Managing Safety Performance News

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In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul describes role-modeling a successful technique used by Malcom Forbes. In our circles, we have a familiar name for the practice. You can read about it in his book, Alive And Well, or you can come to one of our open enrollment sessions and learn it first hand from Paul, who certainly practices what he preaches.

This month Paul also discusses some basic principles to measure safety performance. They can be found in more detail in the chapter, Measuring Safety Performance. It’s the longest chapter in his book.

November 27, 2018 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

Ranking Hazards

If you’re someone who works with your hands, on the list of hazards you face doing your job, how high would you rank Power Tools? …….

November 15, 2018 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

Failure To Learn?

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul examines the problem of failing to learn and there is a lesson we should not fail to learn. He focuses on the real problem of the perception of risk, aka, probability.

October 31, 2018 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

Assumptions

We make assumptions all the time. When it comes to safety, we routinely rely on those assumptions to keep ourselves safe. In the vast majority of cases, no harm comes from doing that.

October 15, 2018 No Comments

Compliance

Clickit – Or What?

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul shares the experience of 1 of the 7.7 billion. A person who had an impact on 139 fellow passengers during one of Paul’s recent trips. It got Paul thinking. I asked Paul if he was sure about running a “go” story and he said, “This story is one filled with things to be observed and learned. All you have to do is to look and pay attention.” Turns out Paul’s message is not really about “the go”, but critical lessons about compliance for sending people home alive and well at the end of the day and it does not require air freshener.

September 30, 2018 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

Click It or ….?

Not all safety rules are followed the way they’re supposed to be. Board an airplane, and there is one that is followed 100% of the time. Every single time a flight takes off.

September 14, 2018 No Comments

Execution

Hazard Recognition: What’s the Problem?

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, Paul turns his attention to diagnosing the problem of hazard recognition. You could attribute Kettering’s quote, above, to my father or Paul. Both masters of — solve the right problem! Sometimes you have to think differently, they did/do. When it comes to hazard recognition Paul’s message is critical to sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.

August 31, 2018 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

Knowing the Hazards

Here’s today’s question about hazards: things that can hurt you.

Think back in time to all the times you got hurt – including the minor cuts and scrapes, bumps and bruises, and the close calls where you almost got hurt…

August 15, 2018 No Comments

Leadership

A Real Safety Leader

In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News, as you rightly assumed, Paul has turned over the reins to one our consultants, Wayne Pignolet. Wayne shares his story about deers and safety leadership.

July 31, 2018 No Comments

Hazard/Risk

Danger: Falling Objects

Some companies have a rule about working under a suspended load: in a word, DON’T.

Every company safety rule on the planet exists for a simple reason: something bad happened, and the rule will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

July 13, 2018 No Comments

Popular Articles

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.

Resetting PPE Habits

In this months Flash we are re-visiting the fundamental concept of getting folks to follow all of the rules, all of the time. As to how you might move the needle a great place to start is with PPE.

Managing Safety Performance News

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