Leadership

Execution

Things Went Awry

This month Paul examines what happened on the set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He finds several very important lessons for us to apply where we work when things go differently than the planned or expected course.

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Compliance

Rules: Resistance and Enforcement

This month Paul looks at some recent very public cases where change was mandated and some cases where compliance has been resisted.  Paul draws out some key learnings that every leader responsible for making change happen needs to understand. 

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Execution

The Face of the Company

This month Paul explains why inverting the organizational pyramid is critical to understanding who the most important member of management is when it comes to getting things done and sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.

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Leadership

Your Legacy

This month Paul asks “What would you like your legacy to be?” You might be tempted to think this is just life advice and has little to do with what you do at work. You would be wrong. Paul holds up the legacy of one of the great leaders he met during his career who left a lasting impression on Paul. The lessons are important if you want to make a difference sending people home alive and well at the end of each and every day.

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Execution

On Followership

This month Paul analyzes followers and the underrecognized and underappreciated power in followership. Not those followers that followed their leaders into to conflict rather those working in an industrial operation, like yours. Along with examining the leadership mandate Paul explores leaders as followers. In the end it is the critical role followers play in execution, business performance and sending people home alive and well at the end of each and every day that gets Paul’s attention. If, after reading what Paul wrote, you feel compelled to go wildly dance on a hill… well, maybe I’ll see you there…

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Execution

A Crucial Conversation

This month Paul analyzes A Crucial Conversation, one particular real-world conversation, to understand the dynamics in play, especially those crucial to sending people home alive and well. He does a deep dive into the organization power present in such conversations. If more leaders understood that power, we might never have heard of the events of April 20th 2010.

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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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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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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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Popular Topics

Popular Articles

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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Managing Success

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.

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