Authority Pressure, Obedience and Organizational Culture

In a recent blog we discussed Peer Pressure, Conformity and Safety Culture.   As with peer pressure, authority pressure and the resulting obedience can be either good or bad.  It is hard to imagine a functioning society without obedience to police officers or successful organizations without obedience to supervisors.  It is also not hard to imagine the negative impact of power hungry, authoritarian police or over zealous, production oriented supervisors. The study of obedience to authority has its roots in the famous research of Stanley Milgram (1963).  His research was stimulated by the Nazi atrocities seen during WWII.  The question he attempted to answer was…how could seemingly moral people follow instructions to kill innocent civilians simply at the command of a superior officer?  The experimental conditions that he utilized involved a series of subjects who were required to “administer” electric shocks to a confederate when the confederate failed to answer a question correctly.  In reality no shock was actually administered but the test subjects were unaware of this and thought that they were actually administering increasingly powerful shocks to the confederate.  If the test subjects balked at administering the shocks, they were directed/commanded by the experimenter (in white lab coat) to continue.  The “shocks” began at 15-volts and progressively increased to a maximum of 450-volts which could in reality kill the confederate if actually administered.  The results indicated that a majority (62.5%) of test subjects went all the way up to the maximum shock when directed to do so by the authority figure.  Many of the test subjects showed signs of distress, indicating that they did not agree with the directive, but the majority did so anyway.

Perhaps even more concerning is recent research that indicates that even having a resistant ally did not stop others from being obedient to authority (Burger, 2009).  The power of authority pressure can be extreme.  While the Milgram studies are focused on the negative effects of bad authority pressure, obedience which leads to prosocial behavior ultimately contributes to culture and organizational success.  It is difficult to achieve success in social groups whether it be society or organizations without obedience.  Understanding the powerful influence that leaders have on the performance of their employees and establishing cultural norms and developing the leadership skills that lead to desired performance can have a profound impact on how these individuals lead and on how their employees respond when pushed to perform in an undesired manner whether that performance relates to production, ethics or safety.

Overcoming the Bystander Effect

Research and personal experience both demonstrate that people are less likely to intervene (offer help) when there are other people around than they are when they are the only person observing the incident. This phenomenon has come to be known as the Bystander Effect and understanding it is crucial to increasing intervention into unsafe actions in the workplace. It came to light following an incident on March 13, 1964 when a young woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a knife-wielding rapist outside of her apartment complex in Queens, New York. Many people watched and listened from their windows for the 35 minutes that she attempted to escape while screaming that he was trying to kill her. No one called the police or attempted to help. As a matter of fact, her attacker left her on two occasions only to return and continue the attack. Intervention during either of those intervals might have saved her life. The incident made national news and it seemed that all of the “experts” felt that it was "heartless indifference" on the part of the onlookers that was the reason no one came to assist her. Following this, two social psychologists, John Darley and Bibb Latane began conducting research into why people failed to intervene. Their research became the foundation for understanding the bystander effect and in 1970 they proposed a five step model of helping where failure at any of the steps could create failure to intervene (Latane & Darley, 1970).

• Step 1: Notice That Something Is Happening. Latane & Darley (1968) conducted an experiment where male college students were placed in a room either alone or with two strangers. They introduced smoke into the room through a wall vent and measured how long it took for the participants to notice the smoke. What they found was that students who were alone noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds) but those not alone took four times as long (20 seconds) to notice the smoke. Just being with others, like working in teams in the workplace can increase the amount of time that it takes to notice danger.

• Step 2: Interpret Meaning of Event. This involves understanding what is a risk and what isn’t. Even if you notice that something is happening (e.g., a person not wearing PPE), you still have to determine that this is creating a risk. Obviously knowledge of risk factors is important but when you are with others and no one else is saying anything you might think that they know something that you don’t about the riskiness of the situation. Actually they may be thinking the same thing (pluralistic ignorance) and so no one says anything. Everyone just assumes that nothing is wrong.

• Step 3: Take Responsibility for Providing Help. In another study, Darley and Latane (1968) demonstrated what is called diffusion of responsibility. What they demonstrated is that as more people are added the less responsibility each assumes and therefore the less likely any one person is to intervene. When the person is the only one observing the event then they have 100% of the responsibility, with two people each has 50% and so forth.

• Step 4: Know How to Help. When people feel competent to intervene they are much more likely to do so than when they don’t feel competent. Competence engenders confidence. Cramer et al. (1988) demonstrated that nurses were significantly more likely to intervene in a medical emergency than were non medically trained participants. Our research (Ragain, et al, 2011) also demonstrated that participants reported being reluctant to intervene when observing unsafe actions because they feared that the other person would become defensive and they would not be able to deal with that defensiveness. In other words, they didn’t feel competent when intervening to do so successfully, so they didn’t intervene.

• Step 5: Provide Help. Obviously failure at any of the previous four steps will prevent step 5 from occurring, but even if the person notices that something is happening, interprets it correctly, takes responsibility for providing help and knows how to do so successfully, they may still fail to act, especially when in groups. Why? People don’t like to look foolish in front of others (audience inhibition) and may decide not to act when there is a chance of failure. A person may also fail to act when they think the potential costs are too high. Have you ever known someone (perhaps yourself) who decided not to tell the boss that he is not wearing proper PPE for fear of losing his job?

The bottom line is that we are much less likely to intervene when in groups for a variety of reasons. The key to overcoming the Bystander effect is two fold, 1) awareness and 2) competency. 1) Just knowing about the Bystander effect and how we can all fall victim to this phenomenon makes us less likely to do so. We are wired to be by-standers, but just knowing about this makes us less likely to do so. 2) Training our employees in risk awareness and intervention skills makes them more likely to identify risks and actually intervene when they do recognize them.

