Are your leaders ready for the next disruption?
The speed and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic took most leaders and organizations by surprise. While this disruption is a dramatic outlier, leaders need to recognize that disruptions happen all the time. Some are unexpected, like COVID-19, while others are not. Businesses often disrupt themselves to innovate or react to new market demands. The bottom line: planned or not, disruption is here to stay. So how will you prepare your leaders for the next one?
When does disruption occur?
Understanding when disruption happens is a critical first step in preparing for it. Most disruptions are smaller than COVID-19, yet still have a significant impact on the business. Often self-initiated, disruptions occur when the business sets a new vision and goals or makes changes in strategy and operating models to adapt to marketplace forces. Culture transformations, acquisitions, mergers or other organizational change efforts also create disruptions. Frequently, more than one of these changes is happening at a time.
Why is disruption occurring more frequently now than ever?
In today’s environment, change is the new constant. Since the end of the twentieth century, the advent of the Internet and rapid advancements in technology have dramatically increased globalization and connectivity, accelerating the rate of change beyond anything seen before. In turn, this has shifted how leaders must approach change.
What did change look like before?
In the past, change was viewed as a straightforward process – a controllable event with a beginning, middle and an end. To prepare for change, leaders would plan for it, manage it and course correct to get to the end and be done with it.
Leaders embraced the mindset that with change comes risk. They believed change must be controlled to mitigate the various risks involved. This mindset allowed leaders to create the illusion of steadiness and calmness – something that historically came after change. This is called the stability mindset.
Change is uncomfortable for most people, so leaders often try to use the stability mindset to make their teams feel safe and secure, which enables them to perform at their best. However, in today’s business environment, this natural reaction is misguided. Persistent change means that treating change like a fixed set of events doesn’t align with reality.
Leading in today’s world
To be successful, leaders are now required to embrace the new belief that change is good fortune. Leaders must hold an opportunity mindset, embracing change as ongoing and necessary for growth and cultivating the belief that opportunity only comes with change. This new mindset turns on its head how leaders of the past perceived risk. Instead of associating risk with change, today’s leaders must understand that risk actually comes from NOT changing and remaining with status quo. Inertia causes organizations to lose ground and fall behind. Thus, change is not only necessary, but advantageous for businesses to adapt. Leaders who embrace an opportunity mindset can navigate change with a sense of confidence rather than hesitation or doubt.
Mindsets matter
The way leaders think about change is one of the biggest determinants of how successful change will be1 . Therefore, it is critical to examine preexisting organizational and individual mindsets about change. Typically ignored, these can provide critical information to help unlock transformation.
To help identify your individual and your organization’s mindset towards change, below are four different types of executives and organizations. Each example profiles an organization’s underlying relationship with change and identifies whether it embraces a stability or opportunity mindset.
Change Receivers:
Leaders who perceive change as pushed upon them feel a lack of control, resulting in a flight response. When leaders are in the habit of being a receiver of change, they are passive in their reaction and feel out of control, as if there is nothing they can do to prevent what is happening. Leaders with this response to change abdicate their own authority. The change receiver holds a stability mindset.
For example, a high-tech manufacturer set in motion a significant go-to-market global transformation. The changes brought by its new strategy shifted expectations for sellers, but these changes also touched product development, supply chain, customer support and finance. Senior leaders just below the c-suite reported that the “decisions are made by HQ” and even referenced “looking up” for direction as a behavioral norm in the company. These leaders tended to:
- Wait for direction or decisions from others before moving forward
- Refrain from taking action in new situations to avoid conflict
- Escalate decisions, assuming such judgements are “above my pay grade”
- Accept decisions or direction even when they don’t think they will work
Change Resistors:
Leaders who try to maintain their power and authority by pushing back against change. These leaders strive to protect the past by resisting the change with the belief that it will go away in the near future. Leaders will freeze, choose inaction or only take actions that they can control. Resistance can take many forms, such as questioning the authority of the change leaders, seemingly agreeing and then doing nothing, and citing reasons why the change does not apply to them. These leaders hope to wait out change. The change resistor holds a stability mindset.
