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#43: Roadhouse and Dr. Phil
73 Plays6 years ago
Podcast series host Jill James speaks with Jason Lucas, creator on #SocialMediaSafetyMinute. Today, Jason is an experienced safety professional who’s served in a few high-risk industries. Jason lives in the field, with the workforce, every day. He’s also a prolific content creator across social platforms, known for his characteristic authenticity. When he made the career-defining move to occupational safety, his first approach was that of the classic “Safety Cop”. Along the way, he learned the difference between building relationships and building walls. You’ll learn how Jason’s early experiences inform his personal, candid—and super successful—approach to our social media safety community.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. Episode number 43. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Jason, who is a safety professional in the oil and gas industry and is also the content creator of the Social Media Safety Minute. Jason is joining us today from Houston, Texas. Jason, thanks for being a guest. Oh, thank you so much for having me on, Jill. I really enjoy these.
00:00:40
Speaker
Well, you and I have been going back and forth for a couple of months talking with one another through LinkedIn. I was intrigued by some content that you had written about being a safety cop.
00:00:59
Speaker
I remember that. Yeah, and it got my attention. It got my attention. So if people who are listening are thinking, how do we find these guests? And sometimes it's exactly like that. I read something, it catches my eye, and I'm like, this person seems interesting, and I want to talk with them. So I appreciate you being on the show. Oh, it's my pleasure. I think this is going to be a wonderful conversation.
00:01:22
Speaker
Great. Jason, as we do with everyone, I'm interested to hear your story. How did you get into safety? How long you've been at it? What's your path?
Jason's Entry into Safety
00:01:35
Speaker
I got into safety by accident. Sorry, that was just a joke. We have so many puns with that.
00:01:43
Speaker
You know, it was a decision that I made. I had a friend that did not like wearing his fall protection correctly. He liked to keep leg straps real loose. He felt like it was uncomfortable when you had them tight. At this time, I was in project management in the oil and gas industry and dealing with large turnarounds and things of that nature. And my friend who liked to wear loose leg straps fell from a structure.
00:02:12
Speaker
And the leg strap moved into an area that is very personal and ended up getting injured. And I was there. I heard his screams. And when I heard that, I said, you know, I could probably help in this industry a little bit. I think there's more that could be done to keep people safe. And I should have done my job better at making sure that he did that. And from a safety role, I could do that a little bit better.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, and so I went to my boss at the time and I asked him if there was any room in safety. Could I roll from project management into safety? They thought that was a great idea. And so I rolled into safety at that point and very abruptly became a safety cop.
00:03:00
Speaker
It took me a little bit of time to realize that that path was not working, that being a safety cop was not getting anything accomplished the way that it needed to be accomplished. Yeah, so Jason, when you say you became a safety cop, and for many people listening, some of us know that well, some of us have either experienced it or have been ourselves. So what did that mean for you? How do you think you were a safety cop?
From Safety Cop to Coach
00:03:26
Speaker
I was so set on enforcement. I was so set on people trying to find what people were doing wrong.
00:03:37
Speaker
I didn't focus ever on what they were doing right because I was only focused on what they were doing wrong. That's what I zeroed in on. And I have a little thought process that I like to share, which is what you're looking for, you're going to find. I was looking for the problems and that's all I was finding. And I was really abrupt. I was very short and I was not
00:04:02
Speaker
a very nice guy in relation to enforcing these safety issues. Do you think that Jason, some of that maybe came from the fact that you witnessed your friend having a pretty tragic event happen to them and that one adjustment could have made things better, right? Do you think that drove some of your passion early on?
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, it did. And it wasn't just that. It was also fear because, you know, I was not the safest guy in operations. And so, you know, one, were they going to take me seriously when I got into safety? Two, you know, were they going to listen?
00:04:45
Speaker
because they didn't make me do unsafe things. So they knew that I wasn't the safest worker. So I think I felt like the enforcement really pushing it in the front side would make them listen. And instead of building relationships from that standpoint, I was building walls, I think.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense in hindsight, right? Absolutely. How long did it take you to figure out the safety cap stick wasn't going to be, wasn't going to be effective? Well, Joe, I'm a slow learner.
00:05:23
Speaker
It took me probably about two years in a conversation with one of my supervisors that refocused my efforts. The supervisor said, you know, Jason, if you would take some time to listen to what they have to say, they're really good at what they do. And they actually give you some ideas on how they can do it safer. And then you won't have to be looking and finding ways you'll know. And at first I was like, who are you to tell me how to do my job? I don't know how to do my job.
00:05:55
Speaker
And then when I, when I sat back and thought about it a little bit, he was right. It was, it was definitely something that I needed to do to build trust, build those relationships. And it took time. I mean, there wasn't, I didn't immediate, it wasn't like one day I was a safety cop. The next day I was making content on LinkedIn about how we need to build relationships or anything. Yeah, right.
00:06:18
Speaker
But I mean, it's a really good example of that of that adage, you know, get out of your own way. Right. Yes. Absolutely. And as soon as you figured out how to get out of your own way and and and listen. Yeah, that's that's that's magic. That's where the magic happens. Yeah, it made all the difference in the world. And, you know, I think that kind of.