Peer Pressure, Conformity and Your Safety Culture

We are social creatures. We desire and attempt to maintain relationships wherever we are. In other words, we try to fit in with other people. This is true whether we are talking about family, work or just out in public with people we don’t know. The research is pretty clear….our decisions and actions are impacted by the people around us. Take the classic research of Solomon Asch (1955; 1956) which demonstrates the power of groups (normative influence) on our decision making. The experimental task was simple….select which one of three comparison lines match the standard where one line was obviously longer and one obviously shorter. The catch was that the experimental subject was grouped with varying numbers of confederates who would select an obviously wrong answer. The results were consistent….participants were likely to go along with the group even when the answers were obviously wrong and this conformity increased as group size increased. Additional research by Asch demonstrated that conformity decreases by approximately 25% with just one dissenter, suggesting that people want to make the correct decision and they don’t need a lot of support from group members to do so. The implication is that people tend to conform to group norms if everyone agrees, but are willing to dissent if there is any sort of disagreement among group members. The reason people are willing to go along with a group even when the decision is obviously wrong is because of fear of rejection and research provides ample evidence that rejection is a very common result of dissension with group decisions (see Tata, et al, 1996). There is a second reason that people go along with the group in addition to the desire to be liked and to fit in (normative influence). Research demonstrates that we go along with the group on many occasions because we think the group knows more about the correct decision than we do (informational influence). Two types of situations produce informational influence: (1) ambiguous situations in which a decision is difficult, and (2) crisis situations in which people don’t have time to really think for themselves. While (2) is pretty uncommon, (1) is very common in the workplace, especially with new hires. Less experienced employees don’t want to be rejected by the group, but additionally don’t have the experience to make thoughtful decisions when faced with situations that they have not encountered before. This is especially true when they are observing more experienced employees who don’t view the situation as ambiguous at all and don’t seem to hesitate when making a decision, even when the decision leads to an unsafe action. These types of decisions become automatic….just the way we do it around here. While peer pressure can be a bad thing if it leads to undesired behavior, it can also be a “good” thing if it leads to positive, safe, desired behavior. Understanding the power of peer pressure and the accepted, automatic nature of responding within an organization can help you create a safety culture where peer pressure leads to safe performance and a decrease in undesired behaviors and resulting incidents.

The Brain Science of Human Performance: Part 2

In our last post, "The Brain Science of Human Performance", I described how three inherent functions of the brain affect the performance of people in very real ways.  These three functions are problem solving, automation, and generalizing.  I also introduced another mechanism of the brain that can inhibit performance, cognitive biases.  In this followup, I will propose a way to overcome the cognitive biases and use the three functions in a strategic manner to drive good performance. As I detailed before, our brains take in an enormous amount of data when we are trying to problem solve a new and/or difficult task.  This data is comprised of many factors that we call our "context".  The most salient (important) and obvious factors actually create a feeling of what makes sense in that moment and is referred to as "Local Rationality".  Once we complete the task and it seems to be successful we eventually automate this process and it becomes part of our normalized routine. We then, without even realizing it, assume that if that process worked in that case, then it must be the right thing to do in other, similar, cases and this is where the "generalizing" comes into play.  While this may seem like an inherent flaw, those that understand this process are able to actually use it to create better performance.  We know that our brains kick in when we have to start processing new context.  If we can identify the context that was previously in place (i.e., that created a moment of local rationality for performing in a flawed way) we can change that context to be more conducive to better performance.  For example, an operator at a manufacturing facility has found a way to reach around a guard and remove product that has become lodged in the machinery.  He doesn't perform lockout/tagout (LOTO) because the main power source is across the facility and it takes more time to walk over there and lock and tag than it does to perform his work-around.  He also knows just where to insert his arm to reach around the guard and pull out the product.  He's not the only person doing this, as many other operators have been performing it that way in this facility for years.  In fact, it's just how they do things around there, and after all nobody has ever been hurt doing it this way and, additionally, they have certain levels of production that they must maintain to keep their supervisors off their back.  While that may seem like a very mundane and simple example of what happens in countless facilities everyday, it is actually rooted in an incredibly complex cognitive system.  While most of you can see an immediate fix or two (move the power source and create a better guard) let's understand how that actually affects the brain.  If we are able to get budget approval (sometimes difficult) to move the power source and fabricate a better guarding system, then we would have a new and salient context.  If the operator can't reach through the guard, then he would be required to remove the guard, therefore removing the guard becomes the logical, but time consuming thing to do.  If, however, de-energizing the machinery is easier and requires less time, then it becomes far more likely that he will actually do that, not because he's lazy but because we've just impacted a cognitive bias that I'll explain later.  Once this context is changed, the cognitive automation stops and we move back to problem solving.  Based on the new context, a different way of doing things becomes locally rational and once that new, and better way of performing the task is successful, that performance will then become automated and generalized.

Unfortunately, our work isn't yet complete, we also have to deal with those pesky cognitive biases (distortions in how we perceive context).  I mentioned above that a person may chose to skip LOTO because it takes more time to walk across the facility than to perform the actual task.  This is rooted in a cognitive bias called "Unit Bias" where our brains are focused on completing a single task as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Or how about the "bandwagon effect" which is the tendency to believe things simply because others believe it to be true.  There is also "hyperbolic discounting" which is the tendency to prefer the more immediate payoff rather than the more distant payoff (completing a task vs. performing the task in a safe way), and the list goes on.  To overcome these cognitive biases we must first become aware that they exist.  Our brain is wired in a way that these biases are a core function.  To begin to rewire the brain and overcome these biases we must understand these biases and with this awareness we are actually less likely to fall victim to them.  When we fail to do this we are actually falling victim to yet another cognitive bias that is called "Bias blind spot".

So what is the take-away from all of this?  Our brains are wired to function as efficiently as possible.  One of the ways we do this is to automate decision making and performance to maximize efficiency.  Our decisions are driven by our contexts and the sometimes distorted way that we view that context.  If you want to change unsafe performance you have to change the context and the way we view our context so that it becomes locally rational to perform in a safe manner.  If we don't change the context we will continue to get the same performance we have always gotten because that is just the way our brains do it.

The Brain Science of Human Performance

Have you ever experienced the mental anguish of trying to perform a new and complex task?  Something that requires so much mental and maybe even physical dexterity that it takes you a while to problem solve and get it right?  I would imagine that most of us have experienced this innumerable times in our lives and, if replicated enough times, that task eventually becomes something of a second nature.  This concept was actually captured quite well by Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”.  Kahneman talks about this second nature mental tasks as System I thinking and the more complex and process heavy tasks as System II.  Put simply, things that we do without even really thinking about it, like a skilled typist putting her fingers on the correct keys when she constructs an email, as System I tasks.  However, a person new to typing would have to try to remember where each key is located or maybe even look at the keyboard itself to find that ever elusive “X” key and this type of processing would be System II thinking. Understanding Kahneman’s description of System I and System II thinking, however, is only a part of the brain science of human performance.  As we like to say it, the human brain does three things repetitively and expertly; Problem Solve (System II), Automate (System I), and finally generalize, and it does all of this while interfacing with the world in a sometimes distorted manner.

