
Improvisation
Sometimes solutions are the stuff of genius. But not every one of those solutions turns out to be great – or safe. Here’s just such a case.

Sometimes solutions are the stuff of genius. But not every one of those solutions turns out to be great – or safe. Here’s just such a case.

This month in Go —or Stop? Paul examines lessons learned from another first day on the job in industry. This one went totally different than my first day but also made a lasting impression and offers some very important lessons not to be soon forgotten.

Brand new to the world of industry, it’s your first day on the job. You’ve been given your first assignment: a seemingly simple clean up task. Having been given no training, getting ready to start…

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.

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…

Being sure. Thinking you’re sure. Acting as though you are sure. We do it all the time. In one sense, it’s impossible not to. To live a normal life, you have to….

The five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Together they form the foundation of hazard recognition, done real time where we live and work. There is also the notion of a sixth sense…

Every industry has its own set of hazards. In the construction business, one of the biggest is trenching and excavation. To insure that work is done safely there is a rigorous set…

How many safety rules are there? Nobody knows for sure. But one thing is for sure: every rule exists for a simple reason…

There’s always a reason for every safety rule, and it’s not the least bit difficult to figure out what the reason is for that piece of advice.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this month’s Flash, we look at the important role questions have in ensuring Followers understand hazards and safe work practices.
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance, Bill Wilson explores the importance of analyzing and understanding success with the same diligence that organizations typically reserve for failures. He argues that leaders often overlook everyday successes, missing the opportunity to identify and replicate what works. He makes the case that by focusing on success organizations can focus resources on impactful initiatives, reduce waste, and improve long-term performance—ultimately making sustained improvement a strategic priority rather than a lucky outcome.
In this month’s Flash, we take a look at one method that can help when it comes to discovering problems unknown to leadership.