Safety Culture Excellence®

In 1990 there were certain beliefs and practices that were viewed as state of the art and acceptable. I’m sure in 2030 we will look back at 2011 and challenge much of what is said today on the topic of behavioral approaches. Here in lies the criticality of never accepting a one-size-fits-all methodology to injury prevention and remaining continuously searching for a better approach. No one has the silver bullet, yet we all together can contribute to making this a safer world by striving for a better way to accomplish our goals through dialogue such as this.

My research and experience with hundreds of global projects in every major industry leads me to believe that the vast majority of incidents (injury, process, equipment damage, etc.) have a conditional, behavioral, organizational, and cultural contributing factor. Now the question is, contributing factor to prevention, or causation? The latter leads people to feel a greater sense of blame than the former. Blame isn’t beneficial for anyone other than those placing it. Moreover, it doesn't facilitate ownership in prevention.

It is my belief that behaviors can indeed prevent and cause an event to occur, they can also be the reason an event was avoided. We must look beyond the behavior and remind ourselves people do things for a reason. If we only address the behavior, without addressing the reason, the sustainability of our intervention strategies will be limited at best. Certainly focusing on behaviors in a vacuum might produce faster results, but is it fast or lasting improvement we want? A little of both would be ideal indeed. I prefer sustainable value-add.

What are your thoughts?

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

www.ProActSafety.com

Some thoughts on Incentives and Rewards:

The following is from a 1993 HBR Article titled: Rethinking Rewards: “In fact, we believe our incentive compensation program is at the heart of our company’s success… Since we adopted this approach, the quality of the budgeting process has substantially improved. Finally, award opportunities are uncapped, and, as a result, they encourage the entrepreneurial spirit that we value. When designed effectively and integrated thoroughly into the management process, executive incentive programs work well for management and shareholders alike.” L. Dennis Kozlowski (Former Chairman and CEO of Tyco Laboratories and now residing in a New York Correctional Facility for financial crimes).

If a site were to imagine what safety excellence looks like, what role do incentives play? I would not define safety culture excellence by what we have to do to prompt desirable behavior. Excellence to me looks like a naturally occurring series of desirable behaviors that occur unprompted. I prefer approaches that inspire people to do things above and beyond what is required for the right reasons, and recognize them for then doing more than what is expected for their job. Often positive reinforcement (R+) is sufficient.

Managers can certainly reward the individual behaviors, nothing wrong with recognizing behaviors that helped achieve a result. I agree with that. I just want to ensure people are performing these desirable behaviors for the right reason, not the reward. If an organization cannot afford to pay their reward program and if the behaviors are not occurring for intrinsic reasons, they will often cease. I choose to set goals, inspire, coach, recognize and then lead by not leading.

When people see progress and are recognized for their individual efforts, you have developed a sustainable model for performance. Telling them if you do this, I’ll give you that and then no longer can, isn’t sustainable. It should be recognized that we all are trying to develop paths to the same goal: Creating a world safe and free from risks and a society that knows the precautions necessary to keep themselves injury and disease-free. Both I believe can only be sustainable through an intrinsic passion for excellence, and the right combination of tools. Incentives can certainly be a starting point; they just shouldn’t be the ending one. If this is a site’s ending point, than they aren’t there yet.

What are your thoughts?

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings, this podcast recorded while working in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in the February 2011 edition of Drilling Contractor Magazine. It was titled “For Sustainable Safety, Leaders Must Do More Coaching, Less Policing”. The published article can either be found at www.DrillingContractor.org 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 a proven, structured approach to coaching for performance of any kind. Like always, please take these approaches and make them fit your organization. Customization is a critical first step to ensure sustainability.. 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.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8jZHs3R2O0]

I hope you enjoy and have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings, this podcast recorded while working in El Paso, Texas. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in January 2011 by Canadian Occupational Safety Magazine. It was titled “Ownership In Safety: The Challenge Of Increasing Headcount?” The published article can either be found at 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

Greetings all! For the video podcast this month, I'm sharing a video in where I discuss how to have a FAST impact on safety performance. 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.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngH6ttcFUS8]

I hope you enjoy and have a great week!

Shawn M. Galloway

ProAct Safety, Inc.

Greetings, this podcast recorded while working in Dublin, Ireland. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote called “Frequently Injured: Fire the Person or Fix the Problem?” that was published September 2010 in EHS Today. The published article can either be found at http://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, this podcast recorded while working in Derry also referred to as Londonderry, Northern Ireland. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote called “Do You Manage or Influence People? The Result: “Have to” Versus “Want to” Attitudes” that was published September 2010 in Industrial Safety and Hygiene News. The published article can either be found at http://www.ISHN.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 from Gien, France. For the podcast this week, I’m privileged to share with you an interview between EHS Today’s Associate editor Laura Walter and Terry Mathis (the Founder and CEO of ProAct Safety).

The title was “Assessing the Safety Culture.” In the interview, Terry shares his 25 years experience working with safety cultures, including how it can be created, defined, measured and maintained. The interview was recently released by EHS Today as part of their great podcast series. Which I encourage you to subscribe to either on itunes or visit their website at http://ehstoday.com/podcasts/

Thanks and have a great week!

Shawn Galloway

ProAct Safety