Thought Leadership

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This week on a call with one of my clients, I took the responsibility for the pre-call safety moment. As I have mentioned previously, this was an idea I learned from this client last year. They, as many other companies, display safety as a value by beginning every meeting with a safety moment when someone shares a safety story or idea.

One of the questions I am constantly asked is “why can’t OSHA get anything done?” A fair question with a difficult answer. It would be easy to simply respond that OSHA is subject to a lot of politics, and I mean a lot of politics. It would also be easy to simply answer that it depends on who asked the question, and more importantly, when they asked it.

The Mossad? The Mossad is Israel’s intelligence service with a reputation for respect, fear, professionalism, boldness, expertise and execution surrounded by myth and mystery. In his book, “The Secret History of the Mossad,” author Gordon Thomas quoted the operating principles – or the cultural values -- for the agency as laid down by Meir Amit, a legendary Mossad director. I paraphrase:

One driving attitude that can get us into trouble and stress us out is an obsession with getting around the guy in front of us. Do you need to be at the front of the line? Common sense tells us that there really is no front of the line to reach, so to try and get there by weaving through traffic and passing anyone in front of us is a losing proposition.

Have you ever noticed certain laws go entirely disobeyed? Back in the ‘70s when the speed limits were dropped to 55 mph across the United States, almost no one followed the law. Lately, I have noticed a similar phenomenon to the laws regarding hands-free cellular phone use and texting while driving.

In the current issue of the Harvard Business Review the cover story details how senior-level executives, both men and women of course, deal with the work-life balance hassle. The takeaway: everyone struggles with it; there are options that depend on things like ambition, age, individual financial resources, and individual support networks.

We all engage in activities outside of work that have risks. In our personal lives, it is normal for our risk tolerance to increase; however, with increased risk comes increased probability of injury. A recent National Safety Council (NSC) report revealed that about 70% of all medical case injuries occur off the job, along with about 90% of fatal injuries.