What a Leader Does After You Get It Wrong Says Everything.
None of us want people angry at us. We read the room. We figure out pretty fast what honesty costs in this organization. And we adjust accordingly. I’ve worked for leaders who, when things went sideways, helped me pick up the pieces and move forward. There was still a hard conversation. But it didn’t make […]
You’ve Worked for That Boss. You Know Exactly What Psychological Safety Is.
Think about the worst boss you ever worked for. Whatever you brought to them didn’t land. Got dismissed. Maybe showed up three weeks later as their idea. At some point you stopped bringing things to them. Not because you didn’t care. Because it wasn’t worth it. That information didn’t disappear. It just stopped traveling. The […]
When was the last time you asked what happens to the form?
When was the last time you asked what happens to the form? Sidney Dekker wrote about safety bureaucracy that drifts into feeding itself. Forms that exist because forms have always existed. Not because anyone asked whether it was making anything safer. JHAs and pre-task plans are where that drift gets expensive. These documents aren’t OSHA […]
I’ve been pitching this wrong
When I started Construct Strategies, I led with HOP. Big concept. Lots of science behind it. Makes total sense to me, it’s what I’ve built my career on. But somewhere along the way I missed something. A lot of people hear “HOP” and picture a separate program. A big initiative. Something that sits off to […]
Bootstrapping Workplace Safety — Episode 97 of the Safety Labs Podcast
Mary Conquest asked me a question on the Safety Labs Podcast that I haven’t stopped thinking about. Why are safety professionals surrounded by good ideas — and still struggle to make them stick? I didn’t have a clean answer. Thirty years in construction and energy will teach you that the gap between knowing and doing […]
Post-Incident Leadership Response: The Questions You Ask in the First 24 Hours
The investigation starts before you think it does. After something goes wrong, leaders are under pressure to respond quickly. The instinct is to find out what happened, identify who was involved, and close the loop fast. So they ask: Those questions signal what the investigation is really for. Workers pick that up fast. They answer […]