Execution
Problems: Big and Small
This month Paul dives into problems big and small. He explores the nature of problems and how we think about them, then leaves us with some Darn Good Advice.
July 31, 2020
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Compliance
Changing Habits
This month Paul explores habits. Not just the changes we each have made in response to COVID 19 but more importantly the nature and value of habits related to sending people home alive and well at the end of the day. He investigates habits as they apply to managing risk and gaining compliance and leaves us with some Darn Good Advice.
June 30, 2020
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Execution
Stressed Out!
This month Paul dives into the stress we all are feeling. In this edition he talks about the assumptions, hypotheses, and facts we use to make decisions and the biases that influence and inform them. If you are a regular reader then you know Paul is going to pull it all together, share his perspective and offer some thoughts on how to leverage the lessons. Some Darn Good Advice.
May 29, 2020
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Execution
What Now?
This month Paul examines the customary beginning of a new year thinking about goals and results. He reminded me of Jim, only Paul’s search is for ’cause’ around the leading and lagging indicators used to measure safety performance. Anyone who knows Paul knows he tends to have a different and insightful perspective. He truly is a Rebel With a Cause — to help leaders like you send people home alive and well at the end of each and every day.
January 29, 2020
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Execution
A Simple Job
This month Paul examines lessons learned from a fatality doing a “Simple” clean-up job at a restaurant. The discussion is central to understanding how we perceive hazards and take risks. He provides some very interesting insight into the things that can get someone hurt, hurt seriously, or worse.
November 29, 2019
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Execution
Work Done Here
This month Paul examines lessons learned from improvised tools and work methods where the odds of a hazard are a lot higher and there is a potential for creative problem solvers to be taking too much risk.
September 30, 2019
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Execution
Managing Risk: The Right Stuff
This month in Managing Risk: The Right Stuff Paul examines lessons learned about managing risk in the space program. He provides four very important lessons that need to be understood about risk and sending people, to the moon and/or home alive and well at the end of each and every day.
July 31, 2019
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Execution
Missing The Obvious
Over the first decade of manned spaceflight in the US, no human life was lost in space. In managing risk, there no greater success story…
July 15, 2019
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Compliance
Factoring In The Human
Imagine your momentary queasiness as you start reading…US Airways 1549. You immediately know what that is about and have a pretty good idea Captain Sully has something to do with it. This month Paul examines the human factor when things go bump in the night…or the Hudson River.
June 28, 2019
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Execution
What’s Your Plan?
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul dives into planning for the New Year. Specifically, planning to send everyone home alive and well at the end of each and every shift. January is the time we seem to be most focused on planning and Paul’s got a few words of good advice.
January 24, 2019
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Popular Topics
Popular Articles
Appreciating Feedback
In this month’s Flash what might get in the way of intervention, why feedback matters, and how a simple “thank you” can encourage the conversations that help prevent injuries.
Coaching Leaders
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Gary Rivenes explores what effective coaching looks like when safety leadership moves from the classroom to the field. Gary writes from experience: before joining Balmert Consulting, he spent more than thirty years in mining leadership roles, from supervising a seventy-person crew to serving as Chief Operating Officer. In those roles, coaching leaders was not a theory or a program. It was part of getting the work done safely and sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.
All “Those” Rules…
In this month’s Flash we discuss “dumb rules”, and re-visit an easy way to put on great Tool Box Safety Meetings. Unfortunately those sorts of rules are often unwanted and seen as unnecessary, here’s one idea to help you reduce the chance a new one might be needed in the first place.
A Case Study
This month Paul explains that investigation reports are valuable leadership tools not simply because they identify technical causes, but because they reveal how familiar execution challenges—such as limited training, inexperience, weak supervision coverage, fatigue, time pressure, and inconsistent use of PPE—combine to produce serious outcomes. The primary purpose of an investigation is to help ensure an event does not happen again, but equally important is the Performance Visibility investigations provide: a clearer understanding of what is actually happening where work is being performed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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