PAPod 514 - Insights and Discussions from the Santa Fe Conference

Show Transcript

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Okay, the week of September 10th, we had a little conference.

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It was in Santa Fe. You might have heard me talk about it because it was pretty interesting.

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The pod you're going to listen to is the result of that conference.

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So how's that sound? Does that sound interesting? It's not a work product.

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Don't get me wrong. It's nothing homeworky.

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It's just a little discussion and kind of the final question and answer.

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I don't think so. Hey, everybody.

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Music.

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Todd Conklin, Pre-Accident Investigation Podcast.

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It's so cool to be with you. So we had the best time, man.

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If you ever get a chance to go to one of these and want to go, jump in.

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Don't even call. Just show up. That's what I think. I'll probably get in real

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big trouble for that. But I don't care.

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It's fine with me. But we had a whole gaggle, I think that's what you'd say,

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of just fine human beings.

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It was like a collection of geniuses and beautiful people who met in a conference

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room on three of the most beautiful days in September you could have.

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That part was a little mean. I'll just grant you shouldn't be in a dark,

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stupid conference room when the weather is that nice.

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But I got to tell you, we ended up having a ton of fun. And it was just a great discussion.

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I'll walk you through what happened. So that conference is really set up for,

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it's kind of set up for, it's a place to come in and get a taste of what this new technology.

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Approach, this new practice in safety looks like, but it's also a place to bring

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your boss so your boss can get a taste for what this new practice looks like.

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Or also, there's always a group of people who come for just kind of a refill,

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a regeneration, to kind of hang out.

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And we try to do the little workshop, well, it's three days.

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So the first day is just a big, detailed, I'm figuring out kind of exhausting

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conversation on the fundamentals of human performance as they've sort of developed over the last 25 years.

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And so you're going to hear the voice of Tony Mishara and the voice of Shane

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Bush and the voice of Rob Fisher and Eric Rick Holneigle and David Woods and Ron Gant,

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tons of people, because we talk about sort of the journey that this practice

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of human performance has had over the last bunch of years.

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And it's a great discussion because it really does focus entirely just on the fundamentals.

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I mean, just squarely on the fundamentals. fundamentals the

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exhausting part of it is you can always

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tell when it's done i look at the room full of

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people and they just look like they're just like they've just been

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run through the ringer dry and what

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i finally figured out and i only figured it out this time is that it really

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is kind of intellectually and mentally exhausting because there's just so much

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to talk about and we talk about sort of where ideas began and where they've

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gone to and maybe where they're going to go.

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And there are now so many people who can add to that conversation.

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And lots of those people were actually in the workshop with us.

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And they can sort of tell stories and further add depth to this concept.

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And that whole first day is a deep look.

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And I don't mean like intellectually genius-y, the smartest people in the world,

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but we'll go farther into these concepts than we normally would in a class full of people.

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And so that first day is really fun. The second day then, we focused almost

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entirely on this idea of how does this impact leadership,

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but not the way you think it would impact leadership. We should probably have a day on that too.

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But really, we talked about things like psychological safety.

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We talked a lot about accountability. accountability, that's always an incredibly

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interesting conversation.

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And then we talked a lot about mental health and this workshop,

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especially, we really dug into things like well-being.

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Suicide in industry and how that impacts us?

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And what's our role in that? Not just as safety people or as resilience and

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reliability people or quality people or managers, but what's our role as human beings?

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And that was a super intense day, but it was a really good day because people

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are doing some amazing work in this area, and I'm so happy about it.

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And then the third day is just a joyous romp into application.

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I just made that up, but I should have typed it, right?

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And that's where we talk about really how we learn, how we engage workers,

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how we're constantly collecting information, how anecdotes become data.

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And the answer is when you hear an anecdote two or three times,

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it's no longer an anecdote.

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It really is kind of a part of what's happening in your organization.

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We talked a lot about leadership denial, and not that that's bad,

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but leaders simply don't know or choose to not know that the work systems and

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bureaucracies we've created are as difficult to manage as they actually are.

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And then we end up with this panel discussion, but not like a panel discussion

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that you've been to a million times.

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It's not a bunch of people sitting up on chairs and people asking questions.

