Do you want to make a difference?
There are many ways someone in a leadership role can have a positive impact on the lives of their employees. Perhaps there is no leadership responsibility more profound than creating a sustainable, injury-free workplace. Every person who goes to work expects to return home in the same condition. When someone is hurt, the adverse effects of their injury ripple through the employee's family and friends.
Achieving an injury-free environment is one of the most difficult problems many leaders face. Indeed, during 35 years in manufacturing I never discovered a singular solution to this challenge. However, over these years I observed quite a few leadership actions that significantly contributed to less risk-taking, greater hazard awareness and genuine collaborative efforts among employees and supervisors. Leaders who understood, embraced, and implemented these strategies saw a dramatic reduction in incidents and injuries at their facilities.
Organizations with the best safety performances do not have a secret. They simply do a lot of small things collectively and strategically well.
That's really what this book is about. It is a collection of leadership concepts, thoughts, words, and actions that (when strategically implemented) can move your organization toward a better safety future.
The first section of the book takes a look at some fundamental concepts everyone who is striving to achieve safety excellence should understand. It includes a discussion on compliance versus commitment, how to develop a safety strategy, why people make mistakes and take risks, and an overview of a Just Culture.
The core of the book reviews key research findings in social psychology, sociology and neuroscience. I share personal experiences of highly effective leadership. And I recount other situations that exemplify the wrong approach. In each case, I discuss how you can leverage these concepts in a practical way to improve your safety leadership skills.
At the end of each chapter, there is a segment called the SAFETY LEADER'S TOOLBOX, which contains over 70 practical tools and tips for being a more effective safety leader! Readers are encouraged to consult this toolbox for small changes in what you think, say, and do to shape your safety culture.
Where do you begin? Start with a Why of caring. If you start with caring as your personal motive, you won't have to do everything perfectly. Your employees will want to do the right things for the right reasons.
Safety WALK Safety TALK is now available as an online course! Visit www.safetywalksafetytalk.com/course
Creating a great safety program for an organization does not happen accidentally. Unfortunately, many safety professionals have attempted to correct a poor safety program by attacking the undesired outcomes. This approach is akin to putting band-aids on an infection. The problem seems to be covered and dealt with, but there has been nothing done to correct the cause of the problem. Creating Symbiotic Safety will help the safety professional understand that safety issues are the outcome of the process. Therefore, if you want to change the results - change the process. By understanding the motivations of executives, management, and employees, a system can be modified to align the goals and motives of each level toward having safety become the natural outcome. This proven method will help you achieve a thriving safety culture within one year!
This is Todd C. Smith's and John Brattlof's second book on construction safety. The goal is to equip construction companies with the ability to maintain a safe work environment that contributes positively to the financial needs of the project. Creating Symbiotic Safety describes everything necessary for addressing all the elements of safety on the jobsite.
Todd C. Smith entered construction safety in 2005 after serving in the 82nd Airborne Division's, 313th Military Intelligence Battalion's Training Manager and then a Spanish Language Instructor at the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of Texas-Austin, where he received the Teaching Excellence Award. Todd spent 15 years as the Safety Director for a commercial painting contractor with 100 employees. Todd has also been on the faculty of the Austin Community College's Building Construction Technology Department, where he has been teaching courses in Construction Safety since 2016.
In June of 2021, Todd became the Vice President of Safety and HR for BCS Concrete Structures. He has implemented a monthly job site inspection competition, an emerging leaders program, an extensive safety training incentive program, and a company Safety Rodeo. He is currently serving as the Central Texas Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Safety Committee Co-Chairman and the Co-Chairman of the ASSP Construction Practice Specialty Practice with co-author John Brattlof.
John Brattlof entered the construction safety world in 1993 in the Houston industrial market with a large petrochemical construction firm, S&B Engineers and Constructors, Inc. In his role as Health and Safety Coordinator, John was a part of many large industrial projects throughout Texas. His primary roles included project safety management, employee training, and health monitoring program development and implementation. He provided a variety of safety training programs to over 10,000 people during his tenure with S&B. During this time, John also provided OSHA 10 and 30 Hour Construction Outreach Training and the 100 Hour Construction Site Safety Technician Course for the Houston Chapter of ABC.
Since relocating to Austin in 2000, John has held the position of Corporate Safety Director for White Construction Company. In this role, John has held the responsibility for all program development and implementation, including the training of employees. In 2001, he successfully negotiated the first ABC / OSHA Partnership in Texas (still active today). With ABC, John has been able to work with the co-presenter, Todd Smith, to develop and teach the Construction Leadership Development Program. Todd and John also formed the Central Texas Chapter of ASSP's Construction Practice Specialty Group in 2017. They garnered participation from the OSHA Area Director to join as co-sponsors on the inaugural Central Texas Construction Safety Summit.
Safety First! Target Zero! No Harm!
You repeat it often. You've plastered it all over the office and at the worksites. But do you really mean it? Think about your actions and decisions over the last year. Do they all make the workplace safer? Did you ever sacrifice safety for production? Even a little bit? This book is intended to be your mirror.
How do people in your organization describe your safety leadership? Do you know? They, not you, decide what kind of safety leader you are by interpreting your words, actions, decisions, and behaviors.
