High Trust Organizations
Are 10-20% more productive and achieve 70% better safety results.
Could more trust help?
Engagement with Safety
In your organization, do you feel engaging in safety activities are a good use of your time, do they help or hinder individual, group or Organisational purpose?
Here are 4 common reasons we find to explain why engagement with safety isn’t where it could be, and 4 ways to help.
Where Do We Find Enduring Motivation?
Purpose: Our job, profession, and what we contribute.
Mastery: How good your contribution is.
Meaning: How good you feel about your contribution.
Autonomy: How much freedom you have to contribute your purpose, your way.
The Essence of Purpose
Your purpose in life is to find your gift; to gain meaning, you have to give it away. The more you invest in your skills and abilities (Mastery), the more you get out of your purpose. Autonomy empowers you, giving you the energy and internal drive to align your actions with your personal values and goals.
Organizational Performance
Performance issues often stem not from a lack of opportunities for purpose, mastery, meaning, and autonomy, but from powerful groups prioritizing their purpose over others. If your gift isn’t accepted or someone obstructs your work, it can be demotivating.
The Safety Profession – Beware! What You Do On Purpose, Is Your Purpose!
The safety profession aims to protect others from harm. Despite this noble purpose, safety efforts often face disengagement, lack of enthusiasm, or even fear and anger. This disconnect often arises because the headline purpose doesn’t always translate into meaningful contributions.
Here is an oversimplification to make the point clear:
Misalignment of Safety Services with Intrinsic Motivation
Source | Perception of purpose | Translation |
Purpose: | Push paper, correct people, be smart-after-the-fact, count accidents. | Paperwork and targets are more important than people |
Mastery: | Identifying non-compliance rather than fostering growth. | We aren’t good enough |
Meaning: | Correcting contributions instead of recognizing them. | You aren’t good enough |
Autonomy: | Restricting freedom to ensure compliance, stifling creativity and innovation. | You’ll never learn |
C-Suite Conversations
CEO: Motivates the organization to deliver shared purpose.
Finance: Increases profitability.
HR: Enhances employee experience and motivation.
Sales: Expands market size and share.
Safety: Aims for fewer bad outcomes, while saying we’ll never get there.
Changing the Language of Safety
Purpose: Help employees get what they need to contribute their purpose safely. Focus on what makes us strong and how to improve; focus on solution-oriented support, facilitate networking, problem-solving, and critical thinking.
Mastery: Shift from highlighting problems to solution finding and from problem-solving to collaboration and creativity.
Meaning: Share stories that create belonging and show how individuals contribute to building a desirable future.
Autonomy: Transfer ownership for control of work to those that should control work. Ask people how they overcome challenges, how they could create better outcomes, and then help be part of the solution they envisage.
Conclusion
To enhance safety engagement and performance, organizations must shift perspectives and align efforts with shared purpose and meaning.
By rooting safety services in a culture of autonomy, mastery, and meaningful contributions, safety programs can become more effective and motivational.
High trust, purpose-led, values-based organizations consistently achieve better results, proving that a collaborative and supportive approach to safety is essential for success.
OrgTree helps organizations create an environment focused on building successful outcomes.
We guide you in adapting safety services from control to enable, from corrective actions to collaborative creative actions, we don’t count transactions, we help you govern the creation of meaningful contributions to sustainably build fruitful performance.
Our award-winning case studies have proven the link between high trust, high performance, and safe work—the recipe for a thriving business.
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