Safety Culture Excellence®

An article in the newspaper reported how many toddlers were backed over in their own driveways by their own parents and relatives.  The closing call to action was for the government to pass legislation making backup cameras mandatory on all vehicles.  While the intention is probably sincere, the method is flawed.  We have progressed farther in industrial safety than we have in off-the-job safety and should take the lessons we have learned and apply them to problems such as these.

We addressed backing issues in industry successfully as much as 30 years ago, long before we ever started putting cameras on vehicles.  We solved these problems through training and new procedures rather than through conditional fixes.  The problem begins with the fact that driving has become so routine for most Americans that they have lost their sense of vulnerability.  They view driving as a chore, a convenience, a necessity of daily life and not as the dangerous activity it actually is.  Driving-related injuries and deaths still outnumber industrial ones by about a ten-to-one ratio.  But we do not publicize this fact nor do we adequately train or prepare drivers to appreciate and address the risks of driving.  

Certainly we should make conditions as safe as possible.  Cars can be better equipped and driveways and roadways can be better designed for safety.  But there will always be the need for more, and that more is for operators of vehicles to make sure they know what is in their path before they drive.  The problem is not backing, it is checking before you back.  Until drivers take personal responsibility to change their pre-driving routine the problem will persist regardless of the gadgets we attach to vehicles.  We learned this already in industry and should not need to repeat the learning cycle before ending these tragedies.

-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.

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’d like to share an article I wrote, published May 2013 in Occupational Health & Safety Magazine.  It was titled, LIVE Our Own Health and Safety Advice.  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, Inc

When my children turned three years old, their heads were exactly the height of much of the furniture in our home.  Bruises and bumps abounded and we feared a call from Child Protective Services!  We were tempted to tape bumper pads on the key head-knockers to reduce the suffering when we read a book that asked the question, “Are you preparing the path for the child or the child for the path?”  We realized that even if we padded our home our children would visit other homes.  How could we keep them safe in any environment?  We discovered a behavioral precaution called “eyes on path” and our lives got better.

In safety, we often face the dilemma of working on conditions or behaviors.  The best safety solutions don’t ignore conditions or behaviors.  The engineering hierarchy of controls defines how to start with conditional fixes and migrate to behavioral fixes for risks that cannot be eliminated or controlled adequately with conditional fixes.  This approach can result in both a safer workplace and safer workers.  Safe workplaces are stationary but workers are not.  While we continuously improve workplace conditions, addressing safety behaviors can enhance workplace efforts and also take a road trip with the workers as they go to even more dangerous places, like home and highway.  Make sure at least some of your safety efforts are portable.

-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 both 2010 and 2011. 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.

Greetings all! Probability is a factor that masks risks from many workers. This video explains how low-probability risks look ok when they are really not. It does so without criticizing workers for not seeing these hard-to-understand risks and the importance of avoiding them. ProAct Safety provides more strategies in the area of safety culture and safety excellence in the public domain than any other firm, organization or association. For access to increased, advanced value in the form of videos, podcasts, public workshops and seminars, please visit www.ProActSafety.com/Store

You can either watch the video here at www.SafetyCultureExcellence.com or you can watch it below from YouTube.

I hope you enjoy and have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings all! How can you help employees see how safety improves their life outside of work? Do they make the connection? If not, now is the time before it is too late. For the video podcast this month, I'm sharing an important message to challenge you to make sure safety ideas transfer outside of the job site. You can either watch the video here at www.SafetyCultureExcellence.com, at www.ProActSafety.com/Insights, or directly on the magazine’s site at: http://cos-mag.com or you can watch it below from YouTube:

I hope you enjoy and have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings all! For the video podcast this month, I'd like to share with you one of my models that explains my theory on how we can help people internalize a needed focus in safety. If we want people to be safe, this means risk-free. For this to happen, safety strategies need to be portable and facilitate internalization. I hope you will use these steps to help the people you are supporting in safety. You can either watch the video here at www.SafetyCultureExcellence.com, or you can watch it below from YouTube.

I hope you enjoy and have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings, this podcast recorded while working in Toronto, Canada. This week I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in June 2011 by Canadian Occupational Safety. It was titled, “Passionately Proactive: A Pleading Call To Action?” The article can either be found by visiting the magazine’s website at www.COS-MAG.com or under Insights at www.ProActSafety.com.

We have received requests for older podcasts that are no longer available for download on this website. We are looking into why these old podcasts are not able to be accessed. It appears the application expires some of these once they reach a certain age. Even podcasts can have an age complex!

Soon to address this, we will start making some of these older podcasts available through a small purchase that can cover our costs to provide them on a CD or memory stick and ship to your location.

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

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc

Greetings, this podcast recorded while working in New Iberia, LA. For the topic this week I’d like to share an article I wrote that published in the January 2011 edition of EHS Today. It was titled “Why We Fail to See Risk” The published article can be found at www.EHSToday.com 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

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc

Greetings all! For the video podcast this month, I'm sharing a video where I discuss developing a Personal Family Safety Focus. Do YOU have one? You can either watch the video here at www.SafetyCultureExcellence.com, at www.ProActSafety.com/Insights, or directly on the magazine’s site at: http://cos-mag.com or you can watch it below from YouTube.

I hope you enjoy and have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings, this podcast recorded while working in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote titled “3 Crucial Precautions to Prevent Slips, Trips and Falls”. It was published 12 October 2010 by Canadian Occupational Safety. The published article can either be found at http://www.cos-mag.com 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

Have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc