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SafeTalk with SafeStart
SafeTalk with SafeStart
S15Ep4: How Intervening Builds A Safer, Stronger Culture
The moments that change safety aren’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s a quiet nudge, a shared phrase, or a supervisor who chooses to coach instead of blame. We dig into the power of intervention—how speaking up with care, using clear safety language, and building psychological safety can stop injuries before they start and keep quality on track.
Hosts:
Danny Smith
Tim Page-Bottorff
Danny Smith
Welcome back to SafeTalk with SafeStart. I'm Danny Smith. And joining me today is my podcast partner, Tim Page Bottorff. Uh Tim, how are you doing today?
Tim Page-Bottorff
Man, Danny, I'm doing good. Thank you very much. Up in the corporate office today, but uh things are things are really busy and um I appreciate you asking. How about yourself? How are you doing?
Danny Smith
Doing well. It's been a busy day, uh, but uh all in all, it's uh it's been productive. So, you never complain when it's a productive day, right? So, in preparing for this podcast, I really wanted to kind of jump into the idea of the power of intervening on other people's behalf. And it's interesting because it really came kind of as a byproduct of what I was thinking about for something else we were working on. But I think it's something that's a really fascinating subject for us to explore a bit.
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, I'm right there with you, Danny. I think when we all first started all this business with SafeStart, even say even with Larry 20 years ago, when we got introduced, the primary focus for us was just literally accident prevention only. So, this is kind of new, this is good.
Danny Smith
Yeah, and you know, it wasn't that we weren't thinking about applying good performance. I mean, but we realized that it was, for example, a great communication tool. And don't get me wrong, I mean, accident prevention is certainly a noble pursuit. But, I think everybody can understand as well that, you know, once you've achieved your goals with the TRIRs or you've got that turn going the right direction, it's easy then to kind of rest on your laurels a bit. And at the same time, you always feel like there's something else you can do. And I think this idea of intervening is so certainly a part of that. Then it can really kind of feeds back into culture, right? And we'll get into that a bit as we go forward.
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to tell you, Danny, I just looking back when I was kind of starting out this business as a safety professional, that's literally what attracted me to SafeStart. And I know we've had arguments with Larry in regards to my skepticism in the very beginning. But you know what, you talk to a lot of safety folks, they get some skepticism. But you know, in the beginning, we weren't thinking about human performance. I mean, let alone leadership and rate your state and the individual and organizational learning loops, all those things that we do now, even with the critical decision units that we had. And for sure, not that you and I will be hosting a podcast, I'll tell you that.
Danny Smith
Yeah, I mean, we've really come a long way, baby, is uh well, I'm not calling you baby, but that's a famous Lorretta Lynn quote there, I guess. Lorretta Lynn song anyway, right? Bit of a throwback there.
Tim Page-Bottorff
I mean, come. I'm sorry, I’m one of those people that's going to have to go to YouTube University on that one, Danny.
Danny Smith
Yeah, I understand. Well, you know, I grew up on that style of music, and uh, while you're YouTubing uh that, uh, you can look up the king as well. And I don't mean Elvis or Michael, by the way. I'm talking about the King Georges, as in George Jones and George Strait. Anyway, back on task, Danny. Let's focus here. Uh mind on task. Uh, you know, it's kind of funny to say mind on task as we're talking about safe start terminology, but uh, well, we can have a few jokes with this as well, right?
You got that right. Uh, regardless of their intent, you know, they're reinforcing the concepts of SafeStart when they joke like that. And it sounds kind of becomes uh part of their lexicon, I guess, with uh lack of better terms. I think just to put it simply, it's just the way we communicate safety around here, whether it's joking or not, they're still reinforcing. Then I I gotta say, it's kind of just a matter of time until you see actual intervention beginning on each other's behalf. It's kind of like a cool, organic little thing. Sure.