This book will not tell you what your safety vision should be, what Zero means, or whether you should aim for Zero. But it will show you how to be a credible safety leader.
Sincerity + Consistency = Credibility.
A credible safety leader must consistently demonstrate they are sincere in their commitment to safety, whatever it is. With credibility, people are more likely to follow you on the difficult journey to safety excellence.
This book describes twelve traits people are looking for from a credible safety leader, using stories based on real experiences in dozens of companies around the world.
This book also shows you how to:
Safety leadership is hard. It's a 24/7 job, and the stakes are as high as they can get: people's lives. This book won't make it easy, but will make it easier.
Pre-Accident Investigations: Better Questions - An Applied Approach to Operational Learning challenges safety and reliability professionals to get better answers by asking better questions. A provocative examination of human performance and safety management, the book delivers a thought-provoking discourse about how we work, and defines a new approach to operational learning.
This is not a book about traditional safety. This is a book about creating real safety in your organization. In order to predict incidents before they happen, an organization should first understand how their processes can result in failure. Instead of managing the outcomes, they must learn to manage and understand the processes used to create them.
Ideal for use in safety, human performance, psychology, cognitive and decision making, systems engineering, and risk assessment areas, this book equips the safety professional with the tools, steps, and models of success needed to create long-term value and change from safety programs.
This new edition serves both as a reference guide for the experienced professional and as a preparation source for those desiring certifications. It's an invaluable resource and a must-have addition to every safety professional's library.
Safety Professional's Reference and Study Guide, Third Edition, is written to serve as a useful reference tool for the experienced practicing safety professional, as well as a study guide for university students and those preparing for the Certified Safety Professional examination. It addresses major topics of the safety and health profession and includes the latest version of the Board of Certified Safety Professional (BCSP) reference sheet, a directory of resources and associations, as well as state and federal agency contact information. Additionally, this new edition offers new chapters and resources that will delight every reader.
This book aids the prospective examination candidate and the practicing safety professional, by showing them, step-by-step, how to solve each question/formula listed on the BCSP examination and provide examples on how and when to utilize them.
On April 20, 2010, the crew of the floating drill rig Deepwater Horizon lost control of the Macondo oil well forty miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Escaping gas and oil ignited, destroying the rig, killing eleven crew members, and injuring dozens more. The emergency spiraled into the worst human-made economic and ecological disaster in Gulf Coast history.
Senior systems engineers Earl Boebert and James Blossom offer the most comprehensive account to date of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Sifting through a mountain of evidence generated by the largest civil trial in U.S. history, the authors challenge the commonly accepted explanation that the crew, operating under pressure to cut costs, made mistakes that were compounded by the failure of a key safety device. This explanation arose from legal, political, and public relations maneuvering over the billions of dollars in damages that were ultimately paid to compensate individuals and local businesses and repair the environment. But as this book makes clear, the blowout emerged from corporate and engineering decisions which, while individually innocuous, combined to create the disaster. Rather than focusing on blame, Boebert and Blossom use the complex interactions of technology, people, and procedures involved in the high-consequence enterprise of offshore drilling to illustrate a systems approach which contributes to a better understanding of how similar disasters emerge and how they can be prevented.As leaders increasingly understand the importance of good safety practice to support their business objectives, safety and health practitioners develop better tools and solutions. However, there is still a gulf between these two groups where engagement, communication and shared understanding can be found lacking. From Accidents to Zero opens up the field of safety culture and breaks it down into bite-sized pieces to facilitate new, critical thought and inspire practical action.
Based on the concept of creating safety, as opposed to just preventing accidents, each of the 26 chapters in this user-friendly book includes explanation, commentary, reflections and practical activities designed to systematically and sustainably improve workplace safety culture. Core topics range from behaviour to values, daily rituals to unsafe acts, felt leadership to trust.
Andrew Sharman's practical guide blends current academic thinking with authoritative guidance and sets up the opportunity for all parts of the organization to close the gap by providing very clear steps to thinking and acting differently. It sparks insight into how both traditional methods and novel approaches can be brought to life in real world situations. From Accidents to Zero offers a clear route to culture change through over one hundred pragmatic ideas to motivate and lead people, influence behaviour and drive a positive evolution in workplace safety.
Next Generation Safety Leadership illustrates practical applications that bring theory to life through case studies and stories from the author's years of experience in high-risk industries. The book provides safety leaders and their organisations with a compelling case for change. A key predictor of safety performance is trust, and its associated components of integrity, ability and benevolence (care). The next generation of safety leaders will take the profession forward by creating trust and psychological safety. The book provides safety leaders with actionable goals to enable positive change and translates academic languages into practical applications. It leaves the reader with a clear strategy to move forward in developing a safety plan and utilizes stories, humor, and case studies set in high-risk industries. Written primarily for the safety community and can be used to influence day to day safety operations in high-risk organisations.
Fundamentals of Fire Protection for the Safety Professional takes an in-depth look at fire hazards in the workplace and provides practical fire safety principles that can be applied in any work environment. Readers learn how to develop a comprehensive fire program management plan.