April 18, 2025 • 20 mins
🎙️ Podcast Summary: Tennessee Safety Conference Recap & Lessons in Leadership
In this episode, Dr. Mark French reflects on his experience at the Tennessee Safety Conference, highlighting both inspiring takeaways and sobering moments. A major segment featured Tennessee OSHA’s annual fatality recap, a powerful session showcasing real-world tragedies to underline the importance of prevention, risk management, and leadership accountability.
Key incidents discussed included:
- A worker fatally injured slipping on a freshly cleaned floor.
- Improvised equipment use leading to fatal equipment failure.
- Makeshift scaffolding resulting in a fall.
- Cultural complacency and dangerous problem-solving in the field.
Dr. French emphasizes that strong safety leadership requires:
- Proactive hazard recognition.
- Cultural reinforcement of doing the right thing, even when inconvenient.
- Clear, honest, and empathetic communication.
- Recognizing that even “minor” risks can result in major consequences.
He closes with a humorous yet impactful anecdote of a supply chain attendee accidentally joining the OSHA session—and leaving profoundly impacted and safety-conscious.
🧠Final message: Leadership rooted in safety and people-first values isn’t just compliance—it’s compassion and responsibility.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark French (00:00):
This week on the podcast, we're talking about the
Tennessee safety conference,doing a recap of the great
event, the great learnings, andeven taking a little further,
looking at safety and leadershipand beyond. This week on the
podcast, you Mark,
Announcer (00:32):
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
(00:54):
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. You
Mark French (01:35):
Music. Welcome to this episode of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
As always, thank you so much forjoining me. Always honored to be
part of the playlist and thedownload group for your
podcasts. This week, we'retalking about the Tennessee
safety conference. So first weekof April, last week was the
Tennessee safety conference, andin my opinion, I think it's one
(01:59):
of the best. I think theycontinually bring in some
amazing speakers, some amazingvendors. Run a very nice, well
run conference overall, and justa bunch of good people. It
really is a good time. Ofcourse, you can't beat being in
(02:19):
Nashville, Tennessee, at thegaylord opryland Convention
Center. It's just, it's a niceevent. There was a lot of
interesting things that went onthis year, and a few
observations and a few items, Ijust want to walk through them,
because there's a lot of greatpoints that we as safety
professionals, just it's goodreminders, and it's a good
(02:40):
opportunity for us to go backand really think about some of
the things we do, the thingsthat we have a influence on. And
one of the items that I really Ienjoy it and I don't enjoy it at
the same time. It's one of thoseinteresting things. Is at the
end of the conference every yearthey have the big kind of one of
(03:03):
the last breakout sessions, andthey put it in the main room,
because it's so big, is theTennessee OSHA officials recap
all of the fatalities from theyear before. And it's a sobering
experience. It's an educationalexperience. It's eye opening,
it's all of those things wrappedinto one, but it's one of the
(03:24):
one that's the biggest draw,because it's impactful to what
we're doing. And I remember aswe started, they were talking
about the things that could beprevented, the things that
couldn't, the things they sidedthe things they didn't, because
some of it was somewhat, I mean,there was just things out of
people's control. And one ofthem was a car accident that
(03:48):
they were working on the side ofthe road. They had everything,
every precaution in place. Theperson just completely came off
the road like, almost like itwas aiming for people and and
had a fatality, but it was howthe public interacts. It wasn't
interesting. One was another onethat they were talking about
(04:08):
that, uh, someone on a piece ofproperty was clearing trees and
on a property that was adjacentthat they weren't even dealing
with. It wasn't even somethingthey were doing. It was a good
distance away. A tree, becauseof the wetness in the soil, had
unrooted and fell over andlanded on someone, um, items
like that that we think about,that just send concern and
(04:31):
shivers down someone's spinebecause of it, it, it's eye
opening. But we started, and Ilove the beginning of it, where
you're gonna, they said you'regonna see some things here that
are just people need to get ittogether. And he goes, you know,
the good news is you're here andit shows you care. And that's
(04:55):
the first step of preventingwhat. We're going to show you
here. I'm paraphrasing. He saidit's so much better. I'll be
honest. He said it's so muchbetter. But that was the general
idea of it is because you'rehere in your learning, and
you're wanting to see this, andit's hard to see it, but you
want to see it, and you want tolearn. You want to take it back
(05:16):
to your team. You're already sofar ahead of most of the
companies we're dealing with inthe slides I'm about to show
you. And that was a reallypositive message. It was a nice
message to hear. It was alsoit's a reminder of what we do
with safety professionals andwhat we our task with every day
(05:39):
is trying to make it better,trying to improve items. But I
want to go through that just alittle bit looking at actually a
pretty good year in Tennessee.
