How Are Your Margins?

When we hear “how are your margins” in business we often think of profit Margins and why wouldn’t we?  All organizations want to be as efficient as possible so that they can return the most profit/ROI for its stakeholders.  Business schools spend countless hours teaching us how different methods of how to achieve max profit and in a global economy it may mean mere survival.  Most companies I have worked with have used Industrial Engineering, Six Sigma or other process improvement programs to become as efficient as possible, and that is a good thing.  However, leaders must also keep an eye on their Safety Margins as well.

Today most organizations are very efficient and have taken out all of the “extra” and are operating at max efficiencies with little margin for error and the front line employees feel it.

Even the military, which has no profit motivation, has gotten in on the act and has been for some time.  In the 80’s and 90’s we moved from two seat fighter Jets to single seat jets. As a single seat Hornet pilot we were told the engineers figured that to operate the airplane at its max capability actually required 1.2 pilots.  Well, being .8 of a pilot on a good day, this made me nervous.  

The Military spent many hours discussing safety and how to cope when you were feeling Overcome By Events (OBE).  They said you are most likely to become OBE during irregular operations (something is not going as planned) and are feeling pressure to fix the issue and get back on track.  During these times we were taught to Aviate, Navigate and Communicate, in that order.  In other words, fly the plane, and then get it headed where you intend to go then tell someone what is going on.  These simple steps saved countless lives in single seat fighter aviation as it predicted this feeling of being overwhelmed, said it was OK to feel that way and provided a strategy to cope.

As leaders it is important that we look ahead and try to predict when our employees may feel OBE and discuss what to do in those cases.  Unfortunately many well-intentioned workers have been injured or killed trying to fix a problem while not costing production.

As Odie would say,” they were doing the wrong thing for the right reasons”.  So, I encourage you to take the time to discuss with your employees the “what ifs” and how to handle them before they happen on the job.  

Lets keep the Safety Margins High.

Lt. Col Wes “Dahmer” Sharp
Safety Speaker, Target Leadership