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In fact, I don't even do chairs.

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We just stand up and we always try to record it because that is,

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I think, such an interesting thing to share with you. So if you didn't get to go.

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This is kind of how the day ended. And it's the questions people had at the

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end of three days together and the answers from the group of people who present it.

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So the presenters are, you're going to hear Jennifer Long, who is an expert

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on accountability and works a lot with like naval shipyards.

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And I mean, she works, she's definitely in heavy smash you dead industry,

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you know, a big industry.

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You'll hear Martha Acosta, and she's going to talk a lot about the way she looks

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at capacity and leadership.

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You'll hear a new voice. Actually, I think he's been on the pod,

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so not that new, but Mike Peters.

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And he's a specialist in mental health who spends most of his time on the nuke power side of the house.

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But he brings with him some expertise around things like suicide and the topics

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that we talked about that middle day. Of course, Andrea Baker will be there and Bob Edwards.

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And is that everybody? I think that's pretty much everybody.

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And we sort of take turns answering questions. It's not formal.

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And in fact, you know, it kind of depends who has an answer.

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It's usually pretty simple because the questions sort of guide themselves to

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the people that are going to ask the questions.

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That's what you're about to listen to. And I think you're going to enjoy it

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immensely. So that's probably enough briefing at the beginning, at least.

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Now we can get into the question. So it's going to just start right out with

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a question, because why not?

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I mean, this is the first question. And it's a really interesting question because

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it says, my leaders seem resistant.

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And when they're resistant, what do I do to improve communication about these new ideas? is.

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What's the best way to deliver learning to get them to participate or start

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to change their opinion?

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So I'll start. So I think having skeptics is super normal. In fact,

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I would take it one step further.

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If your management is not pushing back on you, they're not listening to you.

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So the first thing I would tell you is embrace the skepticism, as crazy as that sounds,

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because that's a really good place for you to be when you start the fact that

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you're going to have multiple discussions over and over and over again about

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what's happening and what's changing.

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Changing so it's not a bad thing first of

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all i think it's incredibly normal and it's it's kind

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of a a positive outcome the other thing

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and then i'll show the mic with anybody that i would tell you

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is that your biggest skeptics will become your biggest proponents almost without

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fail stay right here so when when todd came to our site i was old school like

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i was the guy that sent people home three days following warning our quality

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manager roger said to me bob you're not going to do well with this stuff.

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Fair enough. It's fair enough.

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So, so the answer to your question, and then really I will pass it around is this.

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So change happens one person at a time, and it's going to be a series of iterations

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of the same conversation.

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And so remember always that you're talking to the person and the only message

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that counts is what they hear.

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And so even though you're like, how many times do I have to tell you a mistake's not a choice?

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Every time they push back on that, what they're telling you is they haven't

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figured out that fact that mistakes are not a choice. Jenny.

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And consider your audience, right? So I do a lot of work with up-and-coming

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leaders who do presentations to senior executives.

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And we've got some senior executives out here you can probably speak to when

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you get information put in front of you.

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Put yourself in their shoes and make it clear and make it concise what your

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arguments are for the business relative to what you're trying to attempt to change.

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So there's the agenda that you have as safety people, but there's also the agenda

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that the organization has in what the executives have.

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And the message is always in the receiver, not the person delivering.

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So consider it when you put your presentation together. And I guess just one

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more thing with respect to that.

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It's sort of the same as what Todd said, but this is a great opportunity to

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practice your questioning skills and your inquiry.

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And so use your skeptics as a little learning team so that you have a really

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good understanding of what resistance you might meet and all of these other

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things. You learn more about your audience.

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And then in engaging them, then, as Todd said, they become your biggest supporters. reporters.

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Can I clarify the question? So what I think I heard you say,

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and I'm not sure, I heard you say, how do you deal with skeptics?

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How do you bring information to someone who's skeptical about these concepts?

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Can you tell us what information you're trying to bring to them?

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Can you just clarify the question for a second? Because I'm not sure I understood it well.

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Yeah, the real meat of the question is if you're out doing learning and you're

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gathering information from that learning and that learning is being brought

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to them to get them to be of interest to what's being learned and want to take action?

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Yeah, that's a really good question.

