Select Page

Three Seconds and Five Missed Opportunities: The Journey to Safety and Its Ripple Effects with Mark Stanway

Three Seconds and Five Missed Opportunities: The Journey to Safety and Its Ripple Effects with Mark Stanway

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE: 

ABOUT THE EPISODE

We are honored to feature a sobering and impactful conversation with Mark Stanway, a seasoned professional in the construction industry, as he recounts the three life-altering seconds in 2015 when he fell from a ten-meter height. Mark reflects on the five missed opportunities that could have prevented his incident and emphasizes the importance of identifying and understanding hazards in work areas and ensuring control measures are in place. He also shares the devastating ripple effects it had on his family. Tune in now as Mark introduces practical risk-assessment tools that empower site supervisors to efficiently evaluate work hazards, promoting safer workplaces. Don’t miss this compelling episode that will leave you rethinking safety on every level.

READ THE EPISODE

Real leaders leave a legacy. They capture the hearts and minds of their teams. Their origin story puts the safety and well-being of their people first. Great companies ubiquitously have safe, yet productive operations. For those companies, safety is an investment, not a cost for the C-suite. It’s a real topic of daily focus. This is the Safety Guru with your host, Eric Michrowski, a globally recognized ops and safety guru, public speaker and author. Are you ready to leave a safety legacy? Your legacy success story begins now.

Hi, and welcome to the Safety Guru. Today, I’m very excited to have with me, Mark Stanway. He’s a freelance site manager. He’s also a motivational speaker on safety. He has some very powerful stories and examples to share with us, particularly around risk identification, risk assessments, and job sites. Mark, welcome to the show. I’m very excited to have you with me today.

Hi, nice to meet you, Eric. Nice to be invited on to the show.

Excellent. Maybe let’s start with your accident that happened. If you can reshare the story you shared with me originally, I think it was a very, very powerful story.

I was working off a scaffold fitting to a roof that we were refurbishing on a building in the center of Tot-mouth in a busy shopping area. I’d arrived on site the day before at approximately 8:30, having traveled for roughly three and a half hours. When I arrived on site, I a gang of subcontract roofers who I’d worked with before. They’d arrived on site at the start of the week. We were all subcontracting to the same roofing company. When I arrived on site, there was no site representative or site supervisor for the roofing company on site. There was no site office. There was nowhere to sign in or sign out. There was nowhere for site inductions to take place, nor was I site inducted. There were no RAMs for me to sign up to. There were no welfare facilities. On first inspection of the work area, I could see that the scaffold had been erected too high for me to fit the new Soffit board. I contacted the Contracts Manager for the roofing company. I’d known him for over 30 years. He answered the phone unbeknown to me he was on holiday abroad. I explained to him all the issues I had with fitting the Soffit board, and I said to him, if I removed certain scaffold boards, I would be able to gain access to fit the new Soffit board.

He asked me to proceed. Why is it as tradespeople, instead of refusing to do the work, we try to find ways to get the work done, often compromising our own health and safety, but even worse, compromising the health and safety of others. The access to the scaffold was from a balcony area. This balcony area was used by the public to access some flats and small businesses on this level. The ladders to the scaffold were situated in such a way as to wedge the scaffold gate in a permanently open position. The balcony area that the ladder sat on was covered in tiles. The tiles had a raised disk pattern for extra grip, but this raised disk pattern wasn’t noticeable as the whole area was covered in lichen. Lichen is an organic substance which is incredibly slippery when wet, a fact that I did not know. Had I known that fact, I might have checked that the ladders were secured to the scaffold, but I didn’t. It was part of the site supervisor’s daily pre-start checks to check that the ladders were secured to the scaffold. But that does not excuse operators from checking as well. We all have a duty.

Sure. When I first went up the ladders, for some reason, I looked down and I could see the metal handrail balcony below me. Further below that was a flat roof, and even further below that was a small concrete backyard, which is part of an emergency exit route for the premises below. I thought to myself, that looks a nasty form. But this messed the thought from my head and carried on. A few hours later, the site supervisor for the roofing company arrived on site. I said to him all the issues that I had with fitting the soffit board, but he showed no interest. He was more concerned about trying to source a generator for the hoist for the subcontract roofers. On the day of the accident, the weather was overcast. I contacted the with the project manager first thing in the morning as I needed to remove quite a few scaffold boards from the gable end of the building in order to fit the soffit. The subcontract roofers and the site supervisor for the roofing company were involved in the conversation. I as it would mean restricting access to this area. I was told to proceed.

At around nine o’clock, the weather changed, and it started to slightly rain. The subcontract roofers decided to go for an early breakfast, believing the weather would blow over. Before they went for their early breakfast, they asked me if I could start to fit the fascia board to one elevation so that they could complete their roof edge detail on their return. I stopped what I was doing and started to fit the fascia board. The rain became more persistent, so I decided to do some work at ground floor level. As I went to exit the scaffold, the next thing I remember was my father-in-law, crunching over me, saying, Mark, you can’t go. You’ve got to look after Debbie and the children, Debbie being my wife and my five children, Harriet, Georgina, Harvey, Millie, and Pip. But my father-in-law had died the year before. Perhaps I was about to die. I suddenly became aware of people around me and my clothes being cut off. This was the paramedics attending to me. This would have been approximately an hour after I had fallen. What had happened was, as I went to step onto the ladders, the ladder slipped, causing my body to partially cartwheel.

I fell approximately four and a half meters onto the metal handrail, impacting on the left side of my upper body, just under my arm pit. The impact caused ribs three, two, and three to explode, three and four to explode, fractured my shoulder blade and caused my left lung to start bleeding. As the impact continued, fracturing rib two, causing nerve and soft tissue damage, fracturing my collarbone. My neck then followed the impact, cushioned by my shoulder, followed by my head. My head being sliced open on the side, dislodging crystals in my left ear and causing a possible brain trauma. As the rest of my upper body impacted the handrail, ribs five, six, and seven, impacting at the side and where they joined the spine, my internal organs being squashed, my lung had suffered further damage, damage to my spleen, pushing my stomach up into my chest wall, trauma to my spine, further nerve and soft tissue damage. The rest of my body followed, and the unbalanced weight tried to roll me off the handrail, but the handrail was wet firmly under my left shoulder, and my left shoulder was now started to be torn off. The joint between the collarbone and sternum was starting to be torn apart, and the sternum itself has started to be twisted and distorted within the chest wall.

Somehow my shoulder freed itself, but further trauma was caused to my left arm. I fell just over a meter onto the edge of the flat roof, impacting on the right side of my body, fracturing rib eight on the right side and causing trauma to my large intestine. I then fell a further three and a half meters headfirst onto the concrete ground, impacting the concrete ground headfirst with the right side of my head, causing trauma to the right side of my head, possible brain trauma, dislodging crystals in my right ear, trauma to my neck, trauma to my right-hand. The accident had been witnessed by a dental technician, whose premises was some eight meters away from the scaffolded access point. They’d been alerted to the fall by the noise of the ladder sliding and the impact of my body on the handrail. They quickly told their colleague what had happened and then went to site to tell them. Their colleague, who was first trained, went to attend to me, but there was no direct access. She had to go down to the market square, out of the market square to the high street, down the high street to a cafe, into the cafe, through the cafe into their kitchen, to the kitchen area, through the kitchen area to the emergency exit area, to where I lay on the concrete ground.

The site supervisor for the roofing company, on learning what had happened, went to the balcony area, could see that the ladders had slipped, decided to push the ladders back up and secure them, and put all the scaffold board in that morning. The police had called for detectives to come to the scene as they believed my accident was going to result in a fatality. They called in the balcony area off and they asked who was in charge. The site supervisor for the roofing company said he was. They asked what had happened. He said that I’d fallen off the ladders, but they could see the skid marks on the ground that the ladders had made when they took their bath, asked further questions. The site supervisor eventually admitted what he had done and was subsequently arrested.

Wow. That’s incredible. One that you’re still alive from a fall of that height, but also all the attempt to cover up what had occurred.

It gets worse with the cover up because the company itself then went to the site before the HSE got there, and they started interfering with the scene. They changed the documentation. They removed the site supervisor as the person in charge and tried to shift all the blame to the roofers. There was an awful lot of deceit that went on instead of just honesty, which is terrible, really, because nothing gets learned on the accident. It doesn’t make you feel very good as a person because it makes you feel worthless.

So, your accident, tortuosity events, Tell me a little bit about the journey after because you got to the hospital, the impact from your life standpoint, but also the impact on your family.

I was taken to hospital via a helicopter. I don’t remember much of being in the hospital, as I first arriving in the hospital. So, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. The local place where I lived, I’d gone round to our house to tell my wife in person what had happened, as they believed I was going to be a fatality. Unfortunately, my wife wasn’t at home. She was in Ludlow, which is some 10 miles away from where we lived. The police had to ring my wife up. My wife received the phone call, and they said, hello, this is Lempster police. Your husband has had an accident at work. He’s been airlifted to hospital. We don’t have any further information. My wife started to shake from head to in shock, but I was over 200 miles away, and all she wanted to do was to see me. Stress, the strain, the anxiety my wife was feeling at that particular moment. She was unable to come to me straight away because we had three of our children at different schools within a 10-mile radius. One of our daughters was traveling back from the university at that particular point.

Our eldest daughter lived some four and a half hours away, and both sets of parents lived 60 miles away. She contacted my mother and asked my mother to contact the hospital, and my wife spoke to me later that day. She arrived at the hospital the following day with three of our children. That was Georgina, Millie, and Pip. Pip being our youngest daughter, who was only nine years old at the time of the accident. When Pip saw me in the hospital bed, battered and bruised with a mask on my face, she had a massive panic attack, and her mom had to take her out of the to try to calm her down. The day before, when my wife had told her what had happened, she stopped uncontrollably. She was very, very upset. She eventually managed to get her back into the hospital to see me. I told my wife for the events. Initially, the hospital was going to operate on me and reconstruct my rib cage. Without this operation, I would suffer a lifetime of pain. But after a few days, they decided not to operate and just wanted to send me home. I was on a machine that would self-administer morphine by the push of a button.

