“All work is a process.”
~W. Edwards Deming
Manage: “to handle or direct with a degree of skill; to treat with care”
Your phone rings: there’s a report someone got hurt. You’re guaranteed to hear about two things: someone and something. Things and people: hazards and humans are the essence of safety. Eliminate either one, there would be no need for safety.
But since that’s not going to happen, you’re left to manage both. If you’re thinking people are the hard part and things are the easy part, you’re seriously underestimating what you have on your hands with all those hazards.
For openers, consider this: what do you think the thing that just got one of your followers hurt was most likely to be?
- A) Something like a highly hazardous material, high voltage electricity, a failing suspended load, a confined space.
- B) Something along the lines of slipping on water or ice, tripping over a hose, struck by a power tool, hurt while moving material.
You’ll immediately recognize the stark difference between these two types of hazards. Those on the A List are commonly known by names such as “life critical” and governed by “cardinal safety rules.” By their very definition, these are the hazards to be taken most seriously.
As for the B List, I suppose we could simply refer to them as “everything else.” Because they pretty much are everything else. If you don’t like my examples, make up a list of your own.
Which begs a question: if the hazards on the A List are the ones to be taken most seriously, would it be fair to say those on the B List can be taken less seriously?
See what I mean about underestimating the problem with all those things?
Your Hazard Conundrum
Conundrum: “an intricate and difficult problem”
You’re no stranger to problems: dealing with them is a big part of the job of the supervisor and manager. If every operation in the world ran like a well-oiled machine and nothing ever changed, you’d probably find yourself searching for a new career like selling AI or learning how to brew coffee, because there wouldn’t be much need for your services.
“Managers? I remember the days when they were all over the place. Wonder what ever happened to them.”
Fortunately for you there will always be problems; somebody has to deal with them because they won’t fix themselves. As for safety, problems begin and end with hazards. As simple as that might seem, managing hazards presents a leader with an intricate and complex problem, seldom thought of as a whole.
Instead, hazards are usually dealt with by playing whack a mole: today it’s hand injuries. Next week, back injuries. Next month, it’s the life criticals. Next year, human factors. Then someone cuts a finger using a pocket knife, and it’s time to create the new “Open Blade Policy.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is all too familiar. That’s how the hazard problem presents itself to those responsible for managing: it’s one darn thing after another.
In the search for order and logic, you might be thinking, “Let’s get to the root cause of this hazard problem.” A brilliant theory; the practical problem is that hazards are found everywhere; anything can become one. Try finding the root cause of that, let alone fixing it.
So, there’s your problem, sitting squarely in front of you. Conundrum would be a better characterization: an intricate and difficult problem – for you to solve.
If you think prioritization is the solution – start with the worse ones and go from there – we’re back to your A List: manage those few things inherently more dangerous than all rest. Another great theory, but one with three problems left for you to deal with.
First, there are a lot of little things perfectly capable of turning deadly: stairways and tape measures and disc grinders and a gallon of cleaning solution, to name four for which I have hard evidence proving them fatal. So, which hazards do you put on your A List?
Then there’s the frequency problem. For two decades I’ve been asking clients to show me their list of relatively serious injuries: reportable or recordable, depending on the industry. From that I make a list of the objects that did the harm.
Guess what: they mostly look like the B List.
Not hard to figure out why that would be the case. There’s far more exposure to ordinary things and less stringent procedures to govern them. For example, anybody can plug their computer power cord into a wall outlet. And if “ordinary things in everyday use” strikes you as the perfect recipe for complacency, it’s because that is exactly what it is.
Finally, since most of the things on the B List don’t lend themselves to being “fixed” or “eliminated” they leave you with no choice but to manage them. That puts you in the business of managing things and people simultaneously.
See what I mean about this being a conundrum?
Delegation
There is nothing to be gained by over-simplifying matters: with hazards you have “an intricate and difficult problem” on your hands to manage. By manage, I mean “to handle with a degree of skill and to treat with care.” Fail to do that, and people will wind up getting hurt.
Appreciating that’s the case is a first step.
As to what to do to manage the problem, time to take advantage of one of the oldest management techniques in the book: delegation. Get all the good help you can.
For openers, managing anything benefits from having data, so how about allowing your organization’s injury experience to show you what kind of hazards are causing the harm? Doing that by delegation is as simple as emailing your expert safety resource, and asking for a list of the things that have proven harmful in the recent past. That information is readily available. Prove by your own injury data the answer to that A List versus B List thought experiment.
