In one of his recent novels the English football enthusiast Nick Hornby describes a phenomenon about Scottish football fans. Please bear with me – the story does have considerable implications for a safety culture improvement!
Specifically, it is relevant for where a company needs to be a focus on people because all the physical and system issues have already been tackled. In our experience that's a lot of companies – and certainly most from the self selecting sample that would take the trouble to read this article!
The conundrum is this – why do Scottish fans behave so well abroad when they didn't use to (think Wembley!) and don't necessarily in Glasgow now after a club game?
The answer is that at a World Cup some time ago the Scottish team were knocked out by the odd goal in a great game against the favourites – Brazil. Honour was satisfied and the papers were full the next day of pictures of men in kilts dancing good naturedly in fountains with pretty Brazilian women.
The headlines were broadly 'Scots party after heroic exit… hardly any arrests… what a contrast with the English!' Ever since, Scots football fans have made an effort to behave well when abroad to show up the English!
The learning point is that that it's difficult to overestimate how contrary people can be and that almost the worst way to get them to change is to tell them to. However, if they decide themselves that they want to change then things can be very different.
The key point is that once the building blocks are in place a company's culture is about people. Specifically it's about their day-to-day behaviours and mindset.
To read more of Dr Tim Marsh's white paper on behavioural safety, download it now »
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