Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition

by Joseph Grenny

while we were working with Noble Drilling, a world leader in offshore oil drilling and a leader in workplace safety, internal experts described their safety challenge in the following way: “In our company 98 percent of our people do 98 percent of the right stuff 98 percent of the time. And that’s not good enough!” Notice how this statement focuses the search for vital behaviors. If Noble Drilling could find the 2 percent of the times when 2 percent of their people did 2 percent of the wrong stuff, it would have tremendous leverage for improvement. And that’s what the company leaders did. They looked for crucial moments. They studied safety violations, and they documented the times, people, places, and circumstances when they occurred. It turned out that their employees followed nearly every safety regulation nearly all the time, with a few exceptions. One exception was when the rig was down—not operating. When a rig is up, it brings in about a quarter of a million dollars a day. When it’s down, it brings in nothing, and as you might imagine, everyone goes into emergency overdrive. The sound of “We’re not making money!” rings through the rig, and people respond by taking shortcuts and skipping safety steps in order to get the rig back to making money. Nobody asks them to take shortcuts or turn a blind eye to safety protocols. They just do. The other exception was similar, but it involves the weather. When a big storm is approaching and workers have to button up and evacuate...