Safety Culture Excellence®

331 - Profound Knowledge: What Drives Your Safety Strategy

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Gonzales, LA. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published February 2014 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 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

Improving Safety: Programs vs. People

The last several times I have asked clients what they are doing to make workers safer, they answered with a list of safety programs.  There is an underlying assumption that programs can shape people.  While training, meetings, onboarding and communication are definitely influences on behavioral choices, they are far from the only ones. 

I have witnessed situations in which such programs were doing mortal battle with the workplace, the culture, production pressure and other powerful daily factors which influenced workers to take risks.  The poor programs were outnumbered and overpowered.   These other influences were not being addressed in the safety efforts except through trying to strengthen the programs.

The recent emphasis and popularity of focusing on safety “culture” is, in part, an admission that people-to-people influences are important and must be addressed.  However, most organizations attempt to improve the safety culture by using what?  MORE PROGRAMS!  Again, this assumption that programs shape people and even the way people shape each other. 

Many organizations are attempting to program the seeds of culture while ignoring the climate and chemistry in which they want the seeds to grow.  Exactly the opposite approach is what most often brings success.  People respond to the environment in which they work which includes physical design, leadership, supervision style, respect for lifestyle issues, and being treated like an adult. 

For a brief moment, forget what your programs should be and focus on what your people should be.  What influences will make them feel good about becoming such a person and how can you create these influences in your organization? 

-Terry L. Mathis

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.

Backward Safety Practices

When safety practice ignores the facts it’s no wonder why things don’t work well.  Research has shown and re-affirmed several facts that have escaped attention or reaction from common safety practices.  The following is only a short list of examples:

Fact:  People react emotionally before they react rationally.
Practice:  We try to convince people first with logic and then get them involved and bought in.

Fact:  People remember concrete facts better than abstract concepts.
Practice:  We generalize about safety and then (maybe) back up our generalization with specific examples.

Fact:  The messenger is often as important the message.
Practice:  We send out safety messages via email or ask whoever is available to deliver the message.

Fact:  Discovery learning is best.
Practice:  We tell everything rather than letting people extract lessons from stories.

As long as safety practices ignore the facts we can expect them to produce less than stellar results. What other facts do you see safety practices ignore?

-Terry L. Mathis

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.

328 - Five Vital Questions to Effectively Develop Leaders

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Grapevine, TX. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published December 2013 in Occupational Health and Safety 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

What is Your Safety Culture Good at?

I just heard another organizational leader claim that he had good safety programs and a good safety culture and couldn’t figure out why he still had accidents.  The two greatest problems with such leaders is already stated:  they don’t know why they have accidents and they are satisfied that something is good even when it does not produce results. 

These leaders are not entirely to blame.  They have been told by the “experts” that good safety programs and a good safety culture have certain characteristics.  If their programs and safety culture have these characteristics, they must be good ones.  The true measure of a safety program or culture is not what it is “like” but “what it can do and does.”  If you have too many accidents, your programs and culture are not doing what they should do.  If you don’t know why, you can’t lead your organization to better results.

This problem is simply an application of the age-old tendency to mistake activity for results.  This is why we have both process metrics and results metrics:  so we can see if we are working our plan and also see if our plan is working.   A culture that wants to prevent accidents is not automatically a culture that knows how to prevent accidents.  Work on your culture’s capabilities and not just its characteristics.

-Terry L. Mathis

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.

327 - Applying the Three As of Employee Engagement

327 - Applying the Three As of Employee Engagement

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded in my home in Texas. I’d like to share an article Terry L. Mathis wrote that was published December 2013 in EHS Today 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

The Org. Chart of Safety

What message does it send where safety is placed in an organizational chart?  In some organizations, especially small ones, it may not be significantly consequential.  In others, it can be extremely critical.  The differences in organizational culture can both dictate where safety should be and suggest where it should not be.

In one of our client organizations, safety, quality assurance and training were all placed under the control of the Vice President of Human Resources.  Every individual who had served in that position had come from one of those three backgrounds and was an expert at that one and a complete amateur at the other two.  Three VPs in a row were weak in safety and the results emphasized that fact.  Two of the “non-safety” VPs had also appointed one of their former associates who also knew little or nothing about safety to head the safety department.  We have found similar weaknesses in almost all organizations who do not have dedicated safety professionals at the highest levels or have the president or CEO lead safety personally.

Another client organization had worked diligently to build trust between safety professionals and the represented workforce.  They had a history of overusing discipline prior to this effort and were just beginning to overcome it when a senior leader reorganized the senior management group and put safety under the corporate counsel.  The immediate perception of the workforce was that the organization was moving back to their old stance on discipline and lining up a lawyer to head the effort.  The workers and their union leaders protested.

These are just two examples of how the placement of safety in the org. chart can impact its effectiveness.  Unfortunately, there is no magic answer to where it should be for all organizations.  An important principle is that safety should be strategically led by organizational leaders and safety specialists should carry out the strategic plan.  When safety is delegated to non-safety or multifunctional leaders, it seldom produces excellent performance.

-Terry L. Mathis

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.

325 - Does Poor Safety Equal Poor Management?

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Marble Falls, TX. I’d like to share an article Terry Mathis wrote, published November 2013 in EHS Today 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

324 - Stop demotivating safety excellence

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Roosevelt, UT. I’d like to share an article I wrote, published November 2013 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 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

Consistency vs. Continuity: Can Either or Both Improve Performance?

Ralph Waldo Emerson commented that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…”  To an extent, every manager and leader has some of this “littleness” of mind.  Almost all long for people and process to be more consistent and predictable.  If they were more consistent, changes and improvements could be accomplished uniformly across the organization.  Sameness smacks of control and what leader doesn’t want to be in control?  But the extreme side of consistency is robotic sameness.  It contains no original thought, nor creativity.  It has no motivation to go above and beyond.  It does not question the status quo, nor long for excellence.  

Continuity, in its best form, is enough consistency to allow for aligned effort but not stifle it.  Continuity of strategy, programs, and terminology allow for individuals to work together toward a common cause with likeness of mind but room for individuality.  People can seek the same goals, use the same tools and speak the same language, but do so in their own completely unique way.  Each contribution can add up to a much greater sum with such synergy of effort.

So leaders, here is the challenge:  Can you lead without micromanaging, align without stifling, create focus without destroying individuality.  In short, can you build continuity without going too far and creating little-minded consistency?

-Terry L. Mathis

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.