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#36: Krista Geller at NSC 2019
66 Plays6 years ago
Krista Geller talks with Jill James about the importance of pets in our lives, growing up in safety and research, and Actively Caring for People.
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Transcript
Introduction of Guests
00:00:11
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro live at the 2019 National Safety Congress and Expo in sunny San Diego. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Christa Geller, President of Actively Caring for People. Welcome to the podcast, Christa. Thank you very much, Jill. I appreciate it.
Christa's Journey and Early Influences
00:00:30
Speaker
So accidental safety pro, meaning, um, how, you know, everybody's telling their story about how did safety find them in some sort of a way. Right. And by degree or behavioral psychologist, right? Right. Right. So yeah, let's go in the way back machine. How do you go from safety, from behavioral psychology into safety? Oh, it's interesting story.
00:00:55
Speaker
It really all, I have to pay all the credit to my father, mostly. I started off going to school, doing the school thing, trying to figure out what my degree to be, what can I do, what do I want to do. And I just kept getting roped into all of his experiments. So if people aren't familiar with when you say roped into your dad's experiments, what does that mean?
00:01:19
Speaker
Well, he would either say, I'll give you $10 to do this experiment. Or he would say, do it. And there was no choice. And he would have some sort of experiment for me to do. One of them, the most noted one really is probably when my sister was 14. I was 16 and another lady was 18. He got the three of us together and he made us go around the town of Blacksburg and buy cigarettes.
00:01:46
Speaker
okay and the goal was to figure out you know if we were gonna be carded mm-hmm because I mean I was a young 16 I mean I probably didn't look a day over 12 mm-hmm and my sister she definitely didn't look over a 14 year old yeah
00:02:01
Speaker
Right, so we were recorded for sound and sound in our pocket, so we were recording the conversation. We would go up to the attendant, we'd go to 20 different stores, we'd go up to the attendant, ask to buy the cigarettes, and see if we would get carted.
00:02:17
Speaker
And out of the 20 stores, I did not get carted once. The 18-year-old did not get carted once. My sister got carted twice only because it was her basketball coach that was working at both stores. So he knew she was not of age to be smoking. So he went to the newspapers and it came out. It was called the Sting and Blacksburg. And there was a front page picture of the three of us sitting behind a big large stack of cigarettes. And it blew up Blacksburg.
00:02:46
Speaker
We really, we stopped the tobacco buying process in Blacksburg. And what do kids do when they go to high school? They smoke, they dip, they do all that tobacco stuff and we shut it down. We lost a lot of friends. He said, he comes to us and he goes, I want you guys to go back to those stores. See if you get recorded what's going on. Let's do a follow up to the research. So I walked into a Wade's.
00:03:10
Speaker
And there on the wall was a giant blown up picture of the three of us. And it said, do not sell to these girls. Oh, just you. Yeah, yeah. And I let the cigarettes ride the conveyor belt. And I stood there for a minute and she told me off.
00:03:27
Speaker
He said, I'm not selling these cigarettes. And so, yeah. The reaction was quite big in our town. Our town, of course, is a lot bigger now. It's Blacksburg, Virginia, with Virginia Tech. Much bigger town now with all the students. But this was way back when, 1993 or so. And so it was a little bit more compact. So everybody knew what everybody was doing. And yeah, the cigarette study definitely ruffled some feathers in the town of Blacksburg.
00:03:53
Speaker
That's your part of research and for people who don't know why your dad would be conducting research, maybe give a little blip on who your dad is to give some context to any listener who has no idea what we're talking
Academic Path and Research Focus
00:04:04
Speaker
about.
00:04:04
Speaker
So my father is Scott Geller and he's been a professor of psychology at Virginia Tech. He's in his 50th year. He's been at one university for 50 years and he's run research study after research study and to this day I still think I probably was an experiment.
00:04:23
Speaker
So he pulled me on board and just started sending us out to do research. I did a lot of alcohol research with him for a while. I did safety seat research. I rode along with Coca-Cola drivers, did lifting behaviors, I did driving behaviors. We worked on the road rage reducer.
00:04:43
Speaker
So many different experiments with him because it was fun. Yeah, you know it was and he was paying you sometimes sometimes Yeah, I actually did I in the when I started going to college when I was a freshman at Rafferty University I Continued and I picked up a part-time job with him as a research assistant So I stayed a research assistant with him probably until I graduated with my PhD I was always in and out of his research projects and
00:05:06
Speaker
And it was something to do. It was a couple of bucks on the side and it was just, it really was just fun. I mean, we would go down to Blacksburg and we would hide in one of the little nooks of the party scene and we would take people's blood alcohol content.
