Hazard/Risk
Good Questions
In our classes, we like to ask Darn Good Questions. Here are a few that you might want to answer – or, even better, ask others.
April 13, 2018
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Uncategorized
Safe Spaces?
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul examines the case of a self-driving car and cyclist—actually a cyclist walking her bike across the street. You might have read the headlines. Below the headlines there is a lot to learn and take back to the shop floor to make sure every one goes home alive and well at the end of each and every shift. By the way, when I started to read Paul’s article I did not see his take on the lessons to be learned coming at all.
March 30, 2018
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Hazard/Risk
Proceed With Caution!
In your opinion, which is more dangerous?
Entering a confined space
Entering a pedestrian crosswalk on a busy street
March 15, 2018
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Leadership
Three Questions
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul examines three darn good questions to see what we can learn. You might think this month’s article is about darn good questions, it is, but back up the truck: it is full of other darn good ideas including getting people to follow all the rules all the time, making change happen, execution, and safety leadership. You will be intrigued as he pulls the thread and brings them all together. There’s a lot to learn.
February 28, 2018
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Hazard/Risk
Safety Rules and the Wise
Remember when you were a kid and some grown-up would see you with your shoelaces untied?
February 15, 2018
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Execution
Perspective – And Leadership
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul examines the perspective of leaders, how perspective can effect a leaders action, and how leaders can get a new perspective. He suggests the right perspective about safety is helpful, even critical, to sending everyone home alive and well at the end of the day.
January 31, 2018
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Hazard/Risk
Taking Care of Safety
The question of what comes first – production or safety – is one that is asked the world over. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment…
January 15, 2018
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Execution
The Danger Zone
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul starts the New Year by examining the challenges of leadership and looking at how complacency plays into the goal of sending everyone home, at the end of each and every shift, alive and well.
January 1, 2018
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Uncategorized
The Perfect Gift
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul makes his suggestion for the best gift of all for your followers. Want to give a gift that really makes a difference, check out Paul’s suggestion.
December 22, 2017
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Hazard/Risk
Harm’s Way
When it comes to getting hurt, there are only three ways that can happen: from something you do; from something someone else does to you; by an Act of God.
December 15, 2017
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Popular Topics
Popular Articles
Your Safety Meetings
In this month’s Flash, we’re giving your safety meetings a checkup. Instead of another idea for what to talk about, we’re taking a closer look at how your meetings are going—and what makes a good safety meeting good.
Reliability and Safety
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Newton draws on four decades in pulp and paper manufacturing to explore the relationship between reliability and safety. When equipment fails, production falls behind, and the pressure for results builds, does improving reliability necessarily improve safety?
Real-Time Decisions
In this month’s Flash, we explore real-time decision making, what to do when urgency and pressure push us toward making faster decisions, and how to recognize when it’s time to slow the process down to make a better decision.
Running Red Lights
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul takes running a red light and turns it into a much larger lesson about safety, leadership, human behavior, and execution. He starts with a company vehicle that ran a red light near his house and connects that incident to the tragic runway collision at LaGuardia, where technology, procedures, radio communication, and red runway entrance lights were all in place. The system had controls, but the outcome still depended on execution at the point of contact.
Appreciating Feedback
In this month’s Flash what might get in the way of intervention, why feedback matters, and how a simple “thank you” can encourage the conversations that help prevent injuries.
Coaching Leaders
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Gary Rivenes explores what effective coaching looks like when safety leadership moves from the classroom to the field. Gary writes from experience: before joining Balmert Consulting, he spent more than thirty years in mining leadership roles, from supervising a seventy-person crew to serving as Chief Operating Officer. In those roles, coaching leaders was not a theory or a program. It was part of getting the work done safely and sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.
All “Those” Rules…
In this month’s Flash we discuss “dumb rules”, and re-visit an easy way to put on great Tool Box Safety Meetings. Unfortunately those sorts of rules are often unwanted and seen as unnecessary, here’s one idea to help you reduce the chance a new one might be needed in the first place.
A Case Study
This month Paul explains that investigation reports are valuable leadership tools not simply because they identify technical causes, but because they reveal how familiar execution challenges—such as limited training, inexperience, weak supervision coverage, fatigue, time pressure, and inconsistent use of PPE—combine to produce serious outcomes. The primary purpose of an investigation is to help ensure an event does not happen again, but equally important is the Performance Visibility investigations provide: a clearer understanding of what is actually happening where work is being performed.
Situational Awareness
In this month’s Flash we look at static hazard recognition. Knowing and understanding where stored energy exists, which might not always be obvious, helps us ensure everyone goes home alive and well.
Looking In The Mirror
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, guest contributor and Balmert Consulting senior teacher Van Long reflects on a simple but powerful idea: the most effective safety leadership begins with self-reflection.