‘I Am a Good Putter’: What Golf Teaches Us About Safety Success

During my trip to Glendale, Arizona, for the most recent iP Utility Safety Conference & Expo, I received the single greatest piece of golf instruction I have ever heard. Now I want to share it with you, particularly as it relates to safety.

But first, you may be wondering how I obtained such outstanding advice while attending a safety conference. The iP staff hosted their welcome reception at Glendale’s PopStroke, billed as a “mini golf oasis,” and invited Art Eklund to deliver a putting lesson to attendees. Eklund is a Class A PGA Professional who currently works for the Phoenician Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I want to give credit where it is due. Eklund obviously knows golf and is a spectacular teacher, especially since I suspect providing a 10-minute putting lesson to roughly 450 people – most of whom were eating, and a number of whom had never played golf – was a first for him and outside his comfort zone. Impressive work!

Eklund focused a portion of the lesson on the CHEF acronym: clubface, hands, eyes and feet. But it was how he started the lesson that sticks with me most. Eklund said the first step of a successful putt is telling yourself, “I am a good putter.” Essentially, before you get to the technical aspects of your putt, you must believe you will succeed. That is fantastic advice.

Henry Ford was a controversial historical figure, but he got it right with this quote often attributed to him: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” As part of our task preparation, each of us must rid ourselves of bad attitudes and negative talk. I am deeply bothered when I witness uncaring body language during job briefings, listen to people say that someone will get hurt no matter what we do, or hear frontline employees and management speak poorly about one another.

What bothers me most of all, though, is our intense focus on what we don’t want. If you take nothing else from this article, remember: Focus on what you want, believe you can succeed, make a plan that ensures your success, and then share your story so others can succeed, too.

Focus on What You Want
As someone who plays golf but isn’t a golfer, I can assure you that there is a zero percent chance of hitting a good shot if (1) you are not comfortable over the ball and (2) all you keep telling yourself is what not to do. Focusing on keeping your shoulders level is a much better tactic than telling yourself not to drop your right shoulder. You are better served learning to hit a fade than trying to stop slicing. If you tell someone else that they are lined up too far right, they will probably respond by spinning in a counterclockwise circle; instead, maybe point them toward the flag and confirm when their positioning is correct.

The principle is the same for safety. If we spend all our time talking about what we don’t want (injuries) yet never inform the workforce about what they must do to protect themselves, they will try hard and still get hurt. Take some time to flip through your safety manual and count how many “thou shalt not” statements you find versus “here’s what to do” statements. Listen closely during safety meetings and training sessions – is that time spent talking about incidents, OSHA rates, and what went wrong or could go wrong? How often do you hear the group talk about what went right and what should happen moving forward? It is likely you are already doing a great job of anticipating and planning for what could go awry. To enhance your job briefings, add conversations about how to make sure things go well. Define success and plan to achieve it.

Believe You Can Succeed
From rental clubs to weather conditions to someone yelling during your backswing, I love all the excuses we hear on the golf course. But beginning a hole by telling yourself, “I can’t get over that water,” “This hole is impossible,” or “That is an unfair pin placement” is a recipe for a double bogey or worse.

Similarly, starting your workday by telling yourself that safety is impossible or that your job or boss is unfair is a recipe for an injury or worse. We also hear a lot of ABCDE (accuse, blame, complain, defend/deny, excuses) after incidents occur. You must believe you can work safely and then use tools to make certain that you do.

Make a Plan
I can’t speak to planning to ensure you succeed at golf. (Note: If you have such a plan, please contact me immediately!) What I can speak to is a plan that ensures safety and prevents serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs).

We are human, so mistakes will be made, but those mistakes do not have to result in people getting hurt. Consider that the U.S. Department of Energy’s Human Performance Improvement (HPI) Handbook states that HPI’s two goals are to manage controls and reduce errors. Additionally, Matthew Hallowell, Ph.D., and the Construction Safety Research Alliance (www.csra.colorado.edu) teach us that direct controls will prevent SIFs provided they are installed and used correctly.

Trying not to get hurt isn’t a good plan. An excellent plan is to assure you stay safe and continuously improve by following procedures and using human performance tools. Two-minute drills, effective communication, self-checking and verification give you time to think and properly focus your attention so you can maintain positive control of your task. Employ them to ensure success, keeping in mind that success is building capacity to fail safely.

Share Your Story
You can choose to repeat success or to repeat errors. The key to repeating success is reinforcing it and sharing your success stories. In safety, where we excel at correcting unsafe acts and failures, our greatest opportunity lies in identifying how to repeat success – and that begins with defining and acknowledging it. Don’t assume people are doing the right things for the right reasons or that they will do them again the same way next time. Ask questions, investigate how success was achieved and then share what you learned. That, in my opinion, is the best definition of being proactive.

Conclusion
We succeed more than we fail, yet most of our safety resources are spent addressing failures. Let’s use this new year to focus on what we want, believe we can succeed, make plans to ensure we do and share our success stories with others.

And now, I’ll conclude this article by channeling my inner Art Eklund to remind you that you are a good putter who also excels at safety.

About the Author: David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM, is the director of professional development for Utility Business Media’s Incident Prevention Institute (https://ip-institute.com) and the author of “Frontline Leadership – The Hurdle” and “Frontline Incident Prevention – The Hurdle.” He has extensive experience and expertise in leadership, human performance, safety and operations. McPeak is passionate about personal and professional development and believes that intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are key to success. He also is an advanced certified practitioner in DISC, emotional intelligence, the Hartman Value Profile, learning styles and motivators.

About Frontline Fundamentals: Frontline Fundamentals topics are derived from the Incident Prevention Institute’s popular Frontline training program (https://ip-institute.com/frontline-online/). Frontline covers critical knowledge, skills and abilities for utility leaders and aligns with the Certified Utility Safety Professional exam blueprint.