering just, to focus on it is never a bad thing, as you'll know, I'm sure.
[00:03:20] Lucy Rennie: My, my journey with felt leadership started gosh, way back in 2005, 2006 when right at the beginning of my kind of journey in the steel world, when I joined what was called Arcelor at the time that was basically the equivalent of British steel, but in Europe made up of the French, the Belgian, the Spanish, the Luxembourgish, et cetera.
[00:03:39] Lucy Rennie: And at the time, my first job was working as an executive assistant to Patrick Gatineau, who was the, what they call the president or the CEO of Arcelor in France. And I was, yeah, working behind the scenes with him. Basically an executive assistant kind of Pretty much doing all of the work with him, shadowing him, traveling
around.
[00:03:58] Lucy Rennie: Particularly cause obviously I was bilingual, so I was able to help him with his English cause a lot of what he was doing at that point was the beginning of kind of, yeah, using English every day, which was interesting for him. And it was also the beginning of creating a structure for internal communications at that time as well.
[00:04:13] Lucy Rennie: So it was. God, it was so exciting. And I can't believe it's so long ago. And honestly, I genuinely loved it. There was great teams, great work, great atmosphere. It was hard work. We were in the office at eight o'clock. It was full on, but we were, the, yeah, the industry was great.
[00:04:28] Lucy Rennie: And. It was just a joy. I was learning so, so much, but at the same time we were killing people.
[00:04:36] Lucy Rennie: Yeah. And I think one of the hardest, but also the most valuable experiences for me in my career has been being part of that senior team and managing or yeah, working behind the scenes. On the consequences of a fatal accident. Um,
[00:04:57] Lucy Rennie: We were killing people in the sense of it was a brutal world. So one guy I remember sadly was killed in between the buffers of a train within the factory. Another man fell from height. So from a roof, and these are just two examples. And so for me being a part of that.
[00:05:18] Lucy Rennie: Scenario being part of that world, being part of those decisions and that those actions that were needed to be taken and listening to the investigators describe what was happening in detail and working through, to find the root cause of those accidents and actually understanding the majority of the time that they could have been avoided because.
[00:05:40] Lucy Rennie: It was either human behavior or because something hadn't been done or because it was a cultural aspect or because somebody hadn't checked or somebody hadn't used their harness or somebody was walking somewhere that they'd always walked. But actually it wasn't, where they were supposed to walk, but they'd been doing it for years and years.
[00:05:56] Lucy Rennie: So walking through Those accidents was just heartbreak. I can't, if you know me, you'll understand. You can imagine it was heartbreaking. And also then, so working through the plan of how to communicate to the teams, to their colleagues working behind the, with the CEO and the senior team to and the HSE team, the health and safety team, to help them to prepare, to meet the family, to yeah, All those things that go on and again, probably that's a whole series of episodes where we can work through, crisis communications and what we do and how we deal with those things.
[00:06:31] Lucy Rennie: But today this is more about a shift. I'm going to talk to you about how, because of what was going on, the decision was made to look differently at things. And I can genuinely promise you that there's nothing. That makes you think differently about things than that when you are dealing with a fatal accident.
[00:06:48] Lucy Rennie: So somebody has died in your workplace, and ultimately, The CEO and the senior team, it's, they're responsible for that. So back then the incredibly ambitious, I can remember this, like it was yesterday, but there was an incredibly ambitious decision was made at that time at Arcelor Groupwide.
[00:07:07] Lucy Rennie: So this is where there was almost, I think there was 350, 000 employees in the business at that time in the organization. And the ambitious target was. An ambitious target. Yeah. The ambitious goal was set to launch the Journey to Zero initiative. And this was basically a journey to zero accidents.
[00:07:27] Lucy Rennie: So a move towards, a place of work where literally we obviously weren't killing people, but actually we weren't, to remove all accidents from the workplace and ultimately create a safe space to work. And. For that to happen, it was a move towards a new culture. It was a change.
[00:07:47] Lucy Rennie: You had to change the behavior. You had to think about these things don't happen immediately. And it's very easy sometimes when we're on the outside to go, why is he doing that? Or what's that mean? And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how we can bring this back to ourselves and our behavior and what we do as humans.
