A number of companies have made significant improvements to their safety cultures. Their progress is so dramatic, they often come to the realization that it is highly probable that their next fatality will come from a contractor they hire. To safety leaders, this is not an acceptable risk.

One of your readers recently emailed: “I have always found it interesting that the ES&H function in a significant number of corporations is managed, note I did not say led, by executives who have failed somewhere else in their corporation and are clueless when it comes to ES&H activities.”

I preferred to give you my input privately. When in private industry, my supervisor, the HR manager, kept telling me that if I found safety hazards I could not put it in writing, that way "if management does nothing and someone is injured or killed there will be no liability."

I had been warmly welcomed to South Africa. We were there to work with a mining construction company who wanted to solve their safety challenge. The immensity of this challenge hit us on our day off while we dealt with our jet lag.

I often use TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) to add humor and make an impact in my safety teaching. Here are a few of my favorites:

• ROI – Return On Investment
• FNG – Fantastic New Guy
• FOG – Fantastic Old Guy

As people were gathering for the meeting, Ami, the safety professional who had brought me to their site, thanked one of the employees for being at the evening session. The employee replied, “Management ‘strongly recommended’ we attend.” By the tone of his voice, he made it clear his leadership was doing all but making attendance at the meeting mandatory.

A popular business concept has organizations searching for how they can look to the future while still dealing with day-to-day crisis events.  These mini and maxi disruptions come from things like weather disasters, fatalities, spills and the like…and suck our resources dry. Those of you who have experienced such career-shaking times know that pretty much all non-crisis activities and plans cease while you are in the midst of the moment—which seems like it will never end!