E. Scott Geller, Ph.D., Alumni Distinguished Professor, Virginia Tech, and senior partner, Safety Performance Solutions, gave a presentation at ASSE’s Safety 2014 conference in Orlando this past June emphasizing the need for the safety profession to embrace these paradigm shifts to achieve an injury-free culture:

• From Managing Behavior to Actively Caring for People (AC4P).

•From Behaviorism or Humanism to Humanistic Behaviorism.

•From Common Sense to Behavioral and Psychological Science.

•From Reactive to Proactive Intervention.

•From Complacent Competence to Continuous Improvement. 

•From Other-Directed Accountability to Self-Directed Responsibility.

•From Extrinsic Consequences to Intrinsic Consequences and Self-Motivation.

•From Failure Avoiding to Success Seeking.

•From Habitual Behavior to Mindful Fluency.

•From Self-Confidence to Courage, Humility, and Integrity.

•From Efficient Communication to Effective Conversations.

•From Person-Based Feedback to Behavior-Based Feedback. 

•From Directive Instruction to Nondirective Empathic Coaching.

•From Finding Fault to Finding Facts and Asking “What can I do?”

•From the “Golden Rule” to the “Platinum Rule”.  

Treating others the way you want to be treated (The Golden Rule) is not optimal because others may want an alternative treatment, says Dr. Geller. The Platinum Rule is preferable (i.e., treating others the way they want to be treated), but this requires empathy, he says.

•From Fixed Mindsets (Traits) to Growth Mindsets (States).

•From Labeling Achievers to Celebrating Effort.

•From Marketed Programs to Customized Processes.

•From Training to Education/Training.

•From Power Imbalance to Feeling Empowered.

•From Root-Cause-and-Effect to Systems Thinking.

•From Investigating “Who?” to Analyzing “How?”

•From Suspiciousness to Interpersonal Trust.

•From Pushing Priorities to Supporting Values.

•From Independence to Interdependence.