They made several attempts to try to take me off this machine, all of which failed. But despite this, they sent me home on the ninth of July, seven days after my accident. They sent me home with insufficient pain medication, no follow-up appointment, a letter to my doctor stating that I had multiple rib fractures and a damaged left lung, and no further medical advice. I’ll always remember the nurse that gave me that letter and the pain medication, the look of concern on her face as though she knew something that I didn’t. Were they sending me home to die? I had more than multiple rib fractures. I had a flail chest, the danger of which is it can compromise your breathing, and you can die. The hospital had failed to recognize other injuries that I sustained. Despite my complaints of pain, they chose not to investigate. On the day of my discharge, the ninth of July, at 12:35, they had a meeting regarding my discharge. My head trauma was brought up in that meeting, and they decided to put my head trauma in my discharge notice and to give me advice that should I suffer headaches, memory loss, or dizziness, to contact the emergency department straight away.

If you look at my hospital notes, all the time that I’m in there, I’m complaining of headaches. I’ll make it off. Which I’m told to expect headaches for the next 6 to 12 months. As I said, this meeting was at 12:35, but my discharge notice was printed at 12:18, so none of this information was ever entered into my discharge notice. The hospital that I was at was at the forefront of blunt thoracic trauma. That is a blunt impact to your upper those. The danger, which is you can develop pneumonia and die. They had developed a treatment chart based on a score. The score was calculated by the age of the patient, the number of rib fractures they sustained, and pain medication was considered. No matter how you calculated my school, there is no way that I should have just been sent home with no follow-up. Some years later, I would meet one of the consultants that sent me home, probably to die, and he would apologize more than once. The hospital would write a letter to me explaining that my injuries were potentially life-threatening, and for that reason, an operation would have been too intrusive.

Unfortunately, that meant I probably would suffer a lifetime of pain. Wow.

So crazy series of events even into the hospital because it’s already… You had gone through incredible fall. Was it 10 meters total in terms of the scaffolding?

It was approximately 10 meters. It’s the equivalent of falling from the top of the three-store building. That’s crazy. I mean, by right, shouldn’t have survived well.

You talked about when you started out, there were multiple events where somebody could have noticed something. In fact, I think you identified five times an opportunity that was missed that could have stopped the incident. Tell me a little bit about that and how we drive a culture, ultimately, where this doesn’t happen.

This episode of the Safety Guru podcast is brought to you by Propulo Consulting, the leading safety and safety culture advisory firm. Whether you are looking to assess your safety culture, develop strategies to level up your safety performance, introduce human performance capabilities, re-energize your BBS program, and enhance supervisory safety capabilities, or introduce unique safety leadership training and talent solutions, Propulo has you covered. Visit us at propulo.com.

That’s right, Eric. If you look, there was five opportunities missed to stop my accident from happening. I should have checked that the ladder was secured to the scaffold, but I either didn’t understand the importance of the ladder has been secured to the scaffold, but I didn’t understand the importance of the ladder’s being secured to the scaffold, or I couldn’t be They were bothered to check. The other cooperatives were using the ladders that day. Should have checked that the ladders were secured to the scaffold, they either didn’t understand the importance of the ladders being secured to the scaffold or they couldn’t be bothered. The site supervisor has a duty to supervise the work area, to review the work area, and identify hazards. Part of his pre-start daily checks were to check that the ladders were secured to the scaffold, which he didn’t do.

The ground was covered in lichen. He should have witnessed, should have observed that and dealt with it straight away. The ladders wedged the scaffold gate in a permanently open position. He should have realized that was wrong and had the ladders repositioned. The scaffolding company erected the scaffold access, not as per TG20, the ladders were wedging the scaffold gate open. They should have been at right angles to the scaffold. They should have also identified the issues with the ground covered in lichen where they were going to put the ladders. And the contract manager Instead of using site-specific ramps, used generic RAMs, failing to realize all the hazards that were around by putting the scaffold access where we did. It also had the scaffold erected without thinking about my task of fitting the new soffit board and compromising my health and safety in trying to fit the soffit board, balancing off scaffold tubes because there was no lift there for me to do it. Also, the issue, should somebody suffer an accident, getting access to them. Five opportunities missed to stop my accident from happening.

How do you make a shift from a cultural standpoint, where you’ve got multiple people that look the other way? How do you instill that impact? Obviously, sharing a story drives an impact. But tell me about a little bit in terms of how you could make a difference in that regard in terms of getting people to, as you said, either didn’t understand or couldn’t be bothered with it. How do you change that so that the right actions happen day in and day out?

Well, based on what happened to me, I developed a free-to-use app, shako.org.uk, which is all about people reviewing their work area. It’s designed for supervisors to review the work area. But the objective is everybody needs to review their work area to identify the hazards and to ensure there are control measures in place. If you have a hazard and you can’t eliminate the hazard, then there’s always the potential that hazard could turn into an accident. You have a control measure in place, but it doesn’t stop the potential of that hazard becoming an accident. And that’s what people need to do is to stop, stand back, look at their work area, identify the hazards, and to understand how the control measures need to be in place to try to stop those hazards occurring. A simple thing, if somebody using their tools and putting their tools down in a walkway, that’s obviously a trip hazard. If they think to themselves, oh, I’m going to create a trip hazard. I need to put a control measure in place, which is I’ll remove the tools from the walkway. You’ve eliminated it. And it’s getting that mentality over.

Because at the end of the day, the person most affected by my accident was my youngest daughter, Pip, who was only nine years old. Now, I’ve gone through a huge amount of trauma. I’ve been suicidal. I’ve gone through all these different events It was my choice to take a risk. But the person most affected by my accident was my youngest daughter, who suffered terribly. When I had my accident, as I said to you, that she started to sob uncontrollably. When she saw me in the hospital, she had a massive panic attack. I was eventually remitted back into hospital when I was discharged. It was on one of the days was her birthday, and she sent me a text saying, All I want for my birthday is for you to come home, Daddy. I have a picture that was taken a month before my accident of me and my daughter. It’s a lovely picture. It shows a bond between us, but it’s a bond I haven’t felt since the accident, nor do I remember before the accident. Imagine how dramatic that is for a nine-year-old girl to feel that her father doesn’t have that connection. But then it gets even worse.

For the first two years after my accident, every time I was in a room with my daughter and she would start to speak, I would just get up and leave the room. She would say to a mom, Doesn’t Daddy love me anymore? The reality was I couldn’t cope with the pitch of her voice. But how can she possibly understand that? And so, she spent over half of her life, nine more years of her life because she’s 18 now, suffering that trauma, trying to deal with the trauma from my accident. And that’s what people have to try to realize, is you may be the injured person. You may be the person that has the accident, but the ripple effect of the trauma of an accident in the workplace is devastating. And that’s why they need to review the work area, identify the hazards, and make sure control measures are in place.

And it sounds so simple, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard multiple layers like this of different people did not identify the hazard, not seeing the hazard. In some cases, you position it very well. It’s I’m either they didn’t see the hazard, or they didn’t recognize the impact, or they couldn’t be bothered. I think at the end of the day, it’s a compounding of all these pieces that leads to terrible events.

You’re quite right. The trouble is most of our health and safety is tick box. You can quite easily bypass it by tick box. I’m a freelance site manager. I give toolbox talks. If I just stop you work and give you a toolbox talk, you’ve got no interest in me. You don’t really want to listen to me. I’ve just stopped you earning your money. I’ve frustrated you, if anything. But if I walk around the site and I see you working in an unsafe manner, and then I stop you and ask why you’re working that way, and then you tell me why, and then I give you a toolbox talk explaining that way, I think that’s a better way of doing it, because then people are going to listen and learn from it. I think we do too much tick boxing, and we just need to get people to understand. The big first thing is to understand the hazards. If you can understand the hazards, you’re halfway there, and then it’s getting them to want to put the control measures in place. You have risk and method statements telling you how to do something, identifying the risks.

Now, who’s to say the person doing that risk and method statement is competent? They’ve come up with how they feel, which is a safe way of doing it. Now, if you’re a tradesman person, you say, well, I’ve always worked this way. I’ve always done things my way. Then that tradesperson needs to engage and say, well, I don’t think your risk and method statement is correct. I think you should do this. And they should have a discussion to make sure the way they’re working is safe. But at the same time as a tradesperson, before he carries out his job, he’ll be thinking, What tools do I need? What materials do I need? He’ll plan all that part. He needs to also start to plan his own health and safety. I think, oh, I need a bit of access. What access can use? I won’t stand on a book on a tin of paint. Actually, I’ll get a proper hopper, or I’ll get a small scaffold. They need to engage, and they need to want to engage. And it’s trying to get people to want to engage. That seems to be the biggest difficulty. And the only way I can really express that is to turn around and say, the ripple effects your accident will have on your family and loved ones, you can destroy their lives.

They can commit suicide from your accidents because of the trauma it’s caused them.

You said something else at the beginning of your story, I think that was quite powerful, is you said in the trades, you solve problems. There’s something around when you saw something that wasn’t right, you’re trying to find a solution to make it work. There’s also that orientation to solve because that’s what you’re doing, is solving problems day in and day out. But I think it was a very powerful statement, really, in terms of There’s a desire to find a solution as opposed to saying, not safe.

The trades people should turn around and say, It’s not safe. They should have the competence to turn around and say, I can’t do this safely. How can I do this safely? And contact somebody and say, I can’t do my job safely. If you did this, I could do it safely, as opposed to having to completely dismantle the scaffold and re-erect the scaffold. When I’m outside as a freelance site manager and I say, I’ll say to people, can you do this task for me? And they’ll say, I’m not comfortable. And I’ll say, why aren’t you comfortable with doing the task? And they’ll say, Therefore, I want a better access. It could be multiple things. And I’ll say, Okay, then. So, I’ll put that in place. Would you feel happy then? But some people will say, I’m just not comfortable doing the task. And I’ll say, That’s perfectly fine. I’ll find somebody else to do it. You must be comfortable doing the task. I appreciate the fact that you’ve turned around to me and said that you’re not comfortable. I wish more people would say that because they should do. If you’re not comfortable, don’t be forced into taking a risk.

Because the reality is my life-changing accident happened in three seconds. My daughter has lived nine years of her life in trauma from my life-changing accident. Three seconds has caused… It probably destroys her life. It’s certainly had a huge impact on her life. It’s had a huge impact on my other four children. It’s had a massive impact on my wife. Three seconds. Three seconds. It’s not worth it.

Three seconds and five opportunities to change the course. Five? Ahead of time. Yeah. I think very, very powerful story, and we’re lucky to still have you with us. Tell me a little bit about… You mentioned a tool that you’ve launched, increased that risk awareness, the risk identification, the risk assessment and job sites. Tell me a little bit more about how you’ve brought that to life.