Let’s see if we can break this down somewhat sequentially, although much of this happens simultaneously in the real world.  Problem solving a new task at work, as mentioned before, can be complex and mentally taxing.  You see, our brains are taking in all of the relevant information in performing this task while also trying to process extraneous context such as peer approval, time pressures, available resources, family issues, what’s for dinner, etc., etc.  Once all of this data is processed and the task is completed successfully our brain feels like the problem solving job is completed and wants to move on to the next task.  This is where automation comes in.

The human brain really isn’t capable of multi-tasking at any level of effectiveness.  While it may perform multiple tasks at the same time, it can’t really process two System II tasks simultaneously.  Therefore it wants to automate tasks (System I) so that it can be ready for the next System II task.  Automation may take time to fully take hold but once it does it is often communicated as, “this is how I’ve always done it” or “that’s just how we do things around here”, but at some point that task was new and a System II process.  The problem with automation is that we don’t realize that we are in automation.  We don’t feel the mental strain of these automated tasks and don’t even realize that we are involved in them hundreds, maybe even thousands of times a day.  But our brain isn’t finished trying to be efficient, not only does it want to automate tasks, it also wants to generalize tasks or behaviors that seem to be somewhat related.  Basically our brain says, “if that works here then it must work there as well”.  In that moment of trying to be super efficient our brains have bypassed the entire problem solving process for future tasks that seem to be related to the automated tasks that we have already problem solved.  This would seem to be highly efficient, but it can also lead to errors.  In two weeks we’ll revisit a previous topic…..the distorted view of context in the problem solving process (cognitive biases)…..and then also examine how we can make this brain science work in our favor.

Sorry, I Just Forgot!

Do you ever have trouble remembering someone’s name, or a task that you were supposed to have accomplished but didn’t, or maybe how to safely execute a procedure that you don’t do very often? I know…. you can’t remember! Well if you do forget then you are perfectly normal. Forgetting is a cognitive event that everyone experiences from time to time, but why? What causes us to forget and is there anything we can do about it? Bottom line is that when we forget, we have either failed to encode the information into long-term-memory (LTM), which means we don’t have the information stored in the first place, or we have failed to retrieve it effectively. The failure to remember the name of someone that we have just met is probably an encoding failure because we don’t move the person’s name from working memory to LTM and it just disappears or gets knocked-out because of the short-term nature of working memory. To get it into LTM we have to “elaborate” on the information in some way, maybe with a rhyme, or rehearsal, or some other mnemonic technique. The problem is that most of us either don’t expend the effort needed to transfer information like names of people we probably won’t meet again to LTM, or other information that comes in right after we hear the name interferes with transfer. But what about information that is important, like a meeting that we scheduled for 10:00 AM next Monday with a coworker about an important project that we are working on, or wearing your safety glasses when using a grinder in your home workshop? Both are important but might require different assistance to avoid forgetting. Maybe you put the meeting on your calendar but didn’t create a reminder because this is an important meeting and you will certainly not forget to check your calendar Sunday night. But you were busy watching Sunday Night Football and didn’t check your calendar and when you got a call from your coworker at 10:10 on Monday morning asking why you weren’t in the meeting, you were totally shocked that you hadn’t remembered the event. Maybe you began operating your grinder without putting on your safety glasses because the glasses weren’t readily available. These types of retrieval failures are most likely caused by something that impacts us all….interference at retrieval. There has been a lot of research into the effects of interference on memory both at encoding and at retrieval and the evidence is pretty clear…..retrieval is cue dependent (a context effect) in that it is stimulated by hints and clues from the external and internal environment (i.e., our context). If the salient cues that were present at encoding are present at retrieval, then you are less likely to forget, i.e. have a retrieval failure. The more similar the context at encoding and retrieval the greater the chances of remembering. Interference by dissimilar cues like the report that you started working on at 8:00 AM on Monday when you got to work increase the chances of forgetting the meeting. Or not having safety glasses readily available and obvious on the grinder. The way we can capitalize on the strengths of our brains and overcome it’s short comings is to better understand how our brains work. In the case of the meeting, creating cues that will be present at both encoding and retrieval is very helpful. Creating a reminder when putting the event on your calendar and then experiencing that same reminder cue before the meeting, or putting the meeting on your to-do list and then visualizing your to-do list at the beginning of the day are things that capitalize on our brain’s strengths and help avoid its weaknesses. But what about remembering to wear your safety glasses when operating a grinder? Something as simple as hanging safety glasses on the grinder switch can help. Also, research has clearly demonstrated that emotional cues tied to information at encoding increase the chances of accurate retrieval. Creating a visual image of an eye injury or hearing/reading a vivid story of a real grinder related eye injury will increase the chances that simply seeing the grinder will cause you to remember to put on your safety glasses. The bottom line is that the more we understand how we function cognitively, the better able we are to create contexts that help us remember and succeed.

Why Does Context Matter?

If you’ve been reading our blogs for some time you know that we center our approach to human performance around the idea of “context”.  Context is at the heart of the science of Human Factors, also referred to as “ergonomics”.  Human Factors involves understanding and integrating humans with the systems that they must use to succeed and context is central to that understanding.  To say that we are a product of our environment is accurate, but far too simplistic for those attempting to be more intentional in changing performance.  A practical way to look at context is to think of the world around us as composed of pieces of information that we must process in order to successfully interact with our environment.  These pieces of information include the other people, physical surroundings, weather, rules, laws, timing, and on and on and on. The breakdown in this process is when it comes time for us to crunch that data and react to it.  Our brains, at the time of this writing, still have the edge on computers in that we can intentionally take in data rather than passively waiting for something else to give us the data, and we can then decide how we behave with respect to that data where a computer is programmed to behave in predictable ways.  However, at times, that unpredictability could also be a weakness for humans.