00:05:22
Speaker
Oh wow. So we would give them a survey. The two of you? Not him. Other research assistants. Yes, other research assistants. Sometimes he would follow us to a fraternity party. So I can say that I've been to a fraternity party with my father. I'm not sure if that's a cool statement or not. He was there to watch you and make sure you were okay. He was there. My father has been to, I've walked Bourbon Street with my father, isn't it? So yeah, so we would give these students a
00:05:47
Speaker
A survey, then we would take their blood alcohol content and figure out how intoxicated were they. We would ask them questions on, you know, would they drive a car? What kind of behaviors would they engage in? We would ask them while they were intoxicated.
00:06:01
Speaker
So that way we would see how the answers would differ and see, you know, are people willing to take the risks when they have a blood alcohol content of, you know, 0.1 or something like that. So while you're doing this since you're a little kid all the way through college, what kind of degree were you working on? Well, it's very interesting because when I went to Rafferty University, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I took a lot of psychology courses.
00:06:25
Speaker
Really interested in it. My mom was a professor at Rafferty University in the special education department. So I grew up with educators in my house. So I knew I liked psychology. So I stayed in the psychology area. I dabbled in biology. I just kept going back and forth. But I really stuck with psychology. And then I loved media studies. So what I ended up doing was I became the New River Valley news reporter.
00:06:50
Speaker
for Raffer University and I used all of my dad's research studies as my stories. So we would go to Walmart and we would have a safety seat check. So we would check all the child safety seats, make sure they were
00:07:05
Speaker
Were they recalled? Were they not recalled? We had a multi-million dollar grant. We would go straight into Walmart, buy a brand new child safety seat, and install it in the car for these people. It was great. What a purpose. What a great process.
00:07:23
Speaker
I did a news report on it. So then I would take every research project that was involved and make it into a news story. And his students loved it, especially the ones that were getting their thesis or dissertation, because then they could use my news story as part of their research process.
00:07:40
Speaker
So I, you know, so then I was like, okay, this is kind of fun. So I ended up double majoring in psychology and media studies. But then when I graduated from Radford, I was just, it's kind of, you know, what do I do now? I'm just not sure what I would do. And I remember sitting in his office, my dad's office at Virginia Tech and where I was most of my life, you know, what am I going to do?
00:08:00
Speaker
I looked over at the School of Human Development, which human development is, in my dad's words, the touchy feely side of psychology. Human development is less putting people in boxes. It looks more at the person. How is the person developing? What kind of knowledge, skills and expertise does that person have?
00:08:18
Speaker
And I loved it, so I dove straight into the human development piece, and that's where I got my PhD in.
PhD Research on Pets and Families
00:08:25
Speaker
In human development. Yep, I continue with my master's thesis and my PhD. And I remember driving with my dad because, you know, when you have to decide
00:08:34
Speaker
what kind of research you're gonna do. And I was driving down the road and I was like, you know, what am I gonna do? Because you wanna find something unique that you can spend your time reading. You're gonna spend a year just reading. You've gotta be in love with it. You've gotta be in love with it because the process is not fun. And he said, what about the power of pets? And that was it. And I remember sitting across from my professor, I had to write a proposal and we had to put our topic in.
00:09:04
Speaker
And she laughed at me for 20 minutes. What? She laughed at me for 20 minutes. Was she not a pet person? I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you if she was a pet person. But I will tell you, I was not happy with her reaction. And she popped up a couple of times. She said, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just laughing at your idea.
00:09:23
Speaker
Oh, thank you. That makes it feel so much better. Thank you very much. And so I went with it. I hit the course runner on the power of pets. And it was after my thesis, one of my professors that was on my chair in my committee came up to me and said, he went out and got two dogs just based on the research, the statistics that came back on my thesis. Whoa. So tell us about it. Well, the power of pets on my thesis, I focused on
00:09:53
Speaker
how animals influence family relationships. What do they do for a child in a family? How do they help you? How do they forge relationships? How do they forge communication? What do they do for you? And it's all positive. If a child doesn't feel comfortable talking to their mom or dad, they will talk to the pet.
00:10:14
Speaker
So if that pet is available, and it doesn't have to be a dog or cat, folks, it can be a snake, it can be a fish, it can be a bird, it doesn't have to be a big animal, it can be a pretty simple animal.
00:10:28
Speaker
pulls the love out of us. And so for my thesis, I focus on qualitative research. So it was paragraphs and paragraphs of people telling me why their pet was important and what they thought about it. So I did a content analysis on all of the research. And it came back as it was a companionship. They provided companionship.
00:10:51
Speaker
So when I jumped into my dissertation, I said, yeah, I'm going to continue with this. And I developed a pet attachment scale, which kind of looks at how attached are you to your companion animal. And it came back that there were two things. We see them as companionship and emotional fulfillment. I mean, I think of my animals today as my children.
