Work Smart, Work Safe. Competent Sense.
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The Safety Leader on the Line: How Supervisors Turn Compliance Paperwork into Commitment
In a conversation, a new Safety Officer dismissed the value of a critical document, claiming, “A piece of paper doesn’t make the work any safer.” While we established that the paper itself is not the control—the planning process is—the conversation raised a deeper, more urgent question: Who is responsible for ensuring that planning actually happens? The…
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The Control Isn’t the Paper, It’s the Planning: The True Value of Lift Plans
“A piece of paper doesn’t make the work any safer.” Those words, spoken to me by a new Construction Safety Officer (CSO) on a major site, gave me a moment’s pause. Here was a professional who had been recently educated on safety principles, yet they seemed to be dismissing the very mechanism designed to prevent catastrophic harm.…
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The Foreman, The Engineer, and The Instant Culture Change
“VLO&GC doesn’t care about safety. The policies don’t matter.” That’s what a contractor foreman flatly stated during a full Hydrogen Sulphide training class I was instructing. He said it in front of twenty people—a room full of his peers and clients. He didn’t realize that one of the people in the room was the lead engineer…
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Crying Wolf: The Real Tragedy Isn’t About Lying, It’s About Leadership.
What if everything you thought you knew about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” was wrong? We all know the story of the boy who cried wolf, but what if the real tragedy wasn’t about a liar, but a failure of leadership? “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is one of Aesop’s Fables, a tale hundreds of…
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The ‘Safety Dick’ and the Cost of Ego in Leadership
Safety isn’t just about rules and regulations; it’s about culture, leadership, and sometimes, a direct challenge to ego. I learned this firsthand on a recent project with a new crew. After their orientation, I privately reminded the foreman about a piece of documentation he’d overlooked on a previous job. My intent was to be helpful…
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What’s in it for me?
A Leader does not ask, ”What’s in it for me?” or “What can I get away with?” A Leader asks, “What do you need?”, “How can I help?” or says “Here is some constructive feedback.” I have seen too many supervisors play games, but they never seem to get much done.
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Competence: More Than Just Knowing, It’s Doing.
Many believe competence is about what you know. I argue it’s defined by what you’re empowered to do. You know the right thing to do. But will you actually do it? Do you have the authority to do it? This is the true test of competence. Education, training, and experience form the foundation of competence. However, the critical piece…
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