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On a recent vacation, I visited a U.S. Life Saving Service (USLSS) station at Indian River, DE and learned about these dedicated and brave, albeit crazy, 'surfmen' who man these [...]

All of us who have been in the EHS business for any period of time have either led or participated in a root cause analysis (RCA). Too often root cause [...]

From a systemic view, anyone paying attention to numerous employment dynamics during the past decade would conclude the safety, industrial hygiene and environmental fields are bleeding from a thousand cuts. [...]

What is a safety culture anyway? For most safety professionals, a safety culture is the value each employee has toward safety. I recall in DuPont safety culture being occasionally defined [...]

Can too much safety lead to unintended consequences? Do you think the reason why there has been a surge in accidents involving the use of cell phones while driving in [...]

All of us have felt the pressure of a schedule. Pressures are imposed by people, equipment/materials, and the environment. Pressures surface when we are up against a deadline and we [...]

Do you ever wonder if there are Safety Saboteurs in your midst? I can assure you there are--individuals who may unwittingly create havoc to thwart safety initiatives. In their recently [...]

Work environments today are far more complicated than they were 45 years ago. Technological advances demand greater attention to detail. Are we reaching a point where there is just too [...]

Why do some of us decide to continue working after we reach the point of a willing or unwilling retirement? Many baby boomers have an altruistic sense of still needing [...]

Remember when you graduated from college and headed out to start your career in the safety and health profession with that altruistic belief that you were going to tear up [...]

Do CEOs really matter when it comes to safety performance? My curiosity was revived recently with a column (1) by Eric McNulty for the strategy + business blog summarizing a [...]

Certainly over the past several decades, the plethora of 'leadership' books has grown to the point that the topic could fill a metropolitan library. All of us have read our [...]

In the past two issues (March and April), I covered the first five steps in the PuMP process: 1) Understanding Measurement Results; 2) Mapping Measureable Results; 3) Designing Meaningful Measures; [...]

Last month I covered the first two steps in Stacey Barr's Performance Measurement Process, which she refers to as the PuMP process. (1) Step 1 involves understanding measurement's purpose so [...]

Regulations have been the primary driving force for tabulating safety errors. But can decisions be made from the error data being tabulated? Stacey Barr provides a powerful systemic method for [...]

In the safety and health occupations we have been obsessed with tabulating negatives (i.e., injuries, illnesses, lost days, incidents, violations, noncompliances, etc.). Since we're all familiar with tabulating negatives (i.e., [...]

Dr. Todd Conklin provides insight into how to systemically eliminate failure through human performance in Pre-Accident Investigation--An Introduction to Organizational Safety. (1) As I noted last month (December 2014), Conklin [...]

'It's time ... we admit we've been managing safety wrong.' Last month I wrote about the successful experience that GE is having with their Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) approach [...]

The origins of behavior-based safety (BBS) are attributed to a number of different individuals in the fields of behavior analysis, organizational behavior, psychology, safety, and so on. Regardless of who [...]

All of us, including myself, have been involved in safety change efforts during our careers and have experienced varying degrees of success and failures. I have found with many safety [...]

How often do you embrace failure? In Megan McArdle's new book, 'The UP Side of DOWN--Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success,' she focuses on failures and how individuals [...]

Why do employees break the rules? Let me take the liberty to focus on reasons that appear to be surfacing more often today according to my experiences (and those of [...]

On April 30th, Dave Johnson published an ISHN blog post entitled, Can the safety and health profession survive the demise of the middle class? (1) I was curious about the [...]

You have internalized the six lies blocking you from your success (April ISHN). And you have come up with a Big Answer to your 'Focusing Question?' (May ISHN) That Focusing [...]

Did you reflect on the 'six lies' between you and success I wrote about in April ISHN pgs 18-19? Recall the six lies: 1) Everything Matters Equally; 2) Multitasking; 3) [...]

With organizations reducing the size of their workforce and the continual march of Baby Boomers into retirement, those remaining are finding they are not only doing their job, but also [...]

My friend and colleague, Dan Rockwell, introduced his blog followers to a little book that will not only change your personal life, but might have a demonstrable impact on your [...]

Editor's Note: This is Jim Leemann's final 'Systems Thinking ' column for ISHN, after authoring more than 75 columns in the past eight years. Jim's insights have been unique, provocative [...]

In recent years we have seen numerous companies suffer reputation and brand damage as a result of actions or inactions by company executives and employees. For example, in 2015, the [...]

Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses,' a final rule issued by OSHA on May 12, 2016, is precedent-setting. For the first time in OSHA history, establishments with 250 or [...]

Without debating which presidential candidate you support, which Vision Thing (also known as slogan) provides a sense of inspiration, originality, and excitement? (1) The same ingredients apply to visions regarding [...]

Clients and students of mine ask what they need to do to one day be chosen for the ES&H vice president role. Job one: learn how your business makes money. [...]

Recently a colleague at my office, Dr. Ron Schulingkamp, shared a Quality Progress article entitled 'Quality vs. Safety' by Mustafa Ghaleiw. (1) As a quality professional, Ron found it interesting [...]

With all the fanfare OSHA's administrator, Dr. David Michaels, has made over his 'Injury and Illness Prevention Program' (I2P2) as being 'OSHA's highest rulemaking priority,' one has to wonder 'Why?' [...]

We all know who they are. In fact, there is a good chance everyone reading this column has been categorized as a Safety Weasel, Jerk or Nutbag at least once [...]

When undertaking an organizational transformation, often we are challenged to explain what the culture is and why we need to 'change' it. To assist in describing the culture, Mark Bodnarczuk [...]

Continuing the changing culture theme from last month, let's explore Mark Bodnarczuk's island of Excellence® Change Model. According to Bodnarczuk, understanding the See-Do-Get Process® can be your best friend or [...]

Do you believe there is a subculture within the overall culture of your organization that is all about safety and nothing else? I do not think so. I spent a [...]

This month we will cover the need for Power. Recall, safely and health professionals motivated by Power are driven by personal power or institutional power, also known as social power. [...]

Last month I wrote about safety and health professionals who are motivated by the need for Achievement. This month we will cover the need for Affiliation. Recall, safety and health [...]

Have you ever wondered what motivates you and the people you work with and for? David C. McClelland spent a good portion of his career researching the Achievement motive as [...]

During the past 40+ years, safety panaceas have produced degrees of temporary success and expensive failures. One of the most hotly debated is behavior-based safety (BBS). I contend the application [...]

Recently a client inquired about utilizing a consultant to conduct a 'third-party' audit of his operations using the client's second-party auditing protocols. At first, I thought this was an innocent [...]

In his 1871 book, Primitive Culture, Edward B. Tylor defined culture as 'that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired [...]

Three safety professionals were asked to evaluate their company's previous year's 129 incident investigation reports to determine what could possibly be done to reduce both the number and severity of [...]

Editor's Note: This is the second in a two-part series on antidotes to potentially devastating ethical collapses. More than likely, if you find yourself in front of a board, it [...]

Well, it's that time of the year again to take the company's ethics course. Over the course of my career, I have sat through a number of ethics courses, some [...]

Safety pros deal with human weaknesses probably more than anyone in the organization, save for perhaps HR. So it might benefit you to pick up Dan Andy's book 'The (Honest) [...]