Speaking Tuesday at the National Safety Congress, BST CEO Colin Duncan made these points about workplace safety:

It is time to unlearn some flawed safety practices, recalibrate, and learn and relearn new practices.

What gets you where you are today may not help get you where you want to be.

Best practices of the best-performing companies in terms of safety: action orientation, feedback and recognition, communication, vision, credibility, collaboration and accountability.

Duncan told the audience of several hundred that the professional safety field currently puts too much emphasis on technical skills. Coming from a past history where the profession was known as “safety engineering,” this isn’t a big surprise.

Duncan envisions technical skills being complemented with the roles of advisor and coach.