For example, a global manufacturing company would routinely rotate high-level senior leaders as part of their development plan. During the rotation process, these senior leaders sometimes faced resistance, skepticism and inaction from their new team of leaders. The local leaders knew from their past experience that they could passively resist the new direction and continue doing what they were doing because their new senior leader would change again soon – as would the direction. In this case, resisting change was the leaders’ best path to stability. This led them to:
- Refrain from speaking up, even when holding an alternative perspective that would provide needed insight
- Bring up reasons that something could not be done based on precedent or history
- Agree, and then find reasons not to execute on the stated commitment
- Poke holes in the plan as a means to avoid taking action
- Criticize change efforts without offering alternative ideas or help
Change Controllers:
Leaders who believe that they can control change and its effect around them. These leaders create detailed plans, launch initiatives, manage events, or do anything that gives them a sense of control. Why is this a fight response? Taking action feels good, but even when executing the most well-crafted plan, a leader will encounter unexpected circumstances.
If the leader believes they have controlled the change with their plan, then obstacles and missteps are failures. When this happens, there can be a tendency to ratchet up reporting and accountability, micromanage or even to seek to blame for mistakes or lack of progress. This behavior gives them a sense that they are managing change. They often believe that it is up to them to help get their team or organization “through” the change. The change controller holds a stability mindset.
For example, an Oil and Gas organization recently launched a new strategy. As part of identifying what was needed to move the strategy forward, they reviewed critical processes designed to aid strategy execution. During the review, the senior team realized that their approach to quarterly business reviews would hurt progress toward their strategy rather than moving it forward. The senior team determined that their detail-oriented questions were “backward looking” and provoked ineffective behaviors rather than learning and forward progress, so they completely changed it. These change controllers tended to:
- Make decisions independently with limited input from colleagues
- Seek information that supports their personal agenda
- Ask detailed questions about why progress is slow or results were less than planned
- Give detailed instructions on what to do rather than inquire about what has been tried
- Discount obstacles raised by others to keep to the original plan
Change-Ready LeadersTM
Leaders who see change as normal, constant and the source of new opportunities. Leading change from this perspective requires a new set of great behaviors from leaders. A leader can choose to lead change rather than avoid it, resist it or try to control it. To lead change means leaders are scanning the environment, anticipating what is coming, and seeing opportunities where others see challenges. In some cases, it means thinking through a Plan B (and Plan C) because they know that Plan A will not work perfectly. Leaders focus more on aligning their teams on direction and purpose rather than telling people what to do. They create an environment where people learn, adapt and change together. The change-ready leader holds an opportunity mindset.
Change-ready leaders also focus on gaining emotional agreement from teams around the change being implemented and the reasons for doing it. This is a departure from the common idea that leaders only need to focus around explaining the “why” behind the change when communicating to individuals. Alignment around the vision is more beneficial for teams so they become invested in changing rather than focused on the why behind the change. Great leaders understand that letting people find their own reason for change and developing that understanding is critical to building trust.
How do great change-ready leaders lead? They try new tactics and implement new leadership competencies that they may not have used before. These competencies are brought to life in the form of behaviors, which are a result of having a different mindset and response to change. A change-ready leader holds an opportunity mindset and believes that change is expected, normal and constant. In order to make that mindset come alive, great change-ready leaders:
- Rally others around the positive reasons for continual change
- Accept the conflicting views, assumptions and feelings of the team
- Promote the company’s purpose while simultaneously balancing the reality of today and future possibilities
- Engage diverse teams to work together on difficult challenges while holding them accountable
- Encourage the team to accept change, paradox and complexity as facts of life that yield new opportunities
While these change-ready leader behaviors may seem to be common across companies, they are actually represented uniquely in each organization. Mindsets are universal across organizations, yet their application is contextual. This means that great leadership is not a carbon copy across all companies – an organization’s culture plays a significant role in terms of what makes a leader great on the job.
To become change ready, it is critical for leaders to understand and codify both the “how” and “when” to lead change within the context of their own organization. This works best if leaders can define what great change leaders do differently relative to average leaders in the form of capabilities and behaviors. In tandem with change leader capabilities and behaviors, identifying the pivotal moments where leaders need to demonstrate the capabilities and behaviors is an excellent tool for development.