Danny Smith
Yeah, and with the benefit of kind of the 2020 hindsight, uh, this happened quite organically, meaning that it was, you know, maybe not a part of the original overall plan, but I do give us credit for picking up on it earlier and then passing along that lesson to other people. Uh, you know, if I go back and put kind of my old operations hat back on for a second, back before I moved into safety, you know, if we were doing accident investigations back in the day, uh and I'm talking BS before SafeStart, not sure what you were thinking there, but before SafeStart, the answer would always you know seem somewhat bother me. I'm talking to co-workers after an accident and would say, you know, how or why did this happen? And it would be something like, well, he or she's always done it that way. And my next question would always be, well, why didn't you say something when you saw them doing that? Why didn't you say something about the unsafe behavior? And more times than not, it was, I don't know, just kind of the shrug of the shoulders or the you know, the I don't know, or we've always done it that way ourselves kind of deal, right?
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, sometimes you probably got too, Danny. Isn't that your job? Sure. Yeah. I mean thinking of, I mean, thinking about it, we really, we've come a long way, and I get it. But I've known you for over 20 years now, and I know that I know the safety leader that you have become and what you were. And I'm going to tell you; I believe that you're really a conscientious one. That means that you encourage intervention and that you allow people to speak up and you include them in safety decisions. But for most people that are listening right now, you you've got to have the right culture to allow that to happen first.
And so that's known as psychological safety. And I I know a lot of you listening, um, I did a podcast on that back in you know January of 2022, along with a good friend of mine, Rosa Antonio Carrillo, who also wrote a book on the relationship factor. And sometimes if you don't have that relationship, people just don't speak up. And quadrant number one of psychological safety is to include your people in the safety decisions. And I suspect creating a culture, Danny, where people feel safe speaking up really wasn't your challenge.
Danny Smith
You know, you're right. You know, looking back, I what uh I didn't say we didn't know what to communicate, but SafeStart kind of gave us the mechanism, and as I often say, as we often say, kind of the vocabulary uh and the terminology to relate to each other. Uh I just want everybody to be able to know what to say and to be able to say it faster, you know, and help each other to prevent things from happening. And I I think with that too, if you if you set that as an expectation and as a goal, then I believe it certainly can happen. But you're right. I mean, we've got to create that environment, first of all, where people feel safe to speak up. I mean, I dare say it's an expectation, and I don't mean that in a gotcha kind of way, but um, you know, I think it's really important that people do begin to look at ways they can help each other with this stuff.
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, I agree. In that gotcha kind of way, it's funny that you mention it because it's mostly perceived negatively. And I have to say that if you say gotcha for doing something good, then you can turn that around into a positive safety culture. But uh I have I have to go back to some of the things that you've said in the past, and I know I've said it, and I both I think both of us can agree that our producer has said it to Kevin. But Larry's four by four-by-four technology, the four states, four errors, and four critical error reduction techniques really took human factors, which I believe is a complex subject altogether and made it quite efficient. As a matter of fact, it became a model that addressed errors specifically in the workplace. And no, I know we've expanded that out to 24-7, but that kind of reminds me of something. I know both of us have been involved with the SafeStart implementation. We've seen it rolled out, and we've been to many different organizations in the past and probably in the future. But with all of these organizations that we've been to, some of them even had multiple sites, and in an effort to kind of get every site culturally aligned, it kind of speaks to your point of everyone understanding the safe serve language. And I'm going to say, maybe an example might help put this into context. So, I'm wondering, Danny, do you got an example that can help us out?
