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5 Essential Building Blocks for Improving Organizational Culture

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…

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What Does The Practice Of Accountability Mean?

When leaders are asked what they would like to get better at, the answer is often accountability. Usually, it’s thought to be about holding people accountable for non-performance, but the leadership practice of accountability can be so much more! Yes, it is about holding people to account, but it is also an opportunity to grow…

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How to Change Organizational Culture and Avoid Catastrophes

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

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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Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention – 15 Years Later

Our first study on serious injury and fatality prevention revealed that these types of incidents had very different precursors compared to other types of injuries. Now, taking this understanding to the next level, our continued research has shown the need to look at where organizations sit on the SIF Maturity Curve.

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Organizational Decision Making for Safety: Part 2

When we think about the sheer numbers of decisions made by leaders the task of improving them all seems quite daunting. The study identified a subset of decisions which had the greatest impact on 60 serious and fatal events. This article outlines an improvement strategy for organizations based on the findings.

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How Safety Improvement Works, Part 3

Recent studies have made something new and exciting clear: The central theme, the through-line most useful to SIF prevention, is all about decision making for safety. Yes, reducing exposure to risk and improving the culture are crucially important. But how do leaders at different organizational levels influence those things most effectively?

How Safety Improvement Works Part 2

Continuous Improvement Through Meaningful Safety Conversations and Strategic Risk Reduction In the first article of this series, we explained the importance of safety leadership to initiate and drive safety improvement. This approach not only prevents fatalities but also creates the kind of culture that lifts business performance. In our experience, starting at the top is…