Paul Balmert

Safety Meeting Topics

Risky Conditions

Getting behind the wheel of a vehicle and drive to work. In a typical year in the US, ten times as many of us suffer fatal injuries out on the streets and highways than we do on the job. Most of us spend more time working than we do driving, and face a lot more hazards on the job…

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Execution

Recognizing Safety Leadership

This month Paul declares that those who make nothing happen should be celebrated for their effort and their leadership. What better way to end the first month of the New Year than with a positive story recognizing safety leadership? Paul talks about the importance of not just knowing what is most important but understanding it to set your leadership compass on True North. He discusses the challenges of making nothing happen and that those who do and do it over time ought to be recognized, and how they did it understood. He holds up the example of one such leader and how he did it as an example for others to follow. There is much to learn from Lonnie’s story.

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Safety Meeting Topics

Beware Complacency

Complacency is a state of mind characterized by an absence of fear. If there really were nothing to fear, there’s nothing to hurt you. When there is something that can hurt you and you’re not fearful, beware…

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Leadership

Ode To Leaders

This month Paul spends time talking about the leaders he has met and observed along his working career journey. He dives into the process and practice of leadership. In his examination he focuses on execution and how leaders make a difference causing change and ensuring everyone goes home alive and well at the end of each and every shift, every day, day after day. He leaves us with some thoughts on practicing the practice of leadership.

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Execution

Job Hazard Analysis

This month Paul’s lede story is about a recent accident while working on a similar water tower. Paul dives in on the “job” hazard analysis process. There are several lessons from this accident and the JHA process that need to be understood to make sure no events occur doing the work you and your crew do.

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Safety Meeting Topics

Fall From Height

In this edition of the NewsFlash Paul asks a simple question about a preventable tragedy.

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Leadership

Lessons Learned? Really?

This month Paul talks about the investigation reports that he has read and the findings of those reports. He dives in on the lessons learned portion of many reports and provides a better understanding of investigations and lessons and leaves us with some Darn Good Advice about what we should get from investigations.

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Safety Meeting Topics

A Fall From Height

Sometimes workplace accidents happen in public places. Case in point: a fall that claimed the lives of two men working on the overhead power lines at a street intersection. The effect on the public…

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Compliance

Individual Accountability

This month Paul talks about being held accountable. He explores common misconceptions about accountability and what it means to you doing your job. He examines a recent headline story about a CEO downunder. He provides a better understanding of accountability and leaves us with some Darn Good Advice.

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Safety Meeting Topics

The Injury Triangle

The Injury Triangle© is such a simple model of what it takes to get hurt. Here’s a case when person and the object are stunningly obvious. As to where the energy came from….

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Popular Topics

Popular Articles

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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Managing Hazards

This month, Paul takes on one of the toughest challenges every leader faces — managing hazards. Not just the big, obvious ones that make the “A List,” but the ordinary, everyday things that cause most of the injuries. He reminds us that managing hazards isn’t about eliminating every risk; it’s about handling them — and the people around them — “with a degree of skill and care.”

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Beyond the Rules

In this months Flash we look at the importance of Safety Rules, and a very critical concept about the rules that ensures they help keep us safe.

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My Supervisor

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul takes on the challenge of trust and credibility in leadership—he discusses why they’re eroding at the top, why supervisors hold the real advantage, and what that means for influencing followers to work safe. He makes the case that trust is not a given but a hard-earned reward—and the most powerful tool any leader has for sending everyone home safe, every day.

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Setbacks

In this month’s Flash we take a look at setbacks, and the unique opportunity they provide to a leader in ensuring followers know and understand what is most important.

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Blowing The Whistle

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul reflects on the investigations into Challenger and the Titan submersible. From Richard Feynman’s ice-water demonstration to the Coast Guard’s scathing report, Paul points out that history shows how truth can be buried, warnings ignored, and lives lost.

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