Identifying these pivotal moments allows leaders to immediately recognize the situations where, by changing their actions, they will have the largest impact..
To prepare for the next disruption, leaders need to uncover their current response to change, understand why and how it served them in the past, and then shift to seeing change as a new constant. Once this change in mindset happens, behaviors will shift consistent with being a change leader within the context of their organization. Adopting a more productive relationship to change during the COVID-19 crisis will help leaders navigate the current situation and come out of it more prepared and confident for the next disruption. With tools in hand, perhaps they will even seek opportunities and create disruptions of their own.
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Last night I started reading a book by Irvin Yalom, a psychiatrist who has written several novels that I’ve loved. But right now I’m reading something different—a book of short lessons he’s learned from many years of working with patients.
Early in his career, Yalom was inspired by something he read. The gist of it was that all people have a natural tendency to want to grow and become fulfilled—just an acorn will grow up to become an oak—as long as there are no obstacles in the way. So the job of the psychotherapist was to eliminate the obstacles to growth.
This was a eureka moment for Yalom. At the time, he was treating a young widow. Suffering through grief for a long while, she wanted help because she had a “failed heart”—an inability ever to love again.
Yalom had felt overwhelmed. How could he possibly change someone’s inability to love? But now he looked at it differently. He could dedicate himself to identifying and eliminating the obstacles that kept her from loving.
So they worked on that—her feelings of disloyalty to her late husband, her sense that she was somehow responsible for his death, and the fear of loss that falling in love again would mean. Eventually they eliminated all of the obstacles. Then her natural ability to love—and grow—returned. She remarried.
Reading this story made me think of the responsibility of leaders toward the people they need to develop—and for the growth and learning that leaders themselves require to be the best that they can be.
Many leadership development challenges seem overwhelming—even impossible. The leaders that we coach usually have a list of areas where they want to get better, but how? How do you “build better relationships with your peers and direct reports”? How are you supposed to “get out of the weeds and demonstrate enterprise-wide thinking” or “build executive presence”? All of these goals are as abstract as they are huge.
So the best approach is to not focus on the huge and fuzzy goal. What we try to do is to break these goals down into concrete actions through working on real-time business problems. To put it simply, though, we do just as Yalom does: We identify the obstacles and work toward knocking them off, one at a time.
Leadership development is not usually a quick fix. You’re not going to develop executive presence through a half-day workshop or a one-time meeting. If you’re interested in meaningful, lasting growth—whether for yourself or for those who work for you—it’s a commitment.
But don’t ever forget that we’re all capable of growth throughout life and our careers. The trick is to find the right coach or mentor who will guide you through that obstacle course.
In my work as an executive coach, I meet at least once a month with each of my coaching clients.
I often talk to them on the phone and exchange emails with them as we work on their real-time business challenges. So, what happens in those conversations? Recurring themes start to come up. I find that many leaders have a “talk track” of words and phrases that they use all the time—without always being aware of the impact. For better or worse, this talk track ends up becoming part of their executive presence and their brand as a leader.
One of my clients had a talk track for many years that led to a reputation for negativity. In one meeting alone, I noticed that he had described about ten different work experiences as “nightmares.” Strong word! So we talked about this talk track. And the next time I heard him lapse into that way of talking, I decided to delve into it. “What I just heard from you was an example of that ‘talk track’ we’ve talked about,” I said. “So let’s talk about this. You say it was a ‘nightmare.’ Okay—why do you call it a nightmare?”
The upshot was that he had made a sales presentation but didn’t get the deal. I said, “Let’s use accurate language to describe the situation.” Was it a nightmare? No. Maybe it was a disappointment. Maybe he could have said, “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the deal” or “They decided to go with another vendor” and state why, objectively. My goal was to get him to stop “catastrophizing” when something didn’t work out.
This leader didn’t want to be defined by that negative “talk track” anymore. So I told him that the only way to do that is to turn up the volume on a very different talk track—one that captures the brand and presence that you want to project.
I’ve had clients who always talked about how difficult or challenging or complex things seemed to them. You’ve probably had a boss or colleague with any number of talk-track themes:
- “I’m so exhausted/overwhelmed/unhappy/unappreciated….”
