How Transformational Leadership Drives Continuous Improvement and Sustainability

Transcription

1 Session No. 713 How Transformational Leadership Drives Continuous Improvement and Sustainability Richard D. Fulwiler, PH.D., CIH, CSHM President Technology Leadership Associates Instructor Harvard School of Public Health Cincinnati, Ohio Richard C. Gerlach, PH.D., CIH, CSP Senior Director Safety & Health Cintas Corporation Cincinnati, Ohio Introduction Last year at the ASSE in Las Vegas we presented Transformational Leadership A Key Element in the Journey to World Class Safety. The purpose of this article is to take the application of transformational leadership to the next level, i.e., continuous improvement and sustainability. We will review the concepts and principles of transformational leadership to be sure we are all on the same page and provide clear examples of the role transformational leadership plays in driving continuous improvement and sustainability as it relates to health and safety excellence. Engagement There is no doubt that an engaged workforce will achieve better results than an unengaged workforce. Peter Drucker, a highly revered management guru from the 1960s to 2010, made this point very clearly. He passed away in 2006, and this quote from a write up in USA Today at the time of his passing summarizes this critical philosophy, His concepts turned companies away from treating employees simply as cogs (in a wheel), persuading management to think of workers as assets and partners which is how the best companies behave today. Enlightened management recognizes and accepts this concept. Tom Fazio, a senior executive of Atlas Holdings, put it best in a talk he gave at their annual meeting, You need to achieve engagement in safety before you can get their commitment to move the business forward. Note his linkage of safety to achieving business success.

2 The concept of engagement can best be illustrated by two simple stick diagrams. The stick diagram on the left describes the traditional or transactional approach to treating workers, whereas the diagram on the right describes the world class or transformational approach. There is very little engagement of the worker depicted in the diagram on the left, but strong engagement occurs when leadership realizes the importance of engaging not just the mind but also the heart of the worker. When the worker is clearly engaged in the safety process, world-class safety becomes a reality. Transactional Traditional Transformational World Class 3 3 Figure 1. Transactional and transformational models Concepts and Principles of Transformational Leadership To understand and appreciate the benefits of transformational leadership, it is necessary to understand the concept of transactional leadership. Simply stated, a transactional leader focuses mostly on the task or the work and a transformational leader has a balanced focus on both the work/task and the person doing the work/task. Let s explore some characteristics of each of these leaders. A transactional leader: A quid pro quo relationship between the worker and leader, frequently relying on disciplinary action Task oriented o regulatory compliance Preserves existing culture, conditions and practices o preserves the status quo Likely to focus more on the WORK than the WORKER A transformational leader: Results in the worker s values aligning with their leader s values Empowers the worker to ENGAGE in the work process

3 o go beyond their self interest The leader is personally ENGAGED with the worker the leader cares about the worker The contribution of the worker is maximized/optimized Focuses on both the WORK and the WORKER Transactional leadership is not bad. Senior executives come hardwired as transactional leaders and lacking in transformational leadership skills. There are several skill sets or characteristics that go into being a transformational leader, but for the sake of brevity, let s just focus on five: 1. Listening 2. Communicating 3. Caring 4. Collegiality 5. Engaging Listening: Most of us have had very little formal training in listening, yet it is one of the most important communication skills. Keys to listening are: Seeking first to understand, then to be understood Listening for meaning and feeling, not just facts Being open to the speaker in a way that it shows being empathic Communicating: Expressing the vision or expectation in a way that resonates with all levels. Other keys are: Speak in the language of the customer, i.e,. the workers Be open to feedback and even criticism from subordinates Start meetings with safety to communicate its importance Caring: This is the most important characteristic of a transformational leader. Keys to showing one cares include: Demonstrating genuine concern for others in a visible way Being sensitive to the needs of others Being willing to interact with all levels Being Collegial: Demonstrating a sense of equality among others, including subordinates. Other keys are: Mixing with all levels in a friendly manner Relating to all levels and making them feel at ease Showing gratitude, sympathy or empathy at all levels

