Safety Culture Excellence®

Forget the old ways of measuring safety culture maturity. There is a new, more effective way to measure cultural maturity and it starts with looking at the chemistry.

Greetings everyone, this podcast recorded while in Denver, CO. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published June-July 2014 edition of BIC 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

A controversy has almost always attracted attention. That is why some constantly try to provoke an argument about some aspect of a practice.  The idea of questioning the status quo is a legitimate issue, but simply challenging the establishment does not advance the cause.  True advancement comes from trying the new, not from simply attacking the old.  

There is a parallel between the provocateur and the old dichotomous thinking expressed in the saying, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!”  The idea that everything fits into either the fixed or broken category is limited, two-dimensional thinking at best.  The innovative approach does not categorize ideas or practices, but seeks to advance them.  In true innovation, there are not even “best practices” because such thinking might stop future progress.  There are better practices that will be replaced by even better practices as our wits sharpen and our organizations embrace transformational thinking.  

Blue ocean thinking opens whole new avenues of opportunity for the landlocked.  Provocation tends to bomb the island on which we live without discovering a new one.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit www.ProActSafety.com

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 my home in Texas. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published May 2014 in Professional 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

If you define production as products or services delivered and do not include safety in that definition, you are creating a dichotomy that will damage both production and safety.  Production that injures those who produce it is most likely not the kind of production your organization wants.  An accident (incident, injury – pick your preferred term) is a defect in your production process just as surely as a quality issue.  If you develop a tolerance for poor quality or poor safety, you have developed a tolerance for poor production.

Organizations who achieve safety excellence do not make this distinction.  They define production as safe and high quality products or services delivered.  They manage safety and quality as a part of production rather than separate priorities.  Workers who compromise any aspect of safety or quality have compromised production.  The old ideas of production at any cost and sacrificing your body for the team are antiquated and counterproductive.  If you still have these dichotomies in your organization, begin to improve by redefining what production is and what you expect from production workers.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit www.ProActSafety.com

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 Auburn Hills, MI. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published May 2014 in Occupational Health & 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

The medical profession is concerned that the overuse of antibiotics is causing strains of bacteria to become resistant and patients to be less receptive to the most-used medications.  The same thing can happen to safety when training is overused or misused.  Workers can tune it out and workplace accidents can become resistant to it.  

Regulatory mandates require a quantity and content of safety training, but more or less neglect the quality of that training.  This has resulted in some of the dullest, most monotonous and least-effective safety training that the world has ever seen.  The use of Computer-Based Training (CBT) has further aggravated the problem.  Required safety training in many organizations is viewed at best as a necessary evil by any worker who has taken it more than two times.  When safety training quits being an asset to the organization, it can damage the effectiveness of other safety-improvement efforts as well.

If this state of safety training were not bad enough, some organizations actually use training or re-training as a punishment.  When a worker is injured or is caught failing to follow a safety rule, they can be sent back to training.  The assumption that the training did not impact worker behavior is valid enough, but the assumption that more of the same, ineffective training will magically work the second time is borderline absurd.  Also, if safety re-training is viewed as a form of punishment, how will that impact the overall perception of the value of safety training?

Organizations need to view safety training as a tool to meet worker needs rather than a painful requirement that can be re-used as punishment.  The opportunities for good quality safety to improve safety performance has been demonstrated.  It is time to use it to its full potential instead of going through the motions!
-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit www.ProActSafety.com

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 Galveston, TX. I’d like to share an article I wrote that was published May 2014 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

A famous business leader once said there are two kinds of people in business:  those who make results and those who make excuses.  He called these first types of people, “results-oriented.”  I would like to suggest another type.  These are people who very much seek results and do not accept excuses but care deeply how those results are created.  They care about the “how” for two reasons: 1. They want to create ability in their organization as well as results and 2. They want to deeply understand how results are created and how to repeat them.  I call these people “excellence-oriented.” 

Excellence-oriented is a step above results-oriented.  It is based on longer-term thinking and the seeking of what Deming called “profound knowledge.”  Excellent results can be the product of luck in the short term and excellence-oriented people understand this.  That is why “zero accidents” or “zero defects” can only be goal and not a strategy for them.  They understand that excellence is more than a flash in the pan or five minutes of glory.  Excellence is the ability to control results over the long term and this ability is one of the most valuable commodities an organization can have in this age of global competition.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit www.ProActSafety.com

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.

A workshop about developing and executing against a comprehensive strategy to significantly enhance injury prevention efforts and measurably evolve the culture, by the thought-leaders at ProAct Safety

Based on the recent book, STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, the authors will lead this workshop and provide a detailed roadmap on how to develop a three to five year safety excellence business plan. This two-day workshop is limited to ten participants. It would be helpful if each attendee read the book prior to the event to escalate the discovery process.

For more information visit: http://proactsafety.com/events/steps-to-safety-culture-excellence-workshop

Shawn M. Galloway
ProAct Safety
www.ProActSafety.com
www.SafetyCultureExcellence.com