Changing a corporate culture, much less a safety culture, takes a lot more than charismatic rhetoric from the titular head of an organization. Corporate cultures -private, public, academic, non-profit - evolve over long periods of time and rarely change in the shortterm. Even after catastrophic events, a corporate safety culture will not substantively change for any number of reasons with statements like “it was a rare event that will never happen again,” “it happened to those other guys, not us,” “it was that disgruntled employee again” or “it was a mechanical failure we couldn’t predict.”
Undertaking a culture change to improve safety performance requires the systemic engagement of the entire workforce from leadership to wage roll. Senior leaders who think they can change their cultures on their own are suffering from delusions of grandeur. Leaders who insist on improved safety without involving their leadership team and the workforce will merely create a compliant culture, while driving the noncompliant culture and behavior underground.
Why does resistance occur?
Any attempt to change the status quo will lead to resistance. People have learned to succeed politically, financially, and professionally in their current organizational state. The last thing they want is to have to learn how to succeed in an entirely new organizational state. In fact, rather sophisticated barriers will be erected to prevent the new state from manifesting regardless of the necessity of the change, the size of the need, the origination of the request, or the efficacy of the solution.1
Attempting to change your company’s safety culture could be as difficult as changing DuPont’s safety culture into becoming an unsafe culture. Cultures persist, so rather than pursuing a course of culture change that triggers resistance, why not pursue a course that complements the existing culture. Installing new safety values into an existing culture requires viewing the culture in a systemic fashion.