What I was looking at was how could I possibly try to stop my accident, try to get a supervisor to realize, or for me to realize all the risks that there were, were the way that the ladders were positioned. There was the ground that was slippery, the ladders weren’t secured, the ladders were positioned incorrectly. So, there’s three opportunities there of things that were wrong straight away. I tried to understand that. I noticed if you I look at people that post pictures online of their work progress, and you actually look at the picture and start to look for hazards, all you’re looking is for hazards. There could be a control measure in place. There might not be a control measure in place. And then I started looking at photographs that people were advertising. Look at our business. And they were advertising. It’s nice action shot. It was showing work and progress and everything. But then I thought to myself, well, you’ve got hazards, and you’ve got no control measures in place. You’re saying, look at me, I want to say if we are. And then I looked back when I had my own junior company.

It’s an image I had. It was an image. It was up in Scotland, and it was a big timber frame building, a longnecks roof and everything. And I started to think but look at the hazards I’ve got on there with no control measures in place. So that’s what gave me the idea. So, my idea basically as a site supervisor on a regular basis takes a picture of their work area. It’s got to be their work area. It’s not a picture of the site. It’s not saying, oh, look at this on the side. It’s their work area. They’re trying to teach they’re fellow workers of what’s going on. To take a picture of their work area and identify five hazards. Identify the type of hazard it is. If there’s a control measure in place, they put a green thumbs up. If there’s no control measure in place, they put a red thorn down. And they put a brief description of the control measure. They do this on five occasions. If they find anything with a red thumbs down because there’s no control measure in place, they can take an action and deal with that. But they then see this as the people they are supervising in a form of a test.

It’s not a scored test. And it comes to the people that they’re supervising. They see an image of their work area with five hazards identified. When they select a hazard, it comes up with the option. It shows you the type of hazard it is, just a pictorial method, and with a green thumbs up or red thumbs down choice. And whichever they select, it doesn’t matter if they select with a green thumbs up or a red thumb down, whichever one they select, the picture then zooms in with the correct answer of whether it’s a green thumbs or red thumbs down with a brief description of the control measure. So, it could be there’s a brick in a walk. So, it’s a red thumbs down, brick and a walk, so it’s a trip hazard, remove brick. And simply by doing through pictures, because you remember 80% of what you see, compared to what I think it’s 20% of what you read. Over time, operatives to understand how their actions and inactions can create hazards and the control measures that need to be in place. The site supervisor also must take picture with five hazards in. Now, that sounds simple, but it’s not as simple as it sounds.

If you took a picture, for example, of a scaffold because you’re working off a scaffold, you’ve got a clear walkway because the platform you’re working. So therefore, the trip has it, and it’s a green thumbs up because it’s clear. You’ve got a double handrail, so that’s two falls from heights. So, there’s two more hazards, which is a reduced hazard because you’ve got the two handrails. You’ve got a tow board and a brick guard. There’s two more of materials falling off the scaffold. There are five hazards determined. If every scaffold that you went on during a working day was clear with all those pieces in place, imagine the number of accidents, potential accidents that you would stop. Because during the working day, you’ve got trip hazards all over that scaffold. You’ll have brick guards pulled off. And that’s the point I’m trying to get through is that people think, oh, something’s not right there because they’ve been learned through pictorial images. I need to do that. They feel that something’s wrong and want to adjust it. That was the idea behind it.

Which is huge because if you can get people to just find the hazards and do something about it, that’s a game changer in many cases.

It’s basically health and safety, isn’t it, really? The reality is it’s the hazard that’s causing the potential accident. If you put a control measure in place, you must have reduced the risk of an accident. Correct.

If somebody wants to more about your story or more about your tool, how can they get in touch with you, Mark?

They can contact me direct at [email protected]. But I do have a website that they can view, which is www.shakositemanagementservicesltd.com. On there, it shows all the articles I’m constantly writing on LinkedIn about various issues of health and safety. It shows a bit about my motivational speaking. It also tells me a bit about an accident, tells you about Shako. My wives also involved telling her side of the story because it’s all about a family to try to get that message across of the people who were affected by an accident in the workplace.

Because I think that’s a big part as well of recognizing, like you said, the impact is on yourself, but also on everybody around you in terms of how it impacts them, the ripple effects, so that hopefully somebody makes a safer choice, somebody stops the work, somebody recognizes and controls the hazard in the workplace. That’s correct, Eric.

That’s the main thing. It’s the other people. It’s not the injured person. I always say that I’m the injured person. I’m the person who suffered. I haven’t suffered. My head has probably lost it and I’ve changed. It’s the people around me. They are the ones who suffered. They haven’t had the trauma to the brain. They’re realizing what’s going on. It’s affected their lives.

Right. Mark, thank you so much for sharing your story to shift hearts and minds in industry around both the hazard identification inside, but also in terms of choosing to work safe, to stop something, as opposed to trying to find a patch, a solution to make the problem go away.

Thank you for having me, Eric. I appreciate that. To get my message over, that’s very good of you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you for listening to The Safety Guru on C-suite Radio. Leave a legacy. Distinguish yourself from the past. Grow your success. Capture the hearts and minds of your teams. Elevate your safety. Like every successful athlete, top leaders continuously invest in their safety leadership with an expert coach to boost safety performance. Begin your journey at execsafetycoach.com. Come back in two weeks for the next episode with your host, Eric Michrowski. This podcast is powered by Propulo Consulting.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Mark Stanway is a seasoned professional in the construction industry, boasting over 45 years of experience as a director of a carpentry and joinery contracting business, builder, and freelance site manager. His extensive background has given him a deep understanding of the industry’s intricacies and challenges.

In 2015, Mark experienced a life-changing accident when he fell from a height of approximately ten meters, which profoundly reshaped his perspective on workplace safety. This incident ignited his passion for health and safety, motivating him to advocate for better practices in the industry.

To further this mission, Mark developed a free-to-use app, shako.org.uk, that enables site supervisors to efficiently review and assess work areas, prompting safer construction environments.

As a keynote speaker, he shares his insights and experiences, educating construction workers on the importance of safety measures and accident prevention. Mark’s dedication to enhancing workplace safety continues to inspire change and foster a culture of vigilance in the construction sector.

For more information: https://www.shakositemanagementservicesltd.com/

Contact Mark Stanway: [email protected]

RELATED EPISODE

STAY CONNECTED

The Safety Guru with Eric Michrowski

More Episodes: https://thesafetyculture.guru/

C-Suite Radio: https://c-suitenetwork.com/the-safety-guru/

Powered By Propulo Consulting: https://propulo.com/

Eric Michrowski: https://ericmichrowski.com

EXECUTIVE SAFETY COACHING

Like every successful athlete, top leaders continuously invest in their Safety Leadership with an expert coach to boost safety performance.

Safety Leadership coaching has been limited, expensive, and exclusive for too long.

As part of Propulo Consulting’s subscription-based executive membership, our coaching partnership is tailored for top business executives that are motivated to improve safety leadership and commitment.
Unlock your full potential with the only Executive Safety Coaching for Ops & HSE leaders available on the market.
Explore your journey with Executive Safety Coaching at https://www.execsafetycoach.com.
Executive Safety Coaching_Propulo

Waking Up to the Dangers of Shortcuts: Powering Up Personal Accountability and Safety Ownership with Theo Venter

Waking Up to the Dangers of Shortcuts: Powering Up Personal Accountability and Safety Ownership

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE: 

ABOUT THE EPISODE

“It’s the buy-in. All the safety systems are there, but they are worth nothing without the buy-in.” Theo Venter, the only known survivor of a 22,000-volt electric shock, joins the podcast this week to share his powerful story and eye-opening message highlighting the inevitable dangers of shortcuts in the workplace. Tune in as Theo describes the psychological aspects that contribute to serious injuries and fatalities and unpacks actionable strategies for mitigating risk and powering up personal accountability and safety ownership in the workplace.

READ THIS EPISODE

Real leaders leave a legacy. They capture the hearts and minds of their teams. Their origin story puts the safety and well-being of their people first. Great companies ubiquitously have safe yet productive operations. For those companies, safety is an investment, not a cost for the C-Suite. It’s a real topic of daily focus. This is The Safety Guru with your host, Eric Michrowski. A globally recognized ops and safety guru, public speaker, and author. Are you ready to leave a safety legacy? Your legacy’s success story begins now.

Hi, and welcome to The Safety Guru. Today I’m very excited to have with me Theo Venter, who is an incredible inspirational speaker, but also one of the only people to have ever survived going through 22,000 volts through the heart and 1,200 amp. Unbelievable. Theo, welcome to the show. Glad you’re here. Why don’t we start with your story?

I am even more glad I’m here with you after hearing that what you just said. Sometimes when people say that it just is a different energy when I listen to it and I go, wow, I’m still standing here. Thanks for having me, Eric. Absolutely. I’ll just jump in if that’s okay. I’ll start a little bit further back. Born and raised, you might pick up a slight little accent in my voice, and I know it’s going to be hard to pick up, but it is from South Africa, the Spring rock country. Born and raised over there and then got opportunity to go to Australia and go and practice my trade, which was working on overhead power lines. I guess after about 10 years of working in the same industry, there was this specialized group that came in and they could work on live electrical power lines. So, you put these specialized big gloves and stuff on, and you put them on, and you can work actually on live power lines. So, I was very interested, went for the course and passed it. And then when I came to Australia, that was what brought me over because it was such a specialized trade. I was only here for six months when I set in my ways. My family came over for the last three months and we were now just settling into Australia. And it was a Monday morning. I woke up in the morning and it was just another day to me. I knew exactly what was going on. What was my whole week, what was it going to be? So, I got into my mood, and I jumped in, and I went to work and got to work. And the manager said to me, hey, Theo, he said to me something very strange that morning. He said, look, you got to go fix up this power pole outside of your normal work scope. And he said, I’m calling you in because you are the guy that gets the job done. He says, this is a really… There was an electrical storm. There was a lightning strike over the weekend. The pole got damaged. And he said, this thing is really badly damaged. So, I turned around Eric and I had this little ego boost, pep my stick.

And I said to, we have a three-man crew, I said to my boys, let’s go change the stuff on the truck and the Ute and get some other safety stuff on. And off we go to the Spell poll. And I remember doing a risk assessment that morning without my other two boys in there at the poll, and tick and flick boxes. You’re just a quick tick and flick and you’ve put a few things down. And I didn’t really, really, I wasn’t invested in that. And when the boys came in, we set up and started working on this pole. And my best mate, very good mate of mine, his name is Niko. He was in front of me. He started working on these live wires. And about half an hour in, he got really frustrated. And he said to me, he said, I can’t get this nut off this little 12-millimeter nut. I don’t know if you guys call it three quarter.

Probably.

And I said to him, look, you must be tied. Let me have a go at it. And as soon as I stood right in front of this, and I’ve got to describe it. We’re standing 11 meters in the air. There’s a big steel cross arm in front of me. There are three insulators, which carries the three phases. And I remember, I couldn’t see where this nut sits, and I couldn’t feel it because of the gloves. And I knew that I’m the guy that gets the job done.

Right. You had heard that just before.

Because that just boosted my ego with this thing. And you know what it’s like for a young man.

And I guess at that stage, I thought if I could only put my fingers in there and could feel how this nut sits, it will be like a two second thing. I’ll just quickly put my finger in there, feel where it sits, get a socket in, and undo this nut. And I had a quick glance behind me of Niko, my best mate talking to the safety observer downstairs. And he didn’t look at me. And I went and I put my hands between my knees, and I started taking my gloves off. It was such a convenient choice. It was so easy. It was just a convenient choice. And when I put my hands in between my knees to start to take the gloves off, not for a single second did I even consider how many times they told me not to do it.

How many times in a meeting have they told us don’t do it. If it’s unsafe, don’t do it. In that minute, I was so focused on getting this job done that I didn’t think about it. I started pulling my gloves out, and the moment my gloves released out of my hands, I could feel the cold sweat on the wind, chillie wind. That moment, I had this massive gut feel. Have you ever done a bit… It’s just about to do something really stupid and you get this big feeling in your gut that something is going to go wrong? That moment when I got that gut feel, it was such a strong feeling that I paused and I went, oh, that is a real feeling. Then I was standing there for a couple of milliseconds, and I thought, Man, it is so convenient. It’s so easy. It’s right in front of me. I can just get you. Of course. So, you override that gut feeling, and you go in and you took it out. And I put my hands on that nut and everything was fine. I did it. The nut came off in about five seconds.

I was so happy with myself that I was standing back with a bigger smile on my face. And the next minute, the insulator now undone started moving and it was pure instinct. I had my right wrist on the steel cross arm and with the insulator a little bit to my left, I just grabbed it with my left arm, my left hand, and I didn’t know that there was that exposed section of that 22,000-volt line. And that moment I stuck my hand straight into that line, which made me just a little fuse between draining 22,000 volts, 1,200 straight through my heart, straight into the down to Earth.

Unreal.

That moment when that power took hold of me, it was like a truck hitting me at 100 Ks an hour. It just hit me and every muscle in my body, I remember feeling every single millisecond. I knew exactly what was going on, Eric. I was thinking about so many things, but I couldn’t do anything. It was just stuck on there. And I just stuck. And it was about two and a half seconds, which in electrical terms is a long time a lifetime. It’s lifelong. I lost consciousness. My knees gave in. I think my right wrist slipped off that steel cross arm and my lifeless body hit that bottom of that bucket. And that was the end of my life as I knew it. That was my last moments as I knew my life.

So, you went to the hospital. We’re blessed to still have you here. Tell me a little bit about the aftermath, the ripple effects, what transpired. Your family had just arrived three months prior.

Yeah. You see, what electricity in specific does is when you get hooked up, it creates a like a thousand degrees Celsius and it boils your blood inside your body. So, your soft organs, your heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, everything starts to boil up. And because of that, by the time they took me back to hospital, I was lying in that hospital bed, and I remember the last nurse, she was standing around my bed. After they stitched me up and bandaged me up and put all these tubes into my system with antibiotics and painkillers and stuff like that. And just before my wife walked in, she looked at me and she didn’t say much. But she was looking at me. I had eye contact for about 10 seconds, and I just realized that I’m going to die in his bed. I’ll never forget this moment when we’re just looking at each other, not saying a word. And she walked out, and I realized I know I’ve been in this industry; I know that the infection sets in and in a day, maybe, and you will die. And I remember my wife walking just after her. And as we were talking, she’s begging me not to die because we made this agreement that I was going to. And then I could hear my little princess is only five years old. She was outside and she was screaming and begging for her Daddy. And my two boys, I’ve got three kids and they were crying and begging. And I said to the doctors if they could bring my kids in and just give me a last chance because my kids just wanted to hug them and say goodbye. The doctor said I was so bad. I smelled so bad, and I looked so bad that, please don’t let the kids see you like this.

So, I made the decision not to say goodbye to my kids that day, that moment. And that was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. I went into that night. You just count those seconds down and you know what goes through your mind the most is what made me take that shortcut? What made me choice? Why did I do it? Was it worth it? Was it worth taking that nut off? Was it worth putting my life on the line? When do you get so desensitized? What stage in a workplace, work site does you get so desensitized that you don’t even think about those material risks, the things that can kill you? And it just kept on spinning over and over and over in my mind. It was about five days later when they did tests on me and said, Theo, you’re going to make it. And during those five days, the only thing I could think of is knowing I was going to die was if someone could give me just one day with my family, one perfect day, one perfect day. It’s all I wanted, just one perfect day. And now when I stand in front of audiences, I’m asking them, have you ever thought of your own specific, personal perfect day?

What would it look like? Who were you enough with? Where would you go? Sure. They started surgeries. They removed all the dead tissue and tendons out of my arms that was dead because of gangrene. I went through 17 surgeries in the first just over a month. Every second day I had a surgery. They wanted to amputate my arms; they could save them. And then I was in hospital for quite a few months when I left. But then when I went home, it became worse because I went in there and my friends didn’t recognize me. I was now estranged from my wife. I was away from… The pressures on a relationship was just sky rocketing. I was in a dark room sitting there the whole time with severe pain. I had to depend on everyone to feed me. My hands didn’t work at all to help me wash, to wipe my bum, to do all these things. And I think about a few months in, depression kicked in and severe depression and anxiety. And it wasn’t long after that when my suicide thoughts were very real. That was the darkest ever. I’ve seen life in my life before. It was the darkest times.

I have to ask you, you know doing work around electricity, around high voltage, gloves are what blocks you from direct contact with the ground, becoming… Taking the energy down to the ground. You’re supposed to test your rubber gloves, in most cases every day, to make sure that there’s no fault, no challenge with the rubber gloves. Have you ever done anything like this before?

That is such a great question, Eric. Those gloves that you’re talking about, and it sounds like you know exactly what it was because those gloves are sacred to everyone. You take those gloves and you put them in a very soft pouch, and you do a pin test every day and you make sure that those… Because that’s the only thing that keeps you away from the beast. To answer your question, I want to go back one week before my incident. Just one week.

Sure.

The Wednesday before my incident, we were standing. There was about eight of us, nine, 10 of us on a site. There was a power pole very similar to the one I was on. And there were two guys working up on this pole in an EWP in a bucket on a live line. And there was about six of us on the ground level. And it was about, I think, two, three hours in, maybe 10 o’clock in the morning when I was standing back from this pole to see how the guys going up there. And the one guy, as I looked up, the one guy didn’t have his gloves on. And I screamed. I screamed. I blew the whistle. I said, whoa, mate, you forgot your gloves. You haven’t got your gloves on. Because that was the cardinal sin. It’s like, you don’t do that. You forgot about it. The guy turned around and he looked at me downstairs and he laughed at me, and he said to me two things which I’ll never forget. He said, Theo, don’t ever tell anyone what you just seen and don’t ever try it yourself. This guy took his gloves off to do some work around the live power line.

Never seen it, never done it. Cardinal sin. No one should be doing this, right? Right. Two days later, I’m sitting in a safety meeting, the manager comes in and he closes, slams the door, closes. We about 100 of us sitting in a room. He starts the meeting, the safety meeting, off by everyone. He says, This doors are closed. This is a safe space. Everyone, please, could you talk to us about safety out there? Can you talk to us about is there anything that we can do better? Is there anything you want to bring up that people don’t do that safe? And the more he said these things, the more there was these 10 pairs of eyes right in the back of me waiting for Theo Venter to get up and say something because he’s the guy that gets the job done. What did you do? You know what I did?

Nothing.

Nothing. Couldn’t do it. Could not get up and say it. Could not. For some reason, I couldn’t do it. When my accident actually happened was that moment when I walked out of that room that day. I couldn’t bring it up. That’s where my incident happened because that was Friday afternoon, two days later, Monday morning, I was on a power pole standing there not knowing what to do with this thing. Then I remembered this guy last week that took his gloves off and he got the job done. And that is it. That was me. That was the incident right there. In other words, short answer to your question is, I’ve never done it, never seen it. First time I’ve done it. You know what? The guy that took the shortcut last week, must probably done it 30, 40 times. He always got away with it. It’s never the convenient choice. It’s never the shortcut that you take. It’s an unforeseen thing that happens while you’re taking a shortcut. It’s an extra thing that comes into play, that thing that no one knows about. You can get away with those shortcuts, but one day something is going to come up while you’re taking that convenient choice.

Which is what happened then. Something slipped, something moved. Unfortunately.

Yeah. This episode of The Safety Guru podcast is brought to you by Propulo Consulting, the leading safety and safety culture advisory firm. Whether you are looking to assess your safety culture, develop strategies to level up your safety performance, introduce human performance capabilities, re-energize your BBS program, enhance supervisor safety capabilities, or introduce unique safety leadership training and talent solutions, Propulo has you covered. Visit us at propulo.com.

So, it gets me to think a little bit about culture. What was the culture like? You talked about you get the job done. So presumably getting the job done is what was celebrated in some way, shape, or form. Others were blatantly cutting corners, at least one other person, on a cardinal rule. If you’re working next to any energized current at that level, you should never touch, not have the right gloves.

What was the culture like?

There was quite a number of things that came into perspective at that stage. There was the fact that because we were so new in Australia, we were still on a bridging visa, which means, you know where this is going, right? So, if you can do your job and you do it well and you can do it for long enough, you stay and you get your permanent residence. I didn’t come here to go back. So, there was a bit of pressure on… And please understand me very well, this is not excuses. These are things that was in place. I own 100 % what I did. 100 % I did. And that will always stay the way. But there was a bit of pressure on getting the job done. And in those days, they said to us in the cultured sense of things is look after your mates. Please go out there and look after your friends next to you, your brothers and sisters right next to you. Make sure everyone is safe. Do you know what I did in that meeting? I was looking after my brother. I was making sure he doesn’t get in trouble.