Just make sure you get a list with specifics, i.e., things. I doubt you will be surprised by what’s on your list.
Assuming the culprits are primarily those found on the B List, that sets up your next move: getting more help.
Engaging Your Followers
Your followers can – and should – be a huge ally. Nobody’s got more skin in the hazard game then they do, and they’re the ones surrounded by the hazards. Getting them engaged in managing in the right way – treating the right things with the right amount of care – demands a high degree of skill. An email won’t get this job done.
Understanding what engagement means is required. Engagement is one of those words leaders throw around in conversation without giving much thought to what it means. It’s another case illustrating the need and benefit of common vocabulary. In this context, engagement is the focus on the task at hand: paying attention to what’s going on; brain actively thinking in the present moment. It’s the opposite of complacency.
This definition helps, but it also reveals two problems for you, the leader.
First, engagement takes place in the five and a half-inch space between the ears: you can’t directly observe or measure that. Even if you could, you don’t control that process. But it’s not that hard to observe the behavior – words and actions – indicating engagement, or for that matter, complacency. In a pre-job safety briefing, engaged participants are sitting up, looking at others when they’re speaking and answering questions – that’s what listening looks like – and offering opinions. Out on the job, that same kind of conversation can take place, and so can actions like looking around, eyes on task, checking and verifying. Simply by listening and looking, you’ll know reasonably well how much engagement you’re getting.
When hazards are routinely treated with that degree of care, they’re being managed by followers who have capably taken on the role of looking out for what can hurt them.
Cause and Effect
That type of behavior represents an effect, and not a random one. Its cause is the skillful management by the leader. Managing involves selling: what’s in it for the followers to take every hazard seriously. There’s setting expectations: what are the desired behaviors, described in ways followers can understand and act on. There is the feedback loop: recognizing good behavior and coaching when the behavior doesn’t match what’s expected. Both begin with observation of behavior.
If that sounds like practicing good management fundamentals, that would be correct. But fundamentals directed specifically at the process of managing hazards. Deming’s principle, “All work is a process” raises an important point you really need to consider: what is the process to identify and manage hazards?
If you think everybody knows the answer because it’s easy and obvious, try answering the question yourself. If you like your answer, ask a few of your followers and see if you like their answers.
“I just look around” is not indicative of handling something “with a degree of skill and to treat with care.” You know that.
For what it’s worth, my guess is that you won’t find the answers to the question either easy or obvious. Most leaders don’t.
If you don’t understand that process, how can you manage it well?
Getting More Help
For more than two decades, we’ve been teaching audiences the world over the answer to the question “what’s the process to recognize and manage hazards?” Having someone help you by teaching that process – and explaining why the ordinary things need to be treated with care – is just one more example of delegation.
Managing hazards well is a tough safety challenge. You don’t have to take it on entirely on your own.
Paul Balmert
October 2025
Conundrum: “an intricate and difficult problem”
You’re no stranger to problems: dealing with them is a big part of the job of the supervisor and manager. If every operation in the world ran like a well-oiled machine and nothing ever changed, you’d probably find yourself searching for a new career like selling AI or learning how to brew coffee, because there wouldn’t be much need for your services.
“Managers? I remember the days when they were all over the place. Wonder what ever happened to them.”
Fortunately for you there will always be problems; somebody has to deal with them because they won’t fix themselves. As for safety, problems begin and end with hazards. As simple as that might seem, managing hazards presents a leader with an intricate and complex problem, seldom thought of as a whole.
Instead, hazards are usually dealt with by playing whack a mole: today it’s hand injuries. Next week, back injuries. Next month, it’s the life criticals. Next year, human factors. Then someone cuts a finger using a pocket knife, and it’s time to create the new “Open Blade Policy.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is all too familiar. That’s how the hazard problem presents itself to those responsible for managing: it’s one darn thing after another.
In the search for order and logic, you might be thinking, “Let’s get to the root cause of this hazard problem.” A brilliant theory; the practical problem is that hazards are found everywhere; anything can become one. Try finding the root cause of that, let alone fixing it.
So, there’s your problem, sitting squarely in front of you. Conundrum would be a better characterization: an intricate and difficult problem – for you to solve.
If you think prioritization is the solution – start with the worse ones and go from there – we’re back to your A List: manage those few things inherently more dangerous than all rest. Another great theory, but one with three problems left for you to deal with.