They had, they were down infatalities, which is always a
good thing, but one is too many.
We always say that, butstatistically, you you you do
(05:59):
the best you can, and you keepgetting better. You drive that
improvement. They were 26 thispast year, struck by caught in
slip, trip and fall, reallyrounding out the top of those
items. The one that really, Ithink, got me was one that was
(06:19):
an office area that someone hadcome in and they cleaned and
stripped the floor. And so itwas. It was a wet floor area.
Had the sign up. It wasslippery. It was still a
walkway, but they had, they'vebeen doing their work to make
the floor clean. And someone hadwalked into the area, slipped,
struck their head, and after 16days, passed away, and I think
(06:45):
there, there's one of the primeexamples of that, once something
starts to go into motion, it'sall luck. And I joke about this
in a weird way, and it's not ajoke. It's just my brain being
able to deal with randomness andchance in life. I am a D and D
fan, so it's like rolling the D20. If once you've enacted the
(07:10):
slip and you're falling to theground, or you've tripped or
falling off a lap, whatever itis the odds are playing at that
point of what kind of injuryyou're going to land on your
rear end and bounce back up,you're going to twist an ankle,
are you going to hit your headand die? It's a role. It's
chance. And so we always try toremove as much chance as we can.
(07:34):
And yet there is still risk. Andone what we think could be a
small risk, could still be a bigincident, and that's really hard
as for me to really wrap my mindaround, is, have we done enough?
And early in my career, that wasa very tough one. It was like
I'd never have done enough. Andthat's true. I mean, we could
(07:57):
always get better, but I wasobsessive about it, and there
comes a point where you can'tgive up that mental stability,
where you're working to try tomake things better. As much as
you can drive that improvement,drive that engagement, get the
information flowing, you can doa lot, and we do the best we
can. A lot of it comes from goodleadership within the
(08:20):
organization to be able to getthe best information we can
about the hazards that are thereso we can work on it. All right,
that's a long let's keep going.
Another one was one that to me,just I've seen it, and I can't
stand it, and it bothers me.
They were using a small Bobcatmachine to like trench a little
(08:40):
bit, and it got stuck. So whatthey do? They put two guys in
the back end of it to give itenough weight to try to get
traction and go and of course,that doesn't go well, and it
bucks and flips, and someoneloses their life. No, we don't
stand on equipment. We don't wedon't just come up with in the
field, come up with a fix,rather than just doing the right
(09:03):
thing, calling someone, gettinga toe, getting it pulled out.
And yeah, I have certainly seensome creative people who thought
they were doing the right thingfor the company. Hey, we found a
solution. We're going to get itdone. We think this will work.
And they just do it? And then itturns out to go, Oh, you don't
do that again. We got lucky inmost cases, that it didn't end
(09:25):
up with something bad, but it'snot something we want to do. And
sometimes we catch these thingsthrough pure luck or an example
or someone says something. Butthis is one of those examples of
in the moment, a quick problemsolving that doesn't take into
consideration the potential ofrisk that you know, this makes
perfect sense. We need moreweight on the back end. We got
(09:47):
two people jump on the back end.