The two most glaring weaknesses in processing the data are topics that we have written about just recently (Hardwired Blog and Cognitive Bias Blog).  The first of these can be explained by staying with our computer analogy.  For those of you that understand computer hardware, you would never spend your money on a new computer that has a single core processor, which means it can only process one job at a time.  While our brains aren’t exactly single core processors, they are close.  We can actually do two jobs at a time, just not very well and we bounce back and forth between these jobs more than we actually process them simultaneously.  Due to this, our brains like to automate as many jobs as possible in order to free itself up to process when the time comes.  This automatic (System 1) processing impedes our more in-depth System 2 processing and while necessary for speedy success, it can also lead to errors due to failure to include relevant data.  In other words, while living most of our lives in System I is critical to our survival, it is also a weakness as there are times that we don’t shift into System II when we should, we stay in automation.  Unfortunately we are also susceptible to cognitive biases, or distortions in the way we interact with the reality of our context.  You can read more about these biases (here) but just know that our brains have a filter in how we intake the data of our context and those distortions can actually change the way our brains work.

So what are some examples of how context has shaped behavior and performance?

- Countries that have round-a-bouts (or traffic circles) have lower vehicle mortality rates because the accidents that occur at intersections are side swipes rather than t-bones.

- People that live in rural areas tend to be more politically conservative and those in urban areas tend to be more politically liberal. The reason is that those living in smaller population densities tend to be more self-reliant and those living in higher population densities rely on others, in particularly, government services.

- People who work in creative fields, (artists, writers, musicians, etc.) are more creative when they frequently change the environment where they do their work. The new location stimulates the executive center of the brain.

- Painting the holding facilities of people arrested under the influence of alcohol a particular shade of pink has proven to lower violent outbursts. *Read the book “Drunk Tank Pink”, it’s genius.

- A person that collapses due to acute illness in a street is less likely to be provided aid by other people if that street has heavy foot traffic. The fewer people that are around the more likely one of those people will provide aid.

- As a hiring manager, I’m more likely to hire a person whose name is common and which matches my age expectation.

- School yard fights increase during the spring time when the wind blows harder causing the children to become irritable.

These are all examples of how the context around us can change our behaviors and performance.  If we can start looking at our context in more intentional ways and engineering it to be more conducive to high performance, we will ultimately be better at everything we do, at work and home.

Just Pay Attention and You Won’t Get Hurt!

I have been thinking about the role of “attention” in personal safety lately.  I can’t tell you how many times I have heard supervisors say…”He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if he had just been paying attention.”  In reality, he was paying attention, just to the wrong things.  Let me illustrate this with a brief observation.  Two of my grandsons (ages 4 and 6) play organized baseball.  The 4-year old plays what is called Tee-ball.  It is Tee-ball because the coach places the ball on a chest high Tee and the batter attempts to hit the ball into the field of play where there are players on the opposing team manning the normal defensive positions.  It is my observation of the players on defense that has helped me understand attention to a greater depth.  Most of the batters at this age can’t hit the ball past the infield and most of them are lucky to get it to the pitchers mound, so the outfielders have very little chance of actually having a ball get to them and they seem to know this.  For the most part, the “pitcher” (i.e., the person standing on the mound) and to some extent the other in-fielders watch the batter and respond to the ball.  The outfielders however are a very different story.  They spend their time playing in the dirt, rolling on the ground, chasing butterflies or chasing each other.  When, on the rare occasion that a ball does get to the outfield the coach has to yell instructions to his outfielders to get them to look for the ball, pick it up and throw it to the infield.  There is a definite difference of attention between the infield and the outfield in Tee-ball.  This is not the case in the “machine-pitch” league that my 6-year old grandson plays in however.    For the most part all of the defensive players seem to attend to the batter and respond when the ball is hit.  So what is the difference?  Obviously there is a maturational difference between the 4/5-year olds and the 6/7-year olds but I don’t think this explains all of the attentional difference because even Tee-ball players seem to pay more attention when playing the infield.  I think much of it has to do with expectations and saliency.  Attention is the process of selecting among the many competing stimuli that are present in one’s environment and then processing some while inhibiting the processing of others.  That selection process is driven by the goals and expectations that we have and the salience of the external variables in our environment.  The goal of a 4-year old “pitcher” is to impress her parents, grandparents and coach and she expects the ball to come her way, thus attention is directed to the batter and the ball.  The 4-year old outfielder has a goal of getting through this inning so that he can bat again and impress his audience knowing that the probability of having a ball come his way is very small.  The goals and expectations are different in the infield and outfield so the stimuli that are attended to are different.  The same is true in the workplace.  What is salient, important and obvious to the supervisor (after the injury occurred) are not necessarily what was salient, important and obvious to the injured employee before the injury occurred.  We can’t attend to everything, so it is the job of the supervisor (parent; Tee-ball coach) to make those stimuli that are the most important (e.g., risk in the workplace, batter and ball in the Tee-ball game) salient.  This is where the discussions that take place before, during and after the job are so important to focusing the attention of workers on the salient stimuli in their environment.  Blaming the person for “not paying attention” is not the answer because we don’t intentionally “not pay attention”.  Creating a context where the important stimuli are salient is a good starting point.

Stress and Human Performance

If you examine the research literature on the topic of “psychological stress” you will find that there is a lot of disagreement on a definition of that term. However, there is almost total agreement that while stress can have positive effects in some situations, it can also have very negative effects on human performance in other situations.  For our purposes we will accept the Mirriam-Webster definition of stress as “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.”  While this definition ignores the positive effects of moderate stress that research shows is needed for motivation and action, it does describe a state that we all have experienced, and some of you may be experiencing right now.  Stress comes in several forms, including acute stress (in an emergency situation), chronic stress (from factors such as job, family, etc), stressful life events (e.g., divorce, death of a loved one, etc) and just those daily hassles (e.g., traffic, arguments, etc).  The one common thing in all of these types of stress is that they originate as a response to context.  There’s that word again….the one that we seem to talk about in just about all of our blogs.  Not only is stress a response to various aspects of our context, stress becomes part of our context and then impacts our performance and the decisions that we make.  Stress is our physiological response to our interpretation/appraisal of our context and it directly impacts cognition, social behavior and general performance.  Salient contextual factors such as noise, peer pressure, authority pressure, task load and time pressure have been shown to have detrimental impact on performance. Research is clear that high levels of stress cause us to narrow our attention span, decrease search behavior, react slower to peripheral cues, reduce our vigilance, degrade problem solving and rely on over learned responses that may or may not be best in the current situation.  In other words, we tend to make poorer decisions that can lead to failure and even injury.  Stress also causes us to lose our team perspective and it decreases the frequency with which we provide help to others.  This is especially impactful when working in high risk environments where watching your partners back and intervening when necessary is critical to maintaining safety and stopping unsafe actions and incidents.

