July 11, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French explores the contrast between managing people the easy way versus the right way. Sparked by a discussion with a fellow safety professional and the media’s coverage of the Texas floods, Mark reflects on how safety failures are often sensationalized, leading to blame instead of meaningful solutions. He argues that while it’s easy to point fingers and assign fault, true leadership requires deeper examination of systemic causes and cultural influences.
Drawing on insights from How to Win Friends and Influence People, he criticizes the common "blame, shame, retrain" method as ineffective, favoring instead adult learning and genuine engagement. The podcast underscores the importance of avoiding the toxic cycle of criticizing, condemning, and complaining—especially within safety committees—and instead encourages empowering those most critical of safety programs to become part of the solution.
Mark emphasizes that understanding the “why” behind unsafe behavior is key: Why don’t people follow procedures? Why is noncompliance easier? By asking these questions and involving workers in problem-solving, leaders can drive lasting change. He reflects on his own growth from being a “safety cop” to someone focused on enabling others to choose safe behaviors. The right way isn’t easy, he concludes, but it leads to real improvement in safety culture.
He ends by promoting his upcoming talk on safety culture at the Kentucky Governor’s Safety Conference and encourages listeners to keep pushing for authentic progress.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark French (00:01):
This week on the leading and learning through
safety podcast, we're going totalk about people, no surprise
there the right way or the easyway to handle them. That's what
we're going to head into thisweek 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
(00:53):
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 (01:29):
hello and welcome to this episode of the leading
and learning through safetypodcast. Thank you for joining
me. I am always honored to bepart of your podcast rotation to
be downloaded. Thank you sowelcome this week. This week, I
(01:49):
had a great conversation withanother safety professional, and
it came down to really talkingabout how we manage people. And
again, we've talked about howpeople are the most complex item
in any culture, especially withsafety, because we aren't just a
(02:11):
machine. We bring it all when wecome to work, good, bad and
different, we bring it all. Andwe're very complex creatures.
And to think that we're not aswell silly. And we were talking
more about how there's an easyway to manage people, and then
there's the right way, which isthe harder way, and it's so
(02:32):
difficult, sometimes it's easy.
And when I talk about the easyway, I'm going to move into that
here in just a moment and kindof talk about what, what does
that mean when I say it's theeasy way? Well, it all started
with us watching the news. Wewere on site, traveling,
watching the news, and ofcourse, right now, the
devastating floods in Texas waswas dominating that and it felt
(02:58):
like the news and I have mybeefs with media, as I've we've
covered that so many times ofwhere I don't think they do a
fair shake to safety, a lot oftimes that the journalism isn't
there, that we treat it as justa normal day when things happen
in the world of Safety. Well,they were, of course, jumping in
(03:18):
on this, and it felt verysensationalized, and it didn't
feel helpful. And that's whereit we started talking about, you
know, the easy way is tosensationalize, to point
fingers, to blame, and thenthere's the hard work that comes
(03:39):
of well, how do we fix it? Howdo we do? How do we prevent it
again? How do we learn? How dowe go? How do we go forward
after tragedy or after anything?
How do you move forward and mymy thoughts, my prayers, my
deepest, sympathy for everyoneaffected by those floods. It's
(04:03):
devastating, and it's, it'sgoing to be a huge learning from
a lot of a lot of ways ofEmergency Management predictive.
And it's, there's going to be alot of work there, but what we
can do is get focused on blame.
Yeah, though, if there'snegligence, there should be some
(04:24):
accountability. Negligence isnever acceptable. But there's
also more than just we have toget beyond that too and the
same. And that's what God istalking about in the world of
safety. How we see that so oftenthat something bad will happen.
Someone will get hurt, andsomething, an environmental
spill, a motor vehicle. Takeyour pick of any safety crisis
(04:46):
that could happen. And there'ssuch a natural inclination to
say who did it, who's at fault,and there could be negligence.
Absolutely there could be. Someform of negligence involved that
needs and has to be addressed.
