Mastering Safety Leadership: How Front-Line Leadership Decision-Making Prevents Serious and Fatal Injuries

ByTom Krause

In 1979, my first safety improvement client told me, “We understand the engineering side, but we don’t understand the behavioral side.” Having studied behavioral analysis in graduate school, I welcomed the opportunity to address this problem. At that time, I didn’t know that Procter & Gamble was working on a similar initiative, or that Dr. Judy Komaki had just published an article on the application of behavioral science principles to safety. This work marked the beginning of what came to be known as behavior-based safety

Culture Change Can Be Crucial to Patient Safety – An Interview with Tom Krause

Culture Change Can Be Crucial to Patient Safety – An Interview with Tom Krause

ByTom Krause

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ensuring patient safety depends on having the right organizational culture. Achieving a culture of patient safety requires an organizational-wide effort. INTERVIEW WITH TOM KRAUSE by Greg Freeman Risk managers often hear that patient safety initiatives and other improvement efforts must have support from the top if they are to succeed, but the real…

Os Valores do Líder e o Compromisso Emocional com a Segurança

ByTom Krause

Read in English Um trecho de Liderando com segurança A palavra “valor” expressa a noção de valor ou desejabilidade. Existem duas categorias de valor: intrínseco e extrínseco. Os valores intrínsecos têm valor por si mesmos; eles são fins em si mesmos e têm importância ética porque eles caracterizam o que achamos que as pessoas deveriam…

Why Safety Procedures Don’t Always Lead to Safe Behaviors

ByTom Krause

For most of the last 70 years or so safety leaders have emphasized the importance of safety-related behavior. On the surface, it seems obvious that their approach is the right way to think about it. Following a safety breach, the line of questioning centers around why the incident happened. And the answer usually comes down…

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Culture Sustains Performance

ByTom Krause

An Excerpt from 7 Insights Into Safety Leadership This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Tom Krause and Kristen Bell’s book “7 Insights into Safety Leadership.“ We’ve never met a leader that didn’t want a better culture for their organization. Statements like, “we need to change the culture,” are heard every day in the…

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4 Questions Board Members Should Ask About Safety Culture

ByTom Krause

It was 1993 and Paul O’Neill was attending his first board meeting as a Director at one of the largest companies in the world. Just as the meeting was coming to a close, O’Neill asked, “Where is the safety report?” As the story goes, no safety report was planned but the question had profound effects. It set the company on the path to creating safety excellence and embedding safety as a cultural value. Board member influence can do that — uniquely — and it saves lives while creating business value.

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5 Essential Building Blocks for Improving Organizational Culture

ByTom Krause

Few leaders can honestly say they know how to create, maintain, and enhance their culture. At the same time, the success of a culture change effort depends on the degree to which leaders understand and relate their own decisions, behaviors, and thought processes to the culture itself. The most challenging part of culture change is…

The Leader’s Values and Emotional Commitment to Safety

ByTom Krause

Introduction by Rebecca Timmins Read in Portuguese / Leia em português There is an adage in coaching called the Law of Double Effect — while we judge ourselves by our efforts and intentions, others judge us by what we say and do. This makes it critical for leaders to ensure their behaviors align with their…

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How to Change Organizational Culture and Avoid Catastrophes

ByTom Krause

Catastrophes are a risk in organizational life. From a quality issue that causes consumer fatalities and brings reputational damage to a hostile working environment leading to harassment or to employees becoming seriously or fatally injured. These things are usually a surprise to the senior-most leaders. “I knew we had some issues at that facility, but…

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Organizations Are Built on a Cultural Infrastructure

ByTom Krause

Organizational culture has been defined in numerous ways. To some, it’s about what we as a group really value — production, quality, technical excellence, safety, diversity, growth, profit, engagement, goal attainment, and efficiency. From this perspective leaders start by understanding what they value, then develop what they think we should value. Then they develop a strategy…

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A Bad Workplace Culture Can Result in a Disaster, No Matter the Industry

ByTom Krause

A bad workplace culture is a hazard in itself. But even a mediocre one can contribute directly to a disaster.  NASA won awards for being the “best place to work” among U.S government agencies. But the Space Shuttle Columbia failure, which resulted in the loss of seven astronauts and countless resources, was directly related to…

VIDEO: What are the key takeaways from “If Your Culture Could Talk”?

ByTom Krause

There are two sections in Tom Krause’s book “If Your Culture Could Talk:  A Story About Culture Change.” In this video he highlights the key takeaway from the initial story, and one of the five, research-based variables that leaders must pay attention to in order to build and maintain a strong culture. For more information…