Give it a little balance, see ifwe can get some traction. Let's
keep going. And it turns into atragedy. And so I. Helping
everyone understand that thesedecisions matter, and it's the
choices we make, these decisionsthat we make every day, that we
(10:08):
help others try to make. Andthis is where safety and
leadership absolutely go hand inhand. Let's talk more. I've got
more I want to talk about fromthe conference. Let's come back
to that on the second half ofthe leading and learning through
safety podcast, you
Stinger (10:24):
are listening to the leading and learning through
safety podcast with Dr MarkFrench,
Commercial (10:32):
dsda Consulting.
Learn you lead others. TheMyers, Briggs Type Indicator is
an amazing tool. Problem is thatit can be easily misinterpreted.
Dr Mark French is MBTI certifiedand ready to help you discover
your inner strengths. The MBTIassessment can help with team
building, stress management,communication, conflict
(10:55):
management, and so much more,individual and group sessions
are available to help youdiscover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
consulting.com
Mark French (11:10):
Welcome back to the second half of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
So we're talking about theTennessee safety conference.
We're going to continue that.
One of the other items that waskind of interesting, again, it's
problem solving in the field, isthey were doing some
construction on the side of ahouse, and they needed a
(11:32):
scaffold style item. So whatthey did was they got two
ladders, leaned them up againstthe house, and they lashed
another ladder horizontallybetween the two other ladders,
and hey, there's a makeshiftscaffold, and it was around six
feet, maybe a little less thansix feet high. So they thought,
You know what, we're under theregulation of needing fall
(11:53):
protection, so therefore we'refine. We can build this. Well,
of course, it didn't work, andsomeone lost their life from it
again, thinking, how do we getaround the situation? And this
one brings me to think moreabout the culture that creates
the let's just get around it.
Let's just do them. And Iremember having conversations
(12:17):
with other people andsubcontractors in my career
where their justification fordoing something wrong was, well,
we're under the 10 people. We'rea small company. We're not
really under OSHA, because we'reunder 10 people, therefore we
don't have to comply. Okay, itdoesn't stop you of your moral
(12:39):
obligations to not hurt someone,or the bigger idea that you
signed agreements to say youwill protect people,
unacceptable. And here's one ofthose examples. What kind of
leadership is there that saysinstead of going and having the
right tools that we know youneed to do the job, stay under
six feet, figure it out, just dothis. And I wonder how many
(13:03):
times they've done it before andsuccessfully done it before, and
now, because they've never hadany issue before, suddenly it's
a big one, because it came outof there. The final thing that,
well, not the final, but thefinal thing of the presentation
that hit home very hard, andthis is how they closed that
(13:25):
presentation was the officialthat was leading it said, you
know, I was on the phone with awidow of someone who had their
husband had died at a work site,and they were just talking, and
he wrote down a few of thephrases that the widow said
(13:45):
during their conversation, andhe put those on the screen, and
the four statements were, howdid this happen? Why couldn't
this happen to someone else? Ican't stop hurting. I can't stop
crying. Leadership, safety. Thisis what we do. This is why we
(14:12):
care about people basedleadership that starts with a
good Safety Foundation. We don'twant to be on the other end of
this. We don't want to listenand have to console someone
because something went wrongthat may have been within our
control. Again, from thepresentation, there were things
(14:33):
that you roll the dice and youthink that, Oh yeah, I'm I'm
good. There's no way I'm gonna,in the case of, do you hit the
NAT one? Sometimes it happens inlife, and that's hard for as a
safety professional, for me tonot to say that we don't keep
going and we just resignourselves to that's just the way
life is. No, of course not, butwe do our very best to try to
(14:57):
keep. Going and through again,good, open leadership and what
it's funny when you go back tobasics of this year, I spoke
about building a culture,building safety into your
values. A lot of it isestablishing a value for people
of some form, and reacting to itand not being oblivious to it.
(15:21):
In so many organizations, it'seasy to just go, oh, well, we do
that. Are you really? Are youlistening? Are you really
looking for cultural cues? Areyou building upon it? That's
what we really got into. Thetalk of is, how do you hold an
organization and hold the peoplewithin an organization
accountable to those and it'sreally strong and open and
(15:45):
honest and authenticcommunication. And that sounds
so easy, but communication isone of the hardest, most complex
things we do every single day inour organization and in life. I
come home to my family and Iknow my communication is
probably not good sometimes withthe way I'm trying to say and
(16:06):
explain things. Just ask myteenagers if they understand
what I'm saying half the time.