So how do we deal with this so that stress doesn’t negatively impact performance?

We suggest a two-pronged approach involving (1) control of context and (2) control of how we interpret context in the moment.  Keep in mind that we are talking about normal stress reactions that we all experience, not pathological reactions that are best dealt with by trained therapists.  Let’s start with control of context and let’s set that context in the workplace.  In the workplace, context is, to a large extent under the control/influence of supervision and management.  So what should supervisors and managers do?  They should attempt to set realistic production objectives with realistic time constraints to create a context that help control stress produced by task load and time pressure.  They should minimize where possible the amount and duration of noise.  They should make sure that employees are trained so that they have the knowledge and skills required to meet those production objectives.  Simply being aware of the negative impact of stress, the relationship between stress and context, and the impact that they personally can have on that context will go a long way in stress control.  But what about how the individual interprets context in the moment.  Simple awareness that we can control stress reactions through our interpretation of context is a very good starting point.  In our February 25, 2015 blog we discussed how we are “Hardwired to Jump to Conclusions”.  In that discussion we saw how research supports the involvement of two different cognitive “Systems” in decision making and that System 1 tends to make quick decisions based on past experience and System 2 tends to be more rational and analytic.  Research demonstrates that the more stress we are experiencing, the more likely we are to engage in System 1 thinking which increases the likelihood that we will make less informed and perhaps less effective decisions.  We suggest that you use the initial physiological stress reactions as a “trigger” to stop, engage System 2 cognitive functions and evaluate your current context to determine what, if anything, can be done to create a different, less stressful context.  But what if you can’t change the context?   As we all know, there are times when we have a deadline and we are stuck in traffic and we can’t change that.  But we can stop, engage System 2 thinking, slow down our physiological response, realize that stressing out is not going to change the situation and figure out the best way out of this situation.  This of course takes practice and there are times when we won’t be successful, but understanding stress and how to respond to it can become an effective strategy to help us perform effectively in stressful conditions.

Are Safety Incentive Programs Counterproductive?

In our February 11, 2015 blog we talked about “How Context Impacts Your Motivation” and one of the contextual aspect of many workplaces is a Safety Incentive Program designed to motivate employees to improve their safety performance. Historically the “safety bonus” has been contingent on not having any Lost Time Injuries (LTI’s) on the team during a specified period of time. The idea is to provide an extrinsic reward for safe performance that will increase the likelihood of safe behavior so that accidents will be reduced or eliminated. We also concluded in that blog that what we really want is people working for us who are highly intrinsically motivated and not in need of a lot of extrinsic “push” to perform. Safety Incentive Programs are completely based on the notion of extrinsic “push”. So do they work? We know from research dating back to the 1960’s that the introduction of an extrinsic reward for engaging in an activity that is already driven intrinsically will reduce the desire to engage in that activity when the reward is removed. In other words, extrinsic reward can have the consequence of reducing intrinsic motivation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get hurt and I would assume that most people don’t want to get injured either. People are already intrinsically motivated to be safe and avoid pain. We also know that financial incentives can have perverse and unintended consequences. It is well known that Safety Incentive Programs can have the unintended consequence of under reporting of incidents and even injuries. Peer pressure to keep the incident quiet so that the team won’t lose it’s safety bonus happens in many organization. This not only leads to reduced information about why incidents are occurring, but it also decreases management’s ability to improve unsafe conditions, procedures, etc. resulting in similar incidents becoming more likely in the future. Because of this, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recently determined that safety incentive programs based on incident frequency must be eliminated because of these unintended consequences. Their suggestion is that safety bonuses should be contingent on upstream activities such as participation in safety improvement efforts like safety meetings, training, etc. On a side note, in some organizations, the Production Incentive Program is in direct conflict with the Safety Incentive Program so that production outweighs safety from a financial perspective. When this happens production speed can interfere with focus on safety and incidents become more likely. Our View

It is our view that Safety Incentive Programs are not only unnecessary, but potentially counterproductive. Capitalizing on the already present intrinsic motivation to be safe and creating an organizational culture/context that fosters that motivation to work together as a team to keep each other safe is much more positive and effective than the addition of the extrinsic incentive of money for safety. We suggest that management take the money budgeted for the safety incentive program and give pay increases while simultaneous examining and improving organizational context to help keep employees safe.

Hardwired to Jump to Conclusions

Have you ever misinterpreted what someone said, or why they said it, responded defensively and ended up needing to apologize for your response? Or, have you ever been driving down the freeway, minding your own business, driving the speed limit and gotten cut off by someone? If you have, and you are like me then you probably shouted something like “jerk” or “idiot”. (By the way, as my 6-year old grandson reminded me from the back seat the other day….the other driver can’t hear you!) As it turns out, we are actually cognitively hardwired to respond quickly with an attributional interpretation of what we see and hear. It is how we attempt to make sense of our fast paced, complex world. Daniel Kahneman in his 2011 book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” proposes that we have two different cognitive systems, one designed for automatic, rapid interpretation of input with little or no effort or voluntary control (System 1) and the other designed for conscious, effortful and rational interpretation of information (System 2). We spend most of our time utilizing System 1 in our daily lives because it requires much less effort and energy as it helps us make sense of our busy world. The problem is that System 1 analysis is based on limited data and depends on past experience and easily accessible knowledge to make interpretations, and thus is often wrong. When I interpreted the actions of the driver that cut me off to be the result of his intellect (“idiot”), it was System 1 processing that led to that interpretation. I “jumped to a conclusion” without sufficient processing. I didn’t allow System 2 to do it’s work. If I stay with my System 1 interpretation, then the next time I get cut off I am even more likely to see an “idiot” because that interpretation is the most easily accessible one because of the previous experience, but if I allow System 2 to operate I can change the way I perceive future events of this nature. System 2 allocates attention and effortful processing to alternative interpretations of data/events. It requires more time but also increases the probability of being right in our interpretation of the data. Asking myself if there could be other reasons why the driver cut me off is a System 2 function. Identifying and evaluating those possibilities is also a System 2 function. Engaging in System 2 cognitive processing can alter the information stored in my brain and thus affect the way I perceive and respond to similar events in the future.

