Episode Transcript
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Mark French (00:01):
This week on the
podcast, we're talking about
leadership, we're talking abouttraining, we're talking about
age restrictions, and overall,how does that relate to an
organization and how anorganization leads? Through
these items this week on theleading and learning through
safety podcast.
Announcer (00:37):
Welcome to the
leading and learning through
safety podcast. Your host is DrMark French. Mark's passion is
helping organizations motivatetheir teams. This podcast is
focused on bringing out the bestin leadership through creating
strong values, learningopportunities, teamwork and
(00:58):
safety. Nothing is moreimportant than protecting your
people. Safety creates anenvironment for empathy,
innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French,
Mark French (01:31):
welcome to the
leading and learning through
safety podcast. I'm your host,Mark, And as always, I am
thrilled that you have chosen tojoin me as we take a journey
that starts with safety butalways ends in leadership and
the other way around. Show megood leadership. I'll show you
(01:52):
good safety. If I see goodsafety, I see good leadership.
This week, one news story inparticular really caught my
attention, and it happenedearlier this week in Kansas. And
I want to dive deeper in this.
And again, we have to make a lotof assumptions. We have to
speculate on what really goes onin an organization to let
(02:16):
something like this happen. AndI have a lot of questions, and I
always love asking thequestions, because I maybe just
asking the question out loudmakes me feel better to ask it,
and that's where I'm at withthis. But so this was happened
at a municipal airport inKansas, and they were working on
(02:38):
to put new siding on kind of theairport area, one of the hangars
or something another. They werebasically a project to put new
siding up. They were utilizing aboom lift, a and there's
actually a picture from thesheriff's office. They credit
the sheriff's office with thephotograph of the scene after
(02:59):
the fact. And you see, I see,and I'll post a link to this
with my LinkedIn account. I'llput a link in there so that it's
visible. There's a blue Genie,boom lift, typical metal, fully
metal, boom lift, and there'shigh voltage utility wires just
(03:25):
all over where they're working.
And what happened was it touchedthe electrical wire and a 16
year old lost his life. Another,a 24 year old received
significant burns as they bailedout of the boom lift and landed
(03:49):
on the roof. So many questions.
One, why were we so close topower lines? Right here when I
go, yeah, there's this. Thething that happened the power
lines, where was a pre task jobjust to walk through and talk
about the hazards? Did anyonesay something along the lines
(04:13):
of, those are electrical wires,and you're working right near
them. You are approaching.
You're really close. You'reright on top of them. I think
about the very first step ofsetting up a good project, in
setting up a good method ofdoing work. And even if you're
comfortable doing, say, roofingor siding or take your pick of
(04:37):
any job, there still should bethat moment, two minutes. Let's
call it sometimes more,sometimes less, but I'm going to
say two minutes to look at itand go, What are the major
issues, what are the ones thatare going to lead to fatalities,
significant injuries? What couldgo wrong? What could be the
(04:58):
catastrophe? Work that happensat this job site during the work
that we're about to beperforming today. Someone has to
be in charge. Someone has totake that responsibility on
their shoulders, to go. I havethe empowerment, and I have the
authority to stop or change thiswork if I see something that is
(05:22):
going to be detrimental to life,oh, we take another step back
now, because it's not just doingthe pre test job, it's who is in
charge enough to make the calland make it stick, to look at
the area and go, Wow, there'spower lines here, and this is
the way we're going to have touse a boom lift to do this. And
(05:45):
to do that we're going to getclose. And how are we going to
protect ourselves from that?
What are we going to dodifferently, and how do I
enforce it? Or do we find awhole other way to do this work?
Do we approach from a differentangle? Do we have the power
turned off. What do we dodifferently because of it? And I
a supervisor or manager who hasthe authority to make the call
(06:08):
to make it stop and make itstick, too many times, too many
times. And I've talked aboutthis on the on other podcasts.
I'm not saying this happenedhere in other industries and
other places there, the employeehas said, I feel unsafe. I don't
feel right about this.
(06:32):
Especially there was, Iremember, especially there was a
trenching job where they hadmentioned that the person had
been saying how unsafe theyfelt. They raised it to
supervision, raised it tomanagement, and basically was
told to get back in there. Theywouldn't have a job, and then it
collapsed, and there was afatality, and there's a
supervisor out there who orderedsomeone to go back in that hole.
(06:56):
And so there has to be someonewith the authority and the
compassion, and I'm not evensaying compassion, In what world
is it okay to order someone togo down somewhere where they
have a chance of fatality or achance of death? Why would we do
(07:17):
something of that type? Whatkind of organization? And even
more, we allow people to workfor those organizations. I say
we, you're not doing it. I'm notdoing it, but it to find work
for people to have a job, toprovide for their they're
accepting that as a normal inthis case, I don't know any. I
(07:40):
did some research, I can findvery little on the organization
that they of safety protocols oranything of that sort, but
there's a lot of and I'm sureOSHA will sort out as they're
doing the investigation. And Ihope to see it. I truly hope to
be able to find it in the monthsthat come to see what they cite
(08:03):
for this, no doubt there's goingto be the closeness to the power
lines, but a six, again, thedefinition of hazardous work and
some of the fluidity that we'vebeen seeing here recently,
whether it's happening more orwe're calling it out more, we
are seeing miners doing more andmore work in the workplace that
(08:23):
is dangerous. There was thesightings of the food industries
that had subcontractor theirsanitation using night shift
hours with young people doingthe work. Here, a 16 year old is
on the job site in a boom liftwith a 24 year old near power
(08:44):
lines hanging sheet metal. Wheredo we make that call? Who made
that call? Why did they makethat call? That's the question I
always ask, is, why? What wasit? What drove the decision
making process to lead us tothink or to deliver that person
(09:08):
to that work, thinking that theywere ready for it. What kind of
training is there and thatthere's my thing is, I'm I
believe in training. I believein appropriate training. I know
that it's hard to do, draining.
I know that it can get verydifficult, but that's not the
excuse that that is just areason to to say that well,
(09:29):
because there's an exception, Idon't have to do it. That's not
the truth. You do your best youcan, and you try to continue it.
And I want to talk a little bitmore about that I'm getting I'm
getting. I'm moving around allover the place here in the first
half, because this is there's somuch wrong with this single news
story of a 16 year old beingelectrocuted hanging sheet metal
(09:53):
on an airport a public. Area.
Let's talk more about thisentire situation on the second
half of the leading and learningthrough safety podcast. You
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are listening to the
leading and learning through
safety podcast with Dr MarkFrench,
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Mark French (10:55):
Welcome back to the
second half of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
This episode, one news storyconsumed my thoughts and
continue to consume my thoughtsof a 16 year old on an
uninsulated boom lift nearelectrical wires hanging sheet
metal for an airport for asubcontractor of an airport, and
(11:17):
the fact that the 24 year oldthat survived with Burns was
able to bail out of the boomlift onto the roof, makes me
wonder if there's even fallprotection. And so we go back to
the very basics, the veryfundamentals of what safety
(11:39):
should be, and that's lookingfor the major issues, how and
what can create a significantincident or fatality, fall
protection, working in heights,working near electrical those
items are big ticket items. Whowas watching out for that. So
(12:00):
when we go back to leadership,true leadership, it goes first
of all to let me help identifywhat could go wrong. Let me
identify where the issues canbe, where are the big problem
issues. And two, how do wemitigate it? In three How do I
train you to make sure you knowwhat mitigation steps are in
(12:25):
place and what to do if youencounter something unknown, the
stop work process essentiallythree of very core things that
when it sounds daunting, itsounds like a lot, and so people
dismiss it as that's just a lotof extra work. It's going to
cost us a lot of time, and timeis money, and we must get things
done. And again, I'm not makingthose assumptions about this
(12:49):
company. I'm asking thequestions, and I'm using other
knowledge of other incidents andother investigations, and I'm
making a blanket statements ofasking these questions and using
it to look back at thefundamentals of leadership and
the fundamentals of safety, thefundamentals of leading people
(13:10):
and leading them effectively andleading them in a way with
compassion and with just Someform of human dignity. Because,
to me, a 16 year old oneprobably doesn't understand
exceptionally well a boom liftprobably does not understand the
(13:30):
risks of being around highvoltage power lines, probably
doesn't understand what fallprotection is. Because if I were
to take a piece of fallprotection, I have a 16 year
old. So this hit home for mewhen I think about this, this
hit me where I could relate thisin a very passionate and real
(13:51):
way. I have a 16 year old and a16 year old died here if I took
my fall protection, my harnessand my lanyard that I have for
when I'm on the job and may needthem, and I were to drop them on
the ground, even if they wereprovided, I don't even know if
(14:12):
they were provided here I lookat the picture, and I don't know
if I see what I should Be seeingto be able to make that
determination. But I look atthat and I say, if I drop that
fall protection in front of my16 year old, could they put it
on? Would they know how to useit? Would they know how to hook
it in? Would they know what todo with that piece of equipment
(14:37):
to make it fit right? Would theyknow to ask if it wasn't right?