00:06:41
Speaker
Wrote from safety cop over to the safety coach, I guess To where it was like, okay, let's look at these opportunities for improvement But at the same time let's look for something positive to share with them as well Let's coach them up on the things that they need to be Coached up on and and let's praise the things that need to be praised and then it took a little bit of time to
00:07:06
Speaker
it's kind of been more recent that I've rolled into more of a from safety coach to safety mentor, which is, you know, trying to expand that even further to people that may not be directly related. Yeah, business. Yeah, right. So you went so you so your your growth was the cop to the coach to the mentor. Yes. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So what's the difference between a coach and a mentor, do you think?
00:07:34
Speaker
Uh, coaching is that's, that's more of a hands on. I'm out in the field boots on the ground, uh, coaching the guys up on how they can do what they do better. Mentor is let me, let me tell you how you can do what I do a little better.
00:07:53
Speaker
And so it's not just safety professionals that I would attempt to, that I do attempt to mentor. It's also going to be guys in the field that are interested in safety. You know, people that are still going through college to get, you know, safety degrees. Yeah, just really trying to pour into the industry as a whole and in the world of safety.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense.
Career Path and Industry Transition
00:08:20
Speaker
So in your career path then, when you got that first safety job after you were a project manager and you asked to have a role in safety, was that in the oil and gas industry back then? It was. It was. Okay. Okay. And so have you stayed in that field your whole career so far?
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, actually, I've really been dealing with refineries and plants and just oil and gas as a whole. Majority of my career, I've done upstream and downstream both sides of it, but it has been, majority of my safety career has been that. I did some consulting that kind of took me out of that a little bit into market and manufacturing. That wasn't necessarily related to oil and gas, so that was fun.
00:09:09
Speaker
got a whole new way of looking at things when you get into manufacturing that's not necessarily the same as oil and gas.
00:09:16
Speaker
Right, right, right. So you said you were the safety cop for two years and then did you make a job transition somewhere around then to a different place of employment? Yeah, actually I was probably right around that time that I started making job changes along with it that would better utilize me as a safety coach
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, then as a safety cop, I think that there was a. I think there was a desire for me to be a little hard nosed at the first company that I was at because of the issues that they were having. That was their expectation was that safety was going to be very hard nosed as my mindset started shifting. I wasn't.
00:10:00
Speaker
quite as welcomed, you know, by corporation-wise, you know, from the standpoint of that you're not doing what we want you to do as safety. We want to know what people are doing wrong. We want to know it now.
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah, right. More of a punitive approach. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So what did that second job look like for you? That was actually my first consulting job. So I kind of moved into operations along with safety consultation duties. And I had
00:10:34
Speaker
It was pretty interesting because going into manufacturing and dealing with problems that have already occurred and how to fix them for the next time, that was probably my primary duties was to fix a problem that maybe OSHA had already been called. Somebody had come out and helped prep them for the investigation that was coming and put some things in place to make sure that they were prepared
00:11:04
Speaker
For the next time ah yes, okay So what was what what do you remember about that time that sort of was like whoa? I didn't expect that in manufacturing. You know something that was you know so different than what you knew of oil and gas
00:11:22
Speaker
You know, oil and gases, they're like every plant or every refinery is like a mini OSHA. They all have their own, they are so centered and prepared on safety rules and regulations that sometimes people who work within these companies or within these refineries, they will
00:11:43
Speaker
They're so strapped down with safety rules and regulations. They sometimes think that it's not necessarily that refineries rule, but it's an OSHA rule because a lot of mistakes of like, well, OSHA says, no, no, actually OSHA doesn't say that. OSHA says this. It's internal. Well, this refinery says do it, so we're going to do it. Yeah. It's not an OSHA thing. And then rolling into consulting in a manufacturing world,
00:12:12
Speaker
was a whole different animal because they didn't have those things in place. So, you know, you can always tell that just driving down the road and look at a roofing company. Not roofing companies, but you know, that's the primary thing we see. Construction-wise, the safety people when we're driving down the road are like, oh, wow, what are they? Why?
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, fall protection scaffolding. Yeah, I mean, it's hanging right out there for our eyes to observe and see. Absolutely. And so you see those things and you're like, how could they possibly do that? If you're coming from a mindset of oil and gas and working in these refineries, you're like, where is their culture? They have no safety culture.
Building Trust in Safety Management
00:12:51
Speaker
Well, they may not have any knowledge, actually. The lack of culture just may be a lack of knowledge. So moving into the manufacturing world, there were a lot of things that were just
00:13:02
Speaker
Low-hanging fruit those I was pretty surprised by yeah, right, right, right Yeah, I bet been there done that And it's and it's you know, it's kind of like starting it's it's often starting over or starting fresh Making no assumptions about what people know first of all and starting there before you can even talk about something like a culture and
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think that you have to come in there with a fresh mindset and you have to be willing to listen to what they do know before you start making assumptions of what they know.
