Today on The Jay Allen Show, Jay speaks with Stephen Scott. Stephen is a HOP leader when it comes to integration into the system. Stephen speaks about his career and his love for HOP and what he learned from Rob Fisher and Todd Conklin during his time at Alcoa.
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This is what this show is brought to you by safety fm. Well, hello and welcome to the J. Allen Show. We are broadcasting live from the safety FM's studios in Orlando, Florida Right now we are streaming on the twitch network YouTube, Facebook groups, Facebook live and also screaming on our radio station. Safety FM dot com. Hopefully, you've been having a great time so far this week. I am so glad that you have decided to return one more time to take a listen to what we have going on here at the J. Allen show. This has been a pretty exciting week for us here. Its safety FM. We had the release last week of the Safety Justice League. A lot of excitement occurred during that time. They got so packed that even the radio station at one point we ended up losing some power and dumped into something else. But it was pretty exciting as everything was going line. Then yesterday, the ninth of March, we had Sam Goodman from The Hot Nerd joined the radio station Monday through Friday from 3 to 4 PM to some exciting times there and then over the weekend, we have the announcement of the Safety of Works podcast with Dr David Proven and Dr Drew Ray as a new addition to the safety FM network. And they will be starting off on March the 15th. But don't worry, We're gonna have more things for you as they come down the pipe. I told you from the very beginning that we are trying to grow this thing for it to be different people inside of the industry, doing different things inside of the world of broadcast. Now I will tell you, as we have continued to grow this some people that are extremely boring. Oh, yes, I did say they are extremely boring. Told me that I need to have content that's Onley repetitive to the exact same thing over and over again. But that's just not what we do here. It's safety of him. We try to bring you a little bit of everything around the world, so that's the whole point there. Anyways, I'm not gonna waste a lot of your time right now, and I want to get you into this conversation that we have today with Stephen Scott. Now, if you're not familiar with Stephen Scott, Stephen Scott is a human and organisational performance consultant, speaker and trainer. I will tell you, I had the privilege of fear years back to be at the American Society of Safety Professionals. And Stephen was conducting a class there, and I had the joy of actually sitting through the class, and it was quite beneficial. The information that he was sharing with the audience. Stephen has recently decided to go out on his own after being at an organization that he was at for about 30 years. So I jumped at the opportunity of having this discussion here today with Stephen. So Stephen Skype. Welcome to the J. Allen show. So I actually appreciate you taking the time to do this, because I know this is probably out of the ordinary, somebody randomly contacting and say Hank and you jump on my show. I'm happy for the opportunity now. Actually, the interesting part was that I actually attended one of your speeches. I want to say it was that the A s S P in San Antonio many moons ago that she actually had the lady from Tesla. The came in and was presenting with you. Oh, yeah, Yeah. Laurie Shelby? Yes. Yes, Yes. That was actually had Went, went to your presentation. I was like, Wow, this room is packed to the max. Yeah. Yeah, that went That went really well, Laurie. Laurie used to be my boss. It Alcoa Nice. Very nice before she went to Tesla. So I always like looking at people that I find is, of course, inside of these different instead of these different spaces of safety. So how did it all start for you? Because, I mean, I can find a lot of information about you in Alcoa, but I can't really find information on how it all started. Um, how it all started for me without going over. The whole journey started for you. Especially getting to the portion where you're at now. Yeah. Okay, so it's a long story. Um, I actually started it. Alcoa's as an hourly operator out. I got out of the army looking for a job and got a job in a smelter in Maryland. Um, as an operator. So I did that for about 10 years, took a job as a supervisor, and then ultimately I was department superintendent there over part of the plan. We called the cast house they're playing, eh? Curtail that. I went to work for, ah, internal consulting group for Alcoa, the specialized in lane manufacturing. And then, ah, A couple years later, I took a job, is a continuous improvement manager for Alcoa's US Primary products business unit that was in, like, 2008. And Alcoa was just getting started then And what they used the term human performance or human performance improvement with Rob Fisher. And I heard about it. It sounded interesting. So why I arranged to go to the training and, um, just really, you know, drink the Kool Aid. It really made a lot of sense to me. He thought I had a lot of potential, was so different from the way we traditionally been taught to approach safety and just, you know, learned all I could about it. Read a lot, went to ah, all the training I couId and started being asked to spend more and more of my time doing training and coaching people and helping out at plants, man. So, um, eventually, I ended up reporting to Laurie Shelby, who at that time was the director of environment, health and safety for that business unit and, um, couple reorganizations and a big corporate restructuring. And, um, Lori became the VP of VHS for the corporation, and she asked me to take the role of director of human performance for Alcoa. And I did that for almost four years and, um, retired