Now, one interesting kind offunny story that came from, and
I want to end with this storywas after the meeting concluded,
that session concluded, I lookover and there's a gentleman
sitting next to me, and his eyesare really wide. He looks scared
(16:29):
a little bit. And I look over,he goes, sir, I think I've come
to the wrong conference. Well,also at the gaylord opryland
were a bunch of otherconferences, and one was like a
supply chain conference abouttools and getting supply chain
things and getting stuff shippedand being able to have rapid
(16:50):
replenishment. He had come tothe Tennessee OSHA fatality
seminar rather than his one hewanted to attend that was on
supply chain. So of course, hewas in for a shock when they
start showing these slides ofpictures, of of scenes, of
recreations, but also maybe evensecurity camera. Nothing
gruesome, but just people andthings and how people died, and
(17:13):
just over and over for a wholehour, you're just clicking
through fatality after fatality.
And you could see in his face,he was like, oh my god, what
have I gotten into? He lookedover and he's, I'm going to call
my safety person, because Idon't know if we're doing any of
this. He goes, I'm scared todeath. And while the Tennessee
OSHA officials were sitting nearme, came over said, Oh, well, we
can help. You can get aconsultation. He goes, ma'am,
(17:34):
I'm not from Tennessee. I'm fromCalifornia, but oh my god, what
is going on here, he it hit him,and suddenly he was really
interested in safety. He wasreally interested in getting to
under, I don't know what hisposition was when his company,
but he was suddenly superinterested in getting to know
(17:54):
what his safety policy said,because he decided right then
and there that he was not gonnalet that happen in his
organization. And these realstories become powerful when you
explain them and walking throughthem and thinking about, are we?
Do we have the risk that couldlead to that same event
(18:15):
happening? That's the eyeopening part. Thanks for joining
me on this episode of theleading and learning through
safety podcast, as always. Thankyou. Thank you for joining me
always enjoy the conversation.
Of course, reach out to me onLinkedIn or anywhere and
(18:36):
continue the conversation. Lovethat kind of thing again. Hope
you have a wonderful, wonderfulrest of wherever and whenever
you're listening to me. Hopethings go wonderful, and until
next time we chat, stay safe.
Announcer (19:01):
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
(19:25):
purposes. It is not a substitutefor proper policy, appropriate
training or legal advice. YouThis has been the leading and
(19:53):
learning through safety podcast.
You.
This week on the podcast, we're talking about the
Tennessee safety conference,doing a recap of the great
event, the great learnings, andeven taking a little further,
looking at safety and leadershipand beyond. This week on the
podcast, you Mark,
Announcer (00:32):
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
(00:54):
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. You
Mark French (01:35):
Music. Welcome to this episode of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
As always, thank you so much forjoining me. Always honored to be
part of the playlist and thedownload group for your
podcasts. This week, we'retalking about the Tennessee
safety conference. So first weekof April, last week was the
Tennessee safety conference, andin my opinion, I think it's one
(01:59):
of the best. I think theycontinually bring in some
amazing speakers, some amazingvendors. Run a very nice, well
run conference overall, and justa bunch of good people. It
really is a good time. Ofcourse, you can't beat being in
(02:19):
Nashville, Tennessee, at thegaylord opryland Convention
Center. It's just, it's a niceevent. There was a lot of
interesting things that went onthis year, and a few
observations and a few items, Ijust want to walk through them,
because there's a lot of greatpoints that we as safety
professionals, just it's goodreminders, and it's a good
(02:40):
opportunity for us to go backand really think about some of
the things we do, the thingsthat we have a influence on. And
one of the items that I really Ienjoy it and I don't enjoy it at
the same time. It's one of thoseinteresting things. Is at the
end of the conference every yearthey have the big kind of one of
(03:03):
the last breakout sessions, andthey put it in the main room,
because it's so big, is theTennessee OSHA officials recap
all of the fatalities from theyear before. And it's a sobering
