For the past 10 years, we’ve been writing the Newsflash with one simple goal in mind: to help leaders like you run effective safety meetings. Whether it’s a topic to talk about, a suggestion on how to run them better, or just a reminder as to why they’re so important, we hope they’ve in some way contributed to your good cause.
We believe that great safety meetings shouldn’t be hard to put on. If you’ve been following the Ask, Don’t Tell method we teach; we’d like to think they are not. Pick an interesting and relevant topic, get folks talking, and ask a few Darn Good Questions along the way, it’s likely that productive conversation will take place.
As to what “productive” looks like, it’s likely that you know it when you see it. And when you don’t.
So, how’s it been going?
If you aren’t sure, here are a few questions worth asking. Both to yourself, and to those good followers of yours:
- Do our safety meetings create a return on our investment of time?
- What does that return normally look like – at the end of our meetings? Out on the job?
- Is the beneficiary of our safety meetings the company we work for, or us?
- Do our safety meetings regularly represent a positive Moment of High Influence, a time when we are willing to think openly about working better or differently?
- If our safety meetings aren’t as good as they ought to be, are they still influencing how safely we work, potentially in a bad way?
- Safety meetings may often be accompanied by disagreements on rules, methods, procedures, etc. Does everyone agree that going home safely comes before all else?
- If the beneficiaries of a safety meeting are those potentially in harms way – who’s safety meeting is it, really?