Institutionalisation and Entrenched Behaviours In addition to considering entrenched habits and mindsets of workers, it is vital to examine the entrenched habits and mindsets of managers.
As people take on management roles, they typically adopt a 'management' perspective that includes an array of largely unconscious assumptions and biases about the people who report to them, as well as how the manager 'should' behave in relation to those workers and vice versa.
I used to deliver workshops for Tai Poutini Polytechnic's Certificate in Applied Leadership programme, and in the Leadership module, we explored a number of fascinating topics that are useful and relevant across virtually all disciplines. One topic explored the distinctions between "Management" vs "Leadership" - two complementary and distinctly different sets of skills and traits, but because the English language does not have an all-encompassing term for both, people often talk about 'leadership' when in fact they are dealing with 'management'. Management is far more concrete and usually focused on tasks and outcomes; leadership is much more abstract and focuses on inspiration, direction, motivation and other people-centric qualities. I have a document that shows these complementary skills and traits and will be happy to share if others are interested.
Another interesting segment of this workshop was demonstrating the unconscious bias of managers in their perception of workers' priorities. A famous study gave workers a list of 10 issues and asked workers to list them in order of importance. They gave the same list to managers and asked them to list them in the order they thought workers would prioritise them. The results were so different that they thought they might have made a mistake, so they repeated it. Again, very different results, so they repeated a third time. Then they decided to ask managers how they themselves would prioritise them, and it came out matching what workers wanted. It was an interesting discussion, because managers unconsciously adopted an expectation that workers would prioritise pay as the number one concern, when in fact pay came out as number 5 in the list for both groups. The top three priorities for BOTH groups included having a say in issues about their work that affected them, being supported with personal issues and concerns (e.g., flexibility around work arrangements when they had a sick child or needed to attend a medical appointment), and being given a sincere thank you for work well done.
In the workshop discussion on employee performance, we explored various options for recognition and rewards. The simplest, least expensive and most effective option for recognition and rewards is personal recognition of the individual for work they have contributed from their manager or supervisor. That can be a simple as a sincere face-to-face THANK YOU or a personal card from the manager! The least effective and most costly approach is giving a prize or bonus for team performance - yet somehow this is more commonly what managers do!
So back to the original topic. The most effective approach is to wake up to those hidden assumptions, re-visit the purpose and intent of safety policies, and ensure every policy and every procedure is designed to safely deliver work objectives, not simply bending others to the will of managers who feel they have a right to dictate how people will work in their workplace. Effective leaders have the good sense to remain receptive to workers' perspectives. Good leaders know there is power in asking questions (the one who asks the questions actually controls the discussion, NOT the person who is answering!) and nothing to fear from listening to the answers, because they are clear about their own authority to decide and recognise the wisdom of making informed and inclusive decisions.