But there's also somethingdeeper there. There's culture.
(05:09):
There is the the deeper piece ofof what led to it, what
decisions brought us here, what,what processes, what allowed
this to get to the state that itwas in, that we even got to the
situation, and that even pushedme further into like that's the
easy way to manage people. Youfind the person that did
(05:31):
something wrong, you point yourfinger and you go wrong. You pat
yourself on the back to go,whoo. I fixed it, and you move
on. And it's not the right wayto manage people or
organizations, or root causeanalysis or looking at, how do
we get better because ofwhatever happened? How do we
(05:53):
improve? And some situationscame to mind for me in my past
of many times where it seemedlike the easiest path was to go,
Well, you didn't put your safetygoggles on and tighten them up
the right way, and it's yourfault, rather than really
digging harder and deeper intothe real learning, the real hard
(06:15):
work, but the work that actuallymakes a difference in a lot of
people's lives, the differencethat would push it further into
making something that becomeswhat can be a learning rather
than just a blaming exercise.
Because I truly, truly hate thethe blame shame, retrain style
of management, because itdoesn't, it's not effective. It
(06:37):
can't just be that, and I neverlike blame and shame anyway.
Now, retraining can be effectivewhen it's the right thing to do,
when you recognize that there'smaybe a systemic gap in learning
or training or the methodology,and that doesn't necessarily
mean setting them down andmaking them watch the safety
video. Again, it means maybeengaging in real adult learning.
(06:57):
And again, none of this is easy.
That's the part we want, theeasy solution. We always want
the silver bullet approach. AndI think that's what makes some
of the popular self help books,popular management books,
popular leadership books, isthat they push the idea that if
(07:19):
you follow this routine, you'llfind it. But when you actually
start reading into the light,it's actually a lot more
complicated, and there has to bepieces of that that can evolve
into how we lead as people, andall this leadership here, I'm
taking it one more step. Whynot? I love taking it one more
step. It brought me back to oneof my favorite, favorite books
(07:44):
of all time, and that was it's,it's a leadership book from a
lot one of the one of theoriginals, I would say. And
probably one of the best ones isHow to Win Friends and Influence
People. And it reminded me ofthe chapter on you don't want to
(08:06):
criticize, condemn or complain.
And that, to me, comes back, islike one of the central focuses
of some of some of the easiestpaths that we take in the safety
world. We see this happening,and it's everywhere, and it's
it's been happening for as longas there has been people to talk
(08:32):
about safety. That's happenedthat we it's easy to sit in a
room and criticize the programand the procedures and the way
things were happening. It's easyto complain about the state of
things and the other people, andthen it's easy to condemn them
and go, Well, they're the onesthat wrong. We're the ones that
(08:52):
are right. And it becomes veryhard to break that cycle when
you're leading people in in thesafety field. And I'm going to
give you a perfect example, ifyou've been around safety or
seen it, the safety committee,to me, is the perfect example of
how easily we can fall intothis, this idea of criticizing,
(09:16):
condemning, complaining when wereally we know we shouldn't be
there, but we fall into thatroutine. And I would love to say
that I'm above this. I am not. Ihave been part of safety
committees for years and yearsand years, led and championed
and been a part of them, and itis such an easy it's just like,
(09:39):
that's the perfect rut. You justfall right into it. It's super
comfortable, and you're right.
There's also some other itemswhere, you know, complaining and
having venting that does givesome nice release of some some
nice brain chemicals that makeyou feel better by doing it. But
then you. Once it gets too much,it starts to spiral. Let's talk
(10:03):
more. I know I'm transitioning aways away here, but we'll come
back to where we're going, andthat's leading the right way
when we're dealing with people.
We'll take a break. We'll talkmore on the second half of the
leading and learning throughsafety podcast, humanizing the
workplace. It is the leading andlearning through safety.