And I'm a safety professional,so let's start there that I'm
probably, if there was a kid outthere that would maybe have seen
that before, it might be one ofmine, just because it's stuff
that lays around my that I have,I have people. PE of various
(14:59):
forms and, you know, safetystuff, it's here. I don't think
they would. I really feel likethere would be a gap there, that
there would need to be training.
And so I go back to this and go,I'm I feel so confident in
saying they didn't understandthe hazards they were getting
into. Did they understand thework? Were they being mentored
(15:23):
appropriately? And let's go backto the big three, the big three
things that need to happen on ajob site, whether or not you're
going to follow OSHA, whether ornot you're even though you
should do the right thing nomatter what. Let's talk about
the big three. One, what's goingto kill me? What is going to
kill my workers? What has thehighest potential of creating
(15:46):
significant harm to my people?
What are they? What are thesethings? Two? What can I do to
avoid these things? Becausethere can't be, in most cases,
that many, fundamentally, whenwe think about the big things
that could go wrong, they couldcreate significant fatalities
(16:08):
and harm. What can we do tomitigate it? And three, can we
tell the team, teach the teameven a toolbox talk to the team
about what we're doing toprevent them from getting killed
today at work, because I'm noteven talking about following
(16:33):
OSHA regulations or doing likenormal what would be expected,
or even going above what wouldbe expected, basic human
dignity, by giving them andproviding them the right tools,
the right training, and someonewho's going to step up, not be a
(16:53):
manager, not Be a projectperson, be a human being who's
going to be a leader, a humanbeing who is going to step up
and go, we're we may not have itmay not be perfect, but I
definitely at least want to seeyou go home today. I want you to
(17:14):
be safe. I don't want you to bekilled on the job. I want you to
have at least that. Let's lookat it. Talk about it. Do
something about it, because Ilook at the setup, and I think
(17:34):
some of this probably it andoverall, could a large company
at the very top have greatintentions, and maybe there's
one supervisor, onesuperintendent, one project
manager that just, you know, alittle rough, and here we are,
the caring, the dignity, Notthere, not there as part of the
(17:58):
work, not there as part of theculture, definitely not there as
part of leadership. Thanks forjoining me on this episode of
the leading and learning throughsafety podcast, a very heavy
episode. It hit me on it rightin my heart and my passion for a
lot of reasons, and we, beingthose in the know, being those
(18:28):
who care, being those who arepassionate, we can stand up for
it, and we just continue to talkthe talk, do what we know is
right, and continue to do theright things. And I applaud
that, because we're alwaystrying to get better. We're
always trying to learn there'sno such thing as perfect, and we
always try to keep gettingbetter anyway. Thanks for
joining me. Appreciate you beingpart of my podcast, and until
(18:51):
next time we chat, stay safe.
Announcer (19:02):
Thank you for
listening to the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
More content is available onlineat www dot tsda consulting.com
all the opinions expressed onthe podcast are solely
attributed to the individual andnot affiliated with any business
entity. This podcast is forinformational and entertainment
(19:26):
purposes. It is not a substitutefor proper policy, appropriate
training or legal advice youthis has been the leading and
(19:54):
learning through safety podcast.
You.