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Factually is how I would bring it, meaning I wouldn't try to,

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in that conversation personally, I wouldn't try to confuse any of it with larger

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theoretical concepts around hop and around how error exists and mistakes.

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What I would do is just bring more information and better information to the individual.

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So in my organization, when I started doing this, there weren't a lot of people

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around me that understood any of the concepts.

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And realistically, I didn't teach any of it when I started, but I did just bring

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more information to folks.

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And when you can paint the picture of what's happening, there's really smart

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leaders that can understand what the problems are.

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So just bring the information factually. Hey, I went out and I learned,

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and I think what's happening here was a little bit more complex than I originally thought it was.

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This is what I learned. And then you paint the story, and then I summarize the

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problem statements, and that's it without any other... They don't have to be

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bought into anything because you're not asking them to buy into anything except information.

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How mean can we be? How honest can we be? Can you take it? You're not fragile on the third day.

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So if your leadership isn't responding the way they need to, it's not them, it's you.

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So just keep changing the message.

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And I don't want to sound too academic. It's going to sound like from a book here, so I apologize.

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But the process of change, think about any change you've ever made with information you've gotten.

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It's kind of pre-contemplative. I'm thinking about it, and then it's contemplative.

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I'm thinking more about it, and then I'm preparing.

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I'm preparing for that change. And then there's a gap before actually somebody,

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you know, there's a tipping point, then you actually get to the change.

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So you're catching a lot of people in the pre-contemplative stage of change,

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and they just need more information and time and space and empathy,

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you know, for them to move through that whole process.

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Yeah, your answers kind of went into this question, but maybe not directly.

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We're really good at implementing learning teams.

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Let's do a learning team. We need a learning team that. We need a learning team that.

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We're really bad about finishing learning teams and closing out action items and sharing knowledge.

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Any advice from you or anybody in the room, I'll take it.

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Here's what i hear a lot from executives we need completed staff work and so

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when you start to think about your learning teams what does it mean to have

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completed staff work when you have a learning team after you've gotten the learning

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then what right so what is what does right look like and what is finished work

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look like and are you clear about that when you start the process,

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in i mean i don't know in most organizations

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there isn't really a great communication structure structure.

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And the difficulty is if you don't have a great communication structure,

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it's really hard to do everything that you're saying.

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In my world, we had a semi-broken communication structure, but we had some avenues

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that worked pretty well, and I just hijacked the ones that worked well.

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Yeah. If you try to create another communication structure when you don't have

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one that's already functioning, unless you've got a bunch of buy-in from a lot of different people.

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Like if you have, for example, if you're in the lean world and you've got tiered

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meetings, that's an amazing place to be able to pass information from one level

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of an organization to another.

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There are not many places that do that really well, but information is being passed.

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And so I would just try to find where that was happening and invite myself to those places.

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So in my world, I found that most of the action items got addressed in our production meeting.

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And sometimes I was invited and sometimes I wasn't. So I just would invite myself

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and I sat in for months before I started to say, hey, is there any way that

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we can fit in some other stuff in this meeting?

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And that's where we got most of it done. But I had to find a place that was

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working instead of trying to create a new one.

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So just to make sure I understand, so maybe insert ourselves in certain meetings

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that are going on and start unpacking what we've learned, where we're at,

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what the status is. Is that what I hear?

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Yeah. If we've got a place where we're already doing that well,

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and it's just not from the outcome of a learning team, for example,

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but we're unpacking, hey, where we're going to put our resourcing in place,

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what actions we're going to take, find out where those decisions are being made

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and then see if you can get yourself at that table.

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And I know I wasn't in the really cool aviation world, but in the knuckle-dragging

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appliance world, Todd used to say this about us all the time,

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but we were really good at change and we were really good at telling stories and really good.

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So we had a lot of tools in place because of all the lean work we had done.

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We just leaned in on that.

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To Andy's point, use what works already.

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I would not admire bureaucracy if you don't have to. If you're short on bureaucracy,

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call me. I got a box of it left over.

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But yeah, use some of the things you have. And the video thing,

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we had done some lean videos.

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We just started doing these little videos, like three or four minutes long from

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learning teams showing what was actually done, which encouraged people to get things done.

