This month’s Flash is prompted by several high profile catastrophic failures. While they’ll be the subject of in-depth investigation, they immediately raise a vitally important question for anyone interested in safety: how to decide what “non-event” events to take seriously?
This month, Paul focuses on the vital topic of hazard recognition, examining why failure to recognize hazards continues to show up in incident and near-miss reports. He underscores the reality that whenever someone is injured, a hazard is always present. Drawing on Dr. Daniel Kahneman’s psychological studies, Paul explores how human cognition impacts the way we perceive hazards. He concludes that leaders play a crucial role in fostering a culture where individuals feel compelled to take action when they detect a hazard or serious concern. The message is clear: if you see something, say something, and do something! This is an important read for any leader… and their followers.
In last month’s Flash we looked at one Fatal Assumption too commonly made, assuming “That will never happen to me”. This month Paul looks at a second Fatal Assumption, assuming “That will never happen.”
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.
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul teaches us why teaching followers is still one of the most important responsibilities of leadership.
From assigning work to developing people, Paul shows how teaching gives leaders a powerful opportunity to improve performance, reinforce expectations, shape culture, and stay connected to the people doing the work. He also shares what Jack Welch understood about teaching that many busy leaders have forgotten.
Paul’s lesson may change the way you think about one of the most basic things leaders do.
In this month’s Flash, we take a look at what we call Early Warning Indicators. Seeing safety performance for what it actually is means looking beyond past performance, and further into what’s happening today. Using Early Warning Indicators is an easy and effective way to do just that.
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul finds a leadership lesson in a decidedly unlikely place: a guy in a bright yellow suit who owns a wildly successful baseball team named after a breakfast fruit. What Jesse Cole and the Savannah Bananas have to do with the everyday practice of leadership—and what Paul sees in their story—is worth the read.
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.