(10:26):
Podcast,
Commercial (10:29):
dsda Consulting, learn you lead others. The Myers
Briggs Type Indicator is anamazing tool. Problem is that it
can be easily misinterpreted. DrMark French is MBTI certified
and ready to help you discoveryour inner strengths. The MBTI
assessment can help with teambuilding, stress management,
(10:51):
communication, conflictmanagement, and so much more,
individual and group sessionsare available to help you
discover what makes you great.
For more information. Visit uson the web, AT T, S, D, A
consulting.com
Mark French (11:08):
and welcome back to the second half of our leading
and learning through safetypodcast. So we're talking about
managing people the right way orthe easy way. The easy way is to
point fingers and to condemn andcriticize, and the perfect
example, to me has always beenthe safety committee. A safety
committee can be a is awonderful thing, and it can be a
(11:30):
very powerful tool, and you haveto balance it. There's something
about coming together and havingthat we're in it together, and
we know that there are thingsgoing on that we need to fix,
but we can't get in so deep intothe rut of criticizing,
condemning or complaining thatwe can't get it done, or we
can't pull ourselves out and goto work. But we see it like we
(11:54):
see those that go well, I see Soand So breaking a rule all the
time, or the we'll never get themoney to fix that. And so why
are we even trying? And itbecomes such a hard routine to
break. Where it comes down to,though, is, are we actually
seeking the real reason thingsare not working? Are we digging
(12:18):
deep enough to look beyond thepeople, beyond the person
itself. Now, not again. I'm not.
I don't want to mince wordshere. There are times where
there that has to be addressed,the human behavior has to but
what I want to, I want to get,don't just stop there. And
that's where it's funny when yougo through, uh, I'm changing
topics. Again, it's funny, whenyou go through a root cause
(12:41):
analysis training in one like atool, that's one of their
biggest points is, don't stop atthe person. Don't stop there.
It's easy that the first why isa person did something wrong and
you're done, bam, got the rootcause. Don't stop there. And so
that's what I want to reallyfocus on. We don't stop there.
It's a piece of it. Yes, always,humans are a piece of it. They
(13:04):
interact with whatever. But wehave to move forward. And we
have to look at is, how do weget past the criticism,
condemning, complaining andusing one of my favorite books,
how to win friends and influencepeople and that centralized
theme? And it really comes downto the fact that we are in it
together. If someone gets hurtin our organization, none of us
(13:27):
have won. And if we leave itopen to where it can continue to
happen, we still don't win.
There's no good scenario thereby doing that. And so we have to
move forward. We have to learnmore. We have to push harder to
find the real solution and thereal root causes, and how do we
(13:49):
put something in place. So whenyou have those people who are
condemning, complaining,criticizing the safety process,
those are the ones we want toengage first. Now they're the
hardest ones, but we want toengage on okay, how do we do it?
What would you do? What can youdo? What? What can we empower
(14:09):
you to be able to have theability to do and that's a great
tool for a safety committee, andI've used it a few times, and
it's not again. I when talkingabout things like this, it's
easy to make it sound easy whenreally it's work, and it can be
very, very socially drainingwhen you're working through
(14:30):
these situations where you havethat person who maybe is doing a
lot of criticizing of the safetyworld or not being that
proverbial like armchairquarterback of the program and
getting them engaging. Okay,we're going to empower you to be
able to do something about it.
Find out why they're not wearingtheir PPE. Find out why they're
(14:53):
not following that process. Findout why. Do some interviews.
You're telling me you see thepeople that are having the
trouble following the rules, wedon't want you to go out and
police it. We're not. We aresometimes the safety police and
we have to make corrections,yes, but let's really understand
why? Why do you not like wearingyour safety glasses? Why do you
(15:18):
not like walking in the safelines that we've put on the
ground? Why do you likeapproaching the fort trucks when
they're getting when they'removing things? Why is it that
you you don't like performing alock out, tag out? Let's
understand. Don't just tell themthey're wrong. Get to their
level. Understand, why are wedoing it that way? What is the
(15:43):
why is the behavior easier to doit that way? And how do we how
do we correct it? How do weremind someone that, hey, you
know, the safe way is this?
