Your Job

What’s your job?

If someone were to ask you that, you’d have little difficulty answering the question. “I’m the Production Supervisor for Area 7.” “I’m an Electrical and Instrument Maintenance Supervisor.” “I’m the Manager of the Finishing Department.” “I’m the Mill Manager.”

You know who you are; people at work know who you are. It’s how you introduce yourself to those who don’t. It’s your job title.

How do you do your job?

That’s an entirely different question; a different kind of question. It’s the kind of question one of your kids might ask you over the dinner table, because they’re insatiably curious, and relentless about delving into things they don’t know. At the office, it’s different. A lot different.

It’s the kind of question that should be easy to answer; it is your job: when you show up at work, you start doing your job. But exactly how?

Sitting around the dinner table, you’re at liberty to be honest: “I read a lot of email, talk on the phone, and then there are all those meetings.” The kids would giggle. “Actually, I really don’t even go to meetings anymore: most of them are on my computer.” 

Say this much for that answer: a fifth grader would understand it. For decades, that’s been the acid test for effective communication. Fifth graders are really smart and, unlike their adult peers, they won’t act like they get something they do not. You know better than to explain what you do to your kids using management speak: “I make sure people are properly aligned with the plan, know they’re empowered, and appreciate the touchpoints. That’s how we create synergy in our space.”

It makes you wonder why anyone would ever think to talk that way to anybody.

So, other than all those meetings and emails and phone calls, how do you do you your job?

A Day In The Life

Back in the day when process re-engineering was in vogue, following someone around was a commonplace work process improvement technique. For example, if you wanted to know why it took so long to get a leaking gasket replaced on a line, you’d follow the pipefitter assigned to perform that task around for a day, creating a time log. “Attend safety meeting.” “Looking for parts.” “Waiting on a ride to the area.” “Waiting for the permit.” “Answering questions on the phone as to why the job is taking so long.” “Being issued the permit.” Eventually, there would be an entry reading, “Replacing the gasket.”

It was a process known as “A Day In The Life Of…” 

The trick to using this approach to actually improve a process was to pick out work worth improving, and then, after all the dirty linen was hung out, come up with an improvement that would actually make things better – without causing bigger problems.

I know of one place where the solution to this kind of productivity problem was to eliminate the permit requirement for simple tasks. Brilliant! Then someone was killed doing one of those seemingly simple maintenance tasks, reminding everyone that some things are worth the wait.

But that’s about safety versus production; our interest here is understanding how people do their jobs, yours in particular.

Answering the phone, looking for parts, and replacing a gasket are examples of activities. Activities are what keep people occupied; some ways are better than others. “Making the product” ­produces value for the business, whereas “waiting” creates none. Rummaging around trying to “find a part” might produce some benefit, but it’s the kind of thing that can and should be done a whole lot better.

As a supervisor or manager, your activities begin to answer the question “how you do your job”. But it’s far from a complete – or more to the point – a useful answer. Consider the commonplace activity of “attending a meeting.”

Everybody goes to meetings. They’re one big reason why we’re all so darn busy. Suppose it’s your meeting: what’s your purpose in holding the meeting? How do your conduct your meeting in a way that successfully accomplishes that purpose? As opposed to simply allowing you to check the box, “Meeting held as per requirement”.

You might want to try answering both of those questions – what and how – before you hold your next Tool Box Safety Meeting.  If you can’t answer it in terms a fifth-grader can understand, you’re only fooling yourself.

A Day In Your Life

Upwards of a quarter century ago, I undertook just such a “Day In The Life” exercise, but not for me and my job as a consultant; rather, for the most common position in the industrial world, the frontline leader. 

In a global manufacturing company, you’ll find one CEO and a handful of Division Presidents – and a thousand front-line leaders. That’s what I mean by common: frequent and universal. Moreover, what front line leaders do to manage safety performance is pretty darn universal, too.

I had the privilege of working for a collection of front-line leaders, back in the day when the job title was Foreman. My job was General Helper, and I got four summers worth of experience, on midnights and days; weekends and holidays. More than a half century removed, I can still rattle off their names starting with my first supervisor, Andy Varab.

Up close and personal, I observed exactly what supervisors did. Well, except for the part of the job taking place before and after the end of the shift, which I saw later in my career, when several hundred supervisors reported through to me. By observation, the process by which a supervisor actually leads and manages safety performance became obvious. It looks roughly like this: 

• Run the Tool Box Safety Meeting at the start of the day
• Communicate a new or revised safety policy
• Get a safety suggestion
• Meeting over, walk out on the shop floor to tour the area
• Observe equipment and tools
• Observe people working
• Reinforce safe behavior 
• Correct unsafe behavior
• Set expectations for performance
• Answer questions
• Deal with problems
• Add up the score at the end of the day, and look forward to tomorrow

Sure, there are all kinds of other things supervisors are expected to do, from reading the morning’s emails to find out there’s a new safety procedure to be communicated to the crew, perform audits and evaluations, to say nothing of the forms to be filled out and information to be entered into the computer. When the form is a Work Permit, proper execution can literally save a life.

In short, those are the activities that add up to the answer to the question, “How do I do my job?” Explain it that way to your kids over dinner, and they’ll surely understand: “So, at work you have to make people clean up their rooms and do their homework?”

Pretty much.

As To Training

Applying the “Day in the Life of…” technique to the role of the supervisor is instructive: the core activities of leadership and management – the how – become obvious, and in certain respects, rather simple. But in doing that, a second question is revealed: How do you learn to properly perform those activities? The job of a leader spans a wide spectrum, from running effective meetings, managing change, observing and analyzing people and things, coaching and motivating followers, and monitoring safety performance. 

You wouldn’t send a pipefitter out to change a seal without being assured of their competency, would you? Why would your job be treated any differently?

No, it should not.  But for the majority of places I have been over the last half-century, the honest answer to that question has been, “Management and leadership activities are treated differently. You don’t have to be trained or determined to be qualified to perform them.” 

If you were fully trained, qualified and felt competent to lead and manage safety performance on the day you were promoted into supervision, consider yourself lucky.

As to why the common practice has been to rely on hope as the developmental process, I can offer various hypotheses: 

• Leadership skills aren’t that important.
• Anyone promoted into a position of leadership possesses all the skills they need to succeed.
• Leadership is more art than science. There is nothing to be taught, only learned.
• Leaders do not want any training, or think they need any help. 
• Safety performance is as good as it gets. 

There has to be a reason. Perhaps the explanation is as simple as, “I never really thought about how I do my job, and what it takes to do it well.”

The Case for Training

In understanding how to do their job and being able to perform the right activities in the right way, leaders really are no different than their followers. Leading and managing safety performance well boils down to practices. Safety leadership and management practices are a matter of “what to do” and “how to do that.”

There is a world of difference between executing an effective practice and hoping something might work. If you’re a leader, make sure you’re getting the help you need. 

I rest my case.

Paul Balmert
August 2024