00:11:19
Speaker
They do not get anything less than my child would get in my home. They are just as loved as everybody else. They are part of the family, period. And that is the power of pets. They love me unconditionally. And I've traveled the world really with a lot of my jobs. And one of the funnest things I found to talk with people about
00:11:42
Speaker
is pets. In fact, if you're sitting with somebody and the conversation might be stale or you don't know where to go from there, if you take the time to ask somebody, you have any animals at home? Yeah. Wow. If they do, you've opened up a whole new avenue of conversation because it's amazing. It's a whole thing. So what kind of pets do you have?
00:12:03
Speaker
I currently have four dogs and two cats. And then, you know, I had a pony that I grew up with and I actually dedicated my master's thesis and my dissertation to her. She was unbelievable pony. Lady Champagne, short pump sugar shack. She had a long name. She had a long name. She was famous. And very special animal. And she really
00:12:25
Speaker
She protected me. She taught me how to love. She was very important. And when I got my master's thesis, I decided, well, I was about to get it. I had a year to go. I got her pregnant. I thought, you know, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this for her. It was my way of letting her experience another part of her life. She wanted to let you have a child. Let me see how you do. She did great. She loved it. It was fantastic. And the baby was born when I graduated with my master's thesis.
00:12:52
Speaker
So then when I got my master's thesis and started going to my PhD, I thought, you know what? I think I'm gonna do it again. So I got her pregnant again. Same, same, same boyfriend, same father. Got her pregnant again. And that baby was born when I got my PhD. So I still have her two children. She has since passed several years ago. Was a real defining time in my life.
00:13:19
Speaker
I lost a very dear friend, very dear friend. But I do have her babies, which my dad, he is starting
00:13:31
Speaker
He knew the power of pets, but now he's reading my research and coming up with me and editing my research. He's realized how significant animals are. You look at PetSmart and you look at what we do for our animals and what we've offered. It's amazing. He is going to write a book with me. We are getting my master's thesis and dissertation together.
00:13:53
Speaker
I do have a chapter out there in one of his applied psychology books on the power of pets. But we're going to look at how animals are at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Self transcendence. We're at the top, man. And so that's what it is, is we care for someone else that is unconditionally cares for us. Yeah, it's magical. I was not a pet person until about nine, eight years ago.
00:14:21
Speaker
Got my first pet. It was accidental. Kind of like being an accidental safety pro. I was asked to take care of someone's cat for two weeks while they went on a trip. And I'm like, ugh, cat. I'm the crazy anal retentive clean person who straightens the fringe on the rugs. Yeah, I'm not that anymore. Not since having a pet.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah, anyway, so I took care of this cat and at the time my son's little and he's an only child and I see what happens with a pet in the house and I'm like, oh crap, we gotta get a pet. And cat seems to work because I travel. Cats can take care of themselves, kind of. So we have our cat, Jack, who's been with us right before you and I started.
00:15:13
Speaker
started this podcast recording today my son called me to tell me that he was checking in on Jack and he was giving me the whole download on what Jack was doing and it is a communication piece it is a connector and he'll be leaving for college next year and his biggest fear is that something will happen to Jack and I somehow won't tell him while he's at college so he's already made me pre-promise a year in advance that if something happens with Jack's health he'll immediately be you know like
00:15:42
Speaker
lights and sirens all the way home. Yeah that's that's actually really funny that you say that because my mom was like that. She used to have to say the dog's okay but yeah and there was a time where she waited two weeks before she told me that I had lost an animal.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I remember I lit into her for that because I'm that same way that your son feels it. Isn't it interesting the bond your son has developed with that cat? The research out there says that actually petting a dog or cat lowers your blood pressure. One of the reasons they have fish in dentist's office and doctor's office
00:16:24
Speaker
is that watching them swim actually lowers blood pressure and calms us down. I mean, it's just unbelievable. I did a research study, actually, I had a little pug, his name was Kodiak, and we have a trail called the Huckleberry Trail in Blacksburg, Virginia, and I would walk the Huckleberry Trail. My research was I would walk the trail without Kodiak and with Kodiak, and I would take research on how many times, how many conversations did I engage in
00:16:51
Speaker
when I had Kodiak and when I did not have Kodiak. When I did not have Kodiak, 100% of the time, no conversations. Maybe a smile or a wave here and there. When I had Kodiak, 100% of the time, I had conversations. And so they are a social piece. And at Virginia Tech, one of my degrees is in gerontology. And it focuses on the older population and that social
00:17:17
Speaker
that they often miss out on. And so having a pet, going out and just walking a pet, you're socializing. You're talking with people. You're forced into conversations. You're also forced to take care of something as well as yourself. So sometimes if you have an older person that has to remember to feed a cat, well, they also have to remember to feed themselves. So it's like a two-fold thing that works together.
