Safety Culture Excellence®

Trucking companies are beginning to address driver behaviors with new technologies.  Several companies make tracking devices that monitor drivers and photographically capture their behaviors and the road conditions in which they are operating.  Post trip, these companies can know how many times drivers hit the brakes hard, changed lanes suddenly, exceeded speed limits, and exhibited other behaviors critical to driving safety.  Many of these organizations are also monitoring driver cell phone calls and texting while driving.

All this information is supposedly designed to prevent accidents by changing driver behavior.  But how these technologies impact organizational safety culture seems to be an afterthought.  If used to coach drivers into better driving habits they can potentially create super safety cultures in which drivers strive for more excellent performance.  If used as an advanced way to police and punish drivers for offenses previously undetectable, they could seriously destroy safety culture and create a police state in its place.  

It is not technology that impacts safety culture, but the way in which organizations implement technology.  We have NEVER seen a safety culture punished into excellence.  We have seen many cultures coached into excellence.  How you use technology is up to you, but consider the culture you will create as well as the behaviors you will identify.  A degraded safety culture can quickly erase gains made through policing safety technologically.  

-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 Las Vegas, NV. I’d like to share an article I wrote, published July 2013 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

When my kids were young and I said something they thought was obvious, they would say, “Well, duh!”  I think this same attitude is prevalent today when we talk about safety strategy.  Most organizational leaders and safety professionals seem to think that safety strategy is either extremely obvious or unnecessary.  When we ask about an organization’s safety strategy we get a list of either safety objectives or safety activities.  Neither of these are strategies.

Most organizations we work with are doing almost identical safety activities.  They have a safety mission and/or vision statement, safety training, meetings, stand downs, rules, procedures, posters, JSAs, and safety supervision or oversight.  Leaders try to say the right things about safety to demonstrate their commitment and safety professionals try to make a showing in the workplace to dispel the concept that they are paper pushers only.  

But few organizations have thought about safety strategically as they would think about a new-product rollout or a merger or acquisition.  Safety is not simply activities that limit risks.  Safety performance is impacted by the organizational climate, chemistry, culture, management practices and a host of other influences.  Strategy is creating a framework that guides decisions about activities and evaluates their contribution to the overall goals.  Few organizations have a safety strategy and literally all of them need one.

-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 Pensacola, FL. I’d like to share an article written by Terry Mathis, published July 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

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 Starkville, Mississippi. I’d like to share an article written by Terry Mathis, published June 2013 in EHS Today Magazine.  It was titled, The Perceptions That Shape Safety Excellence.  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

When safety results are unsatisfactory, managers tend to say, “We are not doing enough for safety.”  There is an assumption that more effort will produce better results.  In the short term this often seems true.  When leaders focus on one priority over others, followers tend to direct their efforts accordingly.  Leaders assume that their additional activities produced the desired results.  Often, it was not the effort but simply the priority that drove the improvement.  However, such knee-jerk reactions rarely work long term. Sustainable results depend more on the quality rather than the quantity of effort.  

One organization increased the hours workers spent in classroom training because they discovered knowledge deficits had contributed to accidents.  Accident rates reduced in the short-term, but knowledge levels did not rise.  The emphasis on reducing accidents had focused worker efforts, but the training had not been effective in improving knowledge.  Leaders realized after some investigation that the problem was the quality of the training.  The training did not address the most critical knowledge needed.   Increasing the quantity of the poorly designed training had simply subjected workers to more meaningless and ineffective activity.  When the quality of the training was improved, more quantity was not needed.

Many organizations purchase the latest fads in safety training and programs in hopes of improving results.  Again, there is this assumption that more is better.  Rather than improving existing programs and training and aligning them with a better safety strategy, let’s simply do more.  Unfortunately,” more” doesn’t fix ”poor.”

Very few organizations are failing to dedicate enough effort to safety, but many are not using that effort to its maximum effectiveness.  The answer is not more effort; but better effort.

-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 Orange, Texas. I’d like to share an article I wrote, published June 2013 in ISHN Magazine.  It was titled, You Need to Manage Strategically. 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

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Bethesda, Maryland. I’d like to share an article I wrote, published June 2013 in BIC Magazine. It was titled, Overcoming invulnerability to strengthen safety culture. 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

What if everyone in your organization obeys the rules, follows the procedures and wears their PPE with a minimum of supervision or management?  Is this safety culture excellence?  NO!  This is a culture of compliance, not excellence.  Certainly, it is a move in the right direction and is a desirable accomplishment.  It is a step above command-and-control but still a number of steps short of true excellence.

Excellence is well above and beyond simple compliance.  Most rules and procedures are minimal standards for safety and only address the most common and obvious risks.  Even organizations which reach high levels of compliance still have a level of accidents untouched by their efforts.  As organizations begin to plateau in their compliance efforts, they often look for advanced strategies to help them accomplish the next step change.  

Beyond compliance, workers must think and act intelligently; not just mindlessly comply.  Organizations must examine their influences on workers to make sure they reinforce safety and not shortcuts or acceptance of risks.  When all factors, both individual and organizational are aligned to go above and beyond compliance, the potential for excellence begins.  At this level of performance, compliance is so basic that is expected of everyone all the time. The new measure of success is repeated victories, not simply playing a decent game.

-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.