Yeah, it seems inconvenient, butmaybe we can make it more
convenient. What are your ideas?
Get involved in really putting asolution to it, rather than
pointing the finger at a person.
(16:06):
And I'll be honest, in early inmy career, that was my goal.
Like safety police, it was myjob to go out and find every
single person who was doingsomething unsafe and correcting
them, not understanding why, butjust correcting him, correcting
that individual act andsituation. And I wasn't very
(16:27):
nice about it, either. Yeah, andyou know, that was very
unfulfilling in a lot of ways,one, because you get into the
mindset that you have to beeverywhere, and you you are the
keeper of everything safe and soyou have to be everywhere. You
have to do everything. You haveto be there all the time. That
becomes overwhelming. It createsa significant amount of anxiety,
(16:50):
when really the focus is if wehelp people enable to choose the
right way to do it, if we makeit so easy to do the right
thing, or we make it actuallyjust easier to do the right
thing than the wrong thing,they'll choose the right thing.
And again, that takes work, andwhen you start putting that work
into it, you see real change,rather than the temporary push,
(17:15):
I think, when you're when you'reworking through and criticizing
and work, it works for a veryshort amount of time, but it can
give you a very quick boost insome of the metrics and making
yourself look good and in ifyou're looking at that kind of
thing, it's a very short termapproach that can have some
significant results, but longterm fades away. Doesn't provide
(17:36):
the people any really faith orcare in the safety world and the
people, and it also creates alot of anxiety for the safety
person themselves. I foundpersonally, that's what I felt
when doing it that way, becauseit made me feel that I was
responsible for every it waseasier, because then I could
just go out and just knockingthings out rather than actually
(18:01):
trying to figure out what washappening. Because if I can just
control me, that's easy, butwhen I have to worry about
influencing others, helping themlearn, helping them grow, and
even growing myself by youlearn, which is a pretty neat
thing,
Unknown (18:21):
but it takes the hard work,
Mark French (18:23):
and I think that's where ultimately I wanted to
come to, is that we have tobreak past just the finger
pointing. We have to move intoreal problem solving, real
cultural development. Thank youfor joining me on this episode
of the leading in learningthrough safety podcast. Just a
quick announcement. Coming up inAugust is the Kentucky Governor
(18:46):
safety conference. I will bethere talking about culture. No
surprise, if you're around thearea, hope you can join us 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.
You This has been the leadingand learning through safety
(19:56):
podcast. You.
This week on the leading and learning through
safety podcast, we're going totalk about people, no surprise
there the right way or the easyway to handle them. That's what
we're going to head into thisweek 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
(00:53):
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 (01:29):
hello and welcome to this episode of the leading
and learning through safetypodcast. Thank you for joining
me. I am always honored to bepart of your podcast rotation to
be downloaded. Thank you sowelcome this week. This week, I
(01:49):
had a great conversation withanother safety professional, and
it came down to really talkingabout how we manage people. And
again, we've talked about howpeople are the most complex item
in any culture, especially withsafety, because we aren't just a
(02:11):
machine. We bring it all when wecome to work, good, bad and
different, we bring it all. Andwe're very complex creatures.
And to think that we're not aswell silly. And we were talking
more about how there's an easyway to manage people, and then
there's the right way, which isthe harder way, and it's so
(02:32):
difficult, sometimes it's easy.
