Safety Culture Excellence®

The Safety Game Plan

Just as a head coach should bring a plan to win each game, leaders of organizations should have a plan to win in safety.  If you truly seek excellence, it is not enough to simply set a goal to win by so many points, or just show up and rely on the native ability of your players.  True leadership involves strategy.  How do you play on your strengths?  How do you adjust for special challenges?  How do you constantly revise your plan based on successes and failures?  How do you motivate and direct your players?

So many safety programs lack true strategies and simply rely on good players, traditional plays, and a little cheerleading.  Leaders stress safety rather than leading it.  They give it lip service and even invest resources in traditional efforts, but they don’t really have a game plan.  They fire poor performers and try to hire better ones, but don’t really have a training program to maximize performance.  All the symptoms of poor coaching apply to safety leadership.  Do you bring a game plan to the table in your organization?

 

 

-Terry L. Mathis

 

For more insights, visit 

www.ProActSafety.com

 

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS three consecutive times. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence (2013, WILEY).

378 - Business and Safety: Are the Strategies Aligned?

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Decatur, TX. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in OH&S Magazine. The published article can either be found on the magazine’s website or under Insights at www.ProActSafety.com. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast this week. If you would like access to archived podcasts (older than 90 days – dating back to January 2008) please visit www.ProActSafety.com/Store. For more detailed strategies to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture, pick up a copy of our book, STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence - http://proactsafety.com/insights/steps-to-safety-culture-excellence

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety

376 - The Rationale for Safety Excellence

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Dallas, TX. I’d like to share an article Terry Mathis wrote that was published in EHS Magazine. The published article can either be found on the magazine’s website or under Insights at www.ProActSafety.com. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast this week. If you would like access to archived podcasts (older than 90 days – dating back to January 2008) please visit www.ProActSafety.com/Store. For more detailed strategies to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture, pick up a copy of our book, STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence - http://proactsafety.com/insights/steps-to-safety-culture-excellence

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety

374 - Should Safety Pros Work Themselves Out Of Their Jobs?

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Auburn Hills, MI. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in BIC Magazine. The published article can either be found on the magazine’s website or under Insights at www.ProActSafety.com. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast this week. If you would like access to archived podcasts (older than 90 days – dating back to January 2008) please visit www.ProActSafety.com/Store. For more detailed strategies to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture, pick up a copy of our book, STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence - http://proactsafety.com/insights/steps-to-safety-culture-excellence

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety

373 - Misusing Negative Consequences

Greetings all, here is a short video for this week's podcast. I hope it gets you thinking!

Shawn M. Galloway

President, ProAct Safety

Leading and Managing Safety

If safety is truly a value, and not just a changing priority in an organization, it must be led by the leader of the organization, not simply delegated to a safety professional.  Other values such as integrity or honesty are not delegated, but led and demonstrated by organizational leaders.

Many safety professionals are titled as safety managers and, as such, can be delegated the job of managing the safety activities and recordkeeping of the organization.  However, if these safety managers are expected to truly lead safety, they find themselves competing with the organizational leaders of finance, engineering or sales. This very delegation suggests that the true goal of the organization is being led by the leader and everything else is less important.   Safety becomes a sub-culture led by a sub-leader and takes a secondary and non-integrated priority in the minds of workers.  This division can lead to a dichotomy or conflict of priorities in which workers have to choose between pleasing the boss of production or the boss of safety.

Leading safety means establishing the value and walking the talk.  Workers take cues from organizational leaders about what is most important.  Leaders who regularly talk about safety and lead by personal example make the job of the safety manager much more fluid and truly integrate safety as a core organizational value that is woven into the fabric of daily work.

 

-Terry L. Mathis

 

For more insights, visit 

www.ProActSafety.com

 

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS three consecutive times. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence (2013, WILEY).

371 - Misunderstanding Hazards and Risks

Greetings all, here is a short video for this week's podcast. I hope it gets you thinking!

Shawn M. Galloway

President, ProAct Safety

365 - Safety Must Deliver More Than Customers Expect

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Nashville, TN. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in ISHN Magazine. The published article can either be found on the magazine’s website or under Insights at www.ProActSafety.com. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast this week. If you would like to download or play on demand our other podcasts, please visit the ProAct Safety’s podcast website at: http://www.safetycultureexcellence.com. If you would like access to archived podcasts (older than 90 days – dating back to January 2008) please visit www.ProActSafety.com/Store. For more detailed strategies to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture, pick up a copy of our book, STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence - http://proactsafety.com/insights/steps-to-safety-culture-excellence

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety

362 - Implement Through Ownership

Greetings all, here is a short video for this week's podcast. I hope it gets you thinking!

Shawn M. Galloway

President, ProAct Safety

Where is the Safety Expertise in Your Organization?

Who is the safety expert in your organization?  The larger the organization the more people should have safety expertise; but at what level does the expertise reside?  Certain types of safety expertise can be limited to one or a few individuals at the mid-management level.  

Regulatory compliance issues in detail can easily be referenced when needed from a centralized source near the top of the organizational chart.  Expertise on daily safety issues should be located nearer to the job.  This expertise can reside in the safety manager or supervisor if there are enough of them.  If there are not enough safety managers or supervisors to adequately oversee the jobs, the expertise should reside in the crew lead or the workers themselves.

Many organizations are in the process of driving expertise down to the lower levels and most are finding great value in doing so.  When every employee at every level becomes a safety expert at their particular job, organizations find their safety performance greatly improves.  The old reliance on the boss telling the worker what to do and how to do it safely is changing to the boss becoming the coach who teaches the worker to direct his or her own efforts and to do them safely.  Performance coaching skills are the vehicles that transfers safety and job-specific expertise to where it does the most good.  Does your culture have this crucial capability?

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit www.ProActSafety.com

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.