So how can we stop jumping to conclusions?

It would be great if we could override our brains wiring and skip System 1 processing but we can’t. Actually, without System 1 we would not be very efficient because we would over analyze just about everything. What we can do is recognize when we are jumping to conclusions (guessing about intent for example) and force ourselves to focus our attention on other possible explanations, i.e. activate System 2. You need to find your “guessing trigger” to signal you to call up System 2. When you realize that you are thinking negatively (“idiot”) about someone or feeling a negative emotion like anger or frustration, simply ask yourself…. “Is there something I am missing here?” “Is there another possible explanation for this?” Simply asking this will activate System 2 processing (and also calm you down) and lead to a more accurate interpretation of the event. It will help override your natural tendency to jump to conclusions. It might even keep you from looking like an “idiot” when you have to apologize for your wrong interpretation and action.

How Context Impacts Your Motivation

We have been writing and speaking for several years about the importance of an individual's context on their performance and decision making. In fact context is a central component of our SafetyCompass® and PerformanceCompass® training programs. When we talk about context we mean the factors including the individual, others, physical surroundings and organizational systems that are present and salient to the individual in the moment and that impact what the person decides to do. The individuals contribution to context includes such things as knowledge, ability, attention, physical condition and emotional condition. Another aspect of a person's context is their current level of motivation but it is important to note that their current level of motivation is also impacted by their context. There are two types of motivation commonly referred to as “intrinsic motivation” and “extrinsic motivation”. Intrinsic motivation (sometimes also referred to as “self” motivation) comes from within the person and is developed over time as a result of success (meaningful accomplishment) and recognition from individuals that the person deems to be significant (e.g. parents, siblings, boss, etc.). Extrinsic motivation is brought about by the desire for and application of external consequences such as money and praise. It would be nice if everyone was 100% intrinsically motivated but the reality is that we are all, for the most part motivated to do well for the sake of self gratification and for the praise and other external consequences that success derives, e.g. we like the money our successful performance generates. It is also important to understand that our level of intrinsic motivation can be impacted by aspects of our context other than money and praise. Think about how your desire to perform can change because of your physical condition. Are you more motivated when you feel good or when you are sick or tired? Are you more motivated when you understand why you are doing something and how you are supposed to do it? Are there some locations and times of day where/when you seem to be more motivated and productive than others? I seem to have a higher level of motivation and success writing blogs and chapters for our upcoming SafetyCompass book in the morning, in a cubicle in the local library than I do in the afternoon, at my desk in my office. Is your motivation to engage in certain actions impacted by what those you work with find important and talk about? Are you more motivated to do things that your boss says are priorities? Do you find yourself more successful and more motivated when you have your workplace organized in a way that makes you feel more comfortable? Are you more motivated to perform a procedure that you understand and agree with than one that is confusing or just wrong? Most of you would probably consider yourselves to be pretty highly intrinsically motivated but if you answered “yes” to any of these questions then you, like me, are also impacted by extrinsic factors in your contexts. So why is this important? If you are a boss or a parent who has responsibility for the performance of others, you can also have impact on the contexts that those individuals work/live in. The greater your understanding of those contexts and the more you “engineer” them for success, the more successful you, and they will be.

Sustaining Good Performance

We have spent a lot of time talking about the side of accountability that involves correcting failure. But if you will recall our discussion in January, accountability actually involves an examination of the facts/reasons underlying a specific event/result (accounting) followed by the application of appropriate consequences for those actions and results in an attempt to more predictably have success going forward. In other words, accountability involves first the identification of both failure and success, followed by an examination of the underlying reasons for the failure/success and then the determination of the appropriate consequences to help sustain the success or eliminate the failure in the future. This month we would like to discuss the appropriate application of consequences following success so that we will have a greater chance of sustaining good performance going forward. But why is this important anyway? When we ask supervisors/managers what they really want from their employees we get a very consistent response…..”We want employees who give us good results and who take initiative!” My response to this is that the two are highly interrelated. Let me explain what I mean by this. People who take initiative are people with high levels of Self-Esteem or Self-Confidence which is developed from meaningful (to the person) accomplishment followed by recognition by someone significant to the individual. In most cases the supervisor/manager has a significant level of control over both of those variables, i.e. they control the tasks that the employee is allowed to engage in, they control recognition and they are significant to their employees (in most cases). Obviously, for success to occur while engaging in meaningful tasks, there needs to be support through training, necessary resources, etc. and when success occurs there needs to be the appropriate application of recognition, or what psychologists call “reinforcement”. Reinforcement by definition is a consequence that when following a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will reoccur in the future. If that reinforcement is recognition by a significant person then it will also serve the function of increasing self-confidence and the likelihood of initiative. It is important that the recognition follows some important guidelines however. Let’s look at four important aspects of reinforcement; What, When, Where and How.

WHAT. The rule here is to reinforce the behavior/performance that you want to continue and not the person. This focus on behavior ties the reinforcement to that behavior in the future and is what increases it’s chances of reoccurrence. This will also act to increase self-esteem even though you do not focus on the individual. For example, saying….”Thank you. You got that report in on time and with no errors” is much more effective than, “Thank you. You are becoming a very reliable employee.” While the latter may make the person feel better, it does nothing to point out exactly what you want going forward.

WHEN. Reinforcement is not always appropriate as we will discuss below, but when it is it has been demonstrated that reinforcement that immediately follows an action is in most cases the most powerful and effective. While some delay may be necessary in some cases, waiting until the annual performance appraisal is certainly not the best option.

WHERE. While failure should always be redirected in private, success should be reinforced in public in most cases. Public recognition does two things, it makes the person look good in front of peers and at the same time demonstrates your expectations to others on your team. It must always however be appropriately done as we will discuss below.