- “Everyone here is useless/stupid/incompetent….”
- “It’s such a difficult environment/project/client/travel schedule…”
- “That will never work/We won’t get that deal/It’s a dumb idea/What were they thinking?”
Often people aren’t even aware of how much they harp on a conversational theme and how negatively this lack of executive presence is affecting their professional brand. So what can you do to make sure your talk track is working for you and not against you as a leader? Take these four steps:
1. Identify your talk-track themes.
What are the words and phrases that you find yourself constantly using in conversations at work? Write down the things you seem to say almost every day—or think about what themes come up all the time for you in conversation at work or elsewhere.
2. Consider the impact of your talk track.
As a leader, your words carry more weight than others. You’re setting the tone for your team or division or organization. Whether that tone is absurdly optimistic, cynical, critical, upbeat, energized, or overly emotional, it’s going to be the model for others. Make sure that your talk track is consistent with the values and behaviors you want to drive.
3. Challenge the reality of your talk track.
How accurate is your talk track? Do you have a natural tendency to see the part of the glass that’s empty? How do you respond to setbacks? Do you gloss over the pain? Do you make a mountain out of a molehill? It’s crucial for leaders to be balanced, objective, and real about what’s happening. Your language choices need to reflect that.
4. Consider what you could say differently.
It’s easy to lapse into your talk track. When you catch yourself saying the same old things, try to catch yourself as if an alarm was going off. Can you find another way to say it—something that’s consistent with the brand and presence you want to project.
Don’t get me wrong. Leaders do need to be “real” about challenges and setbacks, and a somber tone may be appropriate and even helpful at times. The goal is to become more aware of your talk track and what it’s doing for you and others. As a leader, people take their cues from you. Before you know it, your talk track can dominate or drive the culture.
Changing your talk track is a challenge. Our ways of talking and viewing the world are pretty ingrained through several decades of life experiences. But change is also very possible. Pump up the volume on a more positive talk track for the holidays, and your presence will be viewed as a gift.
A while back, I heard an anecdote on the radio about cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and it really struck me. Surprisingly, Ma said that once of his biggest inspirations was chef, author, and television personality Julia Child.
Huh?! Well, it turns out that thinking about Julia Child helped him get in the right mindset before a performance. He would think about watching her on television, making a roast chicken that looked beautiful—only to have it fall off the plate and onto the floor. Did she flip out? No, she never stopped smiling. She just acknowledged what happened and went on with the show.
Reflecting on this, Ma realized that the best mindset he could have as a performer was to ensure that his audience was having a good experience—rather than worrying about being perfect. Speaking to the St. Louis Post Dispatch last October, he said, “The idea of performing is hosting. It’s like you’re giving a party. You invite people to come to a place and enjoy something special; basically, they’re subject to whatever you dish out. You want them to have a great time, they want to have a great time, and what are you doing to facilitate that?”
In a Malcolm Gladwell article that I read years ago, Yo-Yo Ma also admitted that he used to strive for perfection in performance. When he was 17, he practiced a Brahms sonata for a year with technical perfection in mind. So what happened when he did that? “In the middle of the performance I thought, I’m bored. It would have been nothing for me to get up from the stage and walk away. That’s when I decided I would always opt for expression over perfection.
”There is a valuable lesson here for executive presentations. In my experience, many leaders worry too much about precision when they present. Aiming for total accuracy, it’s easy to end up with text-heavy PowerPoint slides—and far too many of them. And once you have a ton of bullets on a slide, you usually feel compelled to read them all. At best, slides still tend to distract the audience’s energy away from you—and the presentation is really all about you, not your visuals.
Think about it: What would you rather be able to say at the end of your presentation?
- I covered every point perfectly and spoke without a single stumble.
- I connected deeply with the audience, and I could sense that they were completely engaged with my presentation.
It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? If you’re able to really connect with your audience’s questions, concerns, and needs, they won’t even notice if the imperfections that jump out to you as the expert.