experience. It's an educationalexperience. It's eye opening,
it's all of those things wrappedinto one, but it's one of the
(03:24):
one that's the biggest draw,because it's impactful to what
we're doing. And I remember aswe started, they were talking
about the things that could beprevented, the things that
couldn't, the things they sidedthe things they didn't, because
some of it was somewhat, I mean,there was just things out of
people's control. And one ofthem was a car accident that
(03:48):
they were working on the side ofthe road. They had everything,
every precaution in place. Theperson just completely came off
the road like, almost like itwas aiming for people and and
had a fatality, but it was howthe public interacts. It wasn't
interesting. One was another onethat they were talking about
(04:08):
that, uh, someone on a piece ofproperty was clearing trees and
on a property that was adjacentthat they weren't even dealing
with. It wasn't even somethingthey were doing. It was a good
distance away. A tree, becauseof the wetness in the soil, had
unrooted and fell over andlanded on someone, um, items
like that that we think about,that just send concern and
(04:31):
shivers down someone's spinebecause of it, it, it's eye
opening. But we started, and Ilove the beginning of it, where
you're gonna, they said you'regonna see some things here that
are just people need to get ittogether. And he goes, you know,
the good news is you're here andit shows you care. And that's
(04:55):
the first step of preventingwhat. We're going to show you
here. I'm paraphrasing. He saidit's so much better. I'll be
honest. He said it's so muchbetter. But that was the general
idea of it is because you'rehere in your learning, and
you're wanting to see this, andit's hard to see it, but you
want to see it, and you want tolearn. You want to take it back
(05:16):
to your team. You're already sofar ahead of most of the
companies we're dealing with inthe slides I'm about to show
you. And that was a reallypositive message. It was a nice
message to hear. It was alsoit's a reminder of what we do
with safety professionals andwhat we our task with every day
(05:39):
is trying to make it better,trying to improve items. But I
want to go through that just alittle bit looking at actually a
pretty good year in Tennessee.
They had, they were down infatalities, which is always a
good thing, but one is too many.
We always say that, butstatistically, you you you do
(05:59):
the best you can, and you keepgetting better. You drive that
improvement. They were 26 thispast year, struck by caught in
slip, trip and fall, reallyrounding out the top of those
items. The one that really, Ithink, got me was one that was
(06:19):
an office area that someone hadcome in and they cleaned and
stripped the floor. And so itwas. It was a wet floor area.
Had the sign up. It wasslippery. It was still a
walkway, but they had, they'vebeen doing their work to make
the floor clean. And someone hadwalked into the area, slipped,
struck their head, and after 16days, passed away, and I think
(06:45):
there, there's one of the primeexamples of that, once something
starts to go into motion, it'sall luck. And I joke about this
in a weird way, and it's not ajoke. It's just my brain being
able to deal with randomness andchance in life. I am a D and D
fan, so it's like rolling the D20. If once you've enacted the
(07:10):
slip and you're falling to theground, or you've tripped or
falling off a lap, whatever itis the odds are playing at that
point of what kind of injuryyou're going to land on your
rear end and bounce back up,you're going to twist an ankle,
are you going to hit your headand die? It's a role. It's
chance. And so we always try toremove as much chance as we can.
(07:34):
And yet there is still risk. Andone what we think could be a
small risk, could still be a bigincident, and that's really hard
as for me to really wrap my mindaround, is, have we done enough?
And early in my career, that wasa very tough one. It was like
I'd never have done enough. Andthat's true. I mean, we could
(07:57):
always get better, but I wasobsessive about it, and there
comes a point where you can'tgive up that mental stability,
where you're working to try tomake things better. As much as
you can drive that improvement,drive that engagement, get the
information flowing, you can doa lot, and we do the best we
can. A lot of it comes from goodleadership within the
(08:20):
organization to be able to getthe best information we can
about the hazards that are thereso we can work on it. All right,
that's a long let's keep going.
