Steve Harvey and Learning Safety Leadership

If you didn’t see or hear about the Steve Harvey blunder at the most recent Miss Universe contest you may have been travelling. Oh well, when Steve inadvertently called and crowned the wrong winner, many people shuddered and reacted wildly.  Some say his error was inexcusable.  I say it’s not a perfect world.

But if we reflect, we can all learn from his mistake.  Steve Harvey immediately recognized his error and stated “I will take responsibility for this. It was my mistake … horrible mistake.” In this case, I’m not sure what responsibility is or what consequences will occur, but I do know the leadership lesson we can learn.  Own up immediately.  Don’t spin off your mistake to someone else.

This is a great time of year to forgive, reconcile, repair, and re-build relationships.  Own up if you have to – let go and move things forward.

Consequences pertaining to safety-related mistakes can be quite severe and egregious but owning up helps.  It’s not a perfect world and safety leaders are a part of it.

Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Popeye Principle and Your Safety Information

As a child, I loved watching the cartoon show and character, Popeye.  Most memorable are the fits Popeye would take when he lost patience with someone or was frustrated by something.  But before he took extreme action, he'd typically say, in his own peculiar way, “Enoughs is enoughs and I can’t takes it no more!” 

Have you ever thought that your managers and supervisors sometimes feel the same way when they receive various kinds of safety-related information from you?  Maybe it's dashboard content related to leading and lagging indicators.  Possibly it’s a newsletter or lessons learned.  Maybe it is a policy or procedural change.  Whatever the source and content of your safety information, begin asking these types of questions:

Volume. Is this too much information or is it getting lost among other information of equal or greater importance?

Value.  Is the information you’re providing of value or is it getting in the way of helping your people lead and perform better?  Maybe you’re simply in love with your own information or trying to fulfill an objective.

Timing.  Is the frequency of information appropriate and is the timing right?  Can you release the information at a more appropriate time and manner, when and where you know it can be better processed, accepted, and utilized?

Clarity.  Is the information clear enough in its present form? Can it be made simpler, clearer, and better?  Are there conflicts in what the data or information reveals versus the way leaders feel, act, and speak when they're with your workers?  Does the information require meeting with others face-to-face?

Popeye stayed strong and lasted long, “because he ate all of his spinach.” Like Popeye, help your leaders stay strong to the finish by providing the right type and amounts of safety-related information or you just might hear your people say, “I can’t takes it no more!”

Help them digest all of their spinach and safety information, too!

Visioning with Oliver Luck

I thought that most of you would enjoy hearing from someone other than me regarding vision and forward thinking for safety professionals, and the rest of your organization. Well, I enlisted my good friend and former teammate, Oliver Luck, to talk briefly about vision as a part of resilience and mental toughness. You and I know that visioning does much more than that, so take a look.

Oliver was an academic all-American at West Virginia University, Rhodes Scholar finalist, and played quarterback for the Houston Oilers. He was president of NFL Europe and the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. Most recently he was the athletic director at West Virginia University and is currently an executive vice president with the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He is the father of Andrew Luck, star quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts.