Safety Culture Excellence®

One day during my management career, I got visited by four specialists from corporate, then by my regional manager.  The safety, quality, logistics and IT specialists in sequence told me about all their new initiatives that would require my support, understanding, and staffing.  Then my boss showed up and asked me if I had any questions.  I simply asked him, “While I am doing all these programs would you like to try to continue to do business as well?”

Almost all managers must juggle a number of priorities without dropping any.  Safety should not be one of these!  Safety is not something else you do; it is the WAY you do everything.  It is not a conflicting priority with anything else if you integrate it into the flow of work and the fabric of culture.  Yes, safety meetings take time, but not if they are simply a part of shift start-up meetings or tool-box meetings, which you have anyway.  Yes, safety training takes time, but workers attend training of many kinds, none of which is expendable.  The best safety is completely imbedded into the workflow and not perceived as separable or competing.  If you think this is not possible, seek out some of the excellent organizations that have made it happen.

-Terry L. Mathis

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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 three consecutive times. 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).

W. Edwards Deming urged organizations to establish relationships with suppliers and stick with them, even when they could save a few pennies by changing to another.  He knew that the reduced price was usually a loss leader and that the changeover would cost more than the savings.  We have not yet learned this lesson in safety.  We farm out services and products to the lowest bidder, assuming the quality is the same and that continuity of provider has no value.  We also assume that a consultant who specializes in one service, or a manufacturer who specializes in a particular product, is superior.  These assumptions are not necessarily so.

The relationship with a provider can make them more valuable than price, product or service.  Someone who really takes the time to understand your business can often tailor to your needs much better than a subject-matter expert who doesn’t know or understand your organization.  The relationship is often what gets you superior support, preferential treatment and customized solutions.  Look for someone who cares for you, not just who gives you the lowest price.  Quit trying to save pennies and concentrate on saving lives.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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 three consecutive times. 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).

In spite of some progress toward strategic thinking, safety efforts remain largely program- or process-minded.  This is kindred thinking to the “more is better” and the “silver bullet” mentality of the past three decades.  Organizations think the new program is going to be the add-on to their existing efforts producing the magic that gets them to zero.  Consultants and trainers answer this demand and produce product-and-process things to sell to organizations.  The chase to fail less this year than last goes on.

The vast majority of organizations we assess do NOT need a new program or process.  In fact, most need to get rid of some of their existing ones rather than add new ones.  More is not better; only better is better, and adding on to failing or falling-short efforts is not the answer.  None of the programs or processes are silver bullets or magic pills.  Once an organization begins to press the limits of programmatic and new-process thinking, the way forward is almost always a strategic approach.  Strategies are more successful at producing reduction rather than simply adding more programs.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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 three consecutive times. 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).

Sometimes in safety, it can seem impossible to fix a problem or identify the cause of a rash of accidents, or find the best way to get workers more engaged.  Safety people are problem-solvers, and unsolved problems are a thorn in their side.  It helps to remember that everything is impossible until we figure it out.  It was once considered impossible to split an atom, run a mile in less than four minutes, or even for human beings to fly. 

Many organizations that strive for safety excellence keep a “temporarily impossible” file in which they list issues and problems that have not been addressed or solved.  They pull it out from time to time and review the issues and problems in light of recent changes and advances.  A few each year get removed from the list and out of the file.  The world is full of miraculous possibilities patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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 three consecutive times. 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).

Many sports teams who have a good season develop high hopes for a good play-off performance only to be badly disappointed.  It seems that play intensifies in the post-season when only the best teams are left and winning is contingent on more than the basics.  Safety has some similarities:  going from poor performance to better performance comes with the basics and reasonable effort.  But when only a few accidents remain per year, preventing them takes a whole new level of effort.

The biggest mistake in both these scenarios is assuming that the strategy that got you to this point will get you the rest of the way to top.  The problem is that the tools of “bad-to-good” don’t work on “good-to-excellent.”  That game plan and those tools must form the basis of your effort, but winning will take a dose of “above and beyond.”  The last remaining risks aren’t always visible to the naked eye and a whole new level of analysis is needed.  When you get rid of the obvious risks, the next level is less obvious.  When you eliminate the high-probability risks, the remaining ones are lower probability and harder to detect.  Excellence is a whole new game overlaid on the old game.  When you get to the playoffs, develop a new game plan. 

-Terry L. Mathis

For more insights, visit 

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 three consecutive times. 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).

Rule of thumb:  Any quantity goal without a quality requirement will encourage “pencil whipping”.  This is especially true of safety audits and observations.  Organizations that require everyone to do two observations per month or two audits per week are misstating what they truly want.  Quantity is ineffective without quality.  There are thousands of studies that support the idea that a certain quantity of contact or assessment is necessary for improvements.  But they all go out the window if the numbers are filled with fake, or otherwise poor-quality, components.

What drives change is the right number of quality contacts.  Going through the motions and getting the numbers just to check off a box is not what organizations really want.  So why do they set these goals, omitting the quality requirements?  Largely because the quantity is easily and discretely measured while the quality is more complicated and subjective.  It is easier to create accountability around numbers than quality, but doing so can completely compromise the effort.  State both quantity and quality requirements in all goals and do your best to hold workers accountable for both.

-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 three consecutive times. 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).