How does your organization make sense of safety?

By Dave Johnson, ISHN Editor

Have appropriate respect for who’s really in charge out there.

Something interesting happens to folks when they make it to the top in business. They become remarkably prone to lose touch with the people down the ladder – the people who do the work and make or break the company.

There is a considerable amount of productive friction - just enough disagreement that we get into it, but not so much that we lose focus on what matters - generating good insights that we can apply on the shop floor.

A serious disconnect existed between the kind of “power” managers thought they were giving and what employees believed they were receiving.

What if a company is characteristically cautious and slow to make a decision, and does not reward innovative risk-taking, while the market is moving fast and increasingly rewarding agility? What if the choice is to change or die?