Thought Leadership

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Some terrible things occurred during the course of three short days last month. First of all, a couple of troubled young brothers decided to explode two homemade bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and critically injuring more than 100 others. Then two days later, there was a tremendous explosion at a fertilizer plant located in the small town of West, TX, injuring more than 250 people and killing at least 15 people, many of them first responders.

There are certain subjects and/or standards in occupational safety and health that are “untouchable.” They should be aired out, discussed, addressed. But among regulators and lawmakers, particularly in Washington, they are “toxic.” Politics is not the only culprit here. The U.S. has certain cultural “boundaries” surrounding some issues that make them less accessible to discussion and plans than say in Europe.

H. W. Heinrich changed the world of safety fundamentals forever with his pioneering work in the 1930’. One of his concepts that continues to make me think is his accident triangle (pyramid), a concept that we all are familiar with.

We wish the world would be more like a kid’s show instead of a place of violence such we saw in the needless bombing during the Boston Marathon.  Wholesome, nurturing, recreational events shouldn’t be the stage for tragedies happening right in our neighborhoods.

The search for viable leading indicators to replace lagging injury statistics is a hot safety topic these days. I do not believe we will ever be rid of injury rates as a metric used to judge safety performance.

A few weeks ago, I heard a story on NPR about the factors that make video games so enjoyable, exciting and immersive.  In short, why playing video games makes people happy. Tony Hsieh’s book “Delivering Happiness” is the first I look to when I think about creating a great culture.

Putting the right people at the helm has launched many high-profile, highly successful turnarounds, from Jack Welch in his early days at GE to Meg Whitman at eBay.

Last Saturday and the Saturday before that I made no posts to my blog. It was an unfortunate result of my having been away on business. This is not an excuse mind you; I had every intention of writing and posting using the infernal timer that has vexed me every time I’ve tried using it. In hindsight I’m glad I waited. This week I’d like to talk a bit about an area of safety that I think goes largely ignored: safety while travelling.