Leading and Learning Through Safety
Leading and Learning Through Safety
Episode 148 - The Intent of Ethics
The podcast episode delves into the intersection of core values, ethics, and legislation within organizations, particularly focusing on safety and leadership. It discusses the debate surrounding whether a company can truly embody ethics, arguing that while companies may have written value statements, it ultimately depends on the individuals within the organization to uphold those values. The host reflects on the distinction between written laws and their underlying intent, emphasizing the importance of both adherence to regulations and understanding their spirit. The episode underscores the role of influential leadership in fostering a culture of safety and ethical behavior within companies, criticizing instances where companies prioritize profit over safety despite stating safety as a top priority.
This week on the leading and learning through safety podcast, we're continuing our talk about core values and ethics with a real life example from the news just weeks ago, coming up on the podcast
Announcer:Welcome to the leading and learning through safety podcast. Your host is Dr. Mark French marks passion is helping organizations motivate their teams. This podcast is focused on bringing out the best in leadership through creating strong values, learning opportunities, teamwork, and safety. Nothing is more important than protecting your people. Safety creates an environment for empathy, innovation, and empowerment. Together, we'll discover meaning and purpose through shaping our safety culture. Thanks for joining us this episode. And now here is Dr. Mark French.
Mark French:Welcome to this episode of the leading and learning to safety podcast. So happy you've joined me. So happy to be back in the seat, talking about safety talking about leadership. In this week, I want to continue the conversation from last week because it's such a huge component of what we do every day, when we work with people. And it's about core value. It's about ethics. There's a lot of debate on what it means for an organization or let's call it a company to have core values or to have ethics. And a lot of the ethics are dictated like what we would call ethical behavior, a lot of time is dictated through legislation, pretty common that we found that certainly companies have not been able previously to govern themselves. Therefore there has to be laws put into place, which I think fundamentally answers the question I'm about to pose which is more of a philosophy than it is anything but I think it's an important piece of my belief system. And along with kind of how companies work and how it goes that they may have a written value statement, they may have a very clear dictation of what their core values are and what they strive for, as a company. If they actually do that if if they actually go above and beyond what is required by law is often something different. And we see that with a mean, go to the news, look up things that have gotten companies in trouble. And you'll see the examples in the biggest question that's always been posed, I think in a in more of a company, philosophy and theory of business is can a company actually have ethics? Because a company is just a a thing on paper. It is a an organization to reduce liability from the people in it. It's It's essentially a tax number. Where the people involved in it are the ones that can have ethics, they can have values, they can have things like that. I remember listening to an OSHA attorney one time explain why they were arguing the law. And someone was talking about well, the spirit, the intent of what we legislated in this law was to do this, we were with the the spirit of the law. And sometimes we've heard that the spirit or intent of the law was this. And the lawyer said a law is nothing more than black and white text on a piece of paper. A law does not have feelings, it does not have intent, it does not have a spirit. It is nothing but black and white on a paper. And it fundamentally shook my world. When I heard that argument, because I've always believed in there is what is written that you have to follow. But there's also the spirit of it. To me, there's always been an intent behind what it was trying to do, in that you should and of course I am a I am no doubt what we would call lawful good. There I am. I am a rule follower. I may argue the rules, I may disagree with the rules, and I may passionately just be against what is happening. But I have a tendency of following just who I am. And so I've always in my career looked at what does it say in black and white, but also what was the intent, let's do both. Let's make sure that we're doing the right thing. But also doing the thing it says to do it in safety, that can be different. Sometimes, a lot of times, they wrote confined spaces, probably the bet one of the best examples of like, it doesn't apply. Like it's written so broadly, that you can apply it to a lot of things. And it should. And sometimes it's like, that doesn't really make a lot of sense for this situation, but they couldn't define every situation. The intent was to protect people from harm and rescue them when needed fast. The law gives you all the stuff you have to do, and sometimes it's a little bit extra, but that's okay. We do it. And we have to explain it to our team of like, while they're going through all the extra effort, because it does, it feels extra. But that's okay. Extra can be good when we're trying to protect people. So I go back to the idea of can accompany have that I don't think so, because we see so many companies always say we, because you and I were we're talking as a team here. But it's really my belief. I've always seen it, that you switch out the top leader, you switch out some of the core leadership, even at the site level or higher, switch out that leadership to a different ideal, and a different mentality and a different motivation, you'll get a very different culture quickly, it will move it will change, it will adapt based on the most important thing to that person. And they can look at that core values document all day long, and go man and do what they want. That happens. How many times in the news, and here's one I'm about to cite, I'm finally going to get to that point. In the news, how many times do I read it and see it and argue it and get angry over it and in hated when I read after a serious injury or a multi explosion or someone getting killed? that the company will make a statement as a safety as our top priority? Was it? Or is it now? For the moment? There is a question, Where are you living? If it was a key priority, there's probably a document somewhere. And yeah, I've done some of that research where I've went to someone's web page and I've read their safety statement, after I've read a horrible news story about something that happened. And sometimes it's like, the third or fourth time something terrible has happened. And they have this great statement that says oh committed to our people and committed to safety and committed to the environment. Okay, that is worthless piece of paper because no one has, the leadership is not living it at all. And so when we do that when we see this when we see this app, and it's sad that as human beings, we are legislated to force ourselves that when we're responsible for the livelihood of others, that we are legislated to make sure we don't kill them on the job. Fundamentally, that bothers me and I hate it. I love the fact I have a job. I love the fact of what I do. I am I love the people who do this for a living and have a passion for it. In HR and safety where we're engaged with the people. We are the advocates, hopefully, for people for the right thing, that we sometimes act as that conscience that Jiminy Cricket, of the company, because the company is just an incorporation of black and white letters on the legal paper. We have to influence the people inside of that the leaders inside of that we have to be influential leaders, as John Maxwell says is leadership. It's nothing but influence. If you can influence you are a leader. I love that. So many times we have to be that influential part, to try to change the behavior in the culture and to establish values to establish ethics to remind them that what we're doing is legislate it's illegal to do some of the things that we should not be doing that other companies that companies should not be doing. And I have already taken the first Half of the podcast just setting it up for the news story that I want to talk about. When we come back to the second half of the leading and learning through safety podcast,