4 Engaging: Demonstrating a personal connection with subordinates. Other keys are: Helping subordinates to commit and achieve the desired goals Linking the worker s needs with the organizations needs Conveying a sense of worth to subordinates, i.e., they are not just cogs in a wheel Chris Lowney, in his book, Heroic Leadership., summarizes the outcome from transformational leadership accordingly, Individuals perform best when they are respected, valued, and trusted by someone who genuinely cares for their well being. If continuous improvement and sustainability is the desired outcome, leaders need to become more transformational and less transactional. The skill sets described above provide an excellent template for this to occur. Driving Continuous Improvement and Sustainability in the Real World Background Cintas was founded in 1929 in Cincinnati, OH. Today Cintas is a $4.5 billion company providing business-to-business services to over one million customers worldwide. The company is based on strong family values including respect for front line employee-partners. The company also has long embraced safety as evidenced by a more than forty-year requirement for a Safety & Improvement Committee (SIC) chaired by the General Manager at all locations. The SIC meets monthly to address safety improvement initiatives as well as safety issues / concerns. Cintas modern-day safety journey began in the late 1990s. For purposes of this presentation the company s safety performance will be defined as follows: Past safety performance - where we have been Current safety performance - where we are today Future safety performance - where we are going Where We Have Been In 2003 and 2004, OSHA conducted multiple inspections at Cintas locations, the majority of which were initiated by OSHA as a result of an employee complaint. On average, OSHA issued approximately eight citations per inspection concluded in To address these compliance deficiencies the company implemented highly transactional compliance systems. The Cintas corporate safety team developed and deployed compliance requirements, and based on these requirements, executed a rigorous safety audit twice per year at every location. As a result of these very successful transactional measures, during 2005 and 2006, the average number of citations per inspection fell from 8:1 to less than one citation per inspection, or more than a 90% decrease. In 2007, following a tragic incident at one of the company s commercial laundries, senior executive management implemented a long-term, strategic approach to sustainable, continuous safety improvement.

5 One of the first initiatives was to form an Executive Safety Council. Although safety was routinely included on the agenda of a quarterly executive business risk meeting, the decision was made to create a separate team, chaired by Cintas CEO Scott Farmer, to focus on and address industrial safety at the highest levels of the company. Twenty officers, including the executives responsible for each of the operating divisions, were assigned to the Executive Safety Council. Recognizing the need for an external perspective, three independent advisors were retained to support the ESC on a consultant basis. The consultants were former OSHA Assistant Secretary John Henshaw, former Proctor & Gamble worldwide S&H Director Dr. Rick Fulwiler, and former DuPont S&H Director Michael Deak. Another of the critical first steps was to provide executive leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to effective manage the safety function. To this end, Cintas co-developed a Management Safety Leadership Skills (MSLS) training course with Dr. Fulwiler in The target audience was location general managers and above; this included regional business directors, operating group vice presidents, senior VPs and business unit presidents. In addition to safety management skills, the executives were introduced, for the first time, to transformational safety leadership concepts and principles. From March to June 2009, the MSLS course was delivered to over 700 executives. Those executives who completed the course gained a high degree of confidence related to managing safety, and also left the course with a draft action plan for incorporating transformational safety leadership principles into their daily management duties. An important outcome of the ESC meetings was the development and adoption of a formal Safety Vision for the company. The Safety Vision consisted of three elements or tenets: Every Cintas location is injury-free. Every Cintas partner is engaged in continuously improving safety. Cintas is widely recognized as one of the world s leaders in safety and health performance. Based on Cintas safety performance at the time, all ESC members recognized that achieving an injury-free Cintas would not be accomplished in a few short months. Similarly, engaging all 31,000 partners in the safety improvement process was an aggressive target for which there was no clear path to success. As a result, adopting the Safety Vision was a transformational event. It committed the highly transactional, results-driven company to a set of goals for which there was no clear path forward nor an expected completion date. Nevertheless, CEO Scott Farmer endorsed and supported the Safety Vision as the future state of Cintas Corporation. Another key initiative in Cintas journey to transformational safety was an Executive Safety Engagement Conference. In June 2010, Cintas President & COO Phillip Holloman convened a 1.5 day meeting of all 55 operations officers at one of the commercial laundries in Virginia. The entire agenda focused on safety issues, and included guest speakers from DuPont and other safety leadership organizations. John Henshaw and Dr. Fulwiler led a four-hour seminar on transformational safety leadership, and all participants were provided with a copy of Leading with Safety by Tom Krause. At that time, the company s official target for OSHA Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) was 3.5, compared to the actual TRIR of approximately 5.3.