Of course, there’s a catch here. Connection trumps precision… but the more you master your topic through preparation and practice, the more you’re freed up to focus on connecting with the audience. When you don’t have to work to remember your key points and transitions, you can concentrate more on your eye contact, gestures, and reading the room.
So give some thought to drawing some inspiration from Julia Child, just as Yo-Yo Ma does as a concert performer. When you’re giving a speech, you’re the host, and your job is to set the tone and make sure that everyone has a good experience.
That’s a recipe for a successful presentation.
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¿Se puede cambiar la cultura de una organización?
Hoy en día, hay pocas organizaciones que no se encuentren inmersas en uno (o varios) procesos de transformación cultural. Nuevas formas de trabajar en organizaciones más planas y adaptativas, mejoras en la cultura de seguridad, orientar la organización hacia sus clientes, transformaciones de las áreas comerciales, mejora de la excelencia operativa, por citar algunas.
Y es aquí donde viene una de las grandes preguntas:
¿se puede cambiar la cultura de una organización? Y, si es así, ¿cómo se hace?
Para ayudar a responder a estas preguntas, que a menudo nos hacen nuestros clientes y sobre las que hay mucho escrito, me gustaría compartir lo que en BTS hemos aprendido en los últimos 38 años sobre qué funciona y qué no (hasta ahora, que en esto de los cambios culturales uno nunca deja de aprender).
La buena noticia es que la respuesta a la pregunta de si se puede cambiar la cultura de una organización es sí.
La dificultad viene al responder a la segunda: ¿cómo se hace?
¿Un proyecto? ¿Una iniciativa?
Un punto importante a considerar es que los procesos de cambio o transformación cultural no son un proyecto con un inicio y un fin; es un proceso en constante evolución. Y esto es algo que en ocasiones genera tensión en las organizaciones, a menudo acostumbradas a un enfoque basado en proyectos.
¿Qué es crítico y a menudo se suele ignorar?
Hay una serie de elementos que, si se tienen en cuenta y se utilizan adecuadamente, harán que los esfuerzos de transformación sean mucho más eficaces. Desafortunadamente, muchas veces se ignoran.
Estos elementos críticos son:
- Involucrar a la gente. Cuanto más se hace partícipes de la transformación a las personas (a todos los niveles), más altas son las probabilidades de que implementen los cambios requeridos.
- Para entender el cambio hay que tangibilizarlo y experimentarlo. Consiste en conectar el marco teórico con acciones del día a día. Explicar la foto completa con transparencia es clave.
- Todos los cambios traen consigo cosas positivas, pero también tienen impactos negativos. Explicar la foto completa con transparencia es clave.
- Cambiar la cultura implica tiempo y requiere identificar y cambiar los “mindsets” y las estructuras diarias (símbolos) que definen cómo se hacen las cosas en la organización.
- La cultura debe estar fuertemente conectada con la estrategia.
¿Cómo recomendamos estructurar los procesos de cambio cultural?
Nuestro enfoque se compone de cuatro etapas: establecer resultados, crear líderes de cambio, incrustar cambios clave y sostener las nuevas formas de trabajo.
1. Establecer resultados
El primer paso en cualquier proceso de transformación es establecer resultados claros. Es crucial identificar los impulsores de la transformación y definir los resultados deseados de manera que se logre un verdadero alineamiento a nivel ejecutivo. A medida que se avanza, hay que conectar los puntos entre el propósito y la visión, entendiendo de dónde se viene, dónde se está y hacia dónde se quiere avanzar. Además, es esencial conectar la transformación con los objetivos organizacionales.
Algunas acciones relevantes de esta fase son:
- Recopilación de información (entrevistas, focus groups, visitas a operaciones,…)
- Diagnósticos culturales
- Definición de expectativas (Leadership Profiles
2. Crear líderes de cambio
En BTS creemos que todos los líderes son también líderes de cambio. Adoptar una mentalidad de “líder de cambio” requiere que los líderes experimenten y vean lo que se espera de ellos. Desde el inicio, es vital impulsar a la acción con ‘trabajo real’, como establecer nuevas prioridades y comunicar de forma transparente y eficaz.
Hay que comprometer (emocional y racionalmente) a los líderes con el cambio y hacerles ver cómo pueden impactar en la cultura a través de acciones concretas en el día a día.