And when I talk about the easyway, I'm going to move into that
here in just a moment and kindof talk about what, what does
that mean when I say it's theeasy way? Well, it all started
with us watching the news. Wewere on site, traveling,
watching the news, and ofcourse, right now, the
devastating floods in Texas waswas dominating that and it felt
(02:58):
like the news and I have mybeefs with media, as I've we've
covered that so many times ofwhere I don't think they do a
fair shake to safety, a lot oftimes that the journalism isn't
there, that we treat it as justa normal day when things happen
in the world of Safety. Well,they were, of course, jumping in
(03:18):
on this, and it felt verysensationalized, and it didn't
feel helpful. And that's whereit we started talking about, you
know, the easy way is tosensationalize, to point
fingers, to blame, and thenthere's the hard work that comes
(03:39):
of well, how do we fix it? Howdo we do? How do we prevent it
again? How do we learn? How dowe go? How do we go forward
after tragedy or after anything?
How do you move forward and mymy thoughts, my prayers, my
deepest, sympathy for everyoneaffected by those floods. It's
(04:03):
devastating, and it's, it'sgoing to be a huge learning from
a lot of a lot of ways ofEmergency Management predictive.
And it's, there's going to be alot of work there, but what we
can do is get focused on blame.
Yeah, though, if there'snegligence, there should be some
(04:24):
accountability. Negligence isnever acceptable. But there's
also more than just we have toget beyond that too and the
same. And that's what God istalking about in the world of
safety. How we see that so oftenthat something bad will happen.
Someone will get hurt, andsomething, an environmental
spill, a motor vehicle. Takeyour pick of any safety crisis
(04:46):
that could happen. And there'ssuch a natural inclination to
say who did it, who's at fault,and there could be negligence.
Absolutely there could be. Someform of negligence involved that
needs and has to be addressed.
But there's also somethingdeeper there. There's culture.
(05:09):
There is the the deeper piece ofof what led to it, what
decisions brought us here, what,what processes, what allowed
this to get to the state that itwas in, that we even got to the
situation, and that even pushedme further into like that's the
easy way to manage people. Youfind the person that did
(05:31):
something wrong, you point yourfinger and you go wrong. You pat
yourself on the back to go,whoo. I fixed it, and you move
on. And it's not the right wayto manage people or
organizations, or root causeanalysis or looking at, how do
we get better because ofwhatever happened? How do we
(05:53):
improve? And some situationscame to mind for me in my past
of many times where it seemedlike the easiest path was to go,
Well, you didn't put your safetygoggles on and tighten them up
the right way, and it's yourfault, rather than really
digging harder and deeper intothe real learning, the real hard
(06:15):
work, but the work that actuallymakes a difference in a lot of
people's lives, the differencethat would push it further into
making something that becomeswhat can be a learning rather
than just a blaming exercise.
Because I truly, truly hate thethe blame shame, retrain style
of management, because itdoesn't, it's not effective. It
(06:37):
can't just be that, and I neverlike blame and shame anyway.
Now, retraining can be effectivewhen it's the right thing to do,
when you recognize that there'smaybe a systemic gap in learning
or training or the methodology,and that doesn't necessarily
mean setting them down andmaking them watch the safety
video. Again, it means maybeengaging in real adult learning.
(06:57):
And again, none of this is easy.
That's the part we want, theeasy solution. We always want
the silver bullet approach. AndI think that's what makes some
of the popular self help books,popular management books,
popular leadership books, isthat they push the idea that if
(07:19):
you follow this routine, you'llfind it. But when you actually
start reading into the light,it's actually a lot more
complicated, and there has to bepieces of that that can evolve
into how we lead as people, andall this leadership here, I'm
taking it one more step. Whynot? I love taking it one more
step. It brought me back to oneof my favorite, favorite books
(07:44):
of all time, and that was it's,it's a leadership book from a
lot one of the one of theoriginals, I would say. And
probably one of the best ones isHow to Win Friends and Influence
People. And it reminded me ofthe chapter on you don't want to
(08:06):
criticize, condemn or complain.
