Kevin Burns Blog

Management guru, Tom Peters, at a live event, was extolling the virtues of training managers in proper leadership and management skills. One senior manager asked, “What if we train them, and they leave? He responded, “What if you don’t train them, and they stay?”

Training in leadership skills is a gamble. Leadership training is not proprietary. It is personal. If a supervisor decides to leave, the training leaves with them. Leadership skills are personal skills; as are skills in communication, coaching, empowerment, career development, team building, motivation, caring, and mentoring. But they are the skills that employees expect supervisors to have.

There's a fundamental shift that occurs the moment a front-facing employee becomes the crew's supervisor. And the quicker you understand the shift, the faster you will get the buy-in of your team.

Safety buy-in happens when you engage your people, simplify the communications, figure out the prime objective, and get supervisors on board. When you have safety buy-in, do you think you will need safety speakers anymore?

Episode 6 of the Safety Buy-in video series tackles company priorities and why you may be having a hard time getting buy-in to your safety program by adding safety as one of your priorities.

When selling your team on the benefits of safety, you must remember this one key element that is more likely to create buy-in than any compelling argument you may have for safety. Watch the video.

What happens when the word "safety" becomes a barrier to safety buy-in? It is happening with increasing frequency in all sectors and industries. And it's probably happening in your company too.

No other department in your organization is focused on negative reinforcement to try to improve performance. How did this happen in safety and why has it lasted so long?

If you've been frustrated by failed attempts to get buy-in to safety (something more than just basic minimum compliance), you are going to have to look at your engagement levels first.

Welcome to a new series of Safety Buy-in videos to help you clarify your safety message, build supervisor support, and get employee buy-in. This week we focus on complacency and adopting a mindset that complacency is a result you get when you don’t engage your people in a meaningful way.

Most companies would prefer that their employees step up and voluntarily do their best work, instead of being pushed to do the bare minimum. But while you may be focused on getting compliance, are you missing the big picture of getting their commitment?