AI Practitioner Volume 14 Number 2 ISBN 978-1-907549-11-3 May 2012

Ronald Fry
is Professor and Chairman of the Department of
Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve
University, where he helped create and direct the
first Masters Program in Positive Organization
Development and Change. He has delivered AI
certificate programs in ten countries.
Contact: ronald.fry@case.edu
Applications

Improving Safety in a Steel Mill

Cases and

Words Really Can Create Worlds!

ABSTRACT Today we are overwhelmed with change models, lists of failure factors to avoid
and constant reminders of how complex organization life can be, and therefore,
Many change efforts fail, how difficult it can be to lead effective change. Indeed, many change efforts fail,
stagnate, lose traction,or stagnate, lose traction or even disappear as participants become more focused
even disappear. Far too on project metrics, data submission and other activities, all in the name of
often, participants report following the plan or process model championed by leadership or consultants.
Far too often, participants report that their behavior did not really change; they
that their behavior did not just added more meetings, trainings and reporting to their schedules.
really change; they just
added more meetings, What really causes or creates behavioral change? Could it be that the elaborate
stage or step models we create – even the ‘D-cycle’ in Appreciative Inquiry
trainings and reporting (AI) – to deal with complexity have blinded us to something very basic, obvious
to their schedules. What and powerful? Could it be that leading or catalyzing change could be as
really causes or creates straightforward as changing the conversations we have about the change focus?
Can words really create worlds?
behavioral change?
Recent evidence from a steel mill trying to improve safety performance
underscores a core AI principle that organizations go in the direction of what
they talk most about, and, in particular, what they ask the most questions about.
The evidence suggests that conversations can dramatically shape individual and
collective behavior. While this is a story about an AI summit (two actually) it is
really about what we discovered by attending more to the ‘before and after’ of
the summit.

Safety improvement at Steel USA

Steel USA1 employed approximately 1600 unionized workers at the time of this
case study. The mill had been managed by a progressive leadership team since
coming out of bankruptcy some seven years prior. Within the global parent steel
company, this mill was one of the most productive in tonnage per man hour.

1  A fictitious name

AIP May 12 Fry: Improving Safety in a Steel Mill More Articles at www.aipractitioner.com 51
AI Practitioner Volume 14 Number 2 ISBN 978-1-907549-11-3 May 2012

The surprise was that the However, its safety performance record, as measured by USA OSHA2 standards,
was quite poor.
drop in accidents began
before the March 2007 Early in 2006, an Appreciative Inquiry summit, entitled ‘Embracing Our Future’
summit. was convened to solidify and amplify the mill’s culture by engaging varied
stakeholders. Around 180 participants represented all functions, shifts, ranges
of employment tenure and levels of responsibility at Steel USA, along with
external stakeholders (customers, suppliers, community leaders and global
parent leadership). The participants met for a day to summarize the strengths
and best practices of the current workplace culture, imagine together their
highest aspirations for a future culture that would sustain their productivity,
employee well-being and overall economic success, and then design and launch
change initiatives to bring about their desired future.

One of a dozen new change initiatives focused on safety. A mixed stakeholder

group formed and created their initiative’s aspiration statement with the help
of feedback from the larger gathering during the summit: ‘[Steel USA] is an
organization that is injury-free! All employees understand that safety is our
number one priority. We are all committed to take action to correct safety issues.
We take ownership in our injury-free environment and culture.’

After the summit, this change team met and created an action plan subsequently
approved by senior leadership. Their plan was to aim for a similar AI summit in
March or April 2007, and to prepare for it by interviewing every employee in one-
on-one conversations during the Fall of 2006. The team of 20 were trained in
conducting AI interviews; they then each trained five or six colleagues, creating
a cadre of around 100, each of whom would conduct 12-15 interviews. In total,
some 1400 interviews (out of 1600 total employees) were completed between
September and December 2006.

Here are the key interview questions that they used:

1. Tell me about a time when you felt most safe and secure working in this
mill. What in particular helped make you feel safe?

2. Tell me about a time when you did something to prevent an accident

from happening, a time when you did or said something to keep yourself
and/or others from getting hurt.

3. Imagine we are truly injury-free! We are the safest mill in the entire
global system. Everyone goes home after work just as safe as when they
came in that day. What does the mill look like?