00:13:35
Speaker
Right, right. So you stuck around consulting for a while and then did you come back to oil and gas or how did that work? Yeah, I came back into oil and gas with the crane company. I did a short little stint with general contractors and working on some different smaller projects, you know, corrosion under insulation projects where I would be able to contractors from a safety standpoint. Yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
things like that. And then I rolled into, because I guess I had impressed some folks with my consulting work, I ended up getting hired to one of my former consulting clients, a crane company, and I went to work for them direct and started in my life in the crane world. That's an intense industry.
00:14:24
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Especially if you come in with your only knowledge of crane operators or they're the only ones allowed to sleep during the turnaround.
00:14:38
Speaker
and that's your sole knowledge of it. It was a bit of a learning curve for me going into that industry. I knew how to set up in PQF pre-qualification sites and things like that, but actually learning what they do and how they do it and why they do it the way they do it, that was a big learning curve when I first got on.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, so how did you teach yourself about crane safety? Did you take a class somewhere or how did you do that? I took it upon myself to be mentored by people there and not just be a mentor to them about safety, but allow them to mentor me about how the crane industry worked. I took some time before going in and making a bunch of changes. I tried to build
00:15:25
Speaker
relationships first like okay you know I'm not gonna make any changes until I know exactly what they do why they do it this way and build those relationships and then I'm gonna utilize them kind of as a focus group to see what changes need to be made how we can make them the most effectively and then start working towards making those changes.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah, right. So you've mentioned previously when you had been coached to be a listener and to do a little more introspection and now you're talking about this part of your career where you're taking time to learn from people and I 100% agree with that. I've practiced that my entire career as well where you're asking employees to
00:16:09
Speaker
Tell me about your work. Tell me how you do this. Show me how you do this. Teach me about your craft. And it is really powerful. But maybe talk more about what that's done for you professionally. And for people who are listening who are like, I don't even know how I'd start doing that with someone. Can you talk about that process?
00:16:31
Speaker
No, absolutely. I always try to remember that God has given us two ears and one mouth. So if you listen twice as much as you speak, you'll learn something. And so you have to get out there. You have to get out to where the work is being performed. You have to sit with them for a little bit. You have to listen to problems that may not even be related to work. It may just be a personal issue that they just need to get off their chest, but you have to be willing to listen to that.
00:17:00
Speaker
and show a little bit of empathy with what they're dealing with. Because a lot of the work that we take a look at as safety professionals, it's not easy work. And we're hindering them by putting additional PPE on them. And there's so many other things that if we found just maybe a more comfortable piece of PPE, that would make their life easy. And maybe if you just listen, they can tell you, you know what, these gloves, I can't even feel anything. I can't get any grip with these gloves.
00:17:29
Speaker
feel the parts, you know, and you're like, wow, you know, let's take a look at some other gloves. Let's take a look at some other, you know, options, some other avenues. And when you build that relationship, when you take that time to listen to what they're struggling with, they're going to be more apt.
00:17:52
Speaker
Right, right. And I think those are really good tips for people who are just starting out in the job or are really young and you're trying to build your credibility. To be that listener first and ask those questions and show me and teach me how you do this can really be empowering for your work too.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah. And I, you know, there's kind of been three models ever since I've had this mind shift that I try to follow that anybody who reports to me directly, I want this to be a part of their DNA. And so I usually try to try to push these models on them as well. And one of them is, is you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So, you know,
00:18:37
Speaker
A kind word is going to get more done than a harsh word. So I always try to remember catch more flies with honey than vinegar. The second one is coach don't cop. So that was kind of formed in my safety coaching timeframe of remember why you're there. Remember the reasoning that you're trying to help them out. And the third one, I'll admit I sold directly from Roadhouse, which is I'm nice until my start worked.
00:19:05
Speaker
yeah okay repeat that one more time i'm nice until nice don't work it's from the uh the movie roadhouse yeah i remember it but it's it's a good reminder that you know
00:19:23
Speaker
There are, there are most, I would say probably 95% of the people you deal with. If you can build relationships and show some kindness with them, you'll get, you'll get the results that you're looking for. Yeah, right. Then there's that 5%. And so eventually you have to say,
00:19:41
Speaker
NICE isn't working, so I move it a little bit more into enforcing it more into disciplinary. I'm a firm believer that safety should not be the issuers of disciplinary, but I do believe that we can recommend disciplinary actions to operations who can make that happen.
00:20:02
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, I agree with that too. And we are going to have that 5%. And so the question is, what do we do with that? And I think you've just given some solid advice there. I've been coached by a mentor many years ago when talking about that 5% as well is really acknowledging that A, you're going to have it.
00:20:29
Speaker
And then B, even if they're going to go kicking and screaming the entire time, your job is to get them to feel like, well, I'm still going to hate it, but I'm going to do it because otherwise I'm going to be sitting out here all by myself. So I'm just going to come along with everybody anyway. I'm still not going to like it. I'm going to grudge about it, but we're going to shift them over there.
00:20:53
Speaker
And they're definitely going to grouch about it. That is true. But I've found that that 5%, if you can get them on board, if you can find what their... Their why, maybe? Yeah, their why, what their currency is. Yeah. Oh, yes, their currency. Okay. But you can find what their currency is, what matters to them. It may be their kid's softball game.