last year in July after just over 30 years and decided to, you know, do this kind of stuff as a consultant. Well, and I look at it and you save retired. I was like, Whoa, I guess we're using that term extremely loosely because extremely, no. And then I actually have where I actually saw a lot of the information that you had was there was some stuff, actually that you started posting online in regards of hot. And I was like, definitely have to take a look and get some more information for me. So as you're doing this now, outside of the normal, let's say employee employer relationship, how is it working for you doing the business of business side? Um, you know, I'm just getting started at it, Really? And so I've I've had contacts with several different corporations. I'm working with a couple right now. that. I think you're gonna be long term, Um, kind of ah, full blown. Help us along the journey. Um, work. And I take public speaking opportunities whenever I can for, you know, for things like SSP or or um or CHS sees Hop Summit. And, um, and then also for some corporate events when I'm invited. Uh, so, yeah, I'm really just getting off the ground, and that's want to do this for quite a few more years. So what drove you to actually start doing video content on social media? Because it was one of those things that a lot of people it's. It's kind of like a mixed spaces. What I'm noticing right now, where some people like doing the the video. Some people like doing the audio. So why did you decide to get with the video content? Um, I I like watching short videos. I do woodworking as a hobby, and so I like watching short videos to learn stuff. And I think it's to me it's more effective than reading about it or just hearing someone talk. And I like using some, you know, some visual, um, references. Every now and then pictures and throw up a slide with a bunch of stuff wanted talk through. It s so to me, it's a little more effective than just audio, and it's like to keep them short because I have a pretty short attention span. So I like to keep him under under about five minutes and cover a single topic. And I think that's Ah pretty common way for people today to gather information. I want to be a resource site that will give you the ideas that you need more growing. Your business, such as teaching resource, is because we got to be a teacher when you're out there, and that's going to be part of your base. Were growing a client's chops way have OSHA compliance topics, including written programs and assessments that you could use for getting your business going. And also it's a group community of other people are doing. What you're doing is safe. Have you learned about a human and organisational performance and you wanted more, or how is your chance? Fisher Improvement Technologies is conducting an advanced H. O. P. Practitioner workshop. Now is your opportunity to learn these advanced hop techniques in this two day workshop that is designed to give leaders the ability to understand and manage integrations of advanced air, a reduction in organizations. Although Nunes era participants are provided with multiple experiential learning opportunities to ensure they could use the information in their day to day interactions. Firm or information, go to arrow hp dot com. That is e r o hp dot com and click on the link that says Open enrollment and we are back on the J. Allen Show on Safety FM E thought it was kind of funny cause earlier this week you had posted that you had done some upgrades to your how you were having your device being held as they were doing the recording, and I thought it was kind of interesting, especially now that you say that you do woodwork. I was like that. Even ties it even even a little bit better. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was I just thought that was cut. Something kind of funny I put up. But when I when I first got the idea down in my basement and I found the place where the lighting was pretty good, and then I'm trying to figure out how to get my tablet up to the right height. That's what I came up with Was a block of wood sit on a chair That works extremely well. So where do you do? So, as you're going through this whole process, you referenced that when you read Alcoa, where you had actually heard about human and organisational performance based around Rob Fisher. Eso I guess things have actually changed. And then you at what point down the path that you get to meet Todd Conklin. So I think I first heard God speak at about 2014 somewhere in there, and it was probably at the hop summit in Houston. And, um, I remember that I'm placing the date because I remember him saying his his comment about safety, the absence of incidents rather by the presence of defenses or capacity. And I remember taking a picture of that slide when he presented it. And, you know, it sounded kind of interesting to me, and I was thinking about how to, you know, kind of how to make sense of that. And then, um, we had a Alcoa had a ah fatality in 2015 at one of our plants. And if you asked anyone and Alcoa, where's the next fatality gonna occur? Nobody would have said this plant. It was one of the most modern plants. Very automated, highly engaged workforce. 