00:17:43
Speaker
So have you found a way to connect the power of pets with workplace safety or safety in general?
Pets and Workplace Safety
00:17:50
Speaker
How is that looking? Well, when I look at it, I look at it as actively caring for people. So that's what I've started with, is dad has been very passionate about
00:18:00
Speaker
actually caring for people. And I really believe I pulled him into that through my behavior and my degree. He got into that, into the WG stuff that he didn't, you pulled him into it. Yeah, he got into that mushy gushy stuff by reading and editing all of my mushy gushy articles. And so now we're going down the human development track and I pulled him into it. And so now we're actively caring for people. But now when you look at the health of people,
00:18:28
Speaker
And sometimes when you go to a job site and you're working with people, you know, hmm, somebody doesn't look so well. They're not doing so well. Do we take the time to figure out what's going on in their lives? And sometimes an animal or a pet could be the uplifting piece that that person might need. I mean, the relationship that you can have with an animal might be what it is. So I consider, so when I think about safety,
00:18:53
Speaker
I think about our health as well. So I think about how our health plays into safety. So when you go to the job site, you're not feeling so well. Much like my scratchy voice, I'm not feeling so well. So when you go to the job site, you're not feeling so well. You might not put your best foot forward. Or you might be blindsided or not have your mind or your task at hand because you don't feel good. And so that's your health. But your health is also in how you live your life.
00:19:20
Speaker
And sometimes a pet can increase that health. So you are going to work feeling healthier because you do have a pet at home. You do have somebody that loves you unconditionally. So when you come home from work, you have that relationship to tend to.
00:19:35
Speaker
That's how I see it treating into safety. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned, and we mentioned at the outset, president of actively caring for people. I want to hear the story about how that was born. Okay. But we need to go back to how did you get into safety again? So what happened after? Safety's an interesting question because, you know, after college, I went and I taught college for a while. Okay. I taught at Virginia Tech, you know, when you're a graduate student,
00:20:04
Speaker
They want you to teach a class because you're cheap. And the first class I had, I had 250 students. I had the entire Virginia Tech football team. And the topic was human sexuality. And I didn't look a day over 21. Well, I probably was 22.
00:20:20
Speaker
And I taught this class, and I taught this class for the next few years at Virginia Tech, and it took that many years to get used to teaching, to get used to really giving of myself and kind of making sure that my students walked out of my classroom with nuggets of information, with learnings. And I'd learned all that from my mom and dad, both professors. I'd learned, okay, what does it mean to teach?
00:20:46
Speaker
I started stepping out into the world and you know it was funny I was an adjunct professor but the other job that I got was running a conference, a safety conference. And I got into the safety conference because it was a safety conference that used to give my dad keynotes. So I kind of got into the safety and started talking safety with people and it was funny dad had been in safety for so long
00:21:10
Speaker
that I could have an ESNH position open, ESNH manager, and somebody would see, oh, is Christa Geller looking for a job? Well, come on over. We'll hire you. And my background was not in environmental health and safety. But my last name was Geller. So in many ways, I thought, OK, well, maybe she'll bring what I need to the table.
00:21:33
Speaker
And in some situations, it worked out. In some situations, the jobs were not quite what I wanted them to be. But I started as an adjunct professor, and I always had that in the background. But I could never get a full professor job. Never. The only full jobs I was getting, safety jobs.
00:21:53
Speaker
And it was the one you didn't go to college for. Yeah. So I couldn't fathom it. I was like, wait a minute. I'm a teacher. And so what it started bleeding into was, OK, I can make this work. I'm going to be a teacher of safety. So now I just have to learn safety. Gee.
00:22:09
Speaker
I guess my teacher is in my backyard here. So maybe I need to learn from him. So I got a couple of ESNH manager gigs and started learning what it meant to work in the field. Do you feel like that was the universe sort of conspiring, like just kept happening and you had to listen to the nudging? That's a great question. That's a great question because, you know, before I did my presentation yesterday, I had a lady tell me, you were born into this. You were born into this and you were born for this. And it's like, well,
00:22:38
Speaker
You know, maybe. I am trying very hard to continue his message forward. But I do know it was a very hard road for me in many ways because, you know, Dad is a professor. He is an academic. And he has great theories. He has great ideas.
00:22:54
Speaker
Do all those great ideas and theories roll out onto the top side the way you want them to? No. And you've got to look at the culture that you're rolling that theory and that idea onto. So dad has the idealistic perfect theory up there in the clouds and then I am boots on the ground. So I pull it out of the clouds and I show you where it can work.
