Actions Speak Louder than Words

Actions speak louder than words! Many years ago, I worked as the Inhouse HR Manager for an amazing Australian Manufacturing company. We had an outstanding team, and we were growing rapidly.  

One of the key roles in the business was our Production Manager. He knew his stuff. He knew his team. He knew what the clients wanted. He was an outstanding problem solver. While he was inside the factory walls, his focus on Safety was laser focused. As a HR Manager, he was a great collaboration partner and we got so much done together.  

My problem was that the moment he was outside the factory walls, he seemed to switch. He would walk out the door, put his motorbike helmet on and wheelie out the driveway! YIKES! Stories of his weekend adventures would have me reeling, as there seemed to be no acknowledgement of the potential risks to himself or others.  

The Dilemma: Did I have the right to ask him to rethink the actions outside of his work hours?  

The Answer: Absolutely, His actions in a small community were well known. His conversations demonstrated to the team that what he said, and what he did were not aligned and it was starting to impact his credibility at work. 

The Next Steps: Coaching conversations about how to get the balance right between the adrenaline and safety. Any professional who has risk associated with their role, spends a lot of time planning for what could go wrong and how to mitigate them. You don’t have to be wrapped up in cotton wool and spend your life doing nothing exciting, but you do need a risk management plan and a Plan B.  

For us, we started to reframe the weekend stories and would regularly let people know that we were looking at succession planning and they were part of that vision. Training and more delegation became normalised, just in case he had an accident on the weekend and might need time off.  

Thankfully, that never happened, but the entire team was set up and ready if it did.  

What are your actions telling people? What steps do you need to take to make sure that they are aligned to the words you say?  

Reach out to Impact HR on 1300 474 672 or book an obligation FREE meeting using this link if you’d like to explore this topic in more detail.