Paul Balmert

Execution

The Face of the Company

This month Paul explains why inverting the organizational pyramid is critical to understanding who the most important member of management is when it comes to getting things done and sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.

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Safety Meeting Topics

Comparing Hazards

This month Paul looks at how we perceive the relative risk of hazards, as well as the process we use to determine which ones require the most attention.

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Leadership

Your Legacy

This month Paul asks “What would you like your legacy to be?” You might be tempted to think this is just life advice and has little to do with what you do at work. You would be wrong. Paul holds up the legacy of one of the great leaders he met during his career who left a lasting impression on Paul. The lessons are important if you want to make a difference sending people home alive and well at the end of each and every day.

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Safety Meeting Topics

Saying Something

It’s a rule anyone who’s ever learned to change a tire knows well: before jacking up a vehicle, put it in park and set the parking brake. For good measure, chock the wheels…

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Execution

Regarding Trust

This month Paul disects three similar events to examine the issue of trust. You might be surprised how he ties it all together. He provides us some very important thoughts that we all need to understand.

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Safety Meeting Topics

Trust

A few weeks ago a residential condo collapsed, catastrophically and tragically – but absolutely not unexpectedly. If you have followed the story, you know there were plenty of warnings…

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Compliance

A Behavior Problem

This month Paul begins with a story from the other side of the coin, noncompliance and unsafe practices. He examines the rewards and risks of taking shortcuts. Certainly, there are rewards and consequences, both good and bad, for every behavior. Paul sheds light on them in order to help you send people home alive and well at the end of the day.

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Execution

On Followership

This month Paul analyzes followers and the underrecognized and underappreciated power in followership. Not those followers that followed their leaders into to conflict rather those working in an industrial operation, like yours. Along with examining the leadership mandate Paul explores leaders as followers. In the end it is the critical role followers play in execution, business performance and sending people home alive and well at the end of each and every day that gets Paul’s attention. If, after reading what Paul wrote, you feel compelled to go wildly dance on a hill… well, maybe I’ll see you there…

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Safety Meeting Topics

Second Thoughts

You’re in a rush. There’s a delivery about to show up and your crew has equipment to be repositioned to prepare for the arrival.
 
In the middle of all of that, you have a safety concern…

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Popular Topics

Popular Articles

Situational Awareness

In this month’s Flash we look at static hazard recognition. Knowing and understanding where stored energy exists, which might not always be obvious, helps us ensure everyone goes home alive and well.

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Looking In The Mirror

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, guest contributor and Balmert Consulting senior teacher Van Long reflects on a simple but powerful idea: the most effective safety leadership begins with self-reflection.

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Expectations and Assumptions

In this month’s Flash we look at the difference between an expectation and an assumption. That distinction might seem subtle at first glance, however the difference found in the definitions proves a very critical point for anyone who leads and manages safety.

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Environment And Safety

In this issue of Managing Safety Performance News, Paul looks at why separating “environment” from “safety” misses the point. Using real work examples—from hauling tools over a snowbank to executive debates about compliance—he makes the case that many hazards don’t come from the job itself, but from the conditions in which the work is done. By stripping injuries down to simple “headlines” and sorting them by the source of the hazard, patterns start to emerge that are easy to miss in root cause analysis reports. The takeaway is straightforward: environment and safety are inseparable, and leaders who want better safety performance need to see the work—and its hazards—clearly, from the moment it begins.

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Finding “The Source”

In this month’s Flash, we explore where hazards come from—and why that matters. Understanding their sources is a critical step in identifying what could cause harm.

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It’s Just Common Sense

This month Paul examines how leaders often misuse the phrase “it’s just common sense”—either to dismiss learning or to assume shared understanding without definition. He argues that many leadership statements presented as fact are really opinions, and that poor communication stems from assuming others interpret words, experience, and expectations the same way.

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Resetting PPE Habits

In this months Flash we are re-visiting the fundamental concept of getting folks to follow all of the rules, all of the time. As to how you might move the needle a great place to start is with PPE.

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The Holiday Season

This month Paul shares that for twenty-five years, our work has been grounded in disciplined observation, analysis, and testing. That process has shaped how we identify the leadership practices that most directly influence safety performance—the same ideas we teach.

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Accountability

This month, we are pleased to feature an article by Newton Scavone, one of our most experienced members of the Balmert teaching team, based in São Paulo. Newton started as a client learning and using the MSP tools, then became one of the leaders developed to teach the course inside his company. For the last six years, many of you have known him as a Balmert Consulting teacher. He brings deep operational credibility and a clear understanding of what it takes to make these tools work in the real world.

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Enough Said?

In this month’s Flash, we take a look at a very important first step to ensure conversations go as well as they ought to when expectations around safety haven’t been met.

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