00:23:14
Speaker
in the field. And that's what I learned from all my training. You know, I also, I really consider my second PhD to be in culture because my last job, I was a people based safety and human performance global manager and I traveled the world
00:23:28
Speaker
And I went to job sites and different cultures. And I looked at how do you make the safety process work with this group of people? What do you need to do? How do you need to change it? Because it might work in Texas, but it's not going to work in Tbilisi, Georgia. It's not going to work in Istanbul. It's not going to work in Kosovo. So what do we need to do to tweak it in order to fit that culture?
00:23:50
Speaker
And that was one of the best educations I got because I got immersed in all those different cultures and the boots on the crown. So dad will roll out his ideas and his theories to me and then I will tell him exactly how those ideas and theories will go out onto the field.
00:24:06
Speaker
You talk to a lot of professionals and we all want an easy button. We love to hit that easy button and it rolls out and it works. And you can't do that. You have to have a flexible program that is able to move. Move and change and adapt. Yes, if it doesn't adapt,
00:24:25
Speaker
to the culture that it's working and it's not going to do what you want it to do. So that was one of the biggest things, a big challenge for me in my last position and how to do that. And then I started getting moved around a lot and I thought, you know what?
00:24:39
Speaker
I need to do this seriously. I need to do this safety gig. I need to pull this off the shelf and I need to go out on my own with my father because I'd been doing it for all these other companies. So I'd been making money for all these other companies and giving the message but all these other companies were doing it but not quite to the extent it needed to be done at. You wouldn't believe the road blocks I would come to
00:25:07
Speaker
And with safety, it can't be about the money. It's about the lives that you're saving. It's about the message. It's about the value of that person. And so often,
00:25:18
Speaker
It turns into, no, you can't afford this. You can't do this. So I was running into those roadblocks of, wait a minute though, we have to do this. And so I decided, you know, I can't do those roadblocks anymore. I can't look to the right or look to the left and ignore it. I've got to jump straight in. So that's when Dad and I started my company, which is Geller AC4P, so it's actively caring for people.
00:25:43
Speaker
We have our web page up and stuff and we're trying to spread the message of actively caring for people. It's not just about safety, but it's about those acts of kindness. Just telling people
Founding Actively Caring for People
00:25:57
Speaker
thank you. Because many times we just don't take the time to communicate. I think our technology is great. Twitter, Facebook. If we had Twitter and Facebook,
00:26:06
Speaker
back when I was doing all those experiments with my father, I would be in a padded cell. So it's good that I've moved into this realm. And Twitter and Facebook is great, but we've got to remember that we still need that one-on-one communication. And this actively caring for people, you know, with the wristband,
00:26:26
Speaker
and passing it forward and having that conversation with somebody allows you to have that one-on-one communication. So how long have the two of you had Actively Caring for People? So dad started doing Actively Caring for People probably back in the 90s.
00:26:43
Speaker
and then it really hit strong in about, probably about when I started getting my gigs and I was an ESNH manager. So it's probably been about 20 years. We've been toying with it, playing with it, but it's only been about the past two years that we've really said, you know what, this is it.
00:27:00
Speaker
This is where the world needs to go, this active positivity, this active good communication. This is where we need to go. And so this is your full-time gig now? This is my full-time gig now, absolutely. And for, you know, we recorded a podcast episode here at NSC with your dad yesterday and he talked about actively caring for people, but if people are listening to this
00:27:21
Speaker
to this podcast for the first time and haven't listened to your dad's episode, let's talk about what it is. Let's talk about what that movement is from your perspective and what you're teaching and training. Sure. Or educating. Actually caring for people.
00:27:38
Speaker
Well, you know, it's all about caring for people. So, you know, it started with behavior-based safety. You know, we had behavior-based safety out there on the job site. And then Dad coined behavior-based safety back in 1978 or 1979. And then he started people-based safety. And the people part is the person, the expertise, the knowledge.
00:28:05
Speaker
you know, who is that person that the behavior is going through? Because that person is going to impact how that behavior is going to, you know, be admitted. So for example, you know, when you see a police car, do you have a physical reaction when you see police lights on the road? Yes. I do too. Does your heart beat fast?
00:28:25
Speaker
It depends on what's happening. Yes. But yes, usually it's like an awareness of, is there something I need to do? And is this about me and is there something I need to do? Yes. That's such a good response because that's exactly what it should be. Police officers are great. If you see those police lights and it reminds you to slow down or it reminds you to buckle up.
00:28:52
Speaker
They're an activator, so they're kind of filtering through the person. So you react the same way I react. I'm going to check out the environment. What's going on? What do I need to know? So that's people-based safety.
