This month Paul looks into how our minds recognize and perceive different types of hazards. You might not be surprised to hear that we aren’t always the best at recognizing what is most likely to hurt us.
This month Paul unravels the mystery of the handshake. Not only does he solve it, but he ties it together with Jimmy Stewart’s It’s A Wonderful Life AND the goal of sending people home alive and well at the end of the day.
In this month’s Flash Paul nudges us to remember what is most important, and shares some perspective on how to think better when a task seems critical.
This month, Jay Bizarro is our guest contributor and shares more of his great thinking about how to do exactly that and improve safety performance. He introduces us to “skydivers”, “The Safety Switch”, “The Probability Problem”, and “The Unsafe Behavior Database.”
This month Paul has been out on assignment visiting many of our clients. Last week he visited a client’s Safety Day and asked, “What is the secret of your great safety performance?” It lead to a fascinating discussion and some very important learning. In this edition of the News he dives into learning from success and failure on the road to great safety performance.
In this month’s Flash Paul shares some very simple thinking about stopping to assess risk. He also shares a tragic story that offers some perspective as to why it is so important to do, especially when problems and pressure are running high.
This month Paul makes the case that there is no escaping the truth that behaviors must be managed if the goal is everyone goes home alive and well at the end of the day. He considers different approaches that have been tried and discusses whose behavior should be targeted and who ought to manage them. Paul concludes when it comes to appreciating the times when “it’s on them” and when “It’s on me” it would be fair to say that’s the subject of wisdom. Paul leaves us with some of his experience and wisdom.
In this months Flash, Paul shares some observations about recognizing hazards by simply sharing a photo he took. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.
This month Paul discusses what happened in his old company every time it looked like safety performance was declining and introduces the term “political water.” He then dives into the toughest challenges as reported by one industry and compares and contrasts that to what we have heard over the last twenty-two years across a wide range of industries around the world. It leads to a discussion of the root of all challenges and management’s first duties. He shares some very important lessons.
In this month’s Flash Paul takes a look at choice as it relates to saying something, or not, when someone is taking too much risk.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This month Paul shares that for twenty-five years, our work has been grounded in disciplined observation, analysis, and testing. That process has shaped how we identify the leadership practices that most directly influence safety performance—the same ideas we teach.
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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