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Action tracking system, ATS, we

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put things in there. I didn't have a new system. I used a system we had.

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And our general manager saw some of these videos and he said, send those to me.

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Every quarter, he did an all-employee meeting, 30 minutes long,

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1,000 people in an auditorium and thousands of of people logged in and he'd

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spend the first five minutes with a video from a learning team where we learned

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and where we did something.

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And I can tell you, people remember those stories. I do not remember the 25

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minutes afterwards of pie charts, Pareto's and spreadsheet stuff.

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I'm sure it was important, but what I remember were those powerful stories.

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So Todd early on said, man, tell those stories.

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When you see people getting stuff done, it encourages you to get stuff done.

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So I think we're kind of overthinking it too.

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So my advice to you is I would put together a team of people and really dig

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into why that next step is meeting resistance within the organization.

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So I would do a learning team on your learning team results,

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which gets a little meta. But I mean, it's like, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

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But honestly, I can only speak from my experience.

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We really took on the fact that we were really very dedicated to our corrective action program.

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I mean, it was highly disciplined and we cared about it. We tracked the crap out of it.

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We weren't getting stuff done. So we put together a team of people and we asked

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the question and we learned a lot about what it took in our organization to

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diffuse change. And it really is quality over quantity, right?

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Yeah. I'd rather do fewer learning teams and get them really just do some stuff

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and tell those stories than to say, well, we got a new KPI.

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We're going to do 10 a month. Oh, my word. Please don't. Right.

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But do them and do them well. And like Todd said, really lean in on what you can do with it.

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Find out where the brittleness is and straighten that out. But do fewer, but do them well.

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And I'm going to ask the same question that Todd asked earlier.

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Could you take potentially an answer that might not feel good?

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I think you also need to look at...

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No, you can't? Okay. All right.

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I think it's important also to look at yourself as a leader.

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Is there a way that you might accidentally be disempowering people?

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Like you've created an opportunity for people to learn and come up with ideas,

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but a lot of times when there isn't that implementation piece of things or when

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there's not the end of the follow through,

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that means that you've handed off, maybe you've handed off the baton and no

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one picked it up and they didn't pick it up because they weren't quite empowered to pick that up.

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So, you know, thinking about, you know, what Jenny talked about with respect to ownership,

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looking at your own leadership behaviors and seeing if you've accidentally created

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an environment where people, it's not safe for them to take ownership for things.

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Things. I can guess what you're going to learn in your learning team and then

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call me and tell me if I'm wrong.

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So you're going to learn self-limiting budget conversations.

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We don't have the time, resources, energy, effort, personnel to do it.

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Not based on reality, but based on the perceived reality of the organization.

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The other thing that you're going to hear, and I'll bet you a $5 bill on this

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one, is that prioritization is really difficult because everything is highest

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priority and we don't know where to start. I mean, that's kind of always normal.

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One of the things we learned, and I actually learned it at Bob's facility because

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his senior leader was very, well, he was just a really good leader. So he was not insecure.

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I mean, he was open for data from any direction. He had his people determine

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prioritization and then recommend that to him.

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I thought that was beautiful because it took a giant burden off him and gave

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him data that was much more palatable as a leader.

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Like he knew this is what they say we should fix first. And that was really helpful.

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Those are going to be the two big resistors, probably. I mean,

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see what else you hear. But you absolutely will learn. It'll be worth it.

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Good luck. I had a question I posed

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to Andrea and Bob earlier about high accountability in our workforce.

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So a little backstory to it. We work for a power line contractor,

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union power line contractor, right?

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There's a lot of stigma in the culture of it about, you know, drag up culture.

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Like if something's not going your way, head out, find the next job down the

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road. They're pretty easy to find. You go to the union hall and you can get one that day.

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So when we were going over all the high accountability stuff in the workforce,

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you know, it's like, how do you, how do you build those kinds of relationships

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with those employees when you give them the smallest, you know, issue?

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You and it's all right i'm gonna head out now you know so

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i don't know if there's any advice from the group about that

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i guess real quick on this so anybody know

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mike grow he does dirty jobs he's really big into skill trades he said for every

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five people leaving skill trades about three are coming in that's not sustainable

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i heard a report the other day that there's 1.9 or 1.6 jobs for every person

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willing to do a job so you're in that world too where they'll just go somewhere else Can't change that.

