Paul Balmert

Leadership

A Huge Misunderstanding

This month Paul discusses two tools of leadership – Leading by Example and organization power. He makes the point that by the time anyone is promoted into a position of leadership they know about the important leadership practice of Leading by Example and while it may seem simple “there’s more to it than first meets the eye” and not always easy to do. Leading by Example is easier to understand than organization power and this month Paul does a deep dive into organization power and how not understanding it can lead to huge problems and catastrophic outcomes. He examines a case where the misunderstanding was deadly.

May 1, 2023 No Comments

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The Easy Way

In this month’s Flash Paul shares some perspective on recognizing and managing hazards, and the importance of not taking “the easy way” when it comes to safety for jobs that might not seem particularly hazardous.

April 14, 2023 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

No Worries?

If you know Paul, you know he has a Wall Street Journal habit and often finds in his reading lessons that transcend finances into Managing Safety Performance. This month Paul extracts important lessons from the recent banking crisis. He provides useful insights into risk, complacency, accountability and safety. The same challenges in banking are challenges managing safety performance.

March 31, 2023 No Comments

Safety Meeting Topics

Don’t Let Your Guard Down

In this month’s edition of the Flash Paul discusses the basic principles of Hazard Recognition, and why keeping your “Guard Up” is so important in going home unharmed every day.

March 15, 2023 No Comments

Leadership

Crisis Management

You probably guessed that recent headlines about a train in Northeast Ohio jumping the track has caught Paul’s attention. In that event and others of the same ilk Paul has found some lessons to share that can make a difference helping us send people home alive and well, particularly when things go bump in the night.

February 28, 2023 No Comments

Safety Meeting Topics

Leadership In Practice

In this month’s edition of the Flash Paul looks into leading in a crisis and shares two important principles every leader should understand. Crisis or not, these principals are a critical foundation to any communication between a leader and a follower when it comes to safety.

February 20, 2023 No Comments

Leadership

The Journey To Zero

This month Paul discuss the annual performance review process on The Journey to Zero. He reflects on safety goals and the measurement of safety performance and if there is a measurement there is a need for comparison — aka benchmarking. This is where it gets really interesting — compared to what? Then he points out the part of the process that in his experience is not done well. I think you’ll find his conclusions quite interesting and even useful.

January 31, 2023 No Comments

Safety Meeting Topics

About Awareness

In this edition of the Flash, Paul raises some interesting questions about what being aware of a hazard actually means.

January 16, 2023 No Comments

Execution

On Further Review

This month Paul reflects back on the annual tradition of reflecting back during the holidays about what matters most and sending people home alive and well at the end of the year. He discusses the value of reflecting back on incidents and near misses — the root cause of root causes. And he shares his thoughts on the flaws in most investigations, but I am going to stop there and let him have the last word.

December 16, 2022 No Comments

Leadership

Seeking Understanding

This month Newton Scavone, one of our senior teacher/consultants, who was born and raised in Brazil, shares his thoughts on many aspects of understanding and why it matters to sending people home alive and well at the end of the day. He shares his journey seeking understanding and explains the difference, in his terms of art, between “square feet” and “cubic feet” of understanding.

November 30, 2022 No Comments

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Paul Balmert

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