And that, to me, comes back, islike one of the central focuses
of some of some of the easiestpaths that we take in the safety
world. We see this happening,and it's everywhere, and it's
it's been happening for as longas there has been people to talk
(08:32):
about safety. That's happenedthat we it's easy to sit in a
room and criticize the programand the procedures and the way
things were happening. It's easyto complain about the state of
things and the other people, andthen it's easy to condemn them
and go, Well, they're the onesthat wrong. We're the ones that
(08:52):
are right. And it becomes veryhard to break that cycle when
you're leading people in in thesafety field. And I'm going to
give you a perfect example, ifyou've been around safety or
seen it, the safety committee,to me, is the perfect example of
how easily we can fall intothis, this idea of criticizing,
(09:16):
condemning, complaining when wereally we know we shouldn't be
there, but we fall into thatroutine. And I would love to say
that I'm above this. I am not. Ihave been part of safety
committees for years and yearsand years, led and championed
and been a part of them, and itis such an easy it's just like,
(09:39):
that's the perfect rut. You justfall right into it. It's super
comfortable, and you're right.
There's also some other itemswhere, you know, complaining and
having venting that does givesome nice release of some some
nice brain chemicals that makeyou feel better by doing it. But
then you. Once it gets too much,it starts to spiral. Let's talk
(10:03):
more. I know I'm transitioning aways away here, but we'll come
back to where we're going, andthat's leading the right way
when we're dealing with people.
We'll take a break. We'll talkmore on the second half of the
leading and learning throughsafety podcast, humanizing the
workplace. It is the leading andlearning through safety.
(10:26):
Podcast,
Commercial (10:29):
dsda Consulting, learn you lead others. The Myers
Briggs Type Indicator is anamazing tool. Problem is that it
can be easily misinterpreted. DrMark French is MBTI certified
and ready to help you discoveryour inner strengths. The MBTI
assessment can help with teambuilding, stress management,
(10:51):
communication, conflictmanagement, and so much more,
individual and group sessionsare available to help you
discover what makes you great.
For more information. Visit uson the web, AT T, S, D, A
consulting.com
Mark French (11:08):
and welcome back to the second half of our leading
and learning through safetypodcast. So we're talking about
managing people the right way orthe easy way. The easy way is to
point fingers and to condemn andcriticize, and the perfect
example, to me has always beenthe safety committee. A safety
committee can be a is awonderful thing, and it can be a
(11:30):
very powerful tool, and you haveto balance it. There's something
about coming together and havingthat we're in it together, and
we know that there are thingsgoing on that we need to fix,
but we can't get in so deep intothe rut of criticizing,
condemning or complaining thatwe can't get it done, or we
can't pull ourselves out and goto work. But we see it like we
(11:54):
see those that go well, I see Soand So breaking a rule all the
time, or the we'll never get themoney to fix that. And so why
are we even trying? And itbecomes such a hard routine to
break. Where it comes down to,though, is, are we actually
seeking the real reason thingsare not working? Are we digging
(12:18):
deep enough to look beyond thepeople, beyond the person
itself. Now, not again. I'm not.
I don't want to mince wordshere. There are times where
there that has to be addressed,the human behavior has to but
what I want to, I want to get,don't just stop there. And
that's where it's funny when yougo through, uh, I'm changing
topics. Again, it's funny, whenyou go through a root cause
(12:41):
analysis training in one like atool, that's one of their
biggest points is, don't stop atthe person. Don't stop there.
It's easy that the first why isa person did something wrong and
you're done, bam, got the rootcause. Don't stop there. And so
that's what I want to reallyfocus on. We don't stop there.
It's a piece of it. Yes, always,humans are a piece of it. They
(13:04):
interact with whatever. But wehave to move forward. And we
have to look at is, how do weget past the criticism,
condemning, complaining andusing one of my favorite books,
how to win friends and influencepeople and that centralized
theme? And it really comes downto the fact that we are in it
together. If someone gets hurtin our organization, none of us
(13:27):
have won. And if we leave itopen to where it can continue to
happen, we still don't win.
There's no good scenario thereby doing that. And so we have to
move forward. We have to learnmore. We have to push harder to
find the real solution and thereal root causes, and how do we
(13:49):
put something in place. So whenyou have those people who are
condemning, complaining,criticizing the safety process,
those are the ones we want toengage first. Now they're the
hardest ones, but we want toengage on okay, how do we do it?