Yeah, because it’s reconstructing, which I’ve seen too often, what brother’s keeper means to protecting someone as opposed to protecting them from harm.

Yes, thank you. I was protecting my brother’s keeper by not saying anything. We’ve got a broke code out there and you don’t stab your brother in the back and that thing. So that was the culture because we were all in the same boat. We were protecting each other, and we wouldn’t do anything to hurt another guy. So that was, I think, the ground foundations of this culture. What they didn’t tell us at that stage, which after my incident for the last 10 years now, I’ve been searching for the reason why we do these things, regardless of the culture, regardless of whatever, why do we as individuals take these shortcuts? I went into behavioral science, and I went into all kinds of things that came up. Yes, there’s a lot of factors that make sense about all the other sciences, but there was one little thing that really got me in that moment when I just about to take my gloves off. Remember that real feeling in my gut? That really, it was in the back of my mind so long. What was that? I went and studied it. And this is pure biology, and I’d love to share this if that’s okay.

Absolutely. These are the things that just make so much more sense if we can teach our people and our people on our mine sites and our construction sites and these things. This basic concept is that we’ve all got a biology, we’ve all got a new cortex, a frontal cortex brain. It’s called the big brain in the front of your head is the one that calculates, it analyzes the path of least resistance. It speaks language and it understands, and it reads, and it writes, and it does all these things. That’s the part of the brain, if I say, calculates the path of least resistance. In the workplace, the path of least resistance, the easiest way to do, the most convenient way to do something is a shortcut. When we send our people to these work sites in the morning, we give them… They’ve got pre shift meetings and they need to do procedures and there’s swims and there’s all these things. And then they go out in the field, and they calculate all these things. And then they get to a place where they need to use a ladder, or they need to use something else. And this brain is so big and so powerful in front that I have now been working this brain, and I’m now taking the shift instead of the hammer because the hammer is too far and it’s not convenient to go there. And when there’s an incident, what do they do? They come back and they do the risk of the incident investigation, and they come, and they give you more procedures to go and read. So, they make the brain even younger.

There’s a little brain at the back, which they call the limbic brain. Now, this is the most amazing piece of little artwork that we have. And that is the brain that has got emotions and creativity. It deals in all these things. That’s the little part of the brain where safety gets unlocked. That’s where safety sits. When you feel unsafe, it’ll put chemicals into your body and say, watch out, there’s a snake, or whatever it is. That is the part of the brain that sends the signal to your gut. Have you ever heard of these people that needs to make a decision, oh, I don’t know if I need to go to the to use my head or my heart? Those are the two brains. Unfortunately, I don’t want to disappoint most of our listeners, but we don’t have a feeling in our gut. Sorry. That part of the brain sends that signal to your gut because it knows the gut is such a strong overpowering thing. So, when I put my hands between my knees, that little brain sent it in and said, don’t do it, Theo. Don’t do it. But I haven’t trained that brain.

I didn’t have the tool to understand and trust and respect that trust, that gut feel to go and listen to it and stand back and to say to my mate next to me, hey, Niko, does this feel right to you if I do this? I bet you wouldn’t have said no. But because of the frontal cortex is so strong, it will overpower that brain every single time. And if we could give our people out there just that little training every two, three minutes in the morning just to understand and trust that gut feel, that limbic brain, then they’ve got at least a chance of fighting against each other and say, I trust my gut. I will not do it. Last thing I want to say is, do you know how many people I spoke to that I said, have you ever had that feeling just before you get something done that you shouldn’t be doing it? Everyone goes, yes. Then I said, and then you do it anyway. They go, Oh, yes. That’s it. That’s a start anyway. But nearly everybody who’s been on our podcast who shared who’s been injured talks about that gut feel, a reaction just before. Almost unanimously, somebody has this feeling just before, but they still march forward.

That’s the golden nugget, isn’t it? I’ve been giving out little 12-millimeter nuts in every single presentation I have done to every single person. There must be about 250,000 nuts on key rings out there. I call that your gut feel, your why, your reason, your gut feel. At least there’s something they can hold on to sometimes, or they see it on the key ring, and they go, wow, I remember that. I trust my gut. I trust my feelings.

Let’s get to the topic you touched on before, which is getting to a perfect day. When you talk to audiences, you present your story, you get them to think about that perfect day. So, tell me about how you convey that message, because that’s also the decision you want people to reflect on before you take your gloves off, say, Is it really worth it?

Yeah. Eric, there’s six points that I highlight throughout my presentation if we want to get a little bit technical. They are there for a very specific reason, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an electrical industry or ice cream industry or the construction industry or whatever it is. These six points are the things that will take us forward. It’s personal development. Safety is a product of personal development. What we do is we count our mistakes. We count how many incidents and injuries we’ve had last month. And then we go this month, and we say, oh, we screwed up so many times last month, but this month is so much better. Wow. Because we only injured five people. And then next month, oh, we went a little bit worse. Instead of trying to stay away from… The human brain is amazing. Why not think of something good? Why don’t show people what good looks like? Give them something to aspire to. So, what I’ve done to Teams is after my presentation, when they are very much involved in their limbic brain and their feelings and emotions is out there, I will go into a session which I call the mission statement or whatever you want to call it.

It is to ask them as a group, as a team, what is the perfect day for them? And then we’ll write it on the board. They want respect and honesty and openness and all these things. And then I give them a sentence, we create a world in our industry that open and honest and through positive communication and these things. So, I show them what good looks like. I show them their perfect day at work. And then when they get in tomorrow morning and we ask them, is everyone is still aligned to your perfect day? In other words, we picked their value up and aligned it with the company values. Now that value is there. And when you think about something that you want to aspire to, which is good, then it comes naturally that you want to help your friend, your brother’s keeper. Those things just fall into place instead of trying to run away from the bad things and not let bad things happen. If I tell you there’s not a pink elephant behind me, it’s already in your mind. You know what I’m saying? It’s already there. So, if you tell them that that’s what your perfect day looks like, and I’ve done this to so many teams before, the culture which we touched on earlier switches immediately because now we’re looking at something great.

Let’s touch on another topic that you cover as well in your talks around ownership and accountability, which is important theme. You’re talking about your personal ownership in the circumstances, but there’s also the ownership, the accountability of leaders. Tell me a little bit about how you present this theme.

Yes, very important. I tie that into my presentation and my story as what I’ve said earlier is before we left my home country, I made a very stern agreement with my wife and my kids, people I love most in life. And I said to them, I will make sure that this agreement is that we will go over there and live a beautiful life. But I broke my agreement when I took my gloves off. And when I broke that, I had to own it. I remember my dad always said to me, if you can speak the truth in your vulnerability, you are within your power. I could not do anything else but speak the truth to everyone and said I did take my gloves off and I own it and I broke the agreement with the people I love most in life. Now at the end of the presentation, when I say, keep your agreements, that’s one of the six points. When you make an agreement with someone, if it’s a pre shift meeting in the morning or with your life, your kids, personal or work, if you keep that agreement, you become the proudest person in the world because of what you’ve done.

That creates accountability and ownership because you are now accountable for you, and you know why you do it because that’s what you want to keep. You want to keep, and you want to be a proud person in the world. That starts to form an accountability program, which in the morning you go back to, and you go, all right, is everyone still aligned with our perfect day? Can we make an agreement that everyone will go out there and conform to the regulatory authorities? Make sure that everyone is safe out there. And now we aspire to something good, we make the agreement that keeps you accountable for that. And then they will go out and look after each other because we are twisted and turned from going back to something what good looks like. I know it sounds a little harsh and quick right now, but I did write a book about it, me and Ken, so you can go and have a look at the book. It’s much better.

Very important theme. One last question, if I may. You touched on it briefly. You talked about rules, so cause evaluations, we find what happened, we create a new rule. And I agree, rules do need to exist. Rules are important. Safety at the end of the day is about adherence to rules. But you touched on something that’s really important is it’s not just about the rules. Because when you’re alone, and in this particular case, you’re pretty much alone because your friend wasn’t looking at you, so you didn’t really have a peer check. You need to buy in. You knew this was not the right thing to do. That was a cardinal rule that’s ingrained if you’re working next to a 22k V line. What does it take to drive the right choice? Rules are important, but you touched on something that’s really important here.

You just said it. It’s the buying. Our industry out there has now for the last 100 years, less than 100 years, fine-tuned our rules, our procedures, and from government side all the way down, it’s been there, and it will always be there. All the rules, all the systems, all the safety systems are there, but they are worth nothing without the buying. Absolutely nothing. And we need to create buying to these rules to understand and to give the people out there the chance to believe in the systems. Yes, I agree with you. They are important. They need to be there. I 100 % fine. But how do we create the buying? How do we get the guy downstairs, the 18-year-old just getting onto a site, or the guy that’s been there, that’s 40 years old. And I don’t know about your statistics, but the 40- to 45-year-olds in this country is the guys that get injured most because they think they’ve seen it all and then they get complacent and that’s one of these and convenient. So, the buying to these rules is absolutely paramount and we need to find a way how to get our people to buy into it.

I think I’ve broke the code and I know how to do it and I’ve seen, and I’ve proven that it can be done. Once you create the culture that supports the buying and everyone inspires to do something that is out there and that good looks like as a team and some camaraderie and your brother’s keeper, all these things come into play and the whole culture starts to shift. And that’s a beautiful thing to see. I’ve seen it many times before.

There’s somebody who was in the trade who told me once, and I don’t know if it’s true, but he said all the rules when it comes to electricity were written in blood. But if you follow all the rules that exist, there’s no reason to get seriously injured or to die. That basically, we know the universe of what we need to do. It’s just we need to actually consistently do it even when we encounter hookup issues, challenges.

True, true words. 100 % true words.

Yeah, love it. Theo, thank you so much for sharing your story. It’s a very powerful story. I still can’t wrap my head. I’m happy and thrilled that you survived 22 K Vs, 1,200 Amps. It’s surreal. But thank you for being here, for sharing your story. Incredibly powerful message. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, how can they do that?

I am just about to embark on a world tour next year. So, if you want to be part of that world tour, you can find me at theoventer.com. So, it’s Theo, my last name is V E N T E R.com. You can find me there. I’m on Facebook and Instagram and all those sites and everything else. Also, on LinkedIn at Theo venter, so you can catch me on LinkedIn. Look out for me coming around maybe your area. I will be around the Canadian areas and all the way down. So, looking forward to coming and make a huge impact. If it’s only a presentation, that’s fine. I’ll come and inspire your team to walk away. But I also do a lot of other stuff in between as well. Coachable leadership training and those things.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Theo. Really appreciate you taking the time. I know you’ve got a big day in front of you in the outback, which is going to be considerably colder than summer up here.

Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Cheers. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Safety Guru on C-Suite Radio. Leave a legacy, distinguish yourself from the pack, grow your success. Capture the hearts and minds of your teams. Elevate your safety. Like every successful athlete, top leaders continuously invest in their safety leadership with an expert coach to boost safety performance. Begin your journey at execsafetycoach. com. Come back in two weeks for the next episode with your host, Eric Michrowski. This podcast is powered by Propulo Consulting.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Theo Venter is the only known survivor of a 22,000 volt electrical shock through the heart and shares his amazing story with audiences across the globe. When he removed his insulated gloves while working on a damaged transmission pole, he made a decision that would impact himself and his family in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

But why would an experienced liney make what hindsight would tell you was such a poor decision? Theo captures the precise moment he puts his insulated gloves between his knees and removed his hands. He shares his thoughts, his feelings and more importantly his motives leading up to the exact moment of impact. Co-Author of “Get Real: Staying Alive For A Living” and “Convenience Kills”, Theo is a seasoned veteran who will assist your Managers and Leaders and every Member of your team, to truly understand the ‘real’ psychology of incidents—with first-hand experience.

Theo will make you discover something about yourself you didn’t know. About your innate human nature. That although taking risks is normal and inherent in every human being, you could potentially be the next fatality at your workplace. That’s why it’s important to talk about it and bring it out in the open. By allowing Theo to share his story, people are impacted in a way that they are reminded of what can go horribly wrong when they take a shortcut.

For more information: https://www.theoventer.com/

STAY CONNECTED

The Safety Guru with Eric Michrowski

More Episodes: https://thesafetyculture.guru/

C-Suite Radio: https://c-suitenetwork.com/the-safety-guru/

Powered By Propulo Consulting: https://propulo.com/

Eric Michrowski: https://ericmichrowski.com

RELATED EPISODE

EXECUTIVE SAFETY COACHING

Like every successful athlete, top leaders continuously invest in their Safety Leadership with an expert coach to boost safety performance.

Safety Leadership coaching has been limited, expensive, and exclusive for too long.

As part of Propulo Consulting’s subscription-based executive membership, our coaching partnership is tailored for top business executives that are motivated to improve safety leadership and commitment.
Unlock your full potential with the only Executive Safety Coaching for Ops & HSE leaders available on the market.

Explore your journey with Executive Safety Coaching at https://www.execsafetycoach.com.
Executive Safety Coaching_Propulo

Making Safety Simple with Steve Howe

Making Safety Simple

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE: 

ABOUT THE EPISODE

Steve Howe, motivational speaker and Safety Director at Emil Anderson Group, joins The Safety Guru this week to share his powerful story with us. He suffered a serious injury at work in 2006 when an excavator bucket struck him through his abdomen. Steve shares insights surrounding motivations behind shortcuts, the crucial influence that supervisors possess in truly promoting a safe culture, and practical ways for safety leaders to make safety simple. Drawing from his personal journey and rich experiences, Steve makes safety concepts relatable and easy to understand through emphasizing that safety should remain everyone’s responsibility. Tune in to learn, be inspired, and make safety simple with Steve Howe.

READ THIS EPISODE

Real leaders leave a legacy. They capture the hearts and minds of their teams. Their origin story puts the safety and well-being of their people first. Great companies ubiquitously have safe yet productive operations. For those companies, safety is an investment, not a cost for the C-suite. It’s a real topic of daily focus. This is The Safety Guru with your host, Eric Michrowski, a globally recognized ops and safety guru, public speaker, and author. Are you ready to leave a safety legacy? Your legacy’s success story begins now.

Hi, and welcome to The Safety Guru. Today I’m very excited to have with me Steve Howe, who’s the safety director at the ML Anderson Group. We’ll get into a little bit of background in terms of what they do. He’s also a safety motivational speaker. Incredible background, incredible story. Steve, welcome to the show. Really happy to have you with me.

Thanks for having me.

Why don’t we start a little bit about your story? Because you had a serious safety event that happened to you, and now you’re a safety director. So, I’m really curious to hear about your journey or story.

Yeah, sure. So, 2006, I was operator and tree faller for an organization, and we were widening the highway from Vancouver to Whistler for the 2010 Winter Olympics. And that day, went to work, it was just like any other day, and was asked to do some free falling. And the shorter version was I was asked to do a machine assist with an operator and myself. And I asked for a certain operator. I didn’t get that operator that I wanted and basically told the supervisor this isn’t safe. I need one of these other people to help me. The supervisor essentially said, if you don’t like it, there’s the road, use it. And I ended up dropping my gear and was leaving. I got to my truck and for some reason I grabbed my cell phone. I don’t know why I grabbed my phone, but I grabbed my phone and there was a picture on my screen. It was my girlfriend at the time. This is where my mind played powerful tricks on me. I went, Steven, 15 days I have a car payment due, truck payment due, mortgage payment due, all those things of life that we all have.

Sure. I ended up convincing myself that I needed to do this job. I went down the hill, talked to the operator. We had our plan put together. Essentially, all I had to do was just put undercuts in these trees, back cuts, and have an excavator push the trees over parallel to the road while the traffic was still moving. We got about 5, 10 trees on the ground so far. And then we get to the last tree. I haven’t got to fall in my life. And I put my undercut in, put my back cut in. I got in my safe still, and her thought it was my safe zone. And I gave the operator the hand signal to push. He started pushing the tree over. And instead of committing and pushing the tree down to the ground and following the next sequence of events, which would be picking up the tree, deck the world, the stamp, etc. He ends up turning the machine back towards me. And for some reason, the bucket comes flying towards me and hit me in the stomach. As it hit me in the stomach, it ended up dragging me the full length of the machine. And as I’m screaming and saying stop, I noticed my legs are now separating from my body.

Wow.

From there, the paramedics were called. You think about, or I used to at least when I was 22, that thought all these emergency drills and procedures were a joke and tell you need them. Right. Because of those procedures, I’m probably here today. So, they called for a helicopter. The helicopter came, picked me up, got me seven minutes after the helicopter landed back at Vancouver General Hospital. And that’s where the journey really started. I went into an induced coma for several weeks. Then I started to come out and then they put me back in an induced coma because apparently, I wouldn’t survive the pain that I guess I was in. And over months and months and months and months, they started doing rehabilitation surgeries of trying to put my legs together with all the organs and everything that had been ripped out, trying to repair that stuff. Then probably about six, seven months in, I got transferred to GF Strong, which was a rehabilitation hospital where I was left with not being able to feel my legs. But they were there.

That was, again, a win to me in my mind that I could still see them at least. Then we started trying to just figure out life being in a power wheelchair. We muscled through that. The employer that I was working with asked me if I wanted to come back to work. I said, yeah. They said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to be a project manager. They said, well, can you at least get some schooling behind you? Because I actually only had grade nine at the time, I dropped out of school, which don’t promote that very often. So, I did that and ended up having to do safety as a side thing so that I could work during the day, being a safety guy and then at night do schooling to be a project manager. I did that for four years. While I started doing that, I worked on, I think it was $2.9 billion bridge in Vancouver as well, and finished my degree in structure management and told my company, said, hey, I’m ready to go into project management. And they said, Yeah, right. You’re doing too well. And so that’s the beginning of me being into safety.

And ever since then, I’ve been leading across Canada, United States, being a safety director now for email Anderson Group for the last years. And that gets you too today.

And email Anderson, just for those that are listening, broad organization, 10 different business units. Can you share a little bit of background? They do infrastructure projects roads. Tell me a little.

Bit more. Yeah. E mail Anderson Group is made up of 10 different business units from residential, commercial, big infrastructure projects. We got one right now we’re doing in BC that I think it’s around $600 million. One of the most challenging jobs in the province right now. We also do traffic control, landscaping, and paving, and maintenance as well. So, we’re very diverse.

Very diverse. So, your story is a very powerful one which you share. You’re now applying a lot of the principles. When we first talked, one of the themes that you touched on is really around motivations attached with shortcuts, why we work safe. Tell me about some of your exploration, some of the thinking in this space, because I think that’s an incredibly important theme.

Yeah.

So, one of the things, again, when you’re sitting in the hospital for that long, you have lots of time on your hands and you’re trying to figure out what went wrong and just trying to just under grasp this whole thing. And over the years, and it’s been years to figure this out, but I started to think about the decisions that I made every single day at work. And we’ve all heard the words, short cuts. And I took tons of short cuts in my life for sure, up to this point as well. And realizes that there’s motivation is attached to every shortcut that we take as humans. And some of them are easy ones. F or instance, some of us are just lazy that day, or it’s time management. We’re just trying to juggle so many things, or we’re striving from that attaboy from your supervisor manager. There’s a whole bunch. But the ones that it came more apparent, I would say, in the last four or five years, the significant role or influence that our supervisors and managers have on our front lines. I didn’t… Huge. It’s huge. And I didn’t totally grasp that. And as I’ve been doing motivational safety speaking around North America, I’ve been doing this little skit that it actually shocked me how well it’s worked and to show the effect of this.

And what I’ll do is I literally will pick someone out of the crowd, and I’ll say, I’m the superintendent, you’re the guy that works for me. And I’ll literally just say, Okay, we have to get these two sticks of pipe in the ground today because the rain is coming the rest of the week. It’s on the critical path. It needs to get done today. Do you understand what I need from you? And I’ll ask these crowds from 200 to 5,000 people. And I’ll say, Guys, what did I just say to that? To Johnny. And they all say, oh, you told him to take shortcuts. Oh, you told him to do it at all costs. You hear all these things. And the crazy thing is I didn’t say any of those things, but what I learned from all of this is that’s what they all here. They all heard that, and they all heard their own message that they perceive. And that’s when the real aha moment came because I realized up to this day and before, the number of conversations where my supervisor would say, you only have today, or it’s got to get done today, all those other things we’ve all heard. And all I heard through that message was safety doesn’t matter anymore. It’s got to get her done. And the reality is this, too, is again, being a worker before, nobody goes to work every day wanting to disappoint their boss and let them down. And so, if I believe that’s the most important thing to them, then most likely I’ll probably tend to do it. And so, I used to think that that is what’s most important to him because of some of the things he said. Now, hindsight is 2020. If literally he had that same conversation and I would say, hey, Johnny, but I don’t want you to compromise your safety. Can this still be done today? All I’ve done is add a few extra words, but now I went from a message to a black and white.