HOW

• Keep it brief and simple. It should, in most cases take only a few words and therefore a few seconds to reinforce performance. If you feel it is necessary to explain in more detail the exact performance/result then do so, but don’t carry on forever. You will lose the person’s attention and perhaps even embarrass the person in front of peers.
• Be genuine. Let the person know that you truly appreciate their success and expect it to continue into the future. Sarcasm has no place in the application of reinforcement.
• Make it appropriate to the level of performance. Most of the time a simple “thank you” with a connection to the successful performance is appropriate, but when the result is significant and worthy of additional recognition, just make sure that it fits. For example, if the person has contributed beyond expectations and their impact has had a noticeable impact on revenue, then a bonus might be in order. Failure to evaluate the appropriateness of recognition could lead to reduced performance in the future.
• Be consistent among employees. While meaningfulness varies among employees the need for recognition doesn’t. Make sure that you find what is meaningful for each employee and apply recognition where appropriate in a consistent manner.
• Avoid scheduled or predictable recognition. Psychological research shows that variable (unpredictable) reinforcement is more effective for behaviors that have been learned. While teaching a skill the application of continuous reinforcement is best, but after the skills is learned change to a less frequent, less predictable schedule and you will find that employees will be successful for a longer period of time.

What’s the point?

Sustained successful performance accompanied by initiative requires self confidence. Meaningful accomplishment followed by recognition by a significant person helps to create that self confidence and thus sustained success. If you are a supervisor (or a parent) you have more control over this process than you might imagine.

Dealing with Defensiveness in Relationships

If you are a normal human, then you are regularly stuck dealing with defensiveness in relationships, both in yourself and in others. Defensiveness is the normal human reaction to threats to a person’s reputation and/or dignity. We are hardwired to protect ourselves both physically and emotionally and we do that by either fleeing or fighting. We call these “retreating” or “pushing” and both are signs of defensiveness. When we feel threatened, some of us, at times, get quiet and don’t say anything. Others argue back or provide justification for their actions. Depending on the situation and the person with whom we are interacting, all of us can, for the most part, resort to either defense mechanism.

The bottom line is that defensiveness, while normal, is also harmful and disruptive because it doesn’t help us think or communicate effectively. As a matter of fact, it causes us to “dumb down” and become cognitively less effective in the moment.

We call this process “the Defensive Cycle” and it looks like this:

Us

• It starts when we see or hear someone do or say something.
• We then make a bad “guess” about why they did it. That bad guess is what is called the “Fundamental Attribution Error” because we mistakenly attribute the other person's action to some internal state of theirs that puts them into a bad light (e.g. poor motivation, selfishness, personal satisfaction in insulting or devaluing you in some way).
• That interpretation then creates a desire in us to defend.
• We then do so by either retreating (sulking, withdrawing, looking down, etc) or by pushing back (using harsh words, giving a harsh glare, etc).

Them

• The other person observes our action.
• They interpret our response as offensive.
• They likewise defend by either retreating or pushing.

Us

• We in turn respond and the cycle goes on until someone “wins” (actually until both lose because there is always a winner and a loser and when we lose we like to get even with the winner which leads to another defensive cycle).

Notice that the defensive cycle begins when one person does or says something and the other person “guesses” bad intent. It is that “guess” that is the problem because we can't determine the true intent unless we communicate. Unfortunately, the bad guess leads to anger or frustration which impedes the very communication we need.

Dealing with Us

We suggest that the key to defusing your defensiveness is to “Learn Your Trigger”. When you become angry or frustrated, let that emotion trigger curiosity rather than blame.

When you become angry or frustrated, think to yourself, “I must be guessing something bad. Why would this person have done or said that?”

Simply stopping and asking yourself this question interrupts the defensive cycle, re-engages your brain and keeps your cognitive skills at a higher level so that you can hold a more effective, less defensive conversation. So that is how you can help control your defensiveness, but what about the other person’s defensiveness?

Dealing with Them

Remember that defensiveness starts with a bad guess, so when the other person becomes defensive it is because they have attributed bad intent to what you have done or said. Your job is to help them understand your true intent which you can do by simply telling them what that intent is.

Use what we call a “Do/Don’t Statement” to accomplish this. Tell them what you do mean and, if necessary, tell them what you don’t mean.

For example

You and your spouse are planning to attend some event and it is time to leave. You are not sure that she is aware of the time since she doesn’t wear a watch, so you say to her…”Do you know what time it is“ and she responds with “I can tell time!”

To this you could respond with a Do/Don’t statement to clarify what you really mean…”I certainly don’t mean to insult you or make you feel rushed, I just wanted to know if you were aware that it is time to leave.”

Dealing effectively with both your defensiveness and the defensiveness of others will lead to happier, healthier relationships and a lot less “getting even”.

4 Feedback Pitfalls Every Manager Should Avoid

Giving feedback to employees is critical for improvement to occur, but effective feedback involves avoiding these four pitfalls.

1. Avoiding feedback all together or waiting too long to give it

Research has demonstrated that feedback that follows immediately after the action will have the biggest impact on the behavior. Immediate negative feedback will weaken unwanted behavior and immediate positive feedback will strengthen behavior. But don't let not being able to give immediate feedback keep you from giving it at all. Later is still better than not-at-all!

2. Over-or under-boarding

Have you ever seen a manager call someone up in front of a group for some success and go on-and-on about the success, totally embarrassing the recipient of the praise? That is what we call "over-boarding" and it should be avoided because the praise actually becomes punishing and has an effect opposite of that which is desired. On the other hand, failing to provide enough feedback for significant success can lead to reduced motivation in the future. For example, you just saved the company $2 million and the boss, in private says, "Hey, thanks." Make it appropriate to the level of success.

3. Blaming the employee for a failure

Blame rarely fixes anything; it usually only de-motivates. Focus on finding the real reason for a failure and fix that. Blame may be quick and satisfying, but it is not effective.

4. Punishing in public

No one likes being "made an example of" or humiliated in front of their peers. Such humiliation leads to "getting even" and employees can be very creative when getting even ... like work slow-downs, fake injuries, bad-mouthing the boss behind his back, or talking bad about the company to potential customers. Negative feedback should always be given in private. There are instances when a witness will be present, but the witness should not be a coworker of the person receiving feedback.

3 Keys to Building and Maintaining Confidence and Confidentiality

“Confidence” is the feeling or belief that you can rely on someone to do what they say they will do, including keeping personal information confidential.  In supervisor and coaching relationships there must be mutual confidence between the parties for mutual trust to be developed.  Here are three keys to developing confidence in a relationship. 

1. Set confidentiality ground rules.

This may seem unnecessary, but just setting a ground rule that all information about each other is to be held in confidence unless there is agreement to the contrary can help create an environment of trust. This will create an atmosphere where the parties are willing to be vulnerable with each other, making it easier to be helpful to the other person.

