With all the noise in safety these days, I find it refreshing to just focus on the fundamentals and have management set targets on these fundamentals. For example, take a random safety walk on Monday and focus on Container Labeling. Count all the containers evaluated, count all the containers that were NOT labeled in any […]
This is hands down the best comedic scene for safety pros! Dwight revolts against the office personnel for not paying attention to his PowerPoint training on Fire Drill. So he took matters into his own hands…
Don’t get me wrong, managers out in the plant wearing all the PPE and talking safety with their teams is a HUGE boost to safety (when it’s done consistently and well). I learned about “safety contacts” while at Great Lakes Chemicals in the mid-90s and used them at all my sites afterward. They have had
Principles don’t work when safety is not a value among the people they are meant to guide. In the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, Stephen R. Covey discusses the difference between principles and values. He does so to show the difference in those “highly effective people”. I want to use the same
It has taken me 20 years to truly understand what Clive Lloyd said in his book “From Compliance to Care.” One of my top five safety books I recommend for every safety professional and front-line manager. “Behaviors are NOT the problem – they are expressions of the problem.” I have conducted over 100 safety assessments
We all laughed at George all these years, but George was a cutting-edge “safety leader”.
I love the Seinfeld show, and my favorite character was “Kramer”. Here is his philosophy regarding rules and chaos…
The recent news from Boeing’s CEO regarding their cultural challenges reminded me of a discussion I had with one of my favorite plant managers, Dale Fannin, in 1996. It was an uncomfortable discussion, as I had my a_s handed to me, regarding all my “cheerleading” rather than being a safety leader. Dale, as were two
The last few weeks I have been sharing passages from Dr. Todd Conklin’s books. And I could not agree more with 99% of what he teaches. This week is one of those 1%’ers… I believe that a GREAT Safety Management System (SMS) will in fact help organizations “learn” from accidents. Starting with a well established
We must battle the need to believe that when a worker has some type of bad outcome, that adverse outcome happens because the worker becamemomentarily incompetent. Our thinking is driven by a bias toward bad things happening because someone did something bad. The bias that worker became stupid is really a strong force in how
I hate the phrase, “you can’t fix stupid.” It is offensive and mean; most importantly, that phrase is just wrong. Stop saying it. Stop using this phrase right now. “You can’t fix stupid” is serving you and your organization poorly. It colors your thinking, it makes you stop investigations too early, it sounds like something