[00:08:03] Lucy Rennie: I can remember my grandma in the back of the car holding a seatbelt here saying, it's okay, I've got it. I've got it. It's, I think until we start noticing things, we don't realize actually how or what we're doing in the world and the way that we do regard safety. So this decision to move towards this kind of journey to zero, the implications of that and the work that was going to be.
[00:08:26] Lucy Rennie: Needed to get there was just huge. And so one of the key elements that kind of is important within this process, and again, I'll talk more on this in future episodes. But it's a real shift. So the goal to get to that zero accident yeah, that zero accident, that safe place, the goal is to ultimately move from a reactive culture, which is where our teams, our people are doing things because we're telling them to do it.
[00:09:00] Lucy Rennie: So maybe they are because at the time they weren't even wearing hard hats in the site, so it was. And now it became a kind of a policy. It was an instruction that it was obligatory. If you're going to work in the, on the shop floor, you had to wear a hard hat. And at that time it was incredibly reactive in the sense that, they were literally putting them on as the senior team walked by or the, the supervisor, and then they'd take them off again because it was just a bit like, when you're a child and you that you shouldn't be, I don't know.
[00:09:27] Lucy Rennie: Swinging on the sofa and then mum comes in and you jump off and then she goes out and you jump back on again. You're not really thinking about what you're doing. And so the move was to get them from that reactive behavior towards a more independent behavior. So thinking and putting it on actually, because they, they understood why to ultimately.
[00:09:46] Lucy Rennie: The goal was to create an interdependent culture where actually they were looking after themselves and they were actually saying to their mate or their colleague, stop doing that. That's not safe. Or think about what you're doing or where at the end, I've seen it where the guys or the teams would be.
[00:10:04] Lucy Rennie: stopping maybe a visitor on the shop floor and saying, hold on a second, you need to be wearing your ear protection or you should be wearing steel cap shoes. So that interdependent state where you're not just thinking about yourself, but you're thinking about others. And this is a concept that works Across, this is why I love it so
much.
[00:10:20] Lucy Rennie: It's because it works across all areas of the business and not just safety. This is about creating an engaged culture, one that isn't just in silos or isn't just about oneself. It's also thinking about the team and the wider context. And This is what we call this is what we started to think about.
[00:10:39] Lucy Rennie: And so how are we going to do that? We knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix. And this is where the introduction of Visible Felt Leadership comes in. So what is it and what do I mean by that? And how can you use it tomorrow? And I talked about being a mum and having the kids jumping on the sofa.
[00:10:57] Lucy Rennie: It's pretty much the same thing at home. So you can use this, across the board. But basically what it is, it's about doing the right things. Being seen to do the right things and then actually being believed that you really do care about doing the right things and that people should do the right things, and that it's not just talk.
[00:11:15] Lucy Rennie: So you're not just saying, Oh, wear your hard hat. And then actually going away and really not really thinking about it. And you're just saying it because you know that you should be saying it. You're actually saying, put your hard hat on because you care that those people are going to go home safe from work.
[00:11:29] Lucy Rennie: Okay. And it's the same going back to my grandma with her seatbelt, if you're going around and you're telling the team maybe to wear their seatbelt on their forklift truck, or you're telling your kids in the back of the car to put the seatbelt on, but then you drive off without your seatbelt on from the site or from home and you're seen.
[00:11:47] Lucy Rennie: It's completely, it undoes and unravels everything. And it's that juxtaposition, that disjoint between what you're saying. So do what talking the talk and actually walking the talk. Okay. So it's not rocket science at all. But it's incredibly important. So you have to remember as well that, it was the steel industry.
[00:12:06] Lucy Rennie: So it was dark, it was dingy, it was really industrial and predominantly big guys, heroes that had ultimately been doing the same things all their life in the same way. And it's that culture,
isn't it? That habit of it's this is how we've always done it. This is the way we do things around here.
[00:12:21] Lucy Rennie: And that's incredibly tricky to, To change, to, to encourage people to think differently about things. And it's really the, ultimately it's where my belief in the fact that, you'll hear me talking about all the time about it starts with you. And when I'm working with my senior teams Today, you'll hear me talking all the time about actually how much it has to start from the top.
