Hazard/Risk

Hazard/Risk

Recognizing Hazards

This month Paul does a deep dive into understanding hazards — what can hurt us – and hazard recognition. Actually, that is not exactly correct, he does a deep dive into understanding the failure to recognize hazards and getting to the truth about what really happened. As long as I have known him, Paul has had a fascination of trying to understand what really happened when things go wrong. He puts the “axe of truth” to the reported findings. He has done Root Cause of Root Cause investigations analyzing the findings of reports in his organization and those in the public domains. Whatever your role in your organization, understanding what he shares this month can make a difference sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.

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Hazard/Risk

Hazards, Everywhere

In this month’s edition of the Flash, Paul lends some advice on where to look for hazards and some perspective about the environment around us.

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Hazard/Risk

Working For A Living

This month Paul examines what happens when the right things aren’t done to make sure the hazards do no harm. He examines the case of Jacob Dean and how the decisions, not just of Jacob, led to a tragedy. There are many lessons to be learned from this case regardless of where you work or what you do that can make the difference between going home alive and well at the end of the day or not going home at all. The Case for Safety depends on doing the right thing.

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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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Execution

Another Close Call

This month Paul brings clarity to some of the different word choices in play to explain events where something bad happened and events where nothing bad happened but could have happened. But that is not the big story. Paul takes us below the surface of the debate of terms to examine some critical things that need to be understood to prevent recurrence of an unplanned and unwanted event beginning with you need to know something happened.

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Hazard/Risk

Natural Hazards

This month Paul explores how we ought to determine which “old things” are important and that we ought to prepare for. He discusses the most common misunderstanding that leads us to get it wrong more often than not. There is a lot to learn from a good hard freeze that can help you back on the job.

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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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Hazard/Risk

Look Out!

This month Paul shares his experience around hazard recognition and lists. He explores the nature of hazard recognition challenges and leaves us with some Darn Good Advice and a suggestion for a better way.

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Hazard/Risk

Asking “Where?”

When the time comes to look for the hazards that can hurt you, where do you look? Without giving that question a lot of thought, you might answer…

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Popular Topics

Popular Articles

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A Little Doubt

Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty; a lack of conviction. Feel unsure, you’ll be reluctant to commit and take action. Thinking that sounds like a bad thing, but it that really true – for safety?

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Owning Safety

This month Paul steps aside so that Gary Rivenes, one of our senior teacher/consultants, can share his thoughts on the responsibility of leaders to own safety — theirs and that of those who work for them. Gary makes the case that owning safety is critical to getting great safety performance but that owning it, without acting on it, is not enough.

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A Reset

This month Paul takes a moment to hit the reset button when it comes to running effective safety meetings, and revisits the simple approach of asking the right questions to help you make the most of yours.

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