Interview summary sheets were analyzed by the core safety team and used
to prepare for a summit at the end of March 2007. From that summit came
11 specific change initiatives, all aimed at lowering accidents and creating a
workplace focused on safety at all levels.

Change comes from the conversations

Near the end of 2007, several months after the summit, and when one might
reasonably expect the change initiatives to have taken hold, the trends on
accidents reported to OSHA were reviewed. Year-to-year comparisons revealed a
strong and dramatic improvement: in December 2007, the number of accidents
2  Occupational Health and Safety Administration

AIP May 12 Fry: Improving Safety in a Steel Mill More Articles at www.aipractitioner.com 52
AI Practitioner Volume 14 Number 2 ISBN 978-1-907549-11-3 May 2012

Figure 1: Cleveland Plant Accidents

reported by month

Figure 2: Accidents reported by month

in the finishing division, the most
dangerous division

was an average of 46 percent lower than in December 2006. The surprise,

however, was that the drop in accidents began before the March 2007 summit.
In fact, the average number of accidents recorded each month dropped sharply
by 58 percent between December 2006 and January 2007 – and the new,
lower averages were maintained throughout 2007.

In the finishing division, considered the most dangerous (‘the slice and dice
area’) in terms of injury and loss of limb, the results were even more illustrative.
For years prior to the summit, the finishing division had averaged four to six
accidents per month. But from October through December 2006, the division
suddenly averaged less than one accident per month – and it has maintained
that record level to date. For the past few years their average accident rate per
month has been just under 0.5!

Typical change management thinking would not predict these trends. Instead,
one would expect to see the effects of the summit some months later – that is,
if the change projects conceived during the summit were well managed. Indeed,
it is quite possible that the AI summit in March, 2007 did solidify and support
attitude and behavior changes that were already in place (as reported in the
Discovery interviews at that summit) by the time of the summit. Interviews with
senior management and the safety team in late 2007 did not reveal any unusual

AIP May 12 Fry: Improving Safety in a Steel Mill More Articles at www.aipractitioner.com 53
AI Practitioner Volume 14 Number 2 ISBN 978-1-907549-11-3 May 2012

Steel USA has risen from goings-on during September through December 2006, except for the interviews
happening throughout the facility. There were no changes in safety training, no
the lowest quartile in the
changes in personnel, no changes in orders and workloads, no new projects and
parent system’s North no process changes.
American sites to the
highest. Could it be that these site-wide conversations between co-workers somehow
catalyzed behavior change – without meetings, formal projects or additional
training? Indeed, these conversations do appear to have been generative
connections: they generated new ideas about safe behaviors, and the energy to
act on those ideas took hold. This second outcome, the desire and energy to act
with others on a shared idea, is rare in organizational life: we usually generate
ideas with each other and then wait for the responsible manager or leader to act
or initiate action.

Conclusions
This story underscores a fundamental idea about change and a key principle
in AI: if you want to change behavior related to an issue, begin by changing the
ways you talk about it. First, change the conversation!

Follow-up inquiries at Steel USA revealed a major shift in cultural norms. ‘I can
take care of myself; Don’t get in my space about how I do my job’ became ‘We
all want to send everyone home as healthy as they came to work; we help each
other to stay safe.’ This was not a slight or incremental change. It was huge –
and it has been sustained since 2007! Steel USA has risen from the lowest
quartile in the parent system’s North American sites to the highest in safety
performance, while maintaining their top productivity ranking. Appreciative
interviews about safety that included nearly all voices in the system led to
generative connections that resulted in significant behavior changes. Words did
create a new world!

Call for academic-oriented papers

The Appreciative Inquiry Summit: Explorations into the Magic of Macro-
Management and Crowdsourcing

Volume editors are David Cooperrider at Case Western Reserve University,

Lindsey Godwin at Champlain College, Brodie Boland at Case Western Reserve
University and Michel Avital at the University of Amsterdam.

Papers that emphasize new concepts and models (about 4500-7000 words)
related to the AI Summit will be published in the fifth volume of Advances in
Appreciative Inquiry, Emerald Press (see: http://bit.ly/advances-in-ai).

For further information please visit: http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/aai

Back to Table of Contents

AIP May 12 Fry: Improving Safety in a Steel Mill More Articles at www.aipractitioner.com 54