[00:12:42] Lucy Rennie: It has to come from the top. We have to have that direction that we have to lead by example. It has to come from, it's no point coming from a middle manager if people think that The CEO or the top manager isn't aligned or isn't on board with it. Okay. So it's really important that even if you are maybe listening to this and maybe you've got a boss who doesn't believe in this kind of thing, but you do passionately, then even if you go ahead and do all those things, you're going to make some impact.
[00:13:07] Lucy Rennie: Absolutely. However, because you haven't got the buy in and because that, there's a, misalignment between the top of the organization and you there is going to be a disjoint and it's not going to be as effective so it really does have to start with you at the top. Once you see it, and you see this happening, and once you see, particularly in safety, and culture, and thinking about doing things in a safe way, and the risks and when you witness the change in behavior it, it's incredible.
[00:13:36] Lucy Rennie: It's once you know, you can't unknow it. And I really am now fully converted, particularly when, in terms of safety. Moving from those. First few years were that heartbreaking, those heartbreaking stories and dealing with the aftermath of killing people to actually changing that behavior and seeing the impact, not just on safety, but actually on the whole organization, because you've now got a team working together is just priceless.
[00:14:03] Lucy Rennie: And it comes to the fact that, I'm one of those people now that I will literally, if I'm walking down the street and I see a welder, who's not wearing his glasses or it's something's not safe or is on a ladder or whatever it might be in a, I can walk through a shop floor of a client. And if something isn't right to me, I will be that person that will say stop.
[00:14:19] Lucy Rennie: And ultimately that's what we want in this culture is to give. Empower our teams and our people to feel comfortable enough in the sense of to feel safe that it's okay to say stop in the name of safety because that's unsafe and not fear the wrath of the boss who's coming in going, no, I've got to get that out tomorrow because the client's coming and da.
[00:14:40] Lucy Rennie: And it's that shift. And yeah, it really isn't a quick fix. It took years and I think it's still an ongoing thing. It's not something that you can just go, yeah, we've got there. And then actually, you take your foot off the gas and it all keeps going. It's not, it's a continue.
[00:14:52] Lucy Rennie: Once you start this journey, it's a continuous journey because you've got to feed it. You've got to look after it. You've got to keep it going. And you'll know that from if you're a parent or with different teams that you're working with that focus has to be there. And. Yeah. So ultimately, my work, my audit, my programs, the strategies that I do with working with the SMEs that I've worked with is ultimately starts on the inside.
[00:15:13] Lucy Rennie: And, excuse me, that inside out approach. There's a whole part of it in my book as well, in terms of that that leads into business communications and ultimately coming from the top. And. It's interesting because generally I'm so lucky because the majority of the businesses that I work with and the people that I work with, their leaders, they really do care about their employees.
[00:15:34] Lucy Rennie: I'm genuinely like blessed in that sense. And gosh, that's another conversation for another day in terms of how that happens. We do care about our employees, don't we? And we do. Want to build a business that, that runs well and it works and that's got an engaged team and everyone's proud to work there and all those things.
[00:15:51] Lucy Rennie: But sometimes we find it really tricky to demonstrate how much we care and to get that message across and. If we're not demonstrating it, if we're not actually thinking strategically about how we can show that we care and that it really does matter and that actually it's not just about the money or the deadlines, those kinds of things, how can your team actually know that you care?
[00:16:12] Lucy Rennie: And so it's one of those, isn't it? It's like a chicken and egg. If we want the team to be safe or want the team to be doing things, and feel that they care, they need to understand that as well. If we want to get their trust and we want to get their buy in and we want them to, to own it and to be in that interdependent state where they're actually looking after each other, then and we want them to think about doing things in a new way or changing the way or just even just, challenging how they've been doing it to make sure that it is safe, then, We need to change things.
[00:16:40] Lucy Rennie: And that's where the visible felt leadership comes in. And ultimately I think one of the definitions I've got here and I'll pop it in the show notes is it's the net result of your actions. So felt leadership is the net results of your actions of how you communicate and the relationships that you build.
