Safety Leadership
Experts from BST weigh in on what current and future leaders need to know
This year, create a safety network
EDITOR’S NOTE: Achieving and sustaining an injury-free workplace demands strong leadership. In this monthly column, experts
from Ojai, CA-based consulting firm BST share their point of view
on what leaders need to know to guide their organizations to safety
excellence.
Navigating the safety ecosystem
Imagine that you have been tasked with building a safety system from the ground up. You are given free rein to choose any
tools or techniques you wish. The only requirement is that the
team you select to help you must represent the most diverse
points of view and talents available. Clearly, it wouldn’t be
By Colin Duncan
enough to recruit only other leaders or only employees from
your own company. Their views are important, but their perOF ALL THE MYTHS surrounding leadership, one of the spective may be too much like your own (including sharing
most harmful is that of the lone genius. It’s natural that many of the same biases) to fully challenge your thinking. So
people should gravitate to this charismatic figure; in the where else would you look?
narrative, he or she arrives out of nowhere and singlehandThe safety ecosystem is a construct for understanding
edly changes a business in
the influences that conthe face of great obstacles.
tribute to safety thinking
It’s a nice idea, but it isn’t
and practice. It is simply a
The Safety Ecosystem
real life. In real life, great
map of safety stakeholdvisionaries are supported
ers and how they interact.
Unions
Employees
by a wide variety of people
In addition to employers,
who help shape the ideas,
workers, and safety probuild the processes, generfessionals, the ecosystem
ate demand and deliver the
includes unions, industry
WORKING TO
outcomes. The great ideas
associations, government
REDUCE DEATHS
themselves emerge from
bodies, the community
Technology
AND INJURIES AT
Employers
generations of thought from
and technology leadWORK, AT HOME AND
competitors and customers,
ers. Each of these groups
ON THE ROAD
researchers, and students.
brings a unique perspecGenius guides innovation,
tive on safety and in turn
but genius never works
offers unique experience
Community
Safety Professionals
alone.
and competencies. This
Sorting this myth from
ecosystem is your team.
fact is critical to creating the
There is currently no
Government
Associations
conditions for real innovaroadmap to a working nettion. It is particularly imporwork in safety. My chaltant in safety, where the lone
lenge to you this year is to
genius narrative often translates as the belief that “we must join others in creating one. It is work I will be undertaking
do everything ourselves.” Unfamiliar discoveries and ideas myself, and I invite you to send me a note if you’d like to parare kept out. Successes and challenges are kept in – some- ticipate. Whatever action you take, what’s most important is
times even hidden from colleagues within our own organi- to begin. Reach out to colleagues, business partners, your
zations. In this closed system, a company may experience supply chain, join a forum, find a place to share your knowlsome success (“good enough” performance), but by design edge and experience. Getting started is what counts.
it can never advance further than its own experience and
Colin Duncan is CEO of DEKRA Insight, a global
imagination.
consulting firm offering safety advice and expertise
The antidote to “good enough” safety and the lone
in process and organizational safety through its
genius trap is to focus on creating collective genius. That is,
three operations, Chilworth (www.chilworth.com),
building mutually beneficial relationships with all of the
BST (www.bstsolutions.com) and RCI Safety
stakeholders who influence safety, not just those within
(www.rcisafety.com).
your four walls.
52
Safety+Health | January 2015
safetyandhealthmagazine.com