00:21:20
Speaker
If you take that time to listen to them, even if they're your five percenter, go to a kid's softball game. I promise you, you have that person on board. You know what? The softball game may be fun. That is excellent. I love how you framed that. What is their currency? Thank you, Dr. Phil.
Career Changes and Leadership in Safety
00:21:42
Speaker
So now we're quoting Roadhouse and Dr. Phil. I'm a plethora of useless boats. So am I. In the world of strengths finder, gosh, there's an actual strength that's built around that, like people that collect quotes and sayings and things that you kind of do. Is it collector?
00:22:02
Speaker
Anyway, I'm definitely guilty of that. I was also raised by a woman who speaks the language of cliche. That helps. I have a lot of cliches up my sleeve. Jason, continue with your career path. What happened next? I stayed in the crane industry for a little under a decade.
00:22:30
Speaker
And yeah, there was some changes and some leadership and some oversight that was a little different than I was prepared to be a part of. So I started on my job search. I found the company that I work for now and they, man, safety is so important to what they do and they take it so seriously. So just like a breath of fresh air to get over here and be like, wow,
00:22:55
Speaker
I'm just, I'm so, I'm just flabbergasted that you guys take it this seriously. You know, supervision is, is on board management is on board. Everybody just wants to find the safest way to do it. And it's not a safety company. So being able to see that and what you do is just, that's phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. So Jason, what's your favorite thing about the work?
00:23:20
Speaker
changing lives. I absolutely love when somebody comes up to me, maybe after a safety meeting, after a safety training, or maybe just after a conversation that we had while we were walking around in the shop area or the field. And they're just like, you know, Jason, what you said really made sense. And I'm going to insert what they're going to change here.
00:23:46
Speaker
And to have that type of feedback, it means something. I tell my people all the time, take it home with you. What you've learned here, take it home with you. And so some of my favorite stories that I get from the guys and gals is that, man, my son was mowing the lawn and I put safety glasses on him.
00:24:10
Speaker
You know, that matters. That matters to me because it's something, something is changing, not just at work, but something's changing in their life. They're getting it. Yeah, right. So, you know, when you are, for anyone who follows you on social media, specifically with the social media safety minute and listen for any amount of time, much of what you're talking about has to do with kind of that big topic of culture.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah and safety cultures or you know for that matter just a healthy workplace culture. It doesn't necessarily have to be safety like you were talking about before about just you know being a listener and keeping or treating people rather with respect.
00:24:59
Speaker
But if we back up in our field just a little bit, there is a cliche that safety is a necessary evil and that some employers and employees consider it
00:25:15
Speaker
necessary evil what what do you think that does for us as a profession and how do you see your work now and being able to impact that cliche if you will well you know
00:25:34
Speaker
Safety is necessary, but it's not a necessary evil. When you start framing the conversation in safety is a necessary evil, then we become the villains. Yeah. And when safety becomes the villains, then there's a trust issue from every person in the field. Well, when there's a trust issue from every person in the field, guess who's not reporting issues? The people in the field, because they're like, why would I report that to the villain? I'm the hero of this story.
00:26:04
Speaker
If you have a mindset that safety is evil or even a necessary evil, then the company is not taking advantage of an amazing resource.
00:26:22
Speaker
We, as safety professionals, we have some resources that may not be available or known about by anybody in operations. And I've always prided myself on the fact that I may not know the answer, but I know where to find it.
00:26:39
Speaker
And I think that's kind of something every safety person needs to have in their mindset. I may not know the answer right away, but I can find it. I'm going to let you know and pull up and make sure that they do. But being cast as the villain, it's just going to have a negative impact on the company culture as a whole, definitely on the safety culture.
00:27:00
Speaker
If that evil moniker is starting at the top of the organization, maybe because a management system or team doesn't know, they don't understand the work, or maybe they've had an experience in the past that maybe was simply with a safety cup.
00:27:25
Speaker
What advice would you give someone who's listening now who maybe has that at the top of their organization? How can they help shift that to start making that change?
Advice for Aspiring Safety Professionals
00:27:38
Speaker
I think the first thing that they have to do is they have to, one, I think you're correct that a lot of the time the reason that upper management or management as a whole feel that way is because of
00:27:50
Speaker
some safety professional that was a safety cop in the past or just was out, you know, loved to have gotcha moments and things like that. And so the first thing you have to do is one, prove that you're not the same, that you're not that person. And that's done by action. That's done by just
00:28:07
Speaker
time, you know, that's done by being trustworthy. It's done by showing integrity. It's done by caring about the people. And then if it comes to a head, then you simply may have to say it verbally. You're holding me accountable for something that somebody else did. And I'm not that person. You give me the ability to prove who I am.
00:28:34
Speaker
And then we can worry about my performance. But now I'm not that person. Now, that's not always the easiest conversation to have. So if you're just starting off in safety, you're probably scared to death to have that conversation. It's funny because I was told early in my career, you need some more gray hair on your head before you can be in charge of safety.
00:28:58
Speaker
And at the time I was like, what is this guy? Man, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I run the safety in this company and I know everything I need to know about safety and blah, blah, blah. He was so right. Because it wasn't talking about, it was perception. It wasn't necessarily just experience. It wasn't necessarily just knowledge. It was the perception of the people that I was speaking to.