[00:16:53] Lucy Rennie: And again, coming back to, if you knew me and I'm always talking, aren't I, about people and how it's, it's creating that Powerful relationship with your teams and building that engagement. This is what we're doing. And it's. works the same for everybody at all levels, regardless of where you are.
[00:17:10] Lucy Rennie: Everybody needs to see and feel that, there are high standards and expectations and we ultimately want everybody to accept a strong commitment to, whether that's safety and in this case, that's what I'm going to be talking about, but it needs to be It needs to be that kind of yeah, it just needs to be real.
[00:17:27] Lucy Rennie: And you can tell, can't you? That's when the trust comes when you actually, you believe in the, in what somebody's saying and that it's not just a, and so this works the same wherever you are in the organization and whatever level it's, we all need to feel, people need to feel or they need to, yeah, they need to feel valued. They need to feel that, they are cared for and they need to see. I feel that to believe it. Okay. And it works the same in terms of a leader setting high standards.
[00:17:52] Lucy Rennie: So if you, this is why it's really important to come at the top. So it starts with you because actually it's you that's going to set the bar. So if you're saying actually we don't really, it doesn't really matter. Actually, let's just get on with it and do it. And let's not think
about the possible risks or the machine breaks down.
[00:18:08] Lucy Rennie: And we need to turn it around quickly because that order needs to get out the door. So let's not. Turn it off. Let's not think safety and do the lockout tag out on all the different bits and pieces that you need to do to make sure it's safe before you then intervene in the machine. If we've not got that, and we are, really focusing on the, yeah the production side of it and the getting it out the door side of it, then people aren't going to.
[00:18:30] Lucy Rennie: change because they know actually if they start saying we need to stop and do it and take the time to do it properly, they're going to get a good shouting out from whoever and feel, they're going to put the business at risk. And so it's that shift, okay, wherever you are, whatever part of the business, it has to come from the top that expectation that you can do things properly and in a safe way.
[00:18:51] Lucy Rennie: And those standards are there for people to start changing that behavior. It's really important. Some of the benefits that actually, once we can get this going, and I'm a such an advocate for this. But particularly again with safety, it's if we can really start thinking safety first It changes everything.
[00:19:08] Lucy Rennie: It ripples through all areas of the business. And very often I will be working with a manufacturing business who are literally just bringing in like an outsourced safety person, and it's viewed as rules and regulations. It's things that they've got to, procedures, policies, those kinds of things.
[00:19:23] Lucy Rennie: And for me, that's not what safety is about. Yes, of course, there's laws and things that have. I'm in place and that's because, it's been so unsafe, but actually if we can create this culture, if we can change the way that we view things, if we can create that interdependent state of being within our business, then everything else is impacted in a positive way as well.
[00:19:43] Lucy Rennie: And so it's almost like we need to switch, reframe, flip it over, put the focus on, building this. business that's safe, ultimately and everything else will follow. And that sometimes takes a while for me to be able to convince. The senior teams to be able to do that because for them, it's just another tick box exercise and it's
somebody who's coming in going out, you can't do it this way and you can't do it that way.
[00:20:06] Lucy Rennie: Whereas actually if we can involve the team, if we can do it on an inside out way, then actually that's when the magic happens and that's when, we can impact all areas of the business. And ultimately, this is at the heart of all things manufacturing. This is the culture, the team, the safe way of doing things is what drives that.
[00:20:23] Lucy Rennie: So some of the benefits, I made a list here, but some of the benefits just to show you what can happen from starting this visible felt leadership. So it ultimately creates trust because actually what you're doing is you say you're doing what you say you're going to do. What else do you need for trust?
[00:20:38] Lucy Rennie: You are, you're not saying one thing and then doing something different. You are actually, genuinely showing that you care. And so all your ways of being when somebody doesn't do something in the right way, et cetera, then we have to follow up on that. With trust comes then a strong team and engagement.
[00:20:53] Lucy Rennie: And again, this is one of the things that I work really hard with behind the scenes with my clients is the focus on this because actually if we can really create that team, we're going to, we're actually going to ultimately improve the bottom line. So everybody's a winner. But also, like I was saying, when you lead with safety, you're changing the whole way of doing business and your approach.
