Safety Culture Excellence®

I heard a good analogy recently about the difference between hazards and risks. “Hazards are the sharks you spot in ocean while standing on the shore. They become Risks when you get in the water.” How well do you help those you lead, understand, identify, and respond to the differences?

With good intentions, many organizations prompt activities to purposefully and proactively identify potential hazards in the workplace. While this is admirable, it becomes a complex issue when there isn’t a shared understanding of what a hazard is and isn’t, and how some turn into risk. But, not all risk will turn into incidents and injuries. Further, if there is a shared belief that “safe means zero risk and safety first”, or “safety is our number one priority”; might there be mixed signals sent?

Consider how this might be interpreted, “They say our goal is zero injuries and zero risks and that ‘safety first’ means we are controlling all the risks, yet we have brought several to management’s attention with no action!” This isn’t just hyperbole, this misunderstanding was the result of a conversation with a key union official within a client organization.   

Let’s provide some further context on hazards and risk. Wikipedia provides a good definition of hazard. “A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or environment. Most hazards are dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk of harm; however, once a hazard becomes "active", it can create an emergency situation. A hazardous situation that has come to pass is called an incident. Hazard and possibility interact together to create risk.” Note the key points in this, “most hazards are… only a theoretical risk of harm; however, once a hazard becomes ‘active’…”

A further search in Wikipedia provides another good explanation of risk. “Risk is the potential of loss (an undesirable outcome, however not necessarily so) resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction. The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome sometimes exists (or existed). Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks". Any human endeavor carries some risk, but some are much riskier than others.” Again, some key points to tease out: “Risk is the potential of loss… resulting from a given action”. Moreover, it points out “Any human endeavor carries some risk…”

Some safety advocates propose there is little point in debating terminology. I strongly disagree. How common language is used influences beliefs and behaviors within the culture. The English language has many different meanings for the same word. Have you ever used a word or phrase that was interpreted incorrectly? Of course you have. You know how important it is to use the correct words when communicating with your family. Why should our dialogue within safety be less important? After all, isn’t it our number one priority? Or wait, is it a core value?

- Shawn M. Galloway

Here is a short video on this topic: http://youtu.be/_BrpiL4rxgk

Shawn M. Galloway is the President of ProAct Safety and the coauthor of two books, his latest published Feb 2013 by Wiley is STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence. As an internationally recognized safety excellence expert, he has helped hundreds of organizations within every major industry to achieve and sustain excellence in performance and culture.  He has been listed in this year’s National Safety Council Top 40 Rising Stars, EHS Today Magazine’s 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS and ISHN Magazine’s POWER 101 – Leaders of the EHS World and again in the recent, elite list of Up and Coming Thought Leaders. In addition to the books, Shawn has authored over 300 podcasts, 100 articles and 80 videos on the subject of safety excellence in culture and performance.

A scholar once said that culture wasn’t so much what was in the heads of its members as what was between their heads.  In other words, what they share in common.  Leaders often ask how they can make safety cultural.  The short answer is, get everyone on the same page.  If every worker has the same definition of key safety concepts, the same vision of what safety excellence looks like, and can recite their roles, responsibilities and desired results, these concepts become cultural

An effective technique for culture building is to make communication and training more “sticky.”  Sticky means that the message or training sticks in workers’ memory and can be brought to mind quickly.  For example, if you want workers to remember a 3-or-4 step process, give each step a clever name and make them into an acronym.  Repeat them in meetings and training often and ask trainees to repeat them back until they do so easily.  

Just as every American school child learns the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, workers should be able to recite basic safety goals, objectives, definitions, and other concepts.  Even if the words are not exactly the same the concepts should be.  If the concept is not in the workers; memory, it will never be in their habits.  Shared habits form common practice and common practice is a visible artifact of culture.

-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 Kissimmee, Florida. I’d like to share an article written by Terry Mathis, published May 2013 in EHS Today Magazine.  It was titled, Sticky Stories are Safety Savvy.  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 we talk to most executives about effective safety communication, they instantly focus on the vertical information (i.e., what flows from leaders to the workers and what workers send back to leaders).  Vertical communication can happen directly, through various communication media, or through the usual organizational levels person-to-person.  While this vertical information is important, so is lateral communication: what goes between workers and other workers.  

Safety engagement and behavioral programs often attempt to increase and/or improve lateral communication.  Regardless of whether you are using such a program or simply wanting to improve, if you want your workers to talk effectively to each other about safety, you should address the following issues:

1) Conversations between workers should be focused on improvement targets, not just common practice.  Targeted improvements create legitimate talking points and create discrete dichotomies of “did you do this” or “did you not do this?”  Having workers simply evaluate each others performance more often leads to disagreement than improvement.  Remember to consider targeting improvements in safety culture as well as accident prevention.

2) The model for conversations should be one of coaching rather than confrontation.  Confrontation creates enemies who disagree.  Coaching creates allies in change.

The goals of lateral conversations should be to, A) Encourage those working toward improvement, or B) To discover what is influencing or blocking improvements in those observed not meeting improvement goals.  

Often the best way of discovering such issues is simply to ask “Why?” or “Why not?” when a fellow worker is not doing the targeted precaution. Approaches that follow these guidelines more often prove successful.

-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, this podcast recorded while working in College Station, Texas. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in the March 2011 edition of Canadian Occupational Safety Magazine. It was titled “I Had Your Attention, Now What? Ensuring Communication Effectiveness”. 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, this podcast recorded while working in El Paso, Texas. For the topic this week I’d like to share an article written by ProAct Safety’s Founder and CEO, Terry L. Mathis. It was published in January 2011 by Safety.com. It was titled “Preparing Workers for Safety Improvement” The published article can be found at www.Safety.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 Las Vegas, Nevada. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published in November 2010 by Canadian Occupational Safety Magazine. It was titled “Communicating Safety: Can I Get A Receipt?” 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, this podcast recorded while working in Newburg, New York. For the podcast this week I’d like to share an article I wrote called “Black Holes of Safety: Gain Visible Progress Through Identification and Prevention” published October 2010 in Facility Safety Management Magazine. The published article can either be found at www.fsmmag.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