Chapter 8Behavior, Consequences—And Attitude!
As a leader, when you see someone working unsafely—either by not following the rules or taking too much risk—you are called upon to intervene. A successful intervention not only will get the person out of harm's way, it will alter the person's future choice as to their behavior. The intervention strategy summarized in a simple, five‐step method, SORRY, represents the approach used by the most successful leaders to accomplish both goals.
Often overlooked in the process of managing behavior is the power of positive feedback to a follower from the leader. With one small modification, the same strategy to correct behavior can be employed to give positive feedback for good behavior. The one change: instead of asking why the person is not working safely, find something specific about the person and the situation that's positive, so as to reinforce safe behavior. Doing that makes the compliment come across as genuine.
A majority of leaders the world over are of the view the best way to get followers to stop working unsafely and start working more safely is to attack what they see as the root of the problem: attitude. It's a great theory, but one that is incredibly difficult to successfully put into practice. If attitude is defined simply as “what someone thinks,” it's nearly impossible to know for certain what's going on in a follower's mind. Even if a leader could know, that leaves the bigger problem of changing what a follower thinks. ...