6 But in his closing remarks, Mr. Holloman made it clear that the only acceptable TRIR goal for Cintas was zero, and challenged all operations officers to achieve the goal as soon as possible. Where We Are Today As of December 31, 2013, the company s TRIR was Since the end of calendar year 2007, when the TRIR was 7.22, the company has achieved a 62 percent reduction in TRIR. This has been accomplished via multiple transactional and transformational safety initiatives. Examples include: SAFELIFT: An acronym that represents the eight steps for safe lifting. It is a transactional method of increasing partner awareness about the risks of not lifting properly. Daily flex and stretch routines: Managers and front-line partners take turns leading flexing and stretching exercises at the beginning of each work shift and after lunch. This builds camaraderie and a shared sense of responsibility for workplace safety, a critical element for transformational safety. Industrial athlete: An initiative that focuses on keeping the partner s body in a position of success. In addition to the focus on proper ergonomics, partners learn about proper nutrition, weight loss, smoking cessation and proper hydration throughout the year. The overarching message is, We care about you and want you to go home safe at the end of the day. SAFELOAD: Since 1929 when Cintas was founded, soiled goods collected from customers we placed on the floor of the service vehicle. At the end of the day, service partners struggled to walk safely inside their truck. One of the commercial laundries in North Carolina commissioned a team of service partners to create a better way. The team designed a system of large bags suspended from rails inside the truck. As soiled goods are returned to the truck, they are now placed in the bags and, as a result, a clear walking path is maintained. Once the system was reviewed and approved by corporate engineering and safety, the company retrofitted over 5,000 service vehicles with the SAFELOAD system. Near-miss reporting: Similar to the safety best practices program, the company instituted a formal near-miss reporting program, including formal training for all partners on the differences between a near miss, an unsafe act and an unsafe condition. Critical to the success of any near miss-reporting program is the promptly and thoroughly investigating the situation, identifying appropriate corrective actions, and communicating the results of these follow-up actions to the partners who submit the near-miss reports. This process has been integrated into all Cintas locations. OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP): To date, 21 Cintas locations have been recognized under the OSHA VPP program. Achieving VPP recognition is a major initiative for the company, with more than 400 locations actively engaged in the process. In addition to our VPP efforts in the U.S., the company has embraced similar programs in other countries: In Canada, two Cintas locations have been recognized for their excellent safety program by earning the Canadian Certificate of Recognition (COR). Three additional locations have completed all of the requirements, including the final inspection, and are awaiting official notice that they have also earned recognition under the COR program. One Cintas location has been recognized under Mexico s Self-Management Program for Safety and Health at Work (Programa de Autogestión para la Salud y Seguridad en el

