One of the best examples of this is the “rumble strip,” those bumps on the side of the road that alerts a driver when he is wandering off the carriageway. This is a structure designed to keep behaviour inside of a certain limit while giving the driver as much freedom as possible to drive safely. We think this is a pretty good example of how to design safety in all kinds of business situations.

Letting people be the solution to safety means there is a management system that defines the boundaries of safe performance (the rumble strips), leadership providing the direction, focus and encouragement in bringing out the best in people. This allows people to provide their natural resourcefulness, innovation, and learning to the everyday challenges of safe production.

We call this balance between freedom and constraint that leadership provides a Holding Environment. Leadership is responsible for creating the conditions in which people can perform at the top of their game. Our definition of a holding environment is drawn from the work by Ronald Heifetz, Professor at Harvard Kennedy School and from studies in human development.