Blog - Krause Bell Group

Does Focusing on SIFs Mean Ignoring Smaller Injuries?

Mar 25, 2016

Categorized under: Serious Injuries & Fatalities

In our book “7 Insights into Safety Leadership,” Tom Krause and I make the point that leaders should start with a focus on preventing serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). What does it mean to focus on SIFs? What doesn’t it mean? Why is a SIF focus better? First, A Clarification Focusing on SIFs does not mean that smaller injuries are unimportant. It does not mean they should be ignored or left out. Instead, focusing on SIFs is an optimal strategy for preventing all injuries. It is a new approach, and some who have been taught that the best prevention strategy is to focus on the larger category of...

Platitudes about Safety Culture Degrade Performance

Tom Krause

Mar 25, 2016

Categorized under: Safety Culture

Tagged as: Insight 3

Organizational leaders recognize the importance of getting the culture right in order to enhance safety performance. A positive work environment is essential. But all too often they approach the safety culture issue with worn out platitudes. I once coached an inexperienced leader in his first job of supervising three manufacturing plants. He came up through marketing and didn’t really understand what his plant managers were up against. He knew he didn’t know the technical aspects, but he had been taught that his job was to lead. He had come to believe that technical knowledge was not important; he could rely...

How Senior Leaders Lead Safety Improvement

Kristen Bell

Mar 18, 2016

Categorized under: Improvement Strategy, Safety Leadership

Tagged as: Insight 3

One of the most difficult things for a leader to understand is how we influence the safety, health, and wellness of an organization. It’s easy to know the outcomes we want – zero injuries and a thriving workforce. It’s much more difficult to know what individual leaders do on a day-to-day basis to achieve those outcomes. And for those whose career paths take them away from the front lines, the line of sight becomes even more blurred. I recently had the privilege of interviewing a panel of senior vice presidents, each of whom had led their organizations to unprecedented levels...

Why Can’t we Get the Culture Right?

Tom Krause

Mar 18, 2016

Categorized under: Safety Culture

Tagged as: Culture Assessment, Insight 4

Working in a good culture is fun. More than that it is meaningful. Look at the film All Things Must Pass, the incredible documentary about the rise and fall of Tower Records; 5 billion to bankruptcy in 5 years. Key employees tell their stories, fascinating in many ways, one of which is the deep sense of connection to work life; emotional, alive, authentic engagement shown by the interviewees. Real tears, not because they lost their incomes, but because they lost a source of meaning in their lives. Note that Tower Records was a profit making company. It wasn’t that people...

The Power of Context: How Leaders Create Context and How Context Influences Behavior

Kristen Bell

Mar 11, 2016

Categorized under: Behavior-Based Safety, Safe Decision Making™ Articles, Safety Leadership

Tagged as: Behavior, Insight 6

A shocking situation In a small California town, 1,000 gallons of unknown chemicals exploded and sent 3 firefighters and several workers to a hospital. The investigation after the incident discovered that text messages were sent to managers of the wastewater treatment facility where the chemicals had been stored. The text messages warned managers of upcoming inspections and added obscurely, “...we just have a few things to do.” Those “few things” referred to moving bio-hazards and illicit chemicals away from the plant prior to the inspection. At least 7 employees of the company, including the CEO and a vice president were...

Time to Rethink Behavior-Based Safety

Tom Krause

Mar 11, 2016

Categorized under: Behavior-Based Safety

Tagged as: Behavior, Insight 6

Behavior-based safety is one of the most important and controversial approaches to safety improvement in the last 35 years. Some companies swear by it and some think it is time to move on. Labor organizations have never accepted behavior-based safety, especially at the national level. There are good people on both sides and good reasons for their views. As one of the founders of behavior-based safety who went on to studying safety leadership, and then to serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs), I have a perspective on it that may be different from many. I think it may well be time...

On Transformational Listening

Kristen Bell

Mar 4, 2016

Categorized under: Safety Leadership

Tagged as: Meaningful Safety Conversations

On Transformational Listening I have met dozens of excellent Environment, Health, and Safety professionals over the years, and some stand out to me as truly extraordinary leaders. One of the skills that make them stand out is their ability to listen. Some safety leaders listen so well that they lift people up, encourage them, and help them bring their very best thinking to the table. I call this transformational listening. I think about my client Jim. When I met Jim, he was Vice President of Safety, Health & Environment at a mid-sized energy company. Without saying a word, Jim could...

How to Accelerate Safety Performance Improvement

Tom Krause

Mar 4, 2016

Categorized under: Serious Injuries & Fatalities

Tagged as: Behavior, Safety Leadership, Systems-Based Approach to Safety

Most of us know there is no off-the-shelf game-changer that will “fix safety." It can be seductive to think otherwise, and of course there is no shortage of consultants out there who have all the answers. But the reality is that any single solution generally addresses only a sliver of the real issue. Safety performance improvement can be accelerated, but creative, innovative, hard won battles have to be fought in order to make lasting, sustainable gains. So, how to approach it? Do we work from the inside out or the outside in? Do we gather internal resources or look for...

Raising the Bar for Leading Indicators

Kristen Bell

Feb 26, 2016

Categorized under: Other

Tagged as: leading indicators

Over the past several years many safety organizations have focused in on leading indicators. The idea is that OSHA rates are too far down the pipe to guide preventative action, so metrics reflecting earlier activity are needed to guide safety action. In concept this makes sense, but in actual practice can be flawed. A panel of experts convened by the National Safety Council’s Campbell Institute recently surveyed a group of companies asking them how they approach the development of leading indicators. Much good work has been done by these organizations and it is helpful to see it summarized. But it...

Prevention of Serious Injuries and Fatalities Must Start with Leadership

Kristen Bell

Jan 8, 2016

Categorized under: Safety Leadership

Tagged as: Serious Injuries & Fatalities

Effective safety leadership sets up sustainable improvement in culture, systems, facilities, and reduces worker exposure. We need all those advances to reduce serious injuries and fatalities. We start with leadership, because it secures a foundation on which we can continue to build.