[00:21:12] Lucy Rennie: And so I really do encourage you to start looking at it differently. And ultimately we want to be even tracking, again, I'm going to bring on some guests who can properly talk to us about the ways of, and how's of managing safety behind the scenes with all the technical aspects, but we ultimately want to go from, Those accidents, whether that's a serious accident or whether it's just even like a, sometimes what we used to call was a, what we call is a near miss.
[00:21:37] Lucy Rennie: So even something that nearly happened, but didn't, needs to be tracked and investigated because actually that, that could have been in other circumstances. And actually we want to get rid of all of those as well. And Yeah, I'm going to bring somebody on who can talk to us about how we can, the tools that we need and how we can
do that.
[00:21:53] Lucy Rennie: But I've worked with a lot of experts who can do that in that sense and help us to to set that up in terms of how we track results and all those things. But ultimately we want to be tracking, we want to have it in almost like an upside down triangle. So as many, tracking as many near, near misses as possible so that we can then resolve them and move them forward.
[00:22:11] Lucy Rennie: But also just sometimes the culture aspect of actually, It's putting your hand up and saying, gosh, this nearly happened. It didn't, but I just want to say I nearly crashed into this or I nearly tripped over that, or, I put my hand in there and I realized I shouldn't have, and it could have been this.
[00:22:26] Lucy Rennie: That takes a huge culture shift for somebody to feel comfortable enough to say that and track it and record it. So it really is. Instrumentals for your business, for your brand. And linking into that, it feeds into your brand and your reputation and the values and all the things that you are doing behind the scenes to ultimately meet those high standards and stand out from the competition.
[00:22:49] Lucy Rennie: Particularly in manufacturing, those kind of bigger areas. If you are looking to work with the larger corporations, the larger organizations, this is going to be a minimum. They're going to be expecting this. This is a, it's like a no brainer. It just, it should be happening. And so starting to implement this now and being able to showcase your strategy, what you do, your campaigns and how you work with your teams on this on this journey is vital.
[00:23:13] Lucy Rennie: If I'm honest it's everything. And so again, the same in terms of like recruitment and bringing, being that magnet that brings in the right kind of the right caliber or the right kind of people. We want to be attracting those people who ultimately get it and care and want to be a part of a business that actually does care.
[00:23:28] Lucy Rennie: And it's not just a nine to five show up and go home. It helps as well to find out more about the business. So from safety would then lead into kind of like the lean manufacturing and the the 5S and all the different things that come with that, that because we've already started this in terms of safeties, it's already broken some
of the barriers down and we can have those two way communications with the team and those constructive conversations.
[00:23:50] Lucy Rennie: And if somebody is able to hold the hand up and say, look, this nearly happened, or actually I don't think that's safe in that sense, that then going to be more open to doing that in terms of maybe continuous improvement and thinking about how actually. Maybe a better or more effective way of doing something within the production line or within the organization.
[00:24:07] Lucy Rennie: So it, again, it's that ripple effect. And it really does help to build credibility, particularly, with the teams in terms of those conversations and really actually, keeping your word, keeping your promises and showing that actually, this is actually real.
[00:24:20] Lucy Rennie: It's not bullshit and you do genuinely care. And also, just as a team, as a leader, it's a great way of learning about other parts of the business and, creating that open and transparent culture where you do know what's going on and you can then you can first of all, bring joy and have fun, but also it means that you can listen.
[00:24:35] Lucy Rennie: So if there's always something, a niggle or there's something, you can actually capture it and react and manage it. Quickly rather than letting it fester, which is very often what happens. And so what are the next steps? If you wanted to maybe think about implementing this, how can you do it?
[00:24:49] Lucy Rennie: And what do you need? What, how do you go about starting this journey? And today I just want to touch on it really lightly, but I'm really happy to have a conversation or signpost you or talk to you about the work that I do. In terms of, diving a bit deeper, but ultimately what we want to be thinking about is as.
[00:25:06] Lucy Rennie: A leader with your team and we're pulling down through the organization. We want to think about how can you communicate, how can you show, how can you demonstrate that you are doing the right things so that actually people can feel that, believe it, and that you are, Influencing and driving and focusing your energy at the right things for you, for your business and for your teams.