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Mark French:And An investigation is underway by OSHA where a 37 year old employee of a company they were working and pinned between a forklift and a truck on Friday afternoon, resulting in the death of the employee. Two common fork truck fatalities and injuries and especially in between the caught in between injuries where maybe the driver didn't see them. Maybe it's improper use maybe the person stepped in a location they shouldn't have man are trying to guide or trying to do be helpful and get pinched in between for trucks and people are a tough match. For trucks have so many blind spots, so many. So making sure that areas are clear, making sure that they're the Ford truck is visible and you can hear it coming in the horn and double checking the people know the plan. To be out I'm gonna lift this thing I need you out of the way to make sure that nothing falls. I want to take this a little further that they did a great job. And in this news article all posted, of course in the links of my Facebook and LinkedIn with the podcast link. That they did a little they actually interviewed someone from OSHA and the person from OSHA was pretty open. Like it there was no like, investigation has continued they came out and said some things I said about a decade ago, the they had inspected this company, smaller company. And they had already been fined for serious violations and to other than serious violations. The violations included things like debris on the floor must have been a lot for them to get signed in except it electrical strain on cords. It could be extension cords being piggyback that could be a number of things there that could be happening. But interesting enough failure to conduct periodic inspections on energy control procedures. So basically, they didn't validate that their lockout tagout actually worked. In the final one. In you know where I'm going with this. I'm sure you can feel it coming failure to certify their powered industrial vehicle operators as required. Fill failure to train, failure to train fork truck drivers. And then a few years later in 10 years from a safety standpoint, not a lot. Especially when you know something's wrong and you're repeating history. That's not good. And I'm not saying the training was the issue here. But the fact that there was leading there just like this was a lagging being find is a kind of a lagging indicator. Those the OSHA inspectors are good so they find things. They can find them they look for them. But to find that failure to certify other drivers are there Ford trucks, and a few years later, decades later, which again, and in safety world to me is not a long time. It's a long time to forget something, but not when it comes to protecting your people. Not when it comes to a shooter but we do have short knowledge of those things. We have short memory spans, and that's where capturing findings and capturing history when it comes to your culture and people so input why do we do what we do well, because just a few years ago this happened. We want to forget those things sometimes. And then have a fatality where someone is caught between a 37 year old caught Between a truck and a fortress and killed on the job. Unacceptable. Terrible. I wonder, does this company do they teach about core values? What do they say about ethics? I don't know, I can't find those things in this particular case. But it makes you question and it also makes you question I've covered this before this, the human motivation of knowing that if you're working for an organization working for a company that chooses, it's a choice not to invest in training and people. And in basic things, you still do it, because you got to work to earn money. And companies know that, that they have workforce because people want to earn money, they will sometimes exploit that by providing less than safe working environment, which is the next key fundamental motivator need of a human being is to feel safe. And if you're going to spend eight plus hours, somewhere, most days of the week, you think you'd want to feel safe. And every day, in this country, people are having to choose between feeding their family and potentially working somewhere that's unsafe. That's a heavy burden that shouldn't be there. And that's where when it comes to ethics, when it comes to core values, it's so critical that we carry them because the company depending on depending on factors of people, again, may or may not be living them may or may not have. And so we other human beings that are around that see this, have to be a part of it. And that's hard. That's hard. So I really enjoyed the conversation on core values and ethics. I think that's some of the most critical fundamental to what we do. And I want to transition into some really cool things that are coming up here soon. Coming up in August at the end of August, is in the state of Kentucky, the Society of Human Resources managers will be having our Sherm will be having their conference I just received notice, I'll be speaking, they're super excited to make that transition. Formally from blending safety and human resources, the core motivator, the core engagement factor, we're bringing it together. And then in early in June, the Tennessee safety conference, for me one of the best safety conferences in the nation, state run been around a long time, I'm honored again to be part of it. I'll be speaking there also, so far this year. So it's turning out to be a fun year for being out there and hope you're able to have the chance to learn more to be a part of things to join in on some of the great times that come with that kind of education, they kind of really, it's a great opportunity for me to realize that we're not on the island alone, and we're not. And speaking of that it is mental health awareness month. And this year's topic is take the moment so I'm transitioning to one last thing before I close out this podcast, take the moment for your own mental health. Do something right now. One minute, maybe it's three deep breaths. Maybe it's talking to a friend about what's going on. Maybe it's making that call for the first time to get some help. I encourage you, I support you. I have been there. I take that moment for your own mental health during this month of May, Mental Health Awareness Month. And I wish you the very best in that journey. It's hard. And I hope you can take the first step and take that moment. Until next time we chat. Stay safe. Thank
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