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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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CASE STUDY:  The Davis H. Elliot SIF Prevention Story

Zero Fatalities, $5 Million Saved: The Power of Proactive Safety Measures Despite years of rigorous safety protocols and declining recordable incident rates, Davis H. Elliot faced serious injuries and fatalities that continued to haunt the company. The question wasn’t about reducing minor injuries—it was about preventing the life-altering events that were too common. This issue…

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

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…

How Leadership Decision Making Influences Worker Well-Being

Organizational leaders are increasingly concerned with the well-being of people in their organization, and they should be. Interpersonal conflict, frustration, detachment, absenteeism, and chronic stress are all signs that burnout or turnover are approaching. At a deeper level is the person’s sense of connectedness, inclusion, and efficacy. Deeper still, people want to be part of…

Building a Deeper Relationship between Operations and Safety

The purpose of this article is to challenge the traditional relationship between senior operations leaders and leaders in the safety function, using the risk matrix as an exemplar and catalyst for change. We contend the traditional relationship has the operations leader delegating pivotal safety decisions to their safety counterparts. The lack of involvement contributes to…

What Every Executive Should Look for in a Safety Dashboard

Why Your Safety Dashboard Deserves Executive Attention On the day of his retirement, the head of EHS at a large, global manufacturing company sent a note filled with advice for his friends and colleagues. This note summed up his decades-long experience.  The first item on this list was “Stop the Spitting Contest,” or something to…

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Making Good Decisions in a Sea of Statistics

We think we know things we really don’t know, and as a result our decisions are comprised. Effective decision makers are willing to apply some rigor. The deeper our commitment to objective, honest, non-politicized information, the better our decisions will be, and the sooner we will find ourselves back on terra firma.