Danny Smith
Sure. This goes back uh, well, a number of years. Uh back when I was still working for my former employer. I was uh walking through one of the plants one day, actually doing a safety inspection, oddly enough. And I was walking through the facility, and I came from one part of our warehouse where there was some pallet racking. And uh I was coming over to one of our pre-staging areas going out to our production floor, and I noticed one of our, well, he was one of our best forklift operators. He was probably, I don't know, 20, 30 feet away from me. And I saw him move a couple of pallets and then stop and he kind of checked the clipboard that he had there on his forklift with him, looking for the next item to go find and pull and bring out to the staging area. And he sat there for a minute, and again, I'm like 20, 30 feet away from him, and all of a sudden, I noticed his head start to kind of go down. And at first, I thought he was looking at his pool ticket. Uh no, I realize now he was really just struggling to stay awake. I didn't know that at the time, though. He had been working a lot of overtime, probably not getting enough sleep, and you bet you can guess the rest, right? So literally, uh he started backing up almost in slow motion. And at first I didn't really realize that he was asleep at the wheel. He was, you know, still, I thought, looking at his punch list, which is not a good thing to be looking at your punch list and near your pull ticket while you're backing up. But I thought that's what he was doing. So, I kind of stepped to the right a little bit, and sure enough, uh the forklift starts kind of following me. It's almost like it had a tracking beacon on me there. So, I'm watching that, and then uh I kind of stepped back to the left because I knew that even though I'm big, I'd probably still lose that battle with the forklift, right? If it runs into me, even though it was low speed. So, I moved to the left, and sure enough, it's just like it was following me, you know. And all of a sudden, I saw his head kind of jerk up really quickly, and he was still looking forward, and he really, I don't think he even realized how far he'd backed up already. And you know, it was he still hadn't realized that I was there, you know. So anyway, I moved further out of the, as we would say, using the SafeStart terminology, I moved out of the line of fire, right? And he slowly backed past me. Uh, you could tell the look on his face, he was still kind of groggy, and I think he was a little shocked to see me there, honestly. Uh so anyway, I just stopped and had a conversation with him there, and uh we talked a little bit, and uh I laughed about it and said, Man, if I didn't know better, I would have sworn you were aiming for me there. And he was like, no, no, he said, I'm sorry. He said, I probably should have just, you know, as we would say when you're driving a personal vehicle, you know, probably pull over and get some rest, move around a bit there. Uh he said that's probably what he needed to do even with the forklift, you know, get up, move around, get a cup of coffee, go outside, get a little breath of fresh air, that kind of thing. Um anyway, we talked about, you know, doing the shoulder check before moving, uh, especially when you're really, really tired. Although I think he was probably out cold there for a second, so that probably wouldn't help. But uh, you know, just encourage him to do things like, you know, taking that quick break, uh, getting the fresh air, all of those things, you know, try to get some extra rest that night, you know, those type things. Um I think just that small interaction there really got him thinking, you know, what could happen if because he's exhausted, you know, he backs into somebody, he backs into something. I think it really kind of brought him back to the moment, if you will.
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, that's a great example, bringing back to the moment. And I know that uh there's been times where you and I both probably have been out on the long drive and we've experienced literally just the same thing. So, thanks for sharing that, Danny. I kind of got one too. And you know, I just was thinking about this because it took intervention to get people to stop what they were doing. And using a term from our SafeLead process, which is pause, think, and respond, absolutely fits for this for this example. So, I went straight to a plant manager right after a major event, and it was a string of events that have occurred. And the obviously the first couple of events were all reviewed and scheduled and had the accidents, the investigation, all those things that happened. But uh let's just for all tensive purposes, we're going to call this plant manager Jose. I informed Jose that the string of events in my mind were a precursor to something that was going to be more catastrophic, like a serious injury or fatality happening in the near future. And I would usually wait to schedule a meeting with this guy, Jose. But I stood in his doorway and I told him, you know what, there's nothing more important than the message I could deliver at that moment. Sort of an intervention, and I have to say, but direct, not with the person that was involved in the incident, but with the plant manager. And so, this first event, the first event that happened was a 20-gallon isopropyl alcohol leak. It was a misfeed on a connection, and there was a state error pattern or human factor. The second event was an employee that fell off a step ladder, and the there was a serrated edge on the edge of that ladder, and they did not engage foot locks because they were in a hurry. Again, human factor, but they did break a leg. So, it was almost to the point where a serious injury was going to be a problem. And then the foot locks themselves were actually added after the fact, but uh it didn't really address human factors, it's just something that they had helped with the systems. And then the third event, um, which is when the intervention occurred, was a door that was left cracked open in a FDA controlled environment for patient plasma. The door being opened, human factors, a human forgot to close the door. And so this caused quality issues that in that whole room of plasma, which ended up scrapping $20 million in lots of plasma. Wow. And wow, this is just pre-pandemic. So, once the third occurred, I gave Jose the look, stood in his doorway, as Jack would say, you know the look. Um he opened his door, cleared his calendar for an hour, and to give a shout out to Rodd Wagner, who's been on our podcast several times. Rod was with me, and we laid out a roadmap um in regard to using the human factors framework where they were missing a gap on organizational learning. And he needed to turn his poor human factor climate in that current situation around. I would have stood there at his door until he actually heard me. And so first we told him to be more visible, but we got to a terminology called pause, think, and respond instead of react. And this helped raise awareness both in the individual learning loop and it improved uh better organizational learning overall. And I think intervention was the key component here.