What would you do? What can youdo? What? What can we empower
(14:09):
you to be able to have theability to do and that's a great
tool for a safety committee, andI've used it a few times, and
it's not again. I when talkingabout things like this, it's
easy to make it sound easy whenreally it's work, and it can be
very, very socially drainingwhen you're working through
(14:30):
these situations where you havethat person who maybe is doing a
lot of criticizing of the safetyworld or not being that
proverbial like armchairquarterback of the program and
getting them engaging. Okay,we're going to empower you to be
able to do something about it.
Find out why they're not wearingtheir PPE. Find out why they're
(14:53):
not following that process. Findout why. Do some interviews.
You're telling me you see thepeople that are having the
trouble following the rules, wedon't want you to go out and
police it. We're not. We aresometimes the safety police and
we have to make corrections,yes, but let's really understand
why? Why do you not like wearingyour safety glasses? Why do you
(15:18):
not like walking in the safelines that we've put on the
ground? Why do you likeapproaching the fort trucks when
they're getting when they'removing things? Why is it that
you you don't like performing alock out, tag out? Let's
understand. Don't just tell themthey're wrong. Get to their
level. Understand, why are wedoing it that way? What is the
(15:43):
why is the behavior easier to doit that way? And how do we how
do we correct it? How do weremind someone that, hey, you
know, the safe way is this?
Yeah, it seems inconvenient, butmaybe we can make it more
convenient. What are your ideas?
Get involved in really putting asolution to it, rather than
pointing the finger at a person.
(16:06):
And I'll be honest, in early inmy career, that was my goal.
Like safety police, it was myjob to go out and find every
single person who was doingsomething unsafe and correcting
them, not understanding why, butjust correcting him, correcting
that individual act andsituation. And I wasn't very
(16:27):
nice about it, either. Yeah, andyou know, that was very
unfulfilling in a lot of ways,one, because you get into the
mindset that you have to beeverywhere, and you you are the
keeper of everything safe and soyou have to be everywhere. You
have to do everything. You haveto be there all the time. That
becomes overwhelming. It createsa significant amount of anxiety,
(16:50):
when really the focus is if wehelp people enable to choose the
right way to do it, if we makeit so easy to do the right
thing, or we make it actuallyjust easier to do the right
thing than the wrong thing,they'll choose the right thing.
And again, that takes work, andwhen you start putting that work
into it, you see real change,rather than the temporary push,
(17:15):
I think, when you're when you'reworking through and criticizing
and work, it works for a veryshort amount of time, but it can
give you a very quick boost insome of the metrics and making
yourself look good and in ifyou're looking at that kind of
thing, it's a very short termapproach that can have some
significant results, but longterm fades away. Doesn't provide
(17:36):
the people any really faith orcare in the safety world and the
people, and it also creates alot of anxiety for the safety
person themselves. I foundpersonally, that's what I felt
when doing it that way, becauseit made me feel that I was
responsible for every it waseasier, because then I could
just go out and just knockingthings out rather than actually
(18:01):
trying to figure out what washappening. Because if I can just
control me, that's easy, butwhen I have to worry about
influencing others, helping themlearn, helping them grow, and
even growing myself by youlearn, which is a pretty neat
thing,
Unknown (18:21):
but it takes the hard work,
Mark French (18:23):
and I think that's where ultimately I wanted to
come to, is that we have tobreak past just the finger
pointing. We have to move intoreal problem solving, real
cultural development. Thank youfor joining me on this episode
of the leading in learningthrough safety podcast. Just a
quick announcement. Coming up inAugust is the Kentucky Governor
(18:46):
safety conference. I will bethere talking about culture. No
surprise, if you're around thearea, hope you can join us 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.
You This has been the leadingand learning through safety
(19:56):
podcast. You.
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