Por último, es necesario proporcionar apoyo continuo para los cambios de mentalidad y comportamiento más difíciles y recoger retroalimentación sobre lo que funciona y lo que no en esta etapa.
Algunas acciones relevantes de esta fase son:
- Elaboración de Playbooks para roles críticos
- Despliegue de programas de liderazgo y cambio
- Feedback loops con los niveles ejecutivos
3. Incrustar cambios clave
Para lograr un cambio significativo, es esencial identificar los modelos mentales actuales y ofrecer nuevos que apoyen el estado deseado. Crear rutinas y símbolos que refuercen el cambio, así como identificar procesos, prácticas, eventos o normas ancladas en las viejas formas de trabajar, es crucial.
Cocrear nuevas formas de trabajo para su activación inmediata ayuda a cimentar estos cambios. A medida que se avanza, cambiar los sistemas y procesos que soportan y refuerzan los cambios cruciales es fundamental para el éxito a largo plazo.
Algunas acciones relevantes de esta fase son:
- Coaching a líderes
- Montar Sprints culturales
- Cascadear el cambio al resto de la organización
- Assessments para medir cambios de comportamientos
4. Sostener las nuevas formas de trabajo
El cambio no es solo un esfuerzo individual, sino también un fenómeno social. Por ello hay que proveer de las redes sociales necesarias para apoyar los cambios de mentalidad y comportamiento. Intervenir con apoyo individual para roles críticos y períodos específicos, así como incorporar nuevas formas de trabajo, asegura la continuidad del cambio.
Por último, hay que utilizar datos para analizar lo que funciona y lo que no, permitiendo crear el siguiente conjunto de intervenciones y apoyo necesarios.
Algunas acciones relevantes de esta fase son:
- Integración de los Playbooks en el ciclo de talento de la organización
- Practica de los nuevos comportamientos en el día a día con bots potenciados por IA
- Diseño de una oficina para monitorizar el cambio y definir nuevas acciones
- Diseño y lanzamiento de Comunidades de Práctica (CoP)
La importancia de ser paciente e impaciente a la vez
Los procesos de transformación cultural son uno de los elementos más retadores, ya que nunca existe una receta única.
Ser estratégicamente paciente (teniendo claros esos resultados deseados y evitando dar bandazos), pero tácticamente impaciente (realizando acciones en las fases expuestas anteriormente y viendo qué funciona y qué no, para pivotar y corregir) es clave en los procesos de transformación.
El enfoque de las 4 fases ayuda a ello, posibilitando que estos viajes se conviertan en una experiencia enriquecedora para la organización, y no en un dolor de los que dejan cicatriz en la memoria colectiva.
Este es solo un resumen.
Si quieres profundizar en el enfoque completo, ejemplos y claves prácticas:
Descarga el PDF completo y accede a todo el contenido.
En todos los sectores, la seguridad está experimentando un cambio estructural. Lo que antes se gestionaba principalmente como una función de cumplimiento o una métrica de desempeño se entiende cada vez más como un reflejo de cómo las organizaciones están diseñadas, lideradas y mejoradas de forma continua.
En entornos complejos y de alto riesgo, la seguridad no se logra únicamente mediante un mayor control o programas adicionales. Surge de la interacción entre el comportamiento del liderazgo, el diseño operativo, los entornos de decisión y la capacidad de la organización para aprender y adaptarse.
Basándonos en la ciencia global de la seguridad, el enfoque de Human & Organizational Performance (HOP), la investigación sobre seguridad psicológica y nuestra experiencia en transformación en múltiples industrias, identificamos ocho cambios clave que están definiendo la próxima evolución de la cultura de seguridad.
1. La seguridad como valor organizacional central
La seguridad está dejando de tratarse como una prioridad cambiante. Las prioridades compiten. Los valores guían.
Cuando la seguridad se convierte en un valor central, influye en la toma de decisiones, en los compromisos bajo presión, en la planificación operativa y en la asignación de recursos. La seguridad pasa a ser una consecuencia natural de cómo funciona el sistema, en lugar de una iniciativa añadida a la producción.
