This month Paul applies some of the key lessons he and Dr. Pete Robison explored in last month’s Managing Safety Performance News and the accompanying That’s A Darn Good Question podcast to a real case study involving two fatalities. He draws three very important lessons about execution that can make all the difference between going home alive and well at the end of the day… or not.
In this month’s Flash, Paul looks into a tragic and fatal event for which two known facts and one likely assumption serve as important lessons in sending folks home alive and well.
This month Paul examines an off-the-job injury to the number one rated professional golfer, Scottie Scheffler who was seriously injured when he used an improvised tool to make dinner. Paul and colleague Dr. Pete Robison examine “What was he thinking?” framing the conversation around Thinking Fast.. And Slow teachings of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.
In this month’s Flash we continue the campaign to help you improve your safety tool box meetings with an example on ladder safety.
This month Paul examines execution in business and as it relates to sending people home alive and well at the end of the day. He shares the story of one of his former bosses who thought like McKay. Paul explains plans are important, but execution is what is done, and how well things are done. He says, “Yes, there can be cases where failure was a function of a terrible plan fabulously executed, but they’re pretty rare.” He discusses the problems with execution and leaves us with some valuable lessons that can make a difference ensuring everyone goes home safe every day.
In this month’s Flash we provide another example for an Ask, Don’t Tell Safety Meeting. The example serves as a reminder on the use of the tool, and provides an important lesson to be learned about accidents.
In this month’s Flash, we take a moment to revisit the Ask – Don’t Tell safety meeting format, and provide an example for the application of the method.
This month Paul hails Ceasar’s selection of New Year’s Day as the beginning of the next trip around the sun, as well as the perfect moment for every manager and supervisor to plan and evaluate. He points out there is nothing more important than planning for actually making things safer for those who do the work of the business. In the process he takes on “the next big thing” and “conventional wisdom” that frequently appear during the planning process. He leaves us with thoughts on the critical importance of leadership and execution if the goal is to see that everyone goes home alive and well the end of the day.
This month Paul dives into the application of the Scientific Method to better understand factors that drive safety performance. He offers up a hypothesis worth testing when things are going well, and some advice on how best to examine the evidence if safety performance isn’t what it ought to be.
This month Paul examines the art and science of practice, specifically of safety leadership practice. When it comes to safety leadership practices, he clarifies what that means and how to evaluate the practices. He shares his thought on the critical nature of improving the practices and thoughts on how to do it. This is definitely one of the most important messages he has shared in the Managing Safety Performance News.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