It’s very crystal clear. I do want it done today, but I don’t want it at all costs. And so, from that test kit, I’ve done that around, like I said, North America. I actually had this one individual supervisor. I didn’t know he was a supervisor at the time. He stormed out of the room. It was in Alaska, actually. He stormed across the room, out of the thing. I still have like half an hour to go. In the back of my mind, I was like, I can’t believe this guy is that something else. That’s that important. I just flew all the way here and you just leave like that. Again, that’s where my mind went. A gain, tried to forget about it and kept working or speaking and the meeting concluded and all of a sudden, he pops back out the door or in the door and he goes, hey, man, I’m so sorry that I had to leave. He goes, that just struck a chord with me. He goes, I just told the guys before I went to this meeting, he said, hey, I have to go into this safety meeting. I need six more sheet piles in the ground today.

And he goes, But I didn’t want them to compromise or save you. I didn’t want them to do anything that could hurt you. And he goes, But I don’t want them to think that based on what I told them. And to me, I was just like, Wow, full circle. It really works.

I think that’s an important point because it’s also a theme. I remember I was talking to one executive who had moved into safety, and he shared how at some point in his career, he had this realization that all he was recognizing people for was getting the job done, working overtime, things of that nature. He just took for granted that they were doing it safely. His reflection was like, All I’m saying is get it done, and you’re never hearing me say, Thank you for a specific behavior around safety. Thank you for something in terms of making a safe choice or stopping work or doing something that puts safety at the forefront.

Yeah, for sure. The other part from this, I learned, still staying on that track with the motivating some of the short cuts, is what you say or don’t say as a supervisor and manager. And I use this story a few times in my career. But right now, I have an eight-year-old and 11-year-old daughter and a beautiful wife. And they’re at the age now where they’re starting to verbally attack each other to the point where it’s almost too much. And it is, it’s too much. And I’m in the room watching this happen. And it made me think, if I don’t say anything, what message am I sending to my daughters? Because we know it’s not right. And so, I have to say something. But made me think about it. What if I didn’t say anything? What message did I send them? And to me, the message would be that it’s okay. And so, what line that I use is what you permit as a supervisor or as a father, you promote. And so, if you apply this back to work, if you’re a supervisor manager that sees people not tied off and they see that, then inadvertently you’re promoting that that’s okay.

Yeah, it’s a safety rule. It says that, but it’s okay to you. And so that was the other part where you could see how it influences the decisions you make. You get to the time management, you want that, a boy from him. He clearly doesn’t care and doesn’t speak up when he sees me not doing the right thing. So, it must be okay. That, again, helps influence the decisions you make as the boots on the ground.

Or even peers that see that you didn’t say anything, see it as you’re allowing it, you’re promoting it, you’re saying.

It’s okay. Correct.

I like the point you’re making there because I think one of the pieces, we often assume is safety. If I want to really drive a difference, it needs to start at the top. And yes, absolutely, senior leaders have a very key role. But the supervisor is the one who’s interacting day in and day out. And in my opinion, they’re the one that has the greatest impact into the decisions that their teams make.

No, I agree. Again, just thinking back to those days when I wake up and go to work, I’m sure I’d see a top manager, CEO, maybe, maybe in once or twice in my career. But the guy that I see every day was my supervisor. And again, probably even people that will be listening today have been in the trenches before and would know that one leader in this world that you looked up to, that you would run through a brick wall for. That person had so much influence in my life, and it wasn’t the top CEO because he can’t be. They had 55,000 employees. He couldn’t be everywhere. But that supervisor was there. And so, to me, he was the most influential person. And like I said, I can’t be the only one that thrives to have those out of voice, those affirmations and things. There’s more than just me that want that. And where are you going to get him from is probably from him, if anybody.

Absolutely. Or he’s going to tell you to hit the road, which is not the right thing to say. No.

This episode of The Safety guru podcast is brought to you by Propulo Consulting, the leading safety and safety culture advisory firm. Whether you are looking to assess your safety culture, develop strategies to level up your safety performance, introduce human performance capabilities, reenergize your BBS program, enhance supervisory safety capabilities, or introduce unique safety leadership training and talent solutions, Propulo has you covered. Visit us at propulo.com.

One of the things that you advocate and that you bring to life as a safety director is around making safety simple. I think that’s often forgotten. People get into these complicated elements. Tell me a little bit about what making safety simple really means to you and how you bring that to life in an organization like ML Anderson.

Sure. First and foremost, I got to say it again, making safety simple. It has to be easy, or people won’t do it. That is probably my biggest pet peeve that I see and hear is, and we’ve all probably heard it, there’s the famous buzzwords. We think a buzzword changes our safety culture or the next flavor of the month initiative. And the reality is our people aren’t stupid. They know that’s just the flavor of the month or the next buzzword. It doesn’t make them safer. And truly, what it does is it just creates white noise and distraction. That’s all it does, in my opinion. So, we’re trying to make it simple. And we’ve gone back to the basics. I got to him on this in three years ago. And again, elementary basics. And to me, well, one, if anyone’s into charts and graphs and those things, statistically, we have just phenomenal dropped off the charts for injury rates and stuff and ER ratings and stuff. Incredible. For anyone that can, those experience ratings, we were all at surcharges in all of our CUs. They’re know all in discounted positions. Anything you want to quantify, we have it.

And again, it was the starting beginning foundation was making safety simple. We also do… Everything is paperless, so it’s at their fingertips. It doesn’t matter if you’re at work or at home, they have it on their cell phone, ready to go, the whole OHS program platform at their fingertips, and they use it. That’s probably part of our most important thing, keeping it simple. The other thing that we were really focusing on is what we’re doing right versus the negatives and recognizing people for doing things well. And if you think about it, as humans, most of us have been trained or it’s embedded in us to just go look for all the things that are wrong. We’re there to fix problems. And it’s not like we typically go to school to say, Let’s go find all these positive things about somebody. And so, it’s actually pretty tough to do. But one of the things that we do, like I said, is we try and find, and this is our formula, is for every one negative, we have seven positives. And so, whether it’s in our meetings, we bring positivity. We have, for instance, a safety calls every week.

Again, there might be one or two negative things in there, but there better be 7 to 14 positive things that are going well and we’re doing shout outs. And again, praising people. And someone probably wants to know how we came up to the formula of 7 to 1.

Yeah, for sure. Because I’ve heard 5 to 1, I’ve heard 6 to 1, I’ve heard 10 to 1, now 7 to 1. And I think it’s less about the ratio.

Truly, it’s more about that there should be more positives than negatives at the end of the day, right?

Correct. And a lot more, not just equal.

Leaps and bounds more. So, we’ve used that. And then I try to, again, bring it back home as well. And I have a little… Again, I love my family stories, but my daughter, she’s 11. And one of the things that is a challenge is cleaning her room. It is a challenge to convince her to do that. And I tried the old standard way of nag and telling her all the things she’s not doing right. And I’m not trying to take things away from her, et cetera. But it’s not getting me very far, which clearly, I know for other people it’s probably the same thing. But one of the things is I tried to apply this same positive to negative ratio at home. And I noticed that she cleaned her room this one day and I said, hey, honey, I just proud and thank you for cleaning the room. What a good job. And we gave her some details of the things I noticed that she well-organized stuff. And lo and behold, it happened the next day. And then it happened again. And again, every day I’m continually recognizing her for it.

But what I learned from that is what gets recognized gets repeated. And so, to me, it’s the same thing as at work. If you go up and you observe someone in a trench and instead of just telling them all the things that are wrong there, find something positive to say, the better chances of that being repeated the day after that and the day after that. So that’s one of, I think, the things that we’re really pushing these days is this recognition piece.

So where did that ratio, the 7 to 1 ratio come from? You touched that in a little bit. I think from a reader standpoint, from a listener standpoint, I think it’s good to have the reference point because you’ve got an interesting data point.

Behind it. There was a couple of guys that put me on this, but there was an article from the Harvard Business Review that they said that they found that 6 to 1 was the right ratio for the best performing teams out there. We’re always pleased but not satisfied. So, 6 was good, we went to 7. I always have to exceed. I think this is an important message. The doing more recognition versus calling out things that are bad, I think is key. One is it gives you permission to actually call somebody when they’re doing something not right because otherwise, you’re just nag, saying negative things because now it feels more balanced. I agree with what you’re saying. It also gets you to do more of the things you want to see. One of the struggles I’ve seen with leadership teams, also with craft employees, is craft employees, actually, just the other day, it was a session I was in, and they were saying, I don’t want some leader salivating some fake recognition that they learned from a workshop or a book. I think there’s some merit to this one. I think I’ve also heard from some leaders saying, why should I praise somebody for getting their job done? So, tell me a little bit about how you drive that right ratio, because I think that’s key. And getting leaders to see what I should recognize is really important.

Yes, great question. Part of this, I would say, and I think I just want to touch on one more little piece on that, to just tile into it is why is this important. And if you think about there’s lots of us listening right now, including myself, probably you Eric, we all have a spouse. And think of the last time that your spouse pointed out something that was wrong. How did that make you feel? Did that motivate you? Did it make you not want to do it again? Because if that worked, then we’d all have perfect marriages. Right? it doesn’t work.

But think of the times when you actually were called out by your spouse for doing something positive and they recognize you for it. And how much did that motivate you to want that feeling in the end? To me, there’s no difference. And so that’s why I think if we’re trying, we need to find ways to motivate our guys, it’s easier to do it by recognizing than just trying to call them out because, again, that system is not working. It doesn’t work, in my opinion. The second part, how we’re trying to promote it and say it is, it needs to be genuine and sincere and directed through that person. Tying the shoelace, yes, might be not a great example. But one thing that we’ve learned is not everything’s wrong. If it was, we would have nothing built. Everyone would be in the hospital. So, there’s a lot of good things going right. It’s just harder to find them because, again, we’re so wired to just find the bad things. And so, finding that genuine, hey, one of our meetings we have is a CSI meeting, continuous and safety improvement meeting, and there’s pulling that guy that’s facilitating that meeting to say, hey, I really liked about this two things you touched on and how you tied it back to a certain subject, etc.