Another one was one that to me,just I've seen it, and I can't
stand it, and it bothers me.
They were using a small Bobcatmachine to like trench a little
(08:40):
bit, and it got stuck. So whatthey do? They put two guys in
the back end of it to give itenough weight to try to get
traction and go and of course,that doesn't go well, and it
bucks and flips, and someoneloses their life. No, we don't
stand on equipment. We don't wedon't just come up with in the
field, come up with a fix,rather than just doing the right
(09:03):
thing, calling someone, gettinga toe, getting it pulled out.
And yeah, I have certainly seensome creative people who thought
they were doing the right thingfor the company. Hey, we found a
solution. We're going to get itdone. We think this will work.
And they just do it? And then itturns out to go, Oh, you don't
do that again. We got lucky inmost cases, that it didn't end
(09:25):
up with something bad, but it'snot something we want to do. And
sometimes we catch these thingsthrough pure luck or an example
or someone says something. Butthis is one of those examples of
in the moment, a quick problemsolving that doesn't take into
consideration the potential ofrisk that you know, this makes
perfect sense. We need moreweight on the back end. We got
(09:47):
two people jump on the back end.
Give it a little balance, see ifwe can get some traction. Let's
keep going. And it turns into atragedy. And so I. Helping
everyone understand that thesedecisions matter, and it's the
choices we make, these decisionsthat we make every day, that we
(10:08):
help others try to make. Andthis is where safety and
leadership absolutely go hand inhand. Let's talk more. I've got
more I want to talk about fromthe conference. Let's come back
to that on the second half ofthe leading and learning through
safety podcast, you
Stinger (10:24):
are listening to the leading and learning through
safety podcast with Dr MarkFrench,
Commercial (10:32):
dsda Consulting.
Learn you lead others. TheMyers, Briggs Type Indicator is
an amazing tool. Problem is thatit can be easily misinterpreted.
Dr Mark French is MBTI certifiedand ready to help you discover
your inner strengths. The MBTIassessment can help with team
building, stress management,communication, conflict
(10:55):
management, and so much more,individual and group sessions
are available to help youdiscover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
consulting.com
Mark French (11:10):
Welcome back to the second half of the leading and
learning through safety podcast.
So we're talking about theTennessee safety conference.
We're going to continue that.
One of the other items that waskind of interesting, again, it's
problem solving in the field, isthey were doing some
construction on the side of ahouse, and they needed a
(11:32):
scaffold style item. So whatthey did was they got two
ladders, leaned them up againstthe house, and they lashed
another ladder horizontallybetween the two other ladders,
and hey, there's a makeshiftscaffold, and it was around six
feet, maybe a little less thansix feet high. So they thought,
You know what, we're under theregulation of needing fall
(11:53):
protection, so therefore we'refine. We can build this. Well,
of course, it didn't work, andsomeone lost their life from it
again, thinking, how do we getaround the situation? And this
one brings me to think moreabout the culture that creates
the let's just get around it.
Let's just do them. And Iremember having conversations
(12:17):
with other people andsubcontractors in my career
where their justification fordoing something wrong was, well,
we're under the 10 people. We'rea small company. We're not
really under OSHA, because we'reunder 10 people, therefore we
don't have to comply. Okay, itdoesn't stop you of your moral
(12:39):
obligations to not hurt someone,or the bigger idea that you
signed agreements to say youwill protect people,
unacceptable. And here's one ofthose examples. What kind of
leadership is there that saysinstead of going and having the
right tools that we know youneed to do the job, stay under
six feet, figure it out, just dothis. And I wonder how many
(13:03):
times they've done it before andsuccessfully done it before, and
now, because they've never hadany issue before, suddenly it's
a big one, because it came outof there. The final thing that,
well, not the final, but thefinal thing of the presentation
that hit home very hard, andthis is how they closed that
(13:25):
presentation was the officialthat was leading it said, you
know, I was on the phone with awidow of someone who had their
husband had died at a work site,and they were just talking, and
he wrote down a few of thephrases that the widow said
(13:45):
during their conversation, andhe put those on the screen, and
the four statements were, howdid this happen? Why couldn't
this happen to someone else? Ican't stop hurting. I can't stop
crying. Leadership, safety. Thisis what we do. This is why we
(14:12):
care about people basedleadership that starts with a
good Safety Foundation. We don'twant to be on the other end of
this. We don't want to listenand have to console someone
because something went wrongthat may have been within our
control. Again, from thepresentation, there were things
(14:33):
that you roll the dice and youthink that, Oh yeah, I'm I'm
good. There's no way I'm gonna,in the case of, do you hit the
NAT one? Sometimes it happens inlife, and that's hard for as a
safety professional, for me tonot to say that we don't keep
going and we just resignourselves to that's just the way
life is. No, of course not, butwe do our very best to try to
(14:57):
keep. Going and through again,good, open leadership and what
it's funny when you go back tobasics of this year, I spoke
about building a culture,building safety into your
values. A lot of it isestablishing a value for people
of some form, and reacting to itand not being oblivious to it.