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I mean, we'd like to. Over time, maybe we'll get more people interested in skilled trades.

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But in the meantime, everything everybody's saying up here, like how do you

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and your team interact with those who are willing to stay and those who are

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there, even if they're short term?

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Because we know this, how you treat people matters.

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And that word gets out. And I can tell you from, where's Jen Frentz?

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Is she in here? She may have stepped out.

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Her big company, Old Sands Company up in Canada, they saw because of how they

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treated people when the pipeline work opened back up again, it paid more.

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A lot of their people didn't leave because they saw a difference in how they were being treated.

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So yeah, it's a few bucks more per day or hour or whatever, but they actually

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saw and word gets out, right?

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So word gets out how you treat people, how you listen to them,

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how you don't look to blame and run them off.

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And so maybe, maybe even that bit of reputation can help.

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But I think we're going to be stuck in this for a while because I don't think

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we have enough people willing to do work. I know some of my kids aren't.

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Anybody else on this one? That's a really good question that none of us really

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have an answer for. But how you treat people matters, right? Yeah.

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Oh, good. I mean, we chatted about it, so I wasn't going to answer it.

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But in case it helps anybody else that was listening, I think I can only think

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of one really clear, actual example.

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And it is very similar to what Bob just said of an organization had a lot of

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contractors and subcontractors that could get work in many other places.

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And they started to go down this path. And the way that they were having conversation

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with folks, the reputation of how they treated people got out.

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And then what they focused on was really, really good orientation when folks

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came in, that they reiterated the message of how people are treated,

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what leaders were interested in, and they just saw less turnover.

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One last piece. Oh, no, Mike's coming up. Yep.

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So the science says that we are actually more interested in being connected

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than we are in being safe.

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So being connected to your crew, to your team, to the company,

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so that it's a leadership problem and it's a management problem about keeping

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your people more than it is anything else.

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And because I'm with Bob, I don't think we've got the numbers anymore in the

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industries that we need them.

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And so you're going to have to work really hard to keep the connection.

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And that is a leadership problem.

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And I think just quickly, you know, when contractors or employees see leaders

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walking the walk and when they actually say, you know, if you can't stop work

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because it's unsafe, it's okay.

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No matter what level you're at, no matter when you've been hired,

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that makes it a really attractive place to work too.

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Music.

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So i just made a big decision right then and that is let's make this a two-parter

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because there's still quite a bit more i was gonna edit stuff and take stuff

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out but i never it always seems like if i take something out i'm hiding it from

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you and nothing to hide i'm keeping it in warts and all,

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But I think this discussion is pretty valuable. What do you think? Is it working for you?

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Let's continue this next time and see kind of where this all heads.

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Because this is a really great opportunity to really have a discussion.

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It's not a great opportunity to get your questions answered.

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That seems pompous and weird.

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It is a great opportunity to learn what the questions are.

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And what I thought was so cool is that the questions just kept living.

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And people talked about them amongst themselves in the room.

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And that's kind of a pretty good sign of success.

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I mean, if it elicits conversation among a room full of people who do this work,

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that's a good thing to do. I hope you enjoyed this immensely.

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I'm so pleased to share it with you. And I know the folks are who asked the questions.

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They're glad to share it with you as well. And then, of course,

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special thanks to Jenny and Mike and Martha and Andrea and Bob.

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I mean, special thanks to them. That's so nice of them to be a part of this

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and to share their information and just, you know, commune. We went out and had barbecue.

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We listened to our friend Bill Hearn play guitar.

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That was fun. We walked around. It was a great time. Man, if you ever get a

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chance, you're always welcome.

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And it was really fun. But if you can't come, just join us this way,

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and we'll hang out anytime.

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Bring your bike, and we'll go for a bike ride. Bike rides happened.

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Actually, kind of a lot of bike rides happened, so that's good.

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So that's the pod. See you next week for the exciting conclusion of this.

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Until then, learn something new every single day. Have as much fun as you possibly

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can. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. And for goodness sakes, you guys.

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Music.