00:29:24
Speaker
As a young safety professional, I may have had all the programs in the world that would fix any issue. Problem was, there was a trust there because I didn't take the time to build it. I just came in as a young gunslinger trying to make it happen.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah. So patience is probably the best advice I could give is patience, be trustworthy, have integrity. And by saying have integrity is be the same across the board. If you're going to enforce something with one person, enforce it with everybody. If you're going to give an added boy to one person for something, give it to every person you see that does that. Be the same. Be consistent.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah, and for those hard conversations with management structures, especially when you're new and you're like, this is sort of scary to have. Like, am I going to put my job on the line if I'm bold and say, hey, you know, listen, one way to frame it. I guess that worked for me. A job that I, I don't know, two jobs ago, I had been hired as a safety professional. I may have told this story in the podcast before. I can't remember.
00:30:41
Speaker
The ownership, the leadership rather, knew me as that person who was a former regulator that was the OSHA lady. And they were really nervous. Yeah, they were really nervous about hiring me. And they also had never had a safety professional before.
00:31:00
Speaker
They were asking me a lot of questions like, should we do this or not? What's going to happen here? Are we hiring the safety cop? The conversation that I had with them gently was that I would work
00:31:18
Speaker
very closely with them and hard with them to understand their shades of business gray and that I would promise them that I would not see things in neither black nor white, but we'd work together to come to an understanding as to what was reasonable and
00:31:37
Speaker
to do for their business and understanding it. And then I said, however, there will likely be times where there will be a line in the sand and you will not push me over that. Because I won't let this happen on my watch. And I said, when that occurs, I will tell you line here.
00:31:59
Speaker
And they said, okay, yeah, okay, we think we can deal with that. And there were actually a couple of times where I had to say, do you remember that conversation? The line is here, I will not cross this.
00:32:12
Speaker
Nice. That's setting expectations from the beginning. That's another very important part. If you're coming into a company new to go to management and say, okay, look, I want to meet or exceed your expectations. You can tell me what those expectations are. I'll meet them or exceed them.
00:32:36
Speaker
If you don't give me expectations, I'm going to do the best that I can to meet an unspoken expectation, and there's liable to be some frustrations here. And what you shared with them was you lined out that expectation. There's going to come a time where there's going to be a line in the sand, and we're not going to cross that line. And then later on, when you didn't have to, or when you had to remind them of that conversation, I'm sure it was a lot easier for them to go, you know what? She's right.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, right. And it was the like, oh, we're at DEFCOM 4 now. This must be something we have to pay attention to. Why did we think of this before? Right. All right. Well, that was a really good piece of advice about setting expectations. And so I guess for people who are listening, maybe starting in a new job,
00:33:28
Speaker
Um, if that hasn't been set, really have that heart to heart conversation with whomever it is that you're reporting to and ask. And I really love what you said about telling people you're an amazing resource. That's true. That's true of all safety professionals. We can be amazing resources and we have this collective network among us where if we don't know it, uh, somebody in our network will.
00:33:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's a guarantee. I can't tell you how many times I've reached out. Maybe it was through ASSP or it was through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably where I'll, I have zero problem at all, direct messaging another safety professional and go, hey, have you dealt with this before? What study guide did you use for that? So there are, you know, resources,
00:34:18
Speaker
You start that by interacting and building those relationships, even on social media. But I can tell you, there's never been a safety person that I've reached out to, whether I have a relationship with them or not, that wasn't willing to jump right in and help out any way they can. That's one thing that I absolutely love about the safety community, is there's just such a desire to make sure that people go home safely.
00:34:44
Speaker
don't want to hold stuff close to their best. If they, like, if I have any ways of doing something safe, I want to share it. I want to shout out from the rooftops. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That is the, um, that is the fun part of our profession for sure. Yeah. So, you know, people who are listening, you need help, you need resources, reach out to anybody, any one of us, if you, you know, uh,
00:35:08
Speaker
I always find it sort of interesting that LinkedIn seems to be the place that we all gravitate to, but it is. And there are many, many groups of safety professionals out there. And yeah, I don't think I've ever had a safety professional turn me down when I've asked a question or asked for help. I've had one say, I don't really know, but reach out to so-and-so, I think they've dealt with that. Yeah, yeah.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, cool. So Jason, I would love to hear more about your progression, you know, and what you're talking about now and being a safety mentor. How is how are you living? How are you living that out? And what do you see for this chapter of your career now?
Mentoring and Relationship Visits
00:35:49
Speaker
Well, you know, one of the things that I was excited about is I got asked to be a mentor on the Safety Refined website. So that website is really based upon just finding mentors for people. There's no cost involved at all. It's just like, hey, here's a bunch of safety people and they want a mentor and they want to help. Yeah, talk more about what that is.
00:36:10
Speaker
Michael King is a guy that I met on LinkedIn, and he started this website because he has a heart for mentoring. And so he reached out to some different safety people that have a heart for mentoring as well. And so he created this website called safetyrefine.com.