00:29:03
Speaker
But now, actively caring for people takes it another step further. And it takes talking to people, caring about that other person. So, for example, not texting and driving. And not just for yourself, but to allow other people on the road to be safe as well. You know, if you're at a red light and people are texting at their red light so they don't even see the lights gone green,
00:29:30
Speaker
And that's just such a lack of awareness. That's such incompetence to not be aware of your environment and care about the people around you. You know, we've got places to go to. So get off your phones and pay attention. So actually caring for people is about being aware of your environment, the people around you, and actually taking the time
00:29:54
Speaker
to make a difference. Sometimes in the workplace we'll see something happen and do I have to move that cord or do I have to clean up that spill? That's not my job so I'm going to walk around it.
00:30:09
Speaker
You know, and I can't do that. I mean, I can't see something that needs to be tended to and ignore it. It's wired into us, especially as safety people. How many times do you walk past something that's plugged into an outlet that's kind of hanging out and you just walk by and you push it all the way in? Like constantly, right? Right.
00:30:31
Speaker
I mean, it's all that little stuff, but yes. Trash, even trash on the ground. Yes, trash on the ground, picking it up. Yeah. Yeah, picking it up. Straightening a rug. Yeah. That's, that, that honestly is picking up the trash is actually caring for the environment. Yeah. Straightening the rug. You know, when I talk about actually caring for pets, there was a, um, a dog. He was a, um, pit bull.
00:30:52
Speaker
And this guy tied him to a fence and doused him with gasoline and caught him on fire. And what happened was that the message went viral and they called this dog Tommy. The message went viral. The dog finally did pass away due to his injuries. And they passed the law.
00:31:08
Speaker
So because everybody came together and actively cared for Tommy, we've now got a better law out there for people who abuse animals. So it's really about coming together, whether it's for safety, whether it's for the environment, whether it's for animals. It's about coming together and making a difference and working together as we often need to do.
00:31:30
Speaker
So in a workplace setting, actively caring, like you said your dad thought this was all mushy-gushy stuff years ago. No, he doesn't. But you're going into work environments where people may think, this is mushy-gushy stuff. How do you teach? How do you do this? So that people are like, get past that mushy-gushy part.
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny, really be surprised how much appreciation actually comes out of it. People are actually, especially, so you know, anybody can say thank you and anybody can give a wristband and say, hey, thanks for doing what you do. It's the message that goes along with that wristband. So you know, many times we have incentives where we give money out.
00:32:17
Speaker
I just think, don't give me money, give me a token. This is a token to my appreciation, this is wristband. But what's so much more important is the message. And I've watched guys give messages to each other and you're talking mushy-gushy message and these guys are actually reacting. They're having a physical reaction because they're getting for the first time
00:32:39
Speaker
the genuine thank you that they've needed. And it's really surprising how many genuine thank yous we do need in our office, especially around the workplace. And I've walked with safety managers. There was this one safety manager. He was one of the best I've ever seen. He knows the names of everybody's children.
00:32:56
Speaker
He's asking, hey, how's your child today? Do they win their soccer game or whatever it is? He's having those conversations with him, actually, genuinely cares about that person so that when something at risk does come up, he can have that candid conversation. You know, I saw you doing this. But one thing we need to remember in the workplace is when we see somebody doing something at risk,
00:33:23
Speaker
We need to not automatically think they're doing it on purpose. Because who sets out for that? Exactly. You don't set out to try to hurt yourself? No. They're unconsciously incompetent. They don't know what they don't know. So when you approach them and if you're going to give them the wristband, you're going to give them feedback, we have to remember to coach to care. We have to care when we coach and let them know, you know,
00:33:48
Speaker
that I care about you and that's why I'm giving you this message. And that's actually caring for people. So talk more about what the wristband is for people who don't know what we're talking about. So the wristband says actively caring for people on it and it has its own individual unique number.
The Wristband Initiative
00:34:04
Speaker
And so the wristband is simply a token. It's a nice green color and it's simply just a token of my appreciation. And so when you see an act of kindness
00:34:17
Speaker
you can pass your wristband forward and you can say, you know, thank you so much for holding that door for me back there. My arms were full. I really appreciated each of the time out to hold that door for me. And I just want to say thank you. It can be something that simple. And then you give them the wristband and then they can go onto our website, which is www.ac4p.org and they can enter the wristband number
00:34:42
Speaker
along with the story because it's talking about acts of positivity rather than all the negativity we have in the world. Start paying it forward with the positivity that we have. Let's start talking about being positive. So are you using those stories for qualitative research?
00:35:02
Speaker
Oh, those stories. We have so many stories on here. They've got to be so fun to read. Well, some of the funnest stories actually is when I go off and do presentations and if I do a workshop, one of the things I'll ask my class, and I love it if it's a workshop, the first thing I do is ask them, let's go around the room and tell me one
00:35:19
Speaker
actually caring for people's story that either happened to you or that you did. And those are the best because of course I love reading but these guys are telling me the stories with the emotion. I mean you're getting some of them are breaking down on the class because they are that good and that emotional about it. And that's what you want. You want that emotional piece to the fact that
00:35:44
Speaker
So can people read the stories on the website? Yes. They can read the stories on the website. And if they want more information on that, they can go to my website, which is just simply gellerac4p.com. That has the books and that has a link to the storage website too, but you can get more information from the books and that's where the Power of Pets book will be eventually when it gets completed.