[00:25:27] Lucy Rennie: So basically the doing as I say, and as I do, not
the doing as you say, and not as I do. Okay. So being authentic and really walking the talk on the shop floor, in the office, like I said, about the seatbelt, when you get in the car, if you've been talking about being safe and doing all those things, do not get in the car and then drive off without your seatbelt.
[00:25:44] Lucy Rennie: Don't drive off with your, on your mobile phone. It's got to be that complete consistency wherever you are, whether you're at work, whether you're at home, whether you're in the office, whether you're at the football ground in the weekend. It's got to be embedded in you and you've got to have that approach.
[00:25:58] Lucy Rennie: It's got to be consistent. And so if if you want to get your team feeling confident about what you're doing
[00:26:05] Lucy Rennie: And you want to start that journey. I really would suggest that having a conversation is the first place to start. So it's funny, isn't it? But for years and years, and I still hear it now. We talk about where. When you go for your, maybe your what you call it, your check ins, your appraisals, your discussions.
[00:26:23] Lucy Rennie: Very often we're told, aren't we? And we learn on leadership courses, how to be a good leader is to take the emotion out of it. So not to take things personally. Not to get too involved or not to feel too much or not to Yeah, not to take it personally. It was so many times I was told, don't, you're taking it too personally or you're getting too emotional about it.
[00:26:40] Lucy Rennie: And I'm here today to say, actually, no, it's the opposite. And actually we need to make it personal. Okay. If we're going to change the way that we look at safety and the way that we behave in the way that we work as a team, we have to make it safe and we have to make it personal. And what I mean by that is actually to be really, impactful and to make a difference, then people, individuals, me included, you included, everybody. If we want people to think of the wider team, and we want people to think, interdependently, as I was talking about, then We actually have to start with ourselves and it almost links back to Maslow and his hierarchy of needs.
[00:27:13] Lucy Rennie: And again, that's another topic for another day, but people need to feel and understand their role. So they need to know,
what part they play within the wider organization. What's the, how are they valued? What's the, why do they, what, why is there. Role, important. What are their responsibilities and how do they fit within the bigger picture?
[00:27:31] Lucy Rennie: They need to understand that and be really clear about it before they can then start to think about, okay. So yeah, this is the bit I play. I'm feel valued. I'm here. And then I can now start to think about everybody else. So actually making it personal and having those conversations and those connections and making sure that people, understand that is really key.
[00:27:48] Lucy Rennie: And as we then shift to moving around this culture, one of the great ways of doing this is to get them to think about the idea of
[00:27:59] Lucy Rennie: coming to work and going home to work in the same state. So ultimately we want to, our job in our work is to look after our teams and make sure that we've created a safe environment so that everybody can come to work and go home to work in a fit state so that they're not going home with a finger missing or with a bruise on their back because of.
[00:28:22] Lucy Rennie: I don't know, a steel beam's fallen on them or maybe, and this again, we can take this further into mental health and being and all those things. But right now, let's just talk keep it simple. So in terms of safety, so the concept is that, so we want to start, get them to start thinking about that.
[00:28:36] Lucy Rennie: And one of the things actually, a great exercise maybe that you could try out and sometimes it's good actually to have somebody neutral that comes in because it allows you to ask those questions and start thinking a bit differently and But one of the things we did was I was I've done this with a few clients actually, but we call it the
[00:28:52] Lucy Rennie: So
[00:28:52] Lucy Rennie: one of the things that we did was a workshop called This is Us. And it's basically where we brought all the teams together from the whole site. So there's 250 odd employees. And we got them together and we took them off site and we had a massive room
with lots of round tables and we mixed them all up.
[00:29:06] Lucy Rennie: And one of the activities was actually to get them thinking about themselves. So going back to making it personal and I asked them to identify all the people that depend on them, all the reasons why they come to work, all the people that they are. They look after or that they care for, they've got in their life, people and also pets.
[00:29:22] Lucy Rennie: So they were writing things down they've got a wife or a husband or a partner, or they've got five children or 10 grandchildren, or they've got cousins and aunties or mom and dad or they've got a neighbor or they've got pets or whatever it was, they were building their picture of, why they needed to come to work and these people were depending on them and all those things.
