Raise the Standard | Tool 3
The S.A.F.E.T.Y. Design Worksheet
Six load bearing walls, six questions a leader should be able to answer cold and the design move that rebuilds whichever one is missing.
How to use this
S.A.F.E.T.Y. is not a compliance checklist and it is not a culture programme. It is six load bearing walls. Answer each question out loud before you rate the wall, because the answer is the diagnosis and the rating is only the summary. Nobody has all six perfect. The work is to know, honestly, which wall is currently missing.
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Strategy
Direction, critical risks, risk appetite
The question. If I stopped every leader in this business in the corridor today and asked them to name the three things that could kill or seriously hurt someone here, would I get the same three answers twice?
The move. Build the rhythm that keeps the answer current: a named short list of critical risks, an honest appetite and a reporting cadence that proves you are still watching in six months.
Accountability
Ownership, officer due diligence
The question. If something looked wrong on the floor right now, who in this building would actually step in, and would they need permission first?
The move. Stop asking who is accountable on paper and start asking who would act unprompted under pressure, then build the permission structures until the honest answer to both questions is the same person.
Feedback
Escalation, worker voice, signal vs noise
The question. If a dangerous situation was unfolding on your worksite right now, how many people would it need to pass through before someone at board level heard about it, and what would each of those people be tempted to change on the way through?
The move. Build a pathway that does not pass through anyone with an incentive to soften it, and name in advance exactly which categories of risk qualify for that direct route.
Execution
Verification, work as done, discipline
The question. Pick any process in your business that leadership believes is running. When did anyone last check whether it is actually being used, by the people who are supposed to be using it, in the way it was designed?
The move. Ask whether it is working, out loud, in a room where a true answer is safe to give, and act on what comes back, even when the honest answer is that a year of investment should be scrapped.
Trust
Psychological safety, integrity, follow through
The question. Think of the person on your team most trusted with bad news. What happens to that trust the day you ask them to do something that conflicts with why people trust them in the first place?
The move. Protect the role people actually trust you in. Keep the reporting line and the enforcement line in different hands, because trust is specific to the role someone believes you occupy.
You
Courage, identity, leadership maturity
The question. If someone offered you the version of success that looks impressive from the outside but costs you the actual reason you built this in the first place, would you notice in time to say no?
The move. Know in advance what you built this for, the honest version rather than the mission statement version, so that when the fork in the road arrives dressed as an opportunity, the decision has already been made.
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Reading the six together
Each wall carries the one beside it
Strategy without Accountability is a plan nobody owns. Accountability without Feedback is ownership that cannot see. Feedback without Execution is information that changes nothing. Execution without Trust is compliance theatre. Trust without Strategy is a warm culture pointed at nothing, and all five collapse without You.
One wall. One move. Name a date.
Your read
The individual answers matter less than the disagreement between them. Look at the shortest bar first.
The next step
You now know which wall is missing
You have named the one element of the architecture that is not holding. Naming it is most of the work. Doing it is the rest.
Knowing where the gap sits and having the room to close it are two different problems. Most people finish a worksheet like this with a clear picture, a full diary and no obvious first move.
That is the conversation worth having. Twenty minutes with the Advanced Safety team, looking at what you have just written down and telling you plainly what to do first, whether it is urgent and whether you need help at all.
Twenty minutes. No pitch and no obligation. Bring your worksheet. Most useful if you carry accountability for health and safety in your organisation.
Book at go.advancedsafety.co.nz/book
Advanced Safety Ltd | advancedsafety.co.nz | From Raise the Standard: Why Good Organisations Go Blind and How Leaders Restore Visibility by Matt Jones. This worksheet is a starting version of an instrument Advanced Safety runs in full. It is general guidance, not legal advice.
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