Greetings! Welcome to another installment of this month’s safety column! One extremely important facet of safety is effective communication. This topic is one of the most important areas of concentration for someone in a safety position, and yet it is often overlooked.
When I was in junior high, high school, and college, for some reason I was drawn to speech classes. Mainly because I thought to myself, how hard can these classes be? During the course of my last 10 years of my education, I took these aforementioned classes, with absolutely no intention of being in the oilfield and especially no intention of being a safety person! Ah… the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. Good communication skills are key, if one hopes to adapt one’s message to whatever situation may lie at hand. A safety person must be able to communicate effectively in a boardroom as well as in the field at a rig site.
I was not aware of the different types of effective communication prior to these classes. Nor did anyone elaborate on the importance. There are these six main types but not not every situation may be covered by the list below:
- Written
- Oral
- Visual and Active Listening
- Non-verbal
- Impromptu
- Technical
Have you ever taken a safety class where they read the Powerpoint to you? Before the class has ended you’re looking for any excuse to leave the presentation. Whether one is speaker or a recipient, it is often a miserable experience.
The best public speakers/instructors that I have ever had were the ones that were quick witted, well rehearsed, and witty, but who seemed as their words were off the cuff. They captured the attention of a diverse audience and the class was over before I even knew it was an hour long. Conversely, I’ve been around speakers that just gave the facts in a monotone voice that made a one-hour class seem like eight hours.
Safety personnel often do not always hone their skills in terms of communication. It sounds like they have given the same speech, unrehearsed, 500 times, and they are as equally as excited being there as you are. The same applies to presentations given in board meetings, instructional classes, or in any situation where a guest speaker ran over in time. The audience, one at a time, gets up and leaves, each feigning that they are catching an important call, only to go hide in a stall in the restroom. I confess that I have done that.
This is why I recommend formal training in giving presentations. I don’t enjoy comedians but I do enjoy humor. I don’t enjoy tragic stories but I do find real-life experiences to be informative, truthful stories that have a specific point.
A wise man told me once that I don’t want to know how to build a watch, I just want to know what time it is. The worst thing you can do is set a time limit and conduct a class that goes to the max every time. This leaves no time for questions, clarifications, or input. If you don’t have a set time for the presentation, that is like playing tennis without lines or a net. Everyone enjoys finishing a little early or at least on time.
There are communication courses that are designed to analyze the targeted audience in order to determine the optimum methods. Try giving the same speech with no changes of delivery to your spouse, your kids, and then your boss! I bet the manner of delivery changes. Always seek genuine input to hone our your skills in communication. This is a practice that Washington D.C. could take notes on.
If a safety person, a professor, or a sales person cannot capture an audience, whether that audience numbers 100 or just one, then there will not likely be any takeaways! All that gets “taken away” is boredom. As Strother Martin said in Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got heah is fail-yah to communicate.”
Some say communication is essential. I say effective communication is essential! If you’re not effective, you are just going through the motions and taking up time. Most people just want the shortened version. Back in my day, we could always rely on Cliff Notes.
Now we’ve spoken about talking, teaching, and communicating. The last leg of effective communication is effective listening! Have you observed the communication skills of, oh, 90 percent of the politicians lately? How would you rate their listening skills? My goodness, they do like to hear themselves talk, yet they’re not grasping the listening part. They say they listen. The evidence does not support their statements. When they do break down and listen, they are not hearing. They do not understand our battles. I feel the safety departments are listening to the battles that the workers face, but not hearing or not understanding the value.
So if you are in the safety field or just interested in safety, let’s recap. Study all facets of your craft. General knowledge of your chosen field is a must! Subject knowledge is essential.
However, if you are unable to get a meaningful understanding from your workers and then effectively communicate, motivate, and/or involve them, you must ask more questions to find resolve. Listen to their battles without blowing them off. If you are underperforming in safety, I would bet they do not understand how important safety is. And that’s a communication issue. Safety is a value. It is either understood or it is not.
The bottom line is… It’s not how many hits you have in baseball (or in safety) that counts. It is how many times you reach home safely!
—Dust
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Dusty Roach is a safety professional based in Midland. He is also a public speaker on subjects of leadership and safety, and he maintains a personal website at dustyroach.com.