[00:29:41] Lucy Rennie: And then we start to think about, okay, so what does that mean? So why is it important to them that actually, they come to work in a good way, that they get their salary because, ultimately we're all going to work as well to meet our physiological and needs. Care and provide for ourselves.
[00:29:56] Lucy Rennie: And get them to think about all of those things and really tap into kind of why they do what they do and why, what do they enjoy about their job? What is it about? Why do they come here and not there and all those things and start to think about their story and maybe capture some anecdotes of.
[00:30:09] Lucy Rennie: And then we did a little bit of a quiz where we asked everybody to write down on a piece of paper, something that's a little bit different and maybe other people don't know about them. And we did that secretly. And then we did a bit of a competition. And so what we did was we pulled out of the hat, Oh, this guy's been And I don't know why this is coming to my head, but he's been in, he's ridden on an elephant in the jungle, or he's been, um, an Olympic swimmer, or they've met I don't know, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, all these different things.
[00:30:35] Lucy Rennie: And we had a bit of fun where everybody had to guess who it was. And it was really nice because it started to create those relationships and look at people, not just as a colleague going to work and doing the thing, but actually looking at people as real people
and starting to get that emotion going and seeing people in a different light.
[00:30:49] Lucy Rennie: And also it was a bit of good fun. Because actually there was some really wacky things that were going on. That was, it was, if you can get people to be really brave and own up to things or do things, it was good fun. So that was the first part of it. And then what we did was we collated all those information, all those, that data that we got in the beginning per table, and we started pulling it together into a numbers game.
[00:31:08] Lucy Rennie: And actually what we had at the end of the activity was 200 people. So let's say there was maybe like for each person had, let's say just for this, for my easy maths doing this live, but maybe they had kind of 10 or 15 people that were dependent on them, whether that was kids, family, et cetera. We multiplied that per table.
[00:31:25] Lucy Rennie: So if you had 10 people around a table and each of them had, say on average, 10 people, that was a hundred people per table. And then we multiplied that by the 20 tables in the room, you can imagine. And so that actually then became, this is us. And then we built that picture and we made a big collage and all those numbers that it was like, we've got so many husbands and wives, we've got so many partners, so many elderly parents, so many kids, so many grandkids, so many cousins, so many dogs, so many hamsters, gerbils, so many, maybe it was your, some of them, it was they coach the local football team on a Saturday or they I don't know, help out a local charity or they do all these different things.
[00:31:58] Lucy Rennie: And what we were able to do then was bring together a picture that allowed us to see actually we need to look after everybody because all these people are depending on us to cope to look after each other and to go home safe. Wow. And then it happened. That's when the click happened. That's when people started to see differently.
[00:32:13] Lucy Rennie: And then what we did then moving on from that. Episode that that activity was again, it was something that is recurring. So we go in and we refresh that and we nudge it, but actually we've put up on the front of the at the production site, we've got those numbers. And we update them. So if somebody that, suddenly becomes
a granddad for the third time, we include that and we update those numbers a bit like you track the number of days that you've gone without an accident or, the number of parts gone out that day, et cetera.
[00:32:39] Lucy Rennie: We actually have those numbers of those. Of this is us, in full view, in the reception area and, on the shop floor and all the different places, updating in real time. And it's really powerful because it's a brilliant reminder of actually, hold on a minute you've got, you've, you can't, don't do it like that.
[00:32:55] Lucy Rennie: Just take five minutes to stop because actually your grandkids, depending on you, it's creating those relationships. My real advice, I think, in terms of setting this up and starting it is really to think about that and make it personal. So build those relationships and start to show that you actually do care and start to call people out.
[00:33:11] Lucy Rennie: If somebody is going up a ladder or doing things and they've always done it, be the person to say, stop. Let's actually walk around that hole. Let's actually, fix, either fix the hole or put a cone over it and make sure that nobody is going to get walked down that alleyway until it's been fixed, et cetera.
[00:33:24] Lucy Rennie: So those are some of the things that we can do. Another way of doing it is literally just actually go and be an employee for the day, go be, go and shadow, go and be a part of your team and see what's going on, go and ask them how they do things, go and have those conversations or simply just go and, do what we used to call it.