00:36:27
Speaker
And on there, you'll find bios of every mentor that's a part of the site. And if you're a new safety person and you just want to kind of get some mentoring, you can reach right out and pick one of the people from the bio. We'll get an email and we can jump right in and help mentor in any way that we can. It's all volunteer. We're all volunteering to help the profession as a whole. No kidding. I had no idea. This is excellent.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was a great idea. I mean, I jumped in with both feet as soon as he asked me about before he even created the website or created the idea. I was like, yeah, man, I'm on board, whatever you need. And there's some great, great mentors on there that can really help out. I think he pretty much has covered most bases of all industries.
00:37:17
Speaker
And so that's the primary way that I'm trying to assist with mentoring from that aspect. The aspect is just general day-to-day communications on LinkedIn. Any time I can interact and jump in and then I'm
00:37:34
Speaker
on the community page for ASSP as one of the influencers. So I'm able to get on there and answer questions, technical questions and assist in community chatter and stuff like that. So I'm mentoring through that as well. And then that's the main ways that I'm mentoring as much as I can, yeah.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah. And so what does the mentoring, you're talking about external mentoring with fellow safety professionals and man, thank you for that. It's so important. Oh yeah. What does mentoring look like? Um, where are you working now? How does, you know, who, how does that work for you and who are you talking with? You know, I, every, every, I visit every one of my branches twice a quarter.
00:38:18
Speaker
I go for what I call a relationship visit for an audit visit. A relationship visit is really sit down with different individuals, talk with different individuals. And I usually ask a particular set of questions. I think they're getting used to them now, but it's how are you? And then how is your family? How's work?
00:38:48
Speaker
And what can I do to help you?
00:38:50
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. And so out of, you go to these different sites, are you talking, I don't know how many employees are in your organization, but do you take a sample and every time you talk to different people or how does that work? Well, the areas that I cover, they're small enough that I can talk to everybody in a visit. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So it's spread out. The 10 branches are spread out, but there's none that are so large that I can't have the opportunity to speak to everybody.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, so you call those relationship visits? Yes. That is excellent. And then did you say you also do audit visits? Yes. So talk about how those are different and what that looks like. A relationship visit is really focused on maybe there's been a new program that's come out or maybe there's a new benefit that they may not know about yet or hasn't been expressed well enough. I'll cover those in a relationship visit.
00:39:46
Speaker
And then just really seeing how they are. Let them talk to me a little bit about what they can see. If there's something that's just low hanging, I'll address it. It's not like I'm going to just walk past something because it's a relationship visit. If I see something, I'll offer up some opportunity for improvement there. But that's not the intention of the visit. The intention of the visit is to get the pulse of the team.
00:40:10
Speaker
get an idea of how they're doing, what we can do as a company and as a corporation to help them do it better, and then see where they're at. Then the other visit, of course, is the one that all safety professionals know, which is the audit visit, where we get the chance to look at the facility, the programs, and everything else, and dig a little deeper.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah. And so when you're doing one of those audit visits, Jason, just listening to the way that you operate, I bet you don't do that all by yourself. No, no, no, no. We have a program called designated safety champion. OK. And so each branch picks a person
00:40:54
Speaker
for a six month period to be the designated safety champion. And they have some requirements like they have to submit at least one BBSO a day. They have to participate in the quarterly audit with the safety manager. And they have to call me once a week and just kind of update and see how they're doing.
00:41:19
Speaker
Interesting. That's an interesting piece. Yeah, it's an awesome little program. But I usually grab them and whoever's over the branch and we walk it together. I get a ton of pictures. And then we sit down and I go through the audit form.
00:41:42
Speaker
with the pictures and with them, and then we sit down and we discuss what needs to be improved, what are their assigned tasks for the next visit, and we make sure that everybody has an understanding of that, and then that report goes out to management. That's beautiful. So two types of visits, relationship visit and audit visit. I love that. What a great practice.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah. And that was, it was really awesome when I, when I shared, um, when I was asked by my boss, you know, what are you currently doing? How are you doing things? How are you visiting the branches? And I shared that that's my, that's how I plan out my business. He was like, you know, do keep doing that. That's exactly what we want done. That's exactly we, you know, what I don't want is I don't want every time you're there, you're there for an audit because then there's no trust though. So they, they support it from the front.
00:42:37
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, I mean, and some people might think that sounds like light, fluffy, mushy, gushy stuff, those relationship visits. But if anyone is banging on the door of, we need a culture, we need a culture, that's where it starts. Yeah, absolutely. And they can keep on safety copping if they want. And then eventually down the road, a supervisor will hopefully take them aside and tell them,
00:43:02
Speaker
There's a better way to do this. Yeah, yeah. Genius. Genius. I love it. I love it. What's getting you... Oh, you know what? I wanted to back up and ask you as you're talking about these relationship visits, you had said something that was pretty funny on social media recently. Do you want to talk away? Yeah, yeah.
00:43:25
Speaker
Uh-huh. So do you want to, I believe you called it what, a seagull moment? A corporate seagull. A corporate seagull? Okay, so how, yeah, talk about what's a corporate seagull in your mind. A corporate seagull is somebody from corporate who flies into a branch and crafts all over everything and then flies back to corporate.