First, there are a lot of little things perfectly capable of turning deadly: stairways and tape measures and disc grinders and a gallon of cleaning solution, to name four for which I have hard evidence proving them fatal. So, which hazards do you put on your A List?
Then there’s the frequency problem. For two decades I’ve been asking clients to show me their list of relatively serious injuries: reportable or recordable, depending on the industry. From that I make a list of the objects that did the harm.
Guess what: they mostly look like the B List.
Not hard to figure out why that would be the case. There’s far more exposure to ordinary things and less stringent procedures to govern them. For example, anybody can plug their computer power cord into a wall outlet. And if “ordinary things in everyday use” strikes you as the perfect recipe for complacency, it’s because that is exactly what it is.
Finally, since most of the things on the B List don’t lend themselves to being “fixed” or “eliminated” they leave you with no choice but to manage them. That puts you in the business of managing things and people simultaneously.
See what I mean about this being a conundrum?
Delegation
There is nothing to be gained by over-simplifying matters: with hazards you have “an intricate and difficult problem” on your hands to manage. By manage, I mean “to handle with a degree of skill and to treat with care.” Fail to do that, and people will wind up getting hurt.
Appreciating that’s the case is a first step.
As to what to do to manage the problem, time to take advantage of one of the oldest management techniques in the book: delegation. Get all the good help you can.
For openers, managing anything benefits from having data, so how about allowing your organization’s injury experience to show you what kind of hazards are causing the harm? Doing that by delegation is as simple as emailing your expert safety resource, and asking for a list of the things that have proven harmful in the recent past. That information is readily available. Prove by your own injury data the answer to that A List versus B List thought experiment.
Just make sure you get a list with specifics, i.e., things. I doubt you will be surprised by what’s on your list.
Assuming the culprits are primarily those found on the B List, that sets up your next move: getting more help.
Engaging Your Followers
Your followers can – and should – be a huge ally. Nobody’s got more skin in the hazard game then they do, and they’re the ones surrounded by the hazards. Getting them engaged in managing in the right way – treating the right things with the right amount of care – demands a high degree of skill. An email won’t get this job done.
Understanding what engagement means is required. Engagement is one of those words leaders throw around in conversation without giving much thought to what it means. It’s another case illustrating the need and benefit of common vocabulary. In this context, engagement is the focus on the task at hand: paying attention to what’s going on; brain actively thinking in the present moment. It’s the opposite of complacency.
This definition helps, but it also reveals two problems for you, the leader.
First, engagement takes place in the five and a half-inch space between the ears: you can’t directly observe or measure that. Even if you could, you don’t control that process. But it’s not that hard to observe the behavior – words and actions – indicating engagement, or for that matter, complacency. In a pre-job safety briefing, engaged participants are sitting up, looking at others when they’re speaking and answering questions – that’s what listening looks like – and offering opinions. Out on the job, that same kind of conversation can take place, and so can actions like looking around, eyes on task, checking and verifying. Simply by listening and looking, you’ll know reasonably well how much engagement you’re getting.
When hazards are routinely treated with that degree of care, they’re being managed by followers who have capably taken on the role of looking out for what can hurt them.
Cause and Effect
That type of behavior represents an effect, and not a random one. Its cause is the skillful management by the leader. Managing involves selling: what’s in it for the followers to take every hazard seriously. There’s setting expectations: what are the desired behaviors, described in ways followers can understand and act on. There is the feedback loop: recognizing good behavior and coaching when the behavior doesn’t match what’s expected. Both begin with observation of behavior.
If that sounds like practicing good management fundamentals, that would be correct. But fundamentals directed specifically at the process of managing hazards. Deming’s principle, “All work is a process” raises an important point you really need to consider: what is the process to identify and manage hazards?
If you think everybody knows the answer because it’s easy and obvious, try answering the question yourself. If you like your answer, ask a few of your followers and see if you like their answers.
“I just look around” is not indicative of handling something “with a degree of skill and to treat with care.” You know that.
For what it’s worth, my guess is that you won’t find the answers to the question either easy or obvious. Most leaders don’t.
If you don’t understand that process, how can you manage it well?
Getting More Help
For more than two decades, we’ve been teaching audiences the world over the answer to the question “what’s the process to recognize and manage hazards?” Having someone help you by teaching that process – and explaining why the ordinary things need to be treated with care – is just one more example of delegation.
Managing hazards well is a tough safety challenge. You don’t have to take it on entirely on your own.
Paul Balmert
October 2025
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