Oliver Luck on Safety

Last week I attended the Indiana Safety and Health Conference & Expo in Indianapolis which offered a number of very good sessions.   I also spent time with my former West Virginia University (WVU) teammate and longtime friend, Oliver Luck.  He was Academic All America at WVU.  Oliver is also a former NFL quarterback and well respected sports executive who is now second in charge with the National Collegiate Athletic Association  (NCAA). Most recently, he served as AD at WVU but in reality, AD doesn’t stand for Athletic Director but for Andrew’s Dad. That’s Andrew Luck, star quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts.

Oliver delivered a wonderful closing keynote entitled, Quarterbacking Your Team, and I’ve summarized the major points below. If you weren’t able to attend the conference or keynote, I think you’ll appreciate his thoughts. And of course, you’ve  missed Oliver’s quips, quotes, and extended commentary – nonetheless, his thoughts are noted below.

On planning or scheming, especially in the NFL. It may be difficult to out-scheme another team or organization but you can outwork and out prepare them.

Trust is developed when groups and individuals work together over time. Individuals need to be open and clear about expectations and roles. Often being brutally honest is necessary. And if trust is one side of the shiny coin, accountability is the other.

Accountability can and should be measured. Use BIG DATA to make BIG Decisions. Players in the NFL are held accountable every week and their performance is measured. Create positive forms of competition to get people moving faster, better, and more efficiently. Leaders need to walk the shop-floor to be visibly accountable.

Educate and train continually. Continual education is needed at every level within an organization so people can perform better and at increasingly higher levels. Safety professionals need to continually educate themselves and those around them. Communicate constantly to inform, coach, and facilitate positive change.

Mental Toughness is difficult to improve but incremental gains can first be achieved by allowing others to experience success early on and subsequently setting increasingly higher standards and goals.

In closing, Oliver used the mantra of Bill Belicheck, head coach of the New England Patriots, who has won six Super Bowls as an assistant and head coach – Do Your Job. In some ways – it should be that simple and we need to be reminded to always do our best – always work as hard as we possibly can, and simply do our job!

Contact David Sarkus if you want to hear both Oliver and David speak at greater length on this topic.

Three Ways Walt Disney Got Safety Right

I’ve been on the road for nearly a month with two great stops in Florida.  During my second speaking engagement in the sunshine state, I stayed at Walt Disney’s Grand Floridian, the flagship hotel for Disney World in Orlando.  It’s a great place with fantastic service.  But what resonates the most from my speaking event wasn’t the wonderful audience and standing ovation or grand hotel, but the backstage tour of the Disney facilities.  You see, Walt Disney got safety right!

Vision.  Walt Disney had a brilliant and creative mind with a vision for utopia in the Disney facilities.  As an animator, he was exceptional about helping his world, objects, and animations come to life – he saw those things in his mind’s eye and was able to clearly share his vision in ways that made them believable, perceptible, and life-like.  We need to be able to see, embrace, and communicate a great vision for safety, and the culture for safety, we want to create – in order to make it visible and life-like for others to see.  Walt Disney’s vision not only included safety but safety was a deeply held value that remains as a “non-negotiable” part of the Disney culture.  Nothing great gets started without a vision or some grand picture of the future, especially in terms of our need to create a “safety utopia.”

Courtesy.  Disney also knew that everyone needed to be treated with dignity and respect.  Everyone at his facilities was seen as special and needed to be treated that way too.  People who work at any of the four world-wide facilities are called upon to go out of their way to make visitors feel special – be it in giving someone directions or helping them with suggestions during a visit.  And that “specialness” is meant to not only bring others back for more, but their friends and relatives, too.  Courtesy works well when it comes to how you treat others at work and engage them when it comes to safety.  Courtesy and respect go hand-in-hand – everyone wants to experience them, but few are willing to first express courtesy and respect from their position, on a consistent basis.

Safety.  The Disney facilities make safety come alive – it’s visible and perceptible.  Walt Disney believed that every customer needed to feel and remain safe.  If they didn’t feel safe their experience of his world would not be satisfactory.  He also believed his workers needed to feel safe and remain safe, too.  If his workers didn’t feel safe, he knew their performances would be lacking, and in turn would impact the visitors’ experience in a less than acceptable way.  Safety remains as one of the pillars of the Disney quality standards – the first of the Disney quality-standards that’s always talked about from the very start.  Without great safety as part of the cultural foundation, Walt Disney believed his world would not be all that it should be for his workers and his guests. 

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”  Yes, that's Walt Disney

I believe we can all do a better job in sharing our vision for safety, and we can do better when it comes to engaging people - engaging them in every viable process we create and hope to sustain.  How about you?