00:36:10
Speaker
So your life's work right now is teaching about actively caring for people. Yeah, teaching about actively caring for people and you know the safe behaviors we have on the job and you know so I could come to your company I could do a safety cultural survey, figure out
00:36:27
Speaker
You know, where is it that you're struggling? You know, where are the areas that we need to tighten up or we need to look at in more depth? And so after my survey would come a focus group. So I'm going to talk to people in depth because I really like qualitative research. I want to get those qualitative answers. I want to figure out, you know, what are you doing? How are you doing it? Why are you doing it? Why did you answer the question this way? And then figure out, okay, what is our safety roadmap going to look like so we can improve the culture on this company.
00:36:53
Speaker
And I really believe that that's AC4P. I believe no matter what data comes back with what it's telling me, I believe the roadmap is AC4P. It's going to depend on what kind of teachings seem to be imploded.
00:37:08
Speaker
but it'll be, you know, actively caring for people in the workplace, whether it's ergonomics, whether it's observational data out there on the job site, because we can't forget about our office workers. The ergonomics piece is oh so important. We forget, we have our field offices and we have our office workers that they may not step onto the plant or the job site
00:37:28
Speaker
But they still encounter at-risk behaviors on a daily basis. And we need to be sure that we pay attention to them, too. Because that ergonomics is so huge. It's huge. I think the easiest ergonomic thing when people are like, safety, I'm in an office that doesn't apply to me. And I'll say, can I see your arm?
00:37:48
Speaker
from wherever they've been mousing and if they have a nice straight kind of gouge from the edge of their desk in their arm I'm like does that soar? Do you know you're kind of restricting blood flow there and let's move your mouse and how about we adjust this and how about we do that and like suddenly oh safety is
00:38:05
Speaker
Just by saying, can I see your arm? Yep, absolutely. That was one of my first injuries on the job. I had one of those trackball mouse. Yeah. And I was reading a bunch of data and I would just leave my fingers up in the air. And what didn't happen is my middle finger ended up swelling and I got a large swell underneath it. Yeah. And it was a workplace injury. Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
And from that point forward, I got into ergonomics, you know, adjusting the desk. And if you've ever gone to someone's desk where they've been sitting for 20 years and tried to adjust it. Oh, it's a thing. Oh, it's a dangerous thing. So that's workplace safety right there, adjusting someone's desk. But yeah, it's really important that you have that
00:38:45
Speaker
desk because you wouldn't believe the difference it can do in your shoulders and the chair. So we can't leave out our office workers either. It's very important and just caring about them. And that's what it is. It's actively caring. So, Krista, I feel, I'm curious to know how you feel about this, I feel like the safety profession is kind of going through a shift, not only in its demographics by way of the people who've been doing the work for so many years who are retiring out,
00:39:13
Speaker
It feels like we're seeing the next generation starting to emerge. What are your thoughts on that and what do you see for the next, what do you see for our profession?
Passing the Torch to New Safety Professionals
00:39:26
Speaker
It's funny that you ask that because, you know, I've been in this, I've been side by side with my dad probably since I was about 15. So I grew up with Charlie Morcraft. I grew up with Aubrey Daniels. I grew up with Dominant Cooper. You know, I grew up watching these safety professionals all through the years. And now they're getting to that age where I'm kind of sitting there thinking, my, my gosh, now I, now I need to carry this torch forward. You know, how do I, how do I keep this message going? And so it's for me right now,
00:39:56
Speaker
It's been finding as many of those safety professionals that kind of live the same creed that I've been living for the past 40 years. You know, okay, can you help me carry this torch? Because this is a big torch to carry. I mean, Charlie Morecraft, Scott Geller, Aubrey Daniels. We've got to carry this torch. So my goal now has been finding these people and making sure that
00:40:26
Speaker
all of the teachings and learnings that we have from, let's call it our Baby Boomers, is going to be injected into our next generation. That we are carrying that forward because the research about Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials is
00:40:41
Speaker
There's a miscommunication between these groups. And we've got to be sure that before we lose our baby boomers, that we're pulling as much information out of them as we can. So that has been my goal, is where can I go forward with my father? What can I do? What else do I need to pull from him?
00:40:57
Speaker
so that the safety world doesn't lose such a gym. But tribal knowledge. Yes. Yeah. Because he's, I mean, his knowledge and his understanding, and same with Charlie Morecraft, he is so compelling. His story is so touching, so emotional. And you know, there's a lot of stories out there about injuries and such, but still not one that touches you like Charlie Morecraft. So let's not lose that. Let's get that mentorship that we need from these two gentlemen.