It’s very genuine, it’s sincere. You’re pointing out the specific things. It’s not just good job. That doesn’t go very far. It might for the first time, but it doesn’t. I would actually just tell you this before we got on here. I actually just had this exact same, AHA. I tried to be completely honest, I was just trying to speed up time because I was really busy. Yesterday, it was Farm Shore Day at the farm, and my daughter, she did really well. She cleaned the one side of the property, raking, did the horse manure, the chickens, the goats, everything. She did it all. It was amazing. Didn’t have to tell her thing. And I just wanted to recognize her, and I say, good job. And so, I said, hey sweetheart, you did a great job today. And you know what she said to me? Yeah, Dad, what part did I do good? And that’s when it just struck me again. Again, that was just too generic, not sincere. And so, I had to actually point out the things that she did well. And then you could tell that it made such a big more difference to her that I recognized her for the right things. So, I’m still learning this as we go as well.

Absolutely. But it doesn’t need to be complicated. It doesn’t mean you need to put big dollars around it. It doesn’t mean there’s a prize that comes out of it.

It’s genuine, sincere, as you said, but very tangible. It’s a behavior, something that maybe isn’t expected, that maybe isn’t the norm, but you’re going one step and beyond. But not necessarily you transform the world. Correct. I think that’s the elements. People are looking for that big, I went, and I ran this project and I transform all these things, etc. And then you get the out of the white. But if I’m hearing you correctly, it could be something simple.

Very. You nailed it. Very simple. Because also those things create ripple effects, too. They grow. And all of a sudden, you’re sending that recognition to those workers, those workers then recognize other people. And it just keeps… And again, to me, it’s the culture we’re trying to breed. And like I said, it just grows. And I’m seeing those fruits of that right now, three years in. And honestly, I say that every safety call we have every Monday, almost the whole organization jumps on that call, at least safety leaders and some of the foreman and all the way up to the CEOs on the call every week. And that’s one thing I said is so proud of this group because the amount of positivity that’s going, again, it’s cheap. It’s not expensive.

It’s not expensive. It’s simple. It’s a desire. It’s setting an expectation, like your 6 to 1 ratio. Whatever ratio you pick, it’s that you’re trying to find more positive things, and they’re happening. In every organization, they’re happening. As you said, otherwise, you wouldn’t be building bridges. You would be visiting a hospital every single day, if there were more bad things happening than there are good things happening. Correct. It’s interesting because I was working with a very good leader not so long ago, and one of his stories was really he struggle with that idea at the beginning in terms of coming up with more recognition. Then when he started doing it, he started seeing a shift. And like you said, then soon enough peers were starting to recognize each other and say, well, since we’re talking about recognition for a safe choice, can I share some of my own that I’ve observed? And then it starts spreading because now we’re not just looking at the things that are bad, we’re also looking at what we’re doing well and wanting more of it.

That’s awesome. So, I had one other one for the safety simple. It should not be a new concept to anybody. I’m not creating something new that nobody knows, but it’s this whole concept of why I work safe. I’ll start with myself. We probably all heard that slogan before, but I’ll try to give you what the meaning truly means to me and tied it all together is, after having this event, you realize what’s important in life and what isn’t. And ultimately, it’s my wife who is the cornerstone of my life. The girl who was in that photo in my picture 16 years ago was her, and we’re married now. I make smart, right choices every single day for her because I need to grow old with her, and I’ve committed to her that I’m never going to choose work over her again. She is first in my life. But it’s also my daughters. I work safe so that the arms and legs are still working and continue to work. Because, again, the pictures are so much bigger for me now as I know they’re both going to get married one day, and a part of their wedding is their dad walking them down the aisle and the Daddy Daughter Dance and all those things.

Again, before I got hurt, work was my life, my everything. Now it’s completely shifted and now work is important. I love work, but it’s not everything. It’s not the meaning of my life. Same with my hobbies. We all have hobbies that are listening today. A gain, I still love to hunt and fish and snowmobile and dirt bike and stuff. But those are the things I want to do. But the difference is I’m doing it because I want to know because I have to. That’s the hugest thing in this is that I get challenged lots on this. And they said, well, I don’t really get your goofy why I work safe thing. I’m just a compliant person. And the problem with compliant people I’ve learned is this, they’ll always do the right thing when everybody’s looking. But when nobody’s looking and you know, you won’t get caught, what decision will they make? The difference I find is people that have those whys in their life, the things that mean everything, it’s harder to make that wrong choice because there’s so much more at stake. And so, to sum that up, that when you find your why, the families, the hobbies, those things, you create meaning. And when you create meaning, you create purpose. And then you realize that all those things, the safety procedures, policies, all that stuff really just keeps all the pictures, the things in your life HD in here. But until you understand that safety is annoying, it’s in the way, it’s frustrating, I make more money. But because you’re missing that whole “WHY” component to it. That’s the whole reason why we do what we do. A gain, very simple concept. The other thing I learned, and it was pretty cool, I can’t remember his last name, but I remember Butcher’s last name, but he’s a very well-known speaker, Simon, I think. Simon Sinek? Yeah. One of the things that he, again, I always had this belief, this idea, and he just reaffirmed it for me is he was talking about the whole why, et cetera, in business, et cetera. One of the things he commented on that he did this study that the part of your brain, the lymphatic part of the brain that controls your decision making, your behavior, it can only change your behavior with emotion. And so, to me, that’s the piece that’s your why, the emotion part that you want to be here for your kids.

You want to be here for your spouse. You want to go fishing again or whatever makes your life whole. And so, it’s just neat to see and reaffirm my beliefs that they’ve scientifically proven the only way to change human behavior is through emotion. So, I thought that was fascinating.

It is. And I think it speaks as well to leader being comfortable speaking about them why for safety because they’re asking somebody else to do the same. I think there’s some elements there on vulnerability and being able to share it, but then eliciting that reflection on your why. So maybe share some thoughts in terms of some of the approaches that you do use to bring the why and to get your team members to think about the why day in and day out.

What we do is we either create… We get the craft to submit their photos and we either create and or we’ll do stickers on their hard hats for some reason. Craft guys love stickers and hard hats. So, the kids or somebody, I just had to make one the other day was a Cowboy’s fan. So apparently, he’s working safe for the Cowboys. But everyone has their thing. But what he does, it also makes it personal. So, when you see somebody doing something unsafe, it makes it personal because there might be a picture of that guy’s daughter or his wife. How can you not want to say something? That’s their why. So, to me, it just makes it personal at all levels. And then again, back to the vulnerability part, when our supervisors’ managers are doing the same thing, hey, our managers put one boot or one pant leg on at a time. They’re just the same as us. And even all the way up to our CEO. And I know our CEO has two kids and loves being with them. And so, I need to speak up if he’s doing something wrong. It doesn’t matter what level you’re at.

And so, to me, just, again, back to that simple concept. It’s very simple. We all have those same things, and we need to do it right for yourself, but for them and for the people in their life. Because again, that’s something else I learned from all of this. The ripple effect that was created because of a decision I made became waves and affected my friends, my family, just everybody because of one decision that I made.

Steve, very powerful story. Your story in terms of the events that you had, but also in terms of how you’re applying it to drive safety within the organization. Really powerful. Thank you for coming to the show and sharing your story. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to reach out? There are a few ways. You could go to safetystevehow.com, or you can also go to Keynote Speakers Canada or Keynote Speakers USA.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Steve, for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome.

Thank you for listening to the Safety Guru on C-suite Radio. Leave a legacy, distinguish yourself from the pack, grow your success, capture the hearts and minds of your teams. Elevate your safety. Like every successful athlete, top leaders continuously invest in their safety leadership with an expert coach to boost safety performance. Begin your journey at execsafetycoach.com. Come back in two weeks for the next episode with your host, Eric Michrowski. This podcast is powered by Propulo Consulting.

ABOUT THE GUEST

With over 18 years in the construction industry, Steve Howe understands the daily hazards faced by workers and why safety is often viewed as an impedance.

In the spring of 2006, while working as a young tree faller on the Sea to Sky Highway project in British Columbia, Steve suffered an unimaginable injury.  Despite the feeling that something wasn’t right that morning, Steve pushed forward – as many would – to get the job done. Unfortunately for Steve, this decision – to ignore his gut – resulted in being struck by an excavator bucket through his abdomen and being dragged for several feet.  It was the beginning of a drastically altered life.

He was told he would never walk again, and it almost broke him. However, throughout his many days in the hospital. Steve had a chance to reflect on his journey and muster the courage and strength to challenge his projected outcome. Steve believes fiercely that we control our destiny. We have the choice to speak up when things don’t feel right. We have the choice to stop someone from engaging in unsafe acts. We have the choice to do the safe thing every time. Not only at work but in our day-to-day lives. So, he decided to choose a different path and after years of dedicated work, he is now able to walk again.

Steve shares how at 22 years old, he felt invincible. Sure, he had heard stories of workplace injuries, but it would never happen to HIM. Sadly, this belief, shared by so many workers, is what ultimately led to his accident.  By reflecting on his injury and drawing on his experiences working in the field of safety, Steve has found what he considers to be the keys to success in preventing all workplace injuries. A goal that he believes to be 100% obtainable.

Living through 83 surgeries, 90 Days in a Coma and over 500 days in a hospital allowed Steve the opportunity to reflect on his accident and he developed a passion to share his story with others. His message of survival, emphasizing the importance of working safety not just for yourself but others around you, has been heard all around the world from Vancouver to Australia.

As a safety consultant, Steve travels across the Country sharing his story and inspiring audiences to trust their gut.  And reminding them that he used to live to work but now he works to live.  This keeps what’s important – his family, his health, his life – at the forefront of every safety decision he makes today.

For more information: https://keynotespeakerscanada.ca/speaker/steve-howe/ and https://safetystevehowe.com/

STAY CONNECTED

The Safety Guru with Eric Michrowski

More Episodes: https://thesafetyculture.guru/

C-Suite Radio: https://c-suitenetwork.com/the-safety-guru/

Powered By Propulo Consulting: https://propulo.com/

Eric Michrowski: https://ericmichrowski.com

RELATED EPISODE

EXECUTIVE SAFETY COACHING

Like every successful athlete, top leaders continuously invest in their Safety Leadership with an expert coach to boost safety performance.

Safety Leadership coaching has been limited, expensive, and exclusive for too long.

As part of Propulo Consulting’s subscription-based executive membership, our coaching partnership is tailored for top business executives that are motivated to improve safety leadership and commitment.
Unlock your full potential with the only Executive Safety Coaching for Ops & HSE leaders available on the market.
Explore your journey with Executive Safety Coaching at https://www.execsafetycoach.com.
Executive Safety Coaching_Propulo