Danny Smith
Sure. Well, and that's the other thing is that organizational and individual learning loop, I mean, there are certainly opportunities there uh for us to intervene as well, right? Um it does seem to, as with most things, start with leadership. And I hate to go John Maxwell here. I mean, but I mean everything does rise and fall on leadership, right, at various times, right? And you know, thinking about leadership and particularly uh supervisory leadership, frontline supervisor leadership, you mentioned Safe Lead a minute ago. That really is a lot about what that process is all about, helping supervisors become better human factors coaches, helping them to understand what they need to do to intervene. And uh that's that's a huge part of the SafeLead process. By the way, if you're looking for a podcast on that and haven't heard it in a while, there's a podcast that goes back to actually to August of 2020. Hard to believe it's been that far back, that we did with Derek called Transforming Supervisors into Great Leaders. And I think we've actually just reintroduced that one again as I'm looking at our Safe Talk with Safe Start uh list here. Uh we re-list it with the title that Derek is using now as is a topic for a conference presentation. And I love this title. We've upped our supervisory skills, up yours. So, um I guess when we say up yours, it's a yeah, a little different meaning there to what we probably normally think of when we hear that kind of that phrase, right? But anyway, uh I think it's a great, great podcast. If everybody has a chance, go back and give it a listen because it's a really, really great way to kind of focus back on how supervisors can improve their skills, right?
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, that's a great point. Derek did come to that facility that Rodd and I was at and shared some leadership examples. And I can't believe, Danny, that it's been two years. I mean, let's see, we did our first podcast in May of 2020. Wow. Where did the time go? I know. I guess I guess that's what they say is I know it's what they say is true. Time flies when you're having a good time, right?
Danny Smith
Yeah, for sure. You know, and it has been a lot of fun. But you know, going back to this idea again about intervening on others' behalf, you said something a minute ago, it kind of caught my ear, you know. Uh people that look at you and maybe our listeners who are the particular those who are safety directors, safety managers, uh in that safety lead role, uh, maybe you've had your folks who have looked at you and said something like, well, isn't that your job? You know, you are the safety person. But um, I I don't think we see that quite as much as we did, say, 20 years ago, or ever how many ago years ago it was when we first got involved in safety ourselves. Um, but I think now that it we are seeing more and more of that attitude that uh want to use an old phrase. I mean, we have become our brother and sister's keepers, right?
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah, I got to tell you, it makes me think back when I started in safety, and I'm not going to say that that was, I don't know, more than 20 years ago. Let's just put it that way. Safety was kind of a one-man or kind of a one-woman band.
You know, part compliance, part risk management, part HR. I mean, the list goes on, but for me personally, risk management has always treated me the most. However, with that said, I really only have one set of eyes, and I cannot be everywhere at once. I can't.
Danny Smith
Yeah. You know, and that was one of the things that I always pushed when I was a safety director. Uh, I looked uh particularly to the to the key, you know, supervisors and leaders in each one of the plants. I was at one time responsible for four different plants, plus our corporate office, plus some satellite office, not even mentioning all of the outside sales reps uh that we had scattered all over the place in 20 some. mod states. Um, you know, that was one of the things that I always pushed folks was, hey, I need you to be the leaders in safety here. And it was funny because I often had people that would look at me and they would say, well, but I'm not a leader. And I my comment was always, well, kind of comical, but I meant it seriously. You know, it's like, look around. If you got somebody that's asking you on a day-to-day basis about how to do something or what to do next or whatever, you may not be a supervisor, but you're a leader, you know, and so you can certainly help lead in safety, right? And so, a part of it is just, you know, them realizing, hey, I'm I am only one person, but together um it can be a huge, huge difference. I mean, here at SafeStart, we've adopted a philosophy and within our processes of one team, you know, it's bit ourselves, our consulting, our marketing group, our administration, whoever it is, we're all one team. And I think a lot of people need to kind of adopt that in terms of safety as well, right? Is is realize we're all one team. We're all looking out for each other. It's really key, particularly when we start thinking about things like 24-7 safety. You know, we're all one team. Our families are part of that team. You know, we need to do things to really just help watch out for each other and not be afraid to speak up when we see something that's going a little sideways or somebody taking an unsafe action or putting themselves at more risk, right?