(15:21):
In so many organizations, it'seasy to just go, oh, well, we do
that. Are you really? Are youlistening? Are you really
looking for cultural cues? Areyou building upon it? That's
what we really got into. Thetalk of is, how do you hold an
organization and hold the peoplewithin an organization
accountable to those and it'sreally strong and open and
(15:45):
honest and authenticcommunication. And that sounds
so easy, but communication isone of the hardest, most complex
things we do every single day inour organization and in life. I
come home to my family and Iknow my communication is
probably not good sometimes withthe way I'm trying to say and
(16:06):
explain things. Just ask myteenagers if they understand
what I'm saying half the time.
Now, one interesting kind offunny story that came from, and
I want to end with this storywas after the meeting concluded,
that session concluded, I lookover and there's a gentleman
sitting next to me, and his eyesare really wide. He looks scared
(16:29):
a little bit. And I look over,he goes, sir, I think I've come
to the wrong conference. Well,also at the gaylord opryland
were a bunch of otherconferences, and one was like a
supply chain conference abouttools and getting supply chain
things and getting stuff shippedand being able to have rapid
(16:50):
replenishment. He had come tothe Tennessee OSHA fatality
seminar rather than his one hewanted to attend that was on
supply chain. So of course, hewas in for a shock when they
start showing these slides ofpictures, of of scenes, of
recreations, but also maybe evensecurity camera. Nothing
gruesome, but just people andthings and how people died, and
(17:13):
just over and over for a wholehour, you're just clicking
through fatality after fatality.
And you could see in his face,he was like, oh my god, what
have I gotten into? He lookedover and he's, I'm going to call
my safety person, because Idon't know if we're doing any of
this. He goes, I'm scared todeath. And while the Tennessee
OSHA officials were sitting nearme, came over said, Oh, well, we
can help. You can get aconsultation. He goes, ma'am,
(17:34):
I'm not from Tennessee. I'm fromCalifornia, but oh my god, what
is going on here, he it hit him,and suddenly he was really
interested in safety. He wasreally interested in getting to
under, I don't know what hisposition was when his company,
but he was suddenly superinterested in getting to know
(17:54):
what his safety policy said,because he decided right then
and there that he was not gonnalet that happen in his
organization. And these realstories become powerful when you
explain them and walking throughthem and thinking about, are we?
Do we have the risk that couldlead to that same event
(18:15):
happening? That's the eyeopening part. Thanks for joining
me on this episode of theleading and learning through
safety podcast, as always. Thankyou. Thank you for joining me
always enjoy the conversation.
Of course, reach out to me onLinkedIn or anywhere and
(18:36):
continue the conversation. Lovethat kind of thing again. Hope
you have a wonderful, wonderfulrest of wherever and whenever
you're listening to me. Hopethings go wonderful, and until
next time we chat, stay safe.
Announcer (19:01):
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
(19:25):
purposes. It is not a substitutefor proper policy, appropriate
training or legal advice. YouThis has been the leading and
(19:53):
learning through safety podcast.
You.
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