Hazard/Risk
Recognizing What Can Hurt Us
You’re driving a truck. On a narrow, one-way street, eastbound on a beautiful late summer morning. Your route calls for you to make a right turn…
September 15, 2017
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Hazard/Risk
Stopping The Job
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul examines making stop work decisions at work and the critical importance of that decision. Oh, yes, the client stopped the work and canceled the class in Houston. Our teacher did go to Salt Lake City so the client, in a Harvey-free area did not need to stop the work. Our teacher on the river stopped the work and headed to Fort Worth. Paul will give you some suggestions about making your stop work decisions.
August 31, 2017
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Hazard/Risk
Safe to Go?
When a traffic light turns green, how many people actually take the time think about the choices?
August 15, 2017
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Execution
Forward!
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul shares his thoughts on making real change occur. Sure, from time to time change has a lot of different names, but change by another name is still change. Humor aside, making change in the direction of sending people home alive and well at the end of every day is pretty darn important and Paul has some darn good advice on making that happen.
July 31, 2017
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Hazard/Risk
Fatigue
Fatigue is one of the many tough safety challenges every leader faces. Part of the problem is that the sources – or root causes – of fatigue don’t just come from one place.
July 14, 2017
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Execution
Safety & Process Improvement: Synergy In Motion
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News you’re in for a treat: one of our teachers and consultants is writing about something else he knows very well: what’s known in the business as “Lean Six Sigma.” In addition to teaching about managing safety performance, our Bill Wilson has been teaching about business process improvement for years. Despite the appearances, it turns out both subjects have a lot in common.
June 30, 2017
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Hazard/Risk
Safety On – And Off – The Job
Statistics suggest that people can – and do – turn safety on when they show up for work, and turn it off when they head home.
June 15, 2017
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Leadership
Anecdotes
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul reflects on some of the great leaders he has met during his working career and his time teaching leaders like you. He shares some of the stories he heard or was a part of when they occurred. Paul’s cleverness was not only being a great observer but also having a great memory for details and being good at analyzing them for what he can learn.
May 31, 2017
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Hazard/Risk
How Big a Problem Is Complacency?
At the organizational level, there are plenty of examples that suggest it’s a big problem. NASA’s Challenger and Columbia disasters and industrial accidents like …
May 15, 2017
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Leadership
Invisible Work
In this month’s Managing Safety Performance News Paul explores different ways to think about leadership when it comes to safety. He reflects on thinking from some of the best books on management and leadership and finishes with a most interesting view of leadership when it comes to sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.
February 28, 2017
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Popular Topics
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.
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