Text Box: Sheep Ranchers use Sheep Dip bathes to control ticks and other problems.  With so many sheep, ranchers fill the bath with medicated water and run the whole herd through it thus treating every sheep at the same time. What is Sheep Dipping?

 

 

 

 

 

                                  Sheep dipping bath

What Do We Mean By Sheep Dipping?

 

Text Box: What we are talking about is Organizational Sheep Dipping!  Running everyone through a program for safety, communications or something else then not taking the time to see if it is working is one of the easily seen indicators of Organizational Sheep Dipping.  Often at the front end of this is poor assessment and diagnosis of what is really going on in each part of the company; especially keeping in mind that organizations can have many different subcultures in them.  At one organization when people would bring up something that was happening in the area they worked, people who worked elsewhere did not believe their story even though it was factual. Upon departing an organization that I worked in, I commented to the person in charge of safety and said "we can pat ourselves on the back because we have provided training to the leadership but unless you can ask the people at the front line if they are treated differently by their supervisor or ask them if have they heard about this or are they doing X and Y then it has been a waste of time.  We should not feel any comfort because of it."  Poor safety records, substandard performance and the like drive senior leadership to do something so they can show that they have taken action to shareholders, governmental officials or as the case may be.  Mostly this may be done as an honest, genuine response, yet time and again nothing changes; bad safety records, poor performance and the like continue. Chances are if you are not getting the results from all the "World Class" programs and training provided, you have become the unwitting victim of Organizational Sheep Dipping!