THE IMPORTANCE OF VARIETY IN KEEPING COMMUNICATIONS FROM GOING STALE  

I’ve delivered a lot of leadership training in ‘safety critical’ industries such as manufacturing, mining, and construction. When we’re covering safety content, I’ll often ask the participants what the main piece of PPE (personal protective equipment) is.  

Once the participants have exhausted the typical answers such as safety boots, safety glasses, and hi vis clothing, someone will generally catch on that I’m not merely talking about equipment and volunteer the answer of “our brain” which is absolutely the case. In fact, I even say that I would rather have a team member in swimming togs that has their brain completely switched on to hazardous conditions than a person who is fully kitted out in PPE but is half asleep.  

On the back of this conversation, I ask participants what they believe is the greatest workplace danger. If they haven’t caught on to my line of thinking from the first question, then they’ll cite all manner of hazards such as machinery and working at heights.  Once again, I won’t respond positively till someone gives me the word “complacency”.  

So, if I’m right in my thinking that our brains are our most important piece of PPE, and complacency is actually the biggest danger in the workplace, then how we deliver safety critical messages as team leaders carries a lot of responsibility, particularly to reduce rather than inadvertently reinforce complacency.

Again, in the “Safety Leadership” space, I’ll ask participants to rate their workplace safety out of 10, and generally the score sits around eight and nine. I then ask them to rate their personal safety out of 10, but first to consider factors like cell phone use in vehicles, how physically safe they are when consuming alcohol, the use of power tools at home including PPE, and the storage of dangerous chemicals.  

This list never fails to elicit smiles, and even nervous laughter from the group as they immediately realise that their workplace safety score is generally several points higher than their personal safety score. My point in doing this exercise is to let team leaders know that when their staff walk through the door first thing on a Monday morning after two days at home, that they are entering the workplace with what I refer to as their “home brain” which they have just indicated is considerably lower in terms of safety than what is required in the workplace (and these are generally the leaders…).  

Therefore, the responsibility of a morning meeting, particularly after a weekend or after multiple days off for shift workers, is to switch our unsafe “home brain” into safe workplace thinking. This requires delivering the message in an engaging fashion, with variety over time so the message doesn’t become uninspiring and stale. You want it to diminish rather than encourage complacency.

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