00:41:27
Speaker
Let's get the mentorship we need to move forward so that we don't lose the momentum. And I think that's where when I go to these conferences and I look at that, I'm looking at these older generations and I'm thinking, I don't want to lose them because I grew up with them. So it's running in my blood, so it's finding those others that it's in their blood and pulling them along with me. Well, I think we had one of those others on the podcast earlier today with JC Good.
00:41:53
Speaker
a different generation who has a compelling story, not unlike Charlie Morcraft. Yes. Yeah, that is definitely compelling and she's certainly solidly from another generation. So maybe she's one of those torchbearers. Yeah, she's someone that her message is so important.
00:42:10
Speaker
because the cell phone is only gonna get easier and easier and easier to use behind the wheel. It's gonna be harder and harder and harder for us to put it down. Harder and harder. And she's one that I really wanna pair up with in terms of carrying that message forward because her torch, I think, is bright. And I think there's several bright torches, but we need to be sure we're under that umbrella of these experts because we can't do it wrong. We gotta carry it forward.
00:42:40
Speaker
passive forward. And it's a good career to get into. It is. It is. It is a good career. I mean, you see all the wonderful people around here and motivated to learn. They want to be here. I mean, the people that were in my class yesterday, they want to be here and they're hungry for it. We just got to make sure that the information that we share with them is correct. And that's why I always lean on my father because he's been my educator for 30 years. He's been the one teaching me. So when he's not here anymore,
00:43:09
Speaker
I've got to make sure I've got the right information and I'm sharing it and I'm getting it out there. I think you've got it, Krista. I think you've got it. So you're at NSC here. You're doing some education. So what were you doing? I did a workshop with my dad, which was just awesome. Okay. And then both of us had presentations yesterday. I did mine from one to two and he did his from four to five. So yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
That's all we've got for this conference, but we'll be presenting at the ASSP conference next year. We've got a workshop there. Hopefully we've got industrial hygiene, got that conference there. So we're trying to spread further, see how far we can spread the AC4P movement. Let's get people on board. Come on, let's actually care for people. And let's not forget our pets. I'm sorry, I'm very much a pet advocate. I think they do for us as much as we do for them. I agree. I agree.
00:44:00
Speaker
So as we're winding up our time today and knowing that you're a parent now, have you already put your child through any sort of research? Do you think your child's going to be part of research like you were part of your dad? That's a fantastic question. He absolutely will be. One of the research things that I want to run on him is I want to do the marshmallow test.
00:44:24
Speaker
Okay, yes. I really want to do the marshmallow test. I want to see if he can, can he hold back? You know, they started at four and he's only two right now, so I've got to wait a little bit before I can reason with him. So for an audience who's listening who might not know what the marshmallow test is, do you want to describe it? Yeah, so the marshmallow test is, you know, you put a marshmallow in front of a child and you say, I'm going to give you that marshmallow and if you can wait in 20 minutes, I'll come back and I'll give you a second marshmallow. And then they leave the room and they're behind a glass mirror so you can watch what the child does.
00:44:53
Speaker
What they've done is they've followed these children and found that they did better.
00:44:57
Speaker
They were conscientious. And it's holding back that gratification and waiting. The children that don't eat that marshmallow are really proved to have a little bit more success in life because they can hold back the gratification. So I want to see if he's going to eat that marshmallow. Does this sort of make you nervous to find out? Yes, terribly. Terribly. Because my sister and I argue, I believe my sister would have eaten the marshmallow. She argues that she would not have eaten the marshmallow. I'm not sure where that's going to be.
00:45:27
Speaker
But I'm afraid he's going to eat it. I'm afraid he's going to eat the marshmallow. And I don't know where I'll be then. How old is too old to do the marshmallow test? I'm going to keep doing it until he doesn't eat it. OK. So if he's 25 and you're like, don't eat it, please let me walk out of this room. Do not eat this marshmallow. 20 minutes. You can do it.
00:45:46
Speaker
You can do it. Oh, God. Krista, thank you so much for doing this and thank you for the work that you're doing all over. Absolutely. And carrying the torch forward. Absolutely. Thank you for
Closing Remarks and Invitation
00:45:58
Speaker
this and all you do with all the experts that you talk on and getting people's words out there. I mean, that's so important. You're the link that we need to spreading our messages. So thank you for spreading our positivity.
00:46:12
Speaker
Thank you for that. Power of story. Yeah, absolutely. And the power of pets. Yes. Thanks, Krista. Thank you all for spending your time listening today, and more importantly, thank you for the work and contributions that you do making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day.
00:46:30
Speaker
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00:46:49
Speaker
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