Here’s a picture of a woman praying in a temple that caught my eyes while in India. What is she doing and why does it matter to attend to her ritual?
This woman is whispering in the ear of the lion’s statue, and the lion is looking straight into the deity’s eyes. In her whisper, she maybe revealing her secrets, desires, sins (errors as we call them in our industry) or wishes. The role of the lion is not to judge or offer solutions but to simply pass her message to the deity. The lion is doing precisely what a safety manager or HR director would do – to communicate the concerns of the employees to the senior managers.
The Catholics created the ritual of Confession. The Egyptians communicated to their gods through Pharaohs; the Shinto tradition instated Kamis and the Africans assigned Pangools as their lesser deities to communicate their worries to their gods. Across cultures and religions, humans have created Human Resources and Safety managers to speak truth to power without being judged.
In modern management, we have similar concepts such as ‘psychological safety’, ‘stop the job authority’ and ‘just culture’ for the workers to share their concerns and ideas.
Am I saying that CEOs and safety managers have deity-like qualities? That is stretching it a bit too far. True but let’s go beyond the literal and obvious and question the hidden meaning in this ritual.
Historically, why did humans choose animals and gods over community members to disclose their fears and concerns?
Can you think of a time when someone shared a concern that you were not expecting from them?
What happens to us when we hear about issues that we cannot control?
This centuries-old ritual reminds us of a well-honed human tendency. We dismiss those things that do not fit with our agendas and templates. ‘Stick to the question’ or ‘this is not what I have asked for.’ We even have a term for it. Waffling. In an efficiency driven society, it is a waste of time.
I think the opposite. I think we should be very (very) thankful for such moments. These are moments of true learning. Someone came to us and shared a concern that we were least expecting. We may not find it appealing. We may not have a solution but that is learning. That’s discovery. We discovered something that was beyond our imagination. We came to know about a problem that has quietly been breeding outside of our documented processes. In Social Psychology of Risk, we even have a word for it. We call it a ‘Gift’.
Consider yourself very fortunate when you receive a Gift. That’s a very reliable KPI for a learning organisation.
How often do you receive a gift at work or even at home? And what do you do with the gift?
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Rob Long says
Thanks Nippin. I find most in safety don’t even know when a gift is being given because they are not able to listen for it. Instead that are ruled by the discourse of ‘performance’ (HOP) and the language of outcomes and efficiency. Similarly, when content knowledge is called ‘learning’ most don’t know what learning is either. All of this is driven by a behaviourist ideology that chokes the industry. No wonder people don’t speak up, noone would listen unless they could measure it as an outcome.