25 year old plan. Never had a fatality. Very low incident rates. You know, All the traditional metrics looked really good for that plant. But there was, ah, gentleman in the cast house doing a really boring routine job that he did dozens of times a day. And he got struck and killed by a forklift who was also doing a boring routine job. But he did dozens of times a day. And when I heard the story of how that happened, um, Todd's comment may just absolutely clicked with me. There's, Ah, there's a guy that's doing his job and he's exposed to a hazard Mobile equipment. And there are no effective defenses in place to protect him from that hazard. Um, lagging indicators all told us. No problem. You know, the plants history also told us all that there were no problems there, but there was nothing to protect him from that hazard. And that's really when, you know, I started thinking differently about What are we doing in this space? What are we doing with this? Uh, you know, the human performance thing Where we doing with how we manage safety and you know, the company, Lori, at the lead, the company and it started taking the same look at what do we need to be doing differently? So you go further down this journey after, of course, this catastrophic event that occurs down the plan. So does your suit. Your mind is starting to shift. Is starting to change your doing. Some, I guess you're focusing now. Mawr on. Oh, I guess we'll see safety as a defense. Is that what you start focusing on as you're going forward? And then roughly, What were we talking about here? He said that he remember his 14 right? Yes. So the incident I was just describing happened in 2015. Um, and then there were right behind that for a couple of the next three years. 14 15 16 17 were for really, really bad years for Alcoa, for fatalities and serious injuries. And we started looking at what are we dealing? And it started feeling like all the stuff we were doing with human performance was stuff we were doing to the workers. You know that that's something that workers do. It's not something that leaders dio um, and it's all this stuff about, um, recognizing error, likely situations and using tools to reduce your air rate. And that's all stuff that workers do and what we realized waas We needed to change. A lot of the things we do is leaders, because there's, ah, a lot of things that we the focus on lagging indicators. Alcoa was still a company that was very, very focused on. We want to be a zero incident workplace, And I mean, that was deep in their D n a. Back to the Polo Neil days and, um so there was a lot of things. What we found was there a lot of things that we just weren't hearing about. So the lagging indicators a lot of times with really good leadership, felt really happy. Leadership got upset when they heard about things, and, um, there was just an awful lot of stuff that we were, you know, our eyes open up and said we were got to do things differently, and so we really put a focus on leadership response to failure. Encourage people to report things, work with leaders to respond better when they hear about this, especially injury free events that could have had catastrophic outcomes. Um, you know, make sure you don't like the guy's head off when you get that phone call treated as a learning opportunity. And you know, So we started down that path. Probably the biggest game changer we had was we stumbled on this program that, um, International Council of Mining and Metals has a handbook about it. I think it started in the mining industry in Western Australia. Critical risk management where you identify the things that caused the have specific hazards in your business that cause serious injury or fatalities, and you manage those hazards aggressively. You identify the you know, the critical controls that leave, prevent or mitigate the outcome of the event, and you measure those controls really aggressively and it s oh, we became laser focused on Let's prevent the next fatality. Um, let's not worry about being a zero incident workplace. Let's quit. Uh, you know, judging people on their dark rate and their lost workday rate, and let's really focus on the things that are Syria causing serious injuries and fatalities in our business. So, um, in order to do that, you've gotta have people feeling safe to talk about those things. You know, where they feel they've got good controls where they feel they don't or they feel they're well protected where they feel they're not. You've gotta have people's feeling good about reporting Some of those, uh, we call them FF side potential events, um, and treat them is learning and improving opportunities. So that was probably the biggest game changer. And, you know, there's last several years I spent in Alcoa Waas Going beyond this human performance is just something that operators, due to leadership response to failure, really really matters. We've got to be an organization obsessed with learning, which means we gotta have open and honest reporting. And the things we're gonna worry about are not so much the things that cause, you know, cut fingers and twisted ankles. But we're really going to aggressively manage things that cause serious injuries of the talent. That was a huge, huge shift for us. It Alcoa humans uniting we're human lives more than HR conference. It's a global moving to make work more human. What started out as a few 100 people during the first event in 2015 is now thousands strong, all championing this vision of celebrating one another throughout positivity and inclusivity, at work and in life. 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This workhouse spends the day talking about how to think about investigations using the new view of safety as the presence of capacity in not the absence of prevention on gain. Teoh nipping Denard will cover Learning from Accidents. The Costa Concordia case. This is about an accident that occurred on January 12 2012. The driving point. With this way, a central question for us has been. What can we learn from this accident? In many such high profile accidents? Drawing on firsthand video interviews with the captain and an extensive research into the accident, we have created a documentary style narrative or this accident form or information. Go to novelists dot solutions. That's novelists dot solutions. This event will take place at the Hampton Inn in Las Vegas, Nevada, right off a Dean Martin directly across the stream. The in and out burger. And don't worry, the hotel does not have