Leadership Development Archives

Frontline Fundamentals: HP Principle Three: You Cannot Outperform Your Organization

Written by David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM on June 12, 2018. Posted in Leadership Development, Frontline Fundamentals.

What happens to a saltwater fish if we put it in fresh water? No matter what that fish does, no matter how well it can swim, no matter how strong it is and no matter how hard it tries, it cannot survive because we put it in the wrong environment. When it comes to human performance, HP principle three states that individual behavior is influenced by organizational processes and values. It implies that incident causation goes deeper than individuals, and that to prevent incidents, organizational (systems) deficiencies must be identified and corrected. The challenge for an organization is to create...

Overcoming the Effects of Short-Service Employees

Written by Jesse Hardy, CSP, CIT, CUSP on April 18, 2018. Posted in Leadership Development, Tailgate Topics.

“Are you calling his family, or do you want me to?” the superintendent asked. The project safety manager replied, “I’ll call his emergency contact after I find out where the ambulance is heading. Can you call the division manager and give her an update?” The superintendent shook his head as he surveyed the scene and said, “I’ll have to keep it short and simple for now, but tomorrow morning we’re going to need to be able to explain to everyone how a 19-year-old kid with three months of experience was able to jump into that piece of equipment and put it into an overhead power line.” Although...

Frontline Fundamentals: HP Principle Two: Your Crystal Ball

Written by David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM on April 18, 2018. Posted in Leadership Development, Frontline Fundamentals.

I have fond memories of G.I. Joe. When I was a kid, I played with the toys and watched the cartoons. I sang along with the theme song and was ready to say “knowing is half the battle” in unison with the hero at the end of each episode, after Cobra had been defeated. The Joes were smart to realize that knowledge is power, and knowledge is especially powerful when it comes to safety, and more specifically, incident prevention. Imagine for a moment what it would be like to know the future – think about how powerful it could make you. How much money could you make if you could predict winning lottery...

Frontline Fundamentals: HP Principle One: People Screw Up

Written by David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM on February 21, 2018. Posted in Leadership Development, Frontline Fundamentals.

The first principle of human performance (HP) is that people are fallible and even the best make mistakes, or in simpler terms, people screw up. How error-prone are we? Studies vary, but for our purposes, we will use an average of five mistakes per hour. That’s a lot of mistakes, and a scary thing to think about is we often are not aware of our mistakes. Let’s consider how this relates to safety, and more specifically, how HP Principle One needs to be incorporated into your safety and health management system. Safety programs tend to be based on the concept that if there is a rule and the rule...

Avoiding the Silent Danger: Three Skills for Improving Your Safety Culture

Written by Steve Willis on December 15, 2017. Posted in Leadership Development.

The other day my oldest son cooked himself a batch of steaming hot Rice-A-Roni. He didn’t even wait until he’d found a place to sit before the first spoonful hit his mouth. And I’m guessing the deliciousness overpowered his cognitive abilities because he then staggered into the TV room and plopped down on one of the couches – a definite “no Rice-A-Roni zone.” Now here’s where things get interesting. First of all, my son knows the rule. His mother and I explained it, we demonstrated it, we had a group discussion about why it’s important to obey it, we practiced taking food to acceptable...

Frontline Fundamentals: Measure What You Want

Written by David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM on September 11, 2017. Posted in Leadership Development, Frontline Fundamentals.

Imagine this scenario: A worker seriously cuts his nose on the job. The laceration causes part of his nose, at the base of the nostril, to partially separate from his face. The worker glues his nose back together with super glue to prevent going to the doctor and having an OSHA-recordable injury. He then receives two rewards through the company’s safety incentive program. The first is an immediate reward when his supervisor recommends him for safety excellence because he prevented a recordable injury. This is followed by a financial incentive at the end of the year, when his work group is given...

Overcoming the Effects of Rapid Growth

Written by Jesse Hardy, CSP, CIT, CUSP on August 8, 2017. Posted in Leadership Development.

Once upon a time, there was a construction company that did great work. The employees delivered their projects on time without change orders, and they completed them without harming people or the environment. All their happy clients gave them more and more work, which the company gladly accepted, believing that surely the fairy tale would continue. But then the company discovered that this rapid growth had spread them so thin that their production, safety and environmental quality had faded away. This moved them from best to worst in the eyes of their clients, and the company almost went bankrupt...

Frontline Fundamentals: Organizational Culture: What Caves Can Teach Us

Written by David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM on August 8, 2017. Posted in Leadership Development, Frontline Fundamentals.

If you were in a cave and someone yelled “Watch out for that stalagmite!” would you look up or down? If you said down, you are correct. Both stalagmites and stalactites are formed in caves by mineral deposits from trickling water. Stalactites result from water dripping from the ceiling. They hang down, typically are hollow, have smaller bases and form faster than their counterparts. Stalagmites are built from the ground up when water drips on the cave floor. They have a more solid structure with a larger base that takes more time to form. This imagery is useful when contemplating and discussing...

The Human Error Trap

Written by Phillip Ragain on June 7, 2017. Posted in Leadership Development.

The agitation of the managers sitting in the meeting room is palpable. The safety director sits stiffly at the conference table. Everyone is overwhelmed by a hurricane of thoughts. “We did everything we could, right?” Conjectures whirl. Voices surge. “We’ve spent the last three years installing a safety management system to keep this sort of thing from happening. It was textbook!” These leaders wonder to themselves, “Did I do something that led to this?” But soul-searching eventually gives way to frustration as a voice stands out in the room: “What were they...

Tag: Leadership Development