Thought Leadership

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My heart hurts today. Safety statistics started to play out early this morning. Today in Minneapolis, a construction worker died when he fell 50 feet. Today in Franklin County, Virginia, two journalists were killed by a disgruntled former employee of their station.

According to best-selling author and executive coach Wendy Capland, leaders undermine themselves with what she refers to as minimizing language – words and phrases that imply uncertainty and self-effacement even when they’re trying to give the opposite impression.

Safety is a relatively new function. When it was created in the mid 70s, it was typically an assignment tacked on to someone’s existing job. There were no instructions, or templates for doing a good job.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Contemporary research suggests that we can better influence the safety-related opinions, attitudes, and actions of others when we have a large degree of expertise and trustworthiness.

Recently, I was in the Central American country of Costa Rica. While there I kept hearing the phrase Pura Vida as people greeted one another. As I discussed this with our host he gave me two translations; the word by word meaning is the pure life.

For years, the Las Vegas tiger show wowed audiences as Siegfried and Roy petted the tigers. Slowly and lethally the new normal lulled the entertainers into complacency with their truly dangerous pets. And then one day…

Global and regional companies experience seasonal peculiarities that can have a definite impact on the employees and their families. Last month I received a warning notice from a facility cautioning their employees about “Monsoon June.”

Yesterday, I was contemplating my “to do” list trying to figure out how I was going to get everything done. I soon realized it was not possible – there simply were not enough hours available to do it all.

About 15 years ago, I read an important engagement story regarding a line worker with a major automotive manufacturer in the United States. The story evolved from an organizational push to gain more involvement from their workers at a time when it was critical.

The revised version of ISO 14001, the international standard for Environmental Management Systems (EMS), will be published in September 2015. Greg Roberts, Manager of Sustainability and Mike Shaw, Senior Manager of Health & Safety (H&S) at Ramboll Environ, look at the changes and explore how it will align with the new ISO management system standard for occupational H&S, ISO 45001, being planned for publication in 2016.