November 2011
1 post
http://www.industriouscommunicator.com/post/11871428590/avoiding-safety-rhetoric
October 2011
8 posts
Stifling Communication At Work
Do you have a death wish for your department at work? Do you want to see your team fail in meeting the group’s latest challenge? If so, just stifle communication. It’s really easy to do. In fact, you may already be doing it unawares.
Here are some tried and true techniques for stifling communication in the workplace. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but merely a highlighting...
Avoiding Safety Rhetoric
Talk is cheap. We all know that.
It’s also no secret that the majority of industrial workers are not gullible either. Just because they don’t use the big words and flowery phrases their bosses sometimes do, doesn’t mean that they don’t have a clue. Quite the opposite is true. Often the operators are the ones who are more in tune to what’s safe and what’s not...
Communicating In Context
To be a really successful communicator, you need to have a contextual framework for your communications. What does that mean? Well, it’s a lot simpler than it probably sounds.
It’s all about setting boundaries.
It is rare, when broaching a new subject with someone, to find that a well established context already exists. It is more than common or shared experiences between you and...
Deploying the Easy Button. There's a Right way & a...
I’d like to make a case for the Easy Button because there are times when you can and should use it to your advantage. Now pay close attention. I said use it, but I didn’t say use it for yourself.
Perhaps first we should revisit what we already know - the premise of the famous Easy Button. Who is it for? Well, it’s for anyone who has to do something that they really don’t...
Written Safety Procedures
One area that many organizations could stand to improve in is safety communication.
The Standard Operating Procedure should be the most basic and persistent safety communication tool in the workplace, yet it is often poorly crafted and ineffective. Over the years, I’ve read a lot of them, and the most consistent theme I see is an overall vagueness about how a task can be safely...
Clearly Communicating Details
What if I asked you to lie down and let me drive a loaded dump truck over you? Would you let me? How about for a million dollars? Better yet, would you jump out of an airplane without a parachute for $2 million?
You’re probably responding with an emphatic “No!”
Now, what if I told you that all you had to do is lie down under an overpass, while I drove the dump truck across a...
“trust is a tricky word that is often misused…”
– read more…
People or Processes - Which Is More Important?
I recently took a personality assessment test which required me to answer the following question: “What do you feel more comfortable with, people or processes & systems?”
The question bothered me a lot. Mainly because I had to choose one or the other without the benefit of any elaboration on my part. That’s not the case with this article, however, so now I can share how...