7 Trabajo - PASST). A second Cintas location has completed all of the requirements of the PASST program and is awaiting official notice of the results. Thirteen Cintas locations in the U.K. are certified under the OHSAS standard. Where We Are Going Cintas goal is make the safety vision described above a reality. As part of this transformational safety journey, the company has adapted a model developed by Intel Corporation, known as the Safety Evolution Model. The model, as used by Cintas, is shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. The Safety Evolution Model The model describes a continuum that includes organizations where the level of safety engagement ranges from Phase 0 (What s Safety?) to Phase 5 (Safety is Instinctive). Our goal is to become a company where safety is instinctive and safety is an integral part of our corporate culture. As part of the annual safety audits performed by the corporate safety team, the management team at the location being audited, and the corporate safety team partner determine where the location lies within the model. This assessment is reported to senior management. Dan Braun, the Cintas officer responsible for safety, recorded a DVD that explains the Safety Evolution Model as well as the Safety Pyramid. The Safety Pyramid expands Heinrich s triangle to include levels of near misses and unsafe behaviors, and explains the important connections between a choice to work safely and a choice to work unsafely. More than 1000 copies of the DVD were distributed through the company, and all Cintas partners were provided with an opportunity to view the DVD. The Safety Pyramid is shown in Figure 3.

8 Figure 3. The Safety Pyramid The most critical tenet of the Safety Vision is engaging all 31,000 Cintas partners in the safety improvement process. Without the full and active engagement of all Cintas partners, the company will never be injury-free, nor will it earn the reputation as a world leader in safety. Most, if not all, of the above initiatives are focused on increasing partner engagement in the safety process, and the company has received some encouraging results, as shown in Table 1. In January 2012, Cintas conducted a partner engagement survey. The survey was sent to all partners, and over 26,000 partners (83%) participated in the survey. The data were collected anonymously, i.e., the company used a third party to collect and aggregate the survey results, and the responses submitted by individual partners were not available to management. The survey addressed many areas including safety, wages, job satisfaction, etc. As illustrated by the following data, safety was one of the highest scoring elements of the survey. The numbers represent the percentage of the 26,000 respondents who agreed with the statements. % of Respondents Who Agreed with Statement Statement I understand the safety risks of my job. 94% I receive the appropriate safety training for my job. 91% All accidents and injuries are reported and investigated. 89% Cintas provides a safe working environment for partners. 88% Safety is never overlooked to get the job done. 86% Partner safety and health are important to management. 86% Table 1. Partner Engagement Survey Results

9 An amazing 94 percent of the partners who responded to the survey indicated that they understood the risks associated with their jobs. Most importantly, 86 percent of the respondents indicated that safety is never overlooked in order to get the job done, and that safety is important to management. These are truly transformational results. Cintas Chairman Bob Kohlhepp was a keynote speaker at the Economics of Stewardship and Sustainability 2010 Conference held at Xavier University in Cincinnati in October During his remarks, Bob told the audience that Safety is not just the right thing to do, safety is good business. The data shown in Figure 4, which illustrate the results from a Cintas world-class safety location, reinforce and support Bob s statement. Figure 4. Safety s impact on critical business results Over a three-year period, a Cintas General Manager who was hard-wired as a transformational leader achieved remarkable business results by leading with safety. He told his team that he cared about every partner, and that first and foremost, he wanted every partner to go home safe every day. He also said that if every partner worked together to be safe, and if caring for every other partner s safety was their #1 job, the business results would take care of themselves. During the three-year period, he reduced TRIR by more than 90 percent. At the same time, he observed improvement in the business key performance indicators (KPI) for which he was responsible, such as customer satisfaction, lost business, material cost and profit. Not surprisingly, partner turnover decreased by 76 percent. For business leaders who may be concerned about the costs of operating a world-class safety program, the results are compelling. Two recent initiatives underscore our commitment to continuous safety improvement and sustainability. Our Maintenance Safety Certification Program and Fatality Prevention Audits are designed to ensure that all maintenance partners understand, accept and embrace the safety requirements and procedures associated with performing their everyday tasks. The Cintas Engineering and Safety teams collaborated on the development of the Maintenance Safety Certification program, which consists of the following elements:

10 A study guide that contains 160 safety questions that address proper safety procedures and requirements related to lockout/tagout (LOTO), electrical safety, working at elevation, etc. The questions are based on the requirements contained in our different safety programs. Over an eight-week period, maintenance partners at one location work with the Regional Field Engineer and Regional S&H Coordinator that support the location to determine the correct answers to each of the 160 questions. This is accomplished typically via a conference call. At the end of the eight-week period, the maintenance partners submit their completed study guide to a Certification/Evaluation Panel. Each maintenance partner undergoes a formal oral examination focused on the study guide. The oral examination is administered by the Certification Panel. The panel consists of the location General Manager, HR Manager, Regional Field Engineer, Regional S&H Coordinator, and one or two other management partners. The oral examination includes approximately one-third of the 160 questions, and the maintenance partner being examined must correctly answer all of the randomly selected questions. If the maintenance partner successfully completes the oral examination, then the partner is given three maintenance task scenarios that include different safety conditions, equipment, and tasks to be performed. The maintenance partner must describe the applicable safety procedures to be followed in order to complete the task safely while complying with all applicable safety requirements. The oral examination and scenario portions of the certification are completed in the office. The last step in the process is a maintenance/safety demonstration that takes place in the plant. Similar to the scenarios, the maintenance partner is presented with a maintenance task to be completed. In the scenario, the maintenance partner is required only to describe the applicable safety requirements and procedures. In the demonstration portion of the certification process, the maintenance partner must actually demonstrate to the Certification Panel they understand and know how to implement or follow the safety procedures and requirements necessary to perform the task safely. Partners who successfully complete all of the requirements are certified and receive a trophy recognizing their achievement. Although the process is highly transactional, the impact on the maintenance partners who successfully complete the certification process is truly transformational. In some cases, for the first time, maintenance partners come to truly understand that safety procedures and requirements are designed to protect them from a serious or life-threatening injury, and therefore diligently follow the requirements and do not take short cuts that will keep them and their families safe and secure. By the end of the current fiscal year, the maintenance Certification Process will be completed at approximately 160 commercial laundry plants. The Fatality Prevention Audit (FPA) builds upon the foundation provided by the Maintenance Safety Certification process. Whereas the Maintenance Safety Certification is a one-time event, FPA audits are performed every year. The FPA is administered by the Regional S&H Coordinator assigned to the location. The S&H Coordinator meets individually with each maintenance partner and asks questions about the tasks and associated safety procedures that involve the most significant safety risks, such as working on electrically energized equipment and confined space entries. Unlike the Maintenance Safety certification, where maintenance partners must successfully about one-third of the 160 questions in the study guide, for the FPA maintenance partners must answer all of the safety questions associated with the high risk topics (live electric, LOTO, etc.). In addition to maintenance partners, the FPA also

11 focuses on the 10,000 partners who drive a commercial vehicle on behalf of the company every day. A minimum of five drivers at each of 250 locations are randomly selected for the FPA. Drivers must answer questions related to safety procedures and requirements contained in Cintas vehicle/route safety program. In summary, Cintas journey to world-class safety excellence continues, and someday the Safety Vision will be a reality. It is clear that both transactional and transformational initiatives are required to succeed. The lesson for companies who aspire to safety excellence is that transactional leadership approaches alone are not sufficient to result in the level of employee engagement necessary to drive continuous safety improvement and progress. The good news is that transformational safety leadership not only keeps employees safe, it enables companies to also achieve a high level of business success. In the words of Mr. Kohlhepp, Safety is not just the right thing to do, safety is good business. Conclusions Transformational leadership is not a new leadership concept, but it is neither well understood nor well practiced. Transformational leadership is the key to engaging workers. Excellence in safety or other critical business functions can only be achieved through engagement. Five skills that can make one more transformational are offered. A highly transactional company chose to become more transformational. Both senior executives and frontline workers have become actively engaged in the safety improvement process. Dramatic improvement in safety results is demonstrated. The expression, safety is not just the right thing to do, safety is good for business is clearly demonstrated. Bibliography Burns, J.M Leadership. New York: Harper and Row. Bass, B.M Leadership and Performance. NewYork: Free Press. Blake Mouton Managerial Grid. Leadership Training from Mind Tools. Krause, T.R Leading with Safety. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Fulwiler, R.D Transformational Leadership: The Key to World Class Safety. EHS Today, June, 2011.