2. Be honest about expectations and abilities.

In supervisor or coaching relationships it is critical that each party understand the capabilities and expectations of the other. This requires that honest evaluation of what is expected from the other person and what the other person feels competent to deliver is made clear. Supervisors must have confidence that the employee understands and is able to deliver. The employee must have confidence that the supervisor is providing complete information about expectations and the resources necessary for success. Failure in either of these areas can lead to lack of confidence.

3. Keep promises.

This is simple; do what you say you will do. People need to be able to rely on others if trust is going to be maintained. When you can’t do what you say you will do, then make sure that you make the other person aware at the earliest possible time so that surprises are eliminated. The ability to rely on the other person to do what they say they will do and to protect that which is told in confidence is critical to the development of mutual trust in a relationship.

All They Care About Is Money!

So is money a requirement for motivating employees? For years we have been asking students in our Performance Management classes to tell us why people leave their jobs, and for years they have told us that most people leave for more money.

Actually, research has consistently shown that while salary increase is important, it is usually far down the list of reasons why employees decide to leave for another job. Significantly more people leave because they want more or new challenges, they are not happy with how they are treated by their current supervisor or they believe their contributions are not valued. Money is obviously important because it allows us to meet our basic needs and achieve some of our life goals, but it may not be as important as other factors that are in the direct control of supervisors.

Using Extrinsic Motivators Effectively

The best supervisors understand that money is just one of the extrinsic motivators that they have at their disposal and that the way they use these motivators is more important than the motivators themselves. Because of this, they follow what we call “The Contingency Rule” in the application of all extrinsic motivators. So what is this rule?

The Contingency Rule: Tie the extrinsic motivator to performance. Extrinsic motivators that supervisors have at their disposal include such things as money, praise, job assignments, training opportunities, etc. Making the receipt of any of these contingent on successful performance is critical to their motivational impact. For example, it has been well documented that cost of living increases act as a satisfier and not as a motivator because they are not tied to performance. It could be argued that not receiving an expected cost of living increase could act as a motivator to look for another job, but in this case it would be a de-motivator for improved performance in the current job.

"Best Bosses" are clear about what they expect from employees, and they are also clear about the relationship between accomplishment of those expectations and extrinsic motivators. When people know that successful performance leads to increase in pay, praise, desired job assignments, etc, they are much more likely to put out the effort required to receive those things. Failure to understand these contingencies will only lead to employee confusion, dissatisfaction and lowered motivation. It might also lead the person to look for another job.

Conflicting goals make room for performance failures

Most people do not set out to fail. On the contrary, most of us regularly attempt to succeed; but at times we do fail none-the-less. The role of a supervisor is to get results through the efforts of other people, so an important question for supervisors is, “Why does a specific performance failure occur?” There are a lot of reasons - knowledge, skill, motivation, etc. - and key among them is something called “goal conflict”.

We live in a complex work-world with multiple competing demands. We must be safe, fast, cheap and valuable all at the same time. It is humanly impossible to make all of these goals #1 at the same time, so we make cost-benefit tradeoffs and “choose” which objective is the most important at the time given the pressures of the environment/culture that we are in. I may choose to “hurry” because of time pressure, but in so doing sacrifice safety and quality.

As a supervisor I need to understand the drivers behind employees’ performance failure before I can adequately help them become successful. What “tradeoffs” did the employee make that produced the failure? Did his desire to “please” the supervisor outweigh his calculation of his own skill-level? Did her perceived pressure to produce outweigh the thought to evaluate hazards associated with the task and take precautionary action?

Unless we as supervisors take the time to evaluate the conflicting goals that drive employees’ performance, we will be less effective in reducing the opportunity for failure.

Consequence Predictability and Results

Have you ever worked for someone whose reactions were unpredictable? One day they were giving positive feedback for success and the next day they were dressing you down for the same results? How did/would that make you feel? What impact would that have on your desire to achieve good results? For most of us the lack of predictability would create a reduction in motivation to succeed and show initiative. Research has shown that lack of predictability of consequences increases stress and that increased stress, beyond a certain point, reduces the ability of individuals to perform. When we know what to expect, we are less stressed and more likely to put out the effort required for success. Although we might not appreciate a “knit-picking” boss, we can live with it (for a while), if we know that it is his/her style and it is predictable. We all prefer working for someone who provides consistent positive feedback for success and consistent input (redirection) on how to be more successful when we fail.

It is always better to hold people accountable for their results in a predictable and consistent manner. As always, we recommend fair evaluation of results followed by consistent/predictable positive feedback for success and consistent/predictable redirection of actions that have led to failure.

By the way, parents, this goes for your children, too. They need to know that they can expect appropriate, consistent and predictable consequences when they succeed and when they fail.

4 Keys to Effective Listening that Maintain Mutual Respect

“Respect” does not necessarily mean to admire or even to like the other person, but it does mean to see the other person as worthy of special consideration. Mutual respect therefore means to be considerate of each other as a means of building trust. The primary way that we show respect is through the way that we listen to the other person and the way the other person listens to us. There are four keys to effective listening that impact the perception of respect.

1. Look like you are listening. It has been said that up to 80% of what you communicate about your interest in what the other person is saying is carried by the way you look. This includes appropriate eye contact, facial expression, body posture, arm position, etc. If you don’t look like you are interested and that you are really listening, then the other person is very likely to feel that you aren’t and that is communicated as lack of respect. You may be listening but failure to look like like you are listening is almost always viewed as lack of respect.

2. Ask clarifying questions. One of the quickest ways to demonstrate disrespect is to interrupt the other person with comments or judgement about what they are saying, but interrupting to ask a clarifying question communicates that you are listening and that you care about really understanding what the other person is saying.

3. Paraphrase to demonstrate your desire to understand. Paraphrasing is not repeating back exactly what the person said but rather your understanding of the meaning behind what they said. This, like clarifying questions, indicates that you are interested in truly understanding both the content and intent behind their message and in doing so, it demonstrates respect.

4. Apologize when you are disrespectful or perceived to be disrespectful. Sometimes we say things that are either clearly disrespectful or could be viewed to be disrespectful by the way we said it. In such cases it is appropriate to apologize. We suggest that you use a “do/don’t statement” such as “I am sorry I came across that way. I certainly don’t intend to be disrespectful, and I really do want to make sure that I understand what you are saying.”