Este cambio también redefine el rol de las funciones de seguridad: de supervisar el cumplimiento a habilitar un desempeño seguro y sostenible.
2. El aprendizaje como disciplina operativa
Las organizaciones están integrando el aprendizaje continuo en las operaciones diarias. En lugar de centrarse solo en lo que falló, exploran señales débiles, casi accidentes, fricciones operativas y adaptaciones exitosas.
El aprendizaje se convierte en una capacidad clave que acelera la generación de insights, fortalece la resiliencia y mejora la calidad de las decisiones.
3. Responsabilidad del liderazgo en todos los niveles
La cultura de seguridad se reconoce cada vez más como una capacidad de liderazgo, no solo como responsabilidad del área de HSE.
- Los directivos marcan la dirección y el tono.
- Los mandos intermedios traducen las expectativas en decisiones operativas.
- Los supervisores configuran el entorno de decisiones del día a día.
Las organizaciones exitosas convierten las expectativas de seguridad en comportamientos concretos de liderazgo y rutinas diarias, generando claridad y alineación entre niveles.
4. La seguridad psicológica como infraestructura
Una cultura de seguridad sólida depende de entornos donde las personas se sientan seguras para hablar.
Cuando los empleados perciben seguridad psicológica, las señales débiles emergen antes, los riesgos se discuten abiertamente y el aprendizaje se acelera.
La seguridad psicológica es una infraestructura operativa, no un tema “blando”.
5. Amplificar lo que funciona
Existe un reconocimiento creciente de que la mayor parte del trabajo se realiza de forma segura, a menudo en condiciones variables.
Estudiar el éxito revela la capacidad adaptativa y fortalece la resiliencia. Esto complementa el análisis tradicional de incidentes al reforzar la experiencia y la confianza.
6. Alinear el trabajo “imaginado” con el trabajo “real”
Los procedimientos y planes rara vez capturan perfectamente la complejidad operativa.
Las organizaciones líderes reducen la brecha entre políticas y realidad operativa incorporando la perspectiva del personal de primera línea y empoderando la autoridad para detener el trabajo.
El objetivo es una mejor alineación entre diseño y ejecución.
7. Diseñar para la toma de decisiones humana
Los incidentes suelen derivarse de sesgos cognitivos predecibles como la normalización de la desviación, el sesgo hacia la producción, el exceso de confianza y el sesgo retrospectivo.
Reconocer estas trampas en la toma de decisiones desplaza el enfoque de culpar a las personas hacia fortalecer los entornos de decisión.
8. La evolución cultural como capacidad a largo plazo
Una cultura de seguridad sostenible requiere integración en lugar de reinvención, desarrollo estructurado de capacidades en lugar de programas puntuales y medición del impacto conductual en lugar de métricas de actividad.
Las organizaciones que tienen éxito:
- Integran la seguridad en los sistemas existentes de liderazgo y operación
- Diseñan itinerarios de aprendizaje que apoyan la aplicación en el día a día
- Miden el cambio de comportamiento y los resultados operativos
- Refuerzan el progreso de manera consistente en el tiempo
La evolución cultural es un compromiso sostenido con la alineación del sistema y el desarrollo de capacidades.
Conclusión
La evolución de la cultura de seguridad trata menos de añadir controles y más de fortalecer sistemas.
La seguridad es algo que las organizaciones producen: a través de la claridad del liderazgo, el diseño operativo, la seguridad psicológica y el aprendizaje continuo.
Quienes integren estas capacidades de forma consistente no solo reducirán riesgos. Construirán organizaciones más resilientes, sostenibles y de alto desempeño.
Sources & references:
- WorldSteel Association. Safety Culture & Leadership Fundamentals.
- Norsk Industri (2025). Safety Leadership and Learning: A Practical Guide to HOP.
- D. Parker et al. / Safety Science 44 (2006). Development of Organisational Safety Culture
- Hollnagel, E. (2014). Safety-I and Safety-II: The Past and Future of Safety Management.
- Hollnagel, E. (2018). Safety-II in Practice: Developing the Resilience Potentials.
- Conklin, T. (2012). Pre-Accident Investigations: An Introduction to Organizational Safety.
- Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organizations
- Reason, J. (1997). Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents.
- Resilience Engineering research (Hollnagel,Woods, Leveson and others).
Across industries, safety is undergoing a structural shift. What was once managed primarily as a compliance function or performance metricis increasingly understood as a reflection of how organizations are designed, led and continuously improved.
In complex and high-risk environments, safety is notachieved through stronger enforcement or additional programs alone. It emerges from the interaction between leadership behavior, operational design, decision environments and the organization’s capacity to learn and adapt.
Drawing on global safety science, Human & Organizational Performance (HOP), research on psychological safety, and our cross-industry transformation experience, eight key shifts are shaping the next evolution of safety culture.
1. Safety as a Core Organizational Value
Safety is moving beyond being treated as a shifting priority. Priorities compete. Values guide.
When safety becomes a core organizational value, it shapes decision-making, trade-offs under pressure, operational planning and resourceallocation. Safety becomes the natural consequence of how the system operates,rather than a campaign layered on top of production.
This shift also redefines the role of safety functions, from compliance policing to enabling safe and sustainable performance.
2. Learning as an Operating Discipline
Organizations are embedding continuous learning into everyday operations. Rather than focusing only on what failed, they exploreweak signals, near misses, operational friction and successful adaptations.
Learning becomes a core capability, accelerating insight, strengthening resilience and improving decision quality.
3. Leadership Ownership at All Levels
Safety culture is increasingly recognized as a leadership capability, not solely an HSE responsibility.
Executives define direction and tone.
Middle managers translate expectations into operational decisions.
Supervisors shape the daily decision environment.
Successful organizations translate safety expectations into concrete leadership behaviors and daily routines, creating clarity and alignment across levels.
4. Psychological Safety as Infrastructure
A strong safety culture depends on speaking-up environments.
When employees feel psychologically safe, weak signals surface earlier, risk trade-offs are openly discussed and learning accelerates.
Psychological safety is operational infrastructure , not a soft topic.
5. Amplifying What Works
There is growing recognition that most work is completed safely, often under variable conditions.
Studying success reveals adaptive capacity and strengthens resilience. This complements traditional incident analysis by reinforcing expertise and confidence.
6. Aligning Work-as-Imagined and Work-as-Done
Procedures and plans rarely capture operational complexity perfectly.
Leading organizations reduce the gap between policies and operational reality by inviting front line input and empowering stop-work authority.
The goal is better alignment between design and execution.
7. Designing for Human Decision-Making
Incidents often stem from predictable cognitive biases such as normalization of deviance, production bias, overconfidence and hindsight bias.
Recognizing these decision traps shifts focus from blaming individuals to strengthening decision environments.
8. Cultural Evolution as a Long-Term Capability
Sustainable safety culture requires integration rather than reinvention, structured capability journeys rather than one-off programs, and measurable behavioral impact rather than activity metrics.
Organizations that succeed:
- Integrate safety into existing leadership and operational systems
- Design earning journeys that support day-to-day application
- Measure behavioral change and operational outcomes
- Reinforce progress consistently over time
Cultural evolution is a sustained commitment to system alignment and capability building.
Conclusion
The evolution of safety culture is less about adding controls and more about strengthening systems.
Safety is something organizations produce — through leadership clarity, operational design, psychological safety and continuous learning.
Those who embed these capabilities consistently will not only reduce risk. They will build more resilient, sustainable and high-performing organizations.
Sources & references:
- WorldSteel Association. Safety Culture & Leadership Fundamentals.
- Norsk Industri (2025). Safety Leadership and Learning: A Practical Guide to HOP.
- D. Parker et al. / Safety Science 44 (2006). Development of Organisational Safety Culture
- Hollnagel, E. (2014). Safety-I and Safety-II: The Past and Future of Safety Management.
- Hollnagel, E. (2018). Safety-II in Practice: Developing the Resilience Potentials.
- Conklin, T. (2012). Pre-Accident Investigations: An Introduction to Organizational Safety.
- Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organizations
- Reason, J. (1997). Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents.
- Resilience Engineering research (Hollnagel,Woods, Leveson and others).