Tim Page-Bottorff
Yeah. That's a great kind of value proposition. I will say this I it just happened I ran into the garage door the other day while I was trying to duck under it, um trying to get into the house quicker. And of course, guess who was there to watch it all she it was Miss Sheila. And I'm going to tell her you said she was she actually should work on her own intervention skills with me.
Danny Smith
I'm going to say you said that okay yeah you don't say that to her you can say I said it because that may get you in trouble, right? Of course you're like me if you bumped your head in and again this is me talking to you saying we're like each other here if one of us bumps our head into the garage door you have to worry about the garage door too right did our big old head damage that right anyway yes I said that out loud people I know some of y'all that know us well were thinking it anyway so anyway could you think about that though Tim you wonder if her lack of intervention was intentional never we won't go there right I now that you mention it kind of okay seriously though that kind of underscores the importance of sharing SafeStart especially with your family sure yeah well I mean it's an outgrowth of that cert you know looking at others I mean yeah we internalize that and we look at somebody else making a mistake or nearly making a mistake and we say hey that's something I need to avoid doing myself that kind of helps us internalize that state error pattern but it also does give us that opportunity to intervene particularly if it's a friend or family member or coworker um that's a great extension of that CERT that we teach uh at the very beginning of SafeStart looking at others right so again um you know I think this is a great opportunity just to remind everybody to really start working on some of those cultural things and really just try to develop the environment where it's safe for somebody to speak up uh and then just continue to reinforce them using that SafeStart language. And I encourage you as well key in on your safe start uh on your on your supervisors rather I think they're really key to reinforcing the SafeStart terminology just having them use that in their meetings that they're having and I'm not just talking about the safety meetings you know they can talk about having your eyes and mind on task when they're talking about a quality issue that they're having right they can use that when they're talking use line of fire or the states when they're talking about a production example that they're dealing with or how to correct something.
Tim Page-Bottorff
Because we find sometimes those same human factors are there as well right it's kind of a great note to end on I want to remind everybody just make sure you get out there don't forget to check those two podcasts that Danny mentioned the original title for the first one was transforming Supervisors into great leaders which has been changed talk about transformation and to have your supervisors up your game up yours and don't forget and don't forget psychological safety with myself and Rosa Antonio Carrillo Danny any final thoughts?
Danny Smith
Just a couple of things you know as we start wrapping this up you know uh just again the idea here that well we really are kind of our own brothers and sisters keepers right and uh I know that may sound a little hokey or a little corny whatever but um we don't want to we don't want to be that person that's having to deal with the aftermath of something that we could have helped prevent if we'd just spoken up. You know and I think that's a really key thing. I heard a a presentation about someone uh by someone at the the recent National Safety Council Congress that um he mentioned something in his presentation that you know if I had just spoken up if I had done this then not only would I have potentially not been hurt but maybe my friend would still be alive too you know we don't want to be in that position. And I think that's a really, key thing. So many times, that um so many times that I wish that we could I wish we had that that perpetual time machine that we could go back and undo some of those things where we just wish that we had a spoken up right sure.
Tim Page-Bottorff
Well, you put those two things in the same sentence together the guy speaking astronaut probably been launched into space and maybe lost a little bit of time because of the time space continuum. Exactly anyways well said uh Danny. I would say on behalf of Danny and the rest of the team with SafeTalk with SafeStart, I want to say thank you for listening. Trust me when you know that we make this podcast something that you can take on the go. And don't forget please make sure you share this podcast. And so, I'm Tim Page Bottorff and on behalf of the table catch up at the right take care.