[00:33:40] Lucy Rennie: I'm just trying to think what we used to call it. Oh, my mind's gone blank. But basically, just like a walk to the floor. So you would literally just get into the habit of going and talking to your employees, go and talk to your team, shake their hands, say hello, ask them what they're doing, be interested in what they're doing and listen to them and notice what they're doing and ask them, is that the safest way?
[00:33:56] Lucy Rennie: Or do you think that's the, are we doing it in the right way? What do you think? Get them involved in it. And it's, it really is about creating those multi way conversations and starting to build that trust with them and showing that you care. The one key thing though, is actually, if you take away an action or you take away something or you
hear something, you have to react to it.
[00:34:13] Lucy Rennie: So that's the, that, this is the test. This is where you have, if you call somebody out or you're changing something or you've heard something or you're, you've given a promise, you must deliver on that promise because that's where the trust is going to start to build. And that's where the behavior is going to change.
[00:34:25] Lucy Rennie: And again, I think we could probably create a whole season of podcast episodes on this topic. And I am going to bring in some guest speakers, some people that I've been working with for a long time and who I'll go in and support as they implement their strategies within their big business. One of them being Carl Beckett, who I've worked with for years who now works at ThyssenKrupp, who's head of sustainability.
[00:34:46] Lucy Rennie: But I I will work very often with Carl behind the scenes to help him to build up this culture of safety by choice, not by chance. I'm working really hard behind the scenes to to help create that that felt leadership and showing you care and building the trust and all those things.
[00:35:00] Lucy Rennie: And ultimately, like I said, moving from that reactive state to that interdependent state. I'm going to finish that today. It's been quite a bit of a a journey that I want to share with you. It's something, as you can see, and hear that I'm really passionate about, and it's something that I do a lot of work on every week with different clients.
[00:35:16] Lucy Rennie: And it has to start with you, it has to start with the safety. And it starts like I said, once you can't unknow it. And it just becomes incredibly Yeah, it's just it's life changing. So I suppose really my my challenge to you is just to take a moment to check in with yourself and have a look at what's going on in your business.
[00:35:35] Lucy Rennie: Well, whatever the business is, and it doesn't always have to be manufacturing and engineering. I know I go on a lot about that because that's my passion and where I work a lot of the time, but it's also in terms of maybe an office, it might be wires, it might be the way of doing things. It might be being.
[00:35:48] Lucy Rennie: Too much on the screen all the time. There's all sorts of things, we can feed this in. But ultimately it's about doing things in a way that works, that's safe, that's healthy, that, that looks after our team. And having those conversations, it doesn't all have to come from us. The goal is really that they're going to do it themselves and look after each other.
[00:36:05] Lucy Rennie: That's the real goal. That's the journey to zero. So yeah, I would really encourage you to take a moment to check in and just have a look what's going on, just notice things and maybe just have some conversations with your teams and ask them, where do they think the priority is?
[00:36:18] Lucy Rennie: Do they think that you really do put safety first or is there this kind of misalignment and that actually they think that more, it's more about actually meeting client demands and all those things and, Just notice that and then just have a think about what that actually means for you and for the business and for them and their family and all those things.
[00:36:35] Lucy Rennie: And then finally, yeah, if you wanted to have a chat about this or you want some tools or you want to get some, wider reading or find out more, then please just get in touch, ask any questions and we, I'm really happy to have a chat and see how I can help you to, Think differently about it all.
[00:36:50] Lucy Rennie: So yeah, I'm going to finish with a lovely quote from one of the people I loved a bit, Simon Sinek, who says a team is not a group of people that work together. A team is a group of people that trust each other. And ultimately that's what we want to be building with our authentic, visible, felt leadership.
[00:37:06] Lucy Rennie: So on that note, thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share it. Cause that's the way that I can reach and impact and help more people. And even, click that subscribe button is even, is another way of doing that. And I will be back next week for another episode of the Future Proof Business Podcast.
[00:37:25] Lucy Rennie: Thanks for listening. I'll speak to you soon. Take care. Bye.