00:43:47
Speaker
The idea is that there's no relationship there. You really feel like you've just been crapped on when they visited your facility. So the idea is not just for safety professionals, but management in general. We need to build those relationships because if you only fly in,
00:44:09
Speaker
and only look for problems and only point out the problems and don't point out any positives. Yeah, that's how they feel like a signal just flew over. And so we want to avoid that. And the best way to avoid that is through the relationship going. Yeah, right.
00:44:27
Speaker
Well, and as someone who is representing management, and sometimes safety professionals sort of forget that. I know that I have at least in my jobs where I've sort of forgotten that people view that role as a piece of management. And so if employees don't have context as to why you're even there,
00:44:49
Speaker
people start making up stories in their head you know like why is this person here i mean you might you might hit the ground and have have you know five meetings back to back where things are you're doing your work you're doing your job and everybody's wondering like why are they here this week
00:45:05
Speaker
Why are they here today? Wonder what's going on? Does this have something to do with me? Is it about our organization? And people make up the stories in their head. And so I think it's important to tying into your, don't be a corporate seagull and dump all over the place, but you really need to tell people like, why am I nesting here this week? Why am I here today?
00:45:29
Speaker
And I think you made something you just said, reminded me of something you said, you know, the story they tell themselves in their head. I think that it's, that's a great phrase from the standpoint of what we need to be doing for relationship building is we need to be very cautious about the story we're telling in our own head about why they're doing what they're doing.
00:45:51
Speaker
If somebody's doing something unsafe and we immediately say that's because they don't care about safety or they don't value safety, they don't value their own life, then we're going to communicate with them with that mindset. And so we have to tell a different story in our head. And the story, I mean, a great example, if you're driving down the road, I mean, we all will occasionally get road rage, right? And if you're driving down the road and that guy cuts you off,
00:46:21
Speaker
Now, the story that we're going to tell in our head that's going to create road rage is going to be, that dude thinks he's more important than me. I can't believe he did that. Who does he think he is? Blah, blah, blah. Now you're angry. If you're driving down the road and that guy cuts you off and you go, man, I hope his wife's not in the hospital about to have a baby. He must be in a real big hurry to get there.
00:46:42
Speaker
all of a sudden you're rooting for the guy. And so it just changes, it's the story that you tell yourself will change how you emotionally view it. And so we have to do the same thing when we're dealing with our workers in the field. And remember, the story that we tell ourselves can become truth real quick, whether it's truth or not.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that phrase, the story that's in my head right now is actually something I learned from the social scientist, Brené Brown. For anyone who's a follower of Brené Brown, it's something that she coaches and talks about. Oh, I wish I could cite the title of her book that I read where I learned that.
00:47:26
Speaker
But in communication with someone, when you're feeling like you've got a story made up in your head like, that person must have reacted to me in that way because, or we're having some conflict here and it must be because, to actually use those words with whomever it is that you're talking with and saying,
00:47:48
Speaker
hey the story i'm making up in my head like say that out loud the story i'm making up in my head right now is that um that we're not working well together or that you believe this thing that i just did is really wrong or that you made this you know you did x y and z because is that true or is that just a story i'm making up in my head to really just put it right out there
00:48:13
Speaker
I love that idea. Actually, I was listening to you and Abby's Accidental Safety Pro podcast a while back, Abby Ferry. I think something that she and you both had said in the podcast was asking workers, so tell me about what you're doing today.
00:48:35
Speaker
And I think that that can go hand in hand with that, what you had just mentioned about, tell me the, you know, let me explain the story that I'm having in my head. So you, you find out, you know, let them explain why they're doing what they're doing and how they're doing what they're doing. And then maybe you could follow that up with, well, the reason I ask is because the story I'm telling myself is this, and I don't think that that's true. And I don't think that's your intention.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah, so set me straight. What's going on? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Change the narrative in my mind. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff, Jason. Good stuff. So what's next for you? What are you cooking on these days? Or you know what? Maybe how do you find your inspiration? Because you're putting out a lot of information right now, and you're helping mentor people and coach people. Where do you find your inspiration?
00:49:29
Speaker
My kids. My kids will do something and it'll immediately, something they'll do will immediately correlate to safety some way. So that's usually where like the social media safety minute topic of that particular time may come from. I try not to create content as much as just document.
00:49:55
Speaker
What have I been dealing with? And so normally it comes across as creating content, but really it's like my 10 year old did this. So today I'm going to talk about safety glasses.
00:50:10
Speaker
So that's where the inspiration comes from. It's just probably something silly they either said or did. And, or I may just be driving to work and something will just pop in my head. And, you know, I've taken, I've made a habit of putting lyrics at the front of the post. And so I've divided a lot of the hardest part of creating content or documenting content right now is figuring out what song to pick.
00:50:41
Speaker
That'll match what was, because about four months ago, five months ago, I started the one that has become like every post. Now there's some lyrics in the very beginning and I'm like, Oh man. Okay. I don't know if I have a song that goes with that, but I'll find one. Well, songs can be very inspirational, right? Absolutely. We love those lyricists. So what do your kids think about you being a safety dad?
