Honesty

by David Christenson

We study trust but what role does honesty have in trust? Also, how does honesty contribute to High Reliability?

What do other people say? Honesty and integrity must come from the top down as core values. Honesty is character development and part of building trust. When someone says something, it must be true. There is no attempt as evasion or making things look better. A little lie can ruin your reputation.

Trust, trustworthiness, honesty comes in accident investigations. Ted Putnam refused to sign off on the South Canyon Fire because by not making explicit certain things it was not going to help the investigation.

Sidney Dekker calls this the New View. You look at the environment in which decisions are made the policies, attitudes, events, that are part of the environment. This makes a rich series of stories. This may not be the first story or the headline but the next series of stories. When you do this you generate trust in the community.

From an educational standpoint there is a willingness to discuss closed topics; we are not perfect every day. Some people use liability as a reason not to do something. This may be a lack of honesty if it is meant to dissuade rather than discuss an element of liability.

Honesty is the little bits and pieces we don't think about. Honesty is mentoring instead of assigning tasks. You should explain why (the political atmosphere, etc.). Tell them the things that politically will help them. This gives them a greater understanding of the organization and their role in it. Openness and honesty are difficult and people often avoid them at all costs.

As a leader, you promote psychological safety so people can be honest. For example, the no win situation. Does this dress make me look fat? You create an environment where honesty, integrity, and candor are respected.

Honesty seems to be a top down characteristic of HROs.

For Crew Resource Management (CRM) in aviation I am in the left seat because of longevity, not knowledge. That is honesty. You alert people to each other and make more sensitivity to situations. Leaders may feel they will lose their clout but actually it makes people trust them.

Clarification from a pilot: the issue of CRM ("crew resource management") was brought up as it relates to airline pilots and honesty. It should not be mischaracterized as the Captain being open and forthright with the passengers as it relates to turbulence, etc. CRM actually encourages the crewmembers to be open with each other, not the passengers. One example is a junior first officer being able to voice a concern, no matter how trivial, to a senior captain.

Honesty is a two-way street. The person considered the leader may be willing to be honest but the others may have a hidden agenda.

There is sometimes a question of retribution; if I am honest this will backfire on me.

For a pilot's briefing there is honesty in approaching the unknown. It is the duty to tell people. Honesty and trust are tied together but are situational. The leader opens up his mind to others for his decision making. There is risk and it requires emotional stability. There is the betterment of progress vs. risk of looking down.

It can put you in a position for being attacked.

If team-based, honesty might show weakness but leader must get it out, my knowns, and my unknowns. Pretending you know everything, then people on team may shut down as the leader has it. NRC is open and honest about their policies. They specifically protect from retribution. Web link to the NRC material: http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/values.html

Honesty is both a value and a behavior. Honesty is a value and a long-standing value becomes a behavior.

Be open, honest, and humble. A good leader is humble about what he can do vs. what he is relying on from others in the team. It is not bad to show humility and vulnerability, this gives the bottom up honesty.

In healthcare it is less about honesty and more that you cannot speak your mind. Contrary voices are unwelcome so you become a company man. As medicine becomes more corporate, it loses the culture of organizations that emulate HROs from other sectors of the economy; medicine wants being a company man, and criticisms are unwelcome.

Honesty, rather than a value or behavior, it is an insight. If it is an insight then it is a higher level of cognition. I choose to be honest and all the problems that go with honesty.

Retribution organizationally how do you get people to change? From the Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, you have a permission slip on a business card. It asks Is it good for customers, legal and ethical, and am I willing to be accountable for it?

To address mistrust in an organization, the first thing one person took on was the mistrust against training and safety. Clarify what is punishable and what is not punishable. This helped with trust.

This may have worked because the person knew the organization well. How much do you have to know to pull this off?

It is better to be interested more in what is not said the silence.

You need a prophet who will say things that no one wants you to say and no one wants to hear. HROs are not afraid of the prophet. Those wanting to become an HRO should consider hiring a prophet.

Wildland fire brings in facilitators to help discordant information be brought to the surface.

In a military organization, who is the prophet? The safety officer may have that position as he answers only to the commander. But if he is a prophet too much how effectively can he do his job? Some are mavericks who always tell the truth. How do you keep them viable so they keep doing their job? Who are they in an organization? Where in the organization should they exist?

It is a difficult and hard job to have. Much better is a Just Environment where this is part of the culture.

Honesty is the moose in the room. Incident investigations may be protecting someone. People may not be bold enough to challenge it. One organization takes leaders through a no blame, trust culture.

Class A mishap investigations (loss of aircraft or injuries with total physical disability) now have an outsider to study the mishap to prevent a cover up. It makes it difficult to hide things. This occurred about 25 years ago as it used to be only someone senior to the person involved.