00:51:06
Speaker
You know, I'm going to have to create a video. I've been thinking about one that I just want to record my kids and then just ask them a question. What is safety? Because I really want to know what they have to say. I've never asked them that question. So, man, I'm going to have to do that soon. I'm going to just have to record them and just ask, what is safety to you? And try to get an idea of what they, you know, their answer, maybe that's just what you do for a living, Dad.
00:51:32
Speaker
I don't know. I'm interested to see what their thoughts would be on that. I think that they enjoy being in operations. You're away from the house a lot more. From where I'm at in my career now, I'm able to be home a lot more. So I think they really love that part, just being home a little bit more often.
00:51:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I know I my son had a phrase that he used when he was little to describe what I what my job was and Honestly, I can't remember what it what what it is anymore, but it was something that was funny about safety Being a safety ninja, but I'm sure
00:52:14
Speaker
No, it wasn't that. It wasn't that. And then, you know, and then as he got older, it became kind of an annoyance, you know, like, Mom, really? Not again. You know, like you can make every story a story about death. I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm sorry. You know, there's a there are bad things that happen. And so, you know, when you're trying to get your children to understand risk,
00:52:38
Speaker
Yeah, they, you know, I've been in safety their entire lives. So I think they're just kind of used to like, okay, before I can climb this ladder dad or somebody has to hold it. Yeah. You know, there's, there's a lot of things that kind of has become ingrained in us through working in this industry that is just ingrained in them from birth. So I don't think that they look at it as that's, uh, the safe way to do it. I think they just look at it. That's the way we do it.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah, I think my an affirming moment for me as a parent and a safety person was my my son called me one night from a football game actually had left a football game and, and he said, Mom, I've got to ask you for some help. And you're the only person I can think of who might know what to do. And I'm like,
00:53:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah, red lights and sirens. It's like, yes, I'm alert. I'm attentive. I'm like, holy crap, what could this be? A teenager, when they roll that out of their mouth, it's like, ugh. And he said, there's a rumor going around at the football game that someone has a gun. Oh, wow.
00:53:52
Speaker
Yeah, and he said, I didn't know who to talk with, what do I do? And so we walked through, where did you, where did you hear this? Well, I've heard it from so-and-so, and then where did they hear it? They heard it from their brother. Okay, and where did that brother hear it from? Well, they heard it from so-and-so who said they saw. And I'm like, okay, so we don't have firsthand knowledge, no.
00:54:18
Speaker
And I said, did that person who said they saw it, did they report it to their parents or the police? I'm not sure. And so we went through this whole conversation that really was just minutes long before I was on the phone with the local police department to ask them if they were aware of the situation, which they were. And it was a story that someone was making up in their head, thankfully.
00:54:48
Speaker
Oh, wow. But in that moment, I'm thinking, okay, this is about trust and safety, right? This is about building a culture of trust so that in those make or break moments, someone is going to reach out to you. Yeah, no, absolutely. I didn't have anything nearly as exciting about that. My 20-year-old called me from college and asked me, dad, what is workers comp?
00:55:13
Speaker
He was writing some copy for a publisher. I was like...
00:55:20
Speaker
Okay. Well, let's, let's talk about what workers cop is, but it's nearly as exciting, but hey, at least he knew who to call. He sure did. He sure did. But you know what? The work that we do is, is that we want people to reach out to us. Absolutely. We want people to reach out to us before something has happened or is happening or that they're going to do a gut check with us and that our employees need to know that it's okay if it's two in the morning. Exactly. Yeah. That we're going to be there and we're going to answer the call.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah. Before, before Uber and, and, um, uh, all of those ride share places that you can just call and they come pick you up. I could recall like every safety meeting before new years or, or Christmas or July 4th. My last thing that I would tell my people is if you end up somewhere and you've had too much to drink, call me, I will come pick you up wherever you're at and I'll take you home. Yeah.
00:56:18
Speaker
Now I tell them call an Uber, but call me in so I know that you made it home safe. But I was always willing to offer that. And I think that's important. They need to know who to call.
00:56:30
Speaker
Yeah, right, exactly. Well, Jason, you have given so many great tips to our listeners today, including phrases, since you and I like phrases, about being an amazing resource. And I really loved this piece about the two different types of visits, relationship visits and audit visits.
00:56:55
Speaker
And thank you so much for sharing the resource of the safetyrefine.com for people who are looking for a mentor in our field. That's really powerful. Yeah, it's it is just such a neat, it's a neat opportunity. And, you know, I know Michael's looking for even more mentors. So if you've got people that are listening that that that mentoring is their passion. Yeah. You know, you reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'll be more than happy to get you all connected.
00:57:24
Speaker
Oh, cool. Thank you so much for that. And thank you for your time today. Really appreciate the time that you spent.
00:57:31
Speaker
I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much, Jill. And thank you for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you'd like to join the conversation about this episode or any of our previous episodes, go ahead and follow our page and join the Accidental Safety Pro Community Group on Facebook.
00:57:54
Speaker
If you're not subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, subscribe on iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player that you'd like. You can also find all the episodes at vividlearningsystems.com slash podcast.
00:58:10
Speaker
We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more safety professionals like you and I and Jason. And share any episodes you'd like with your friends. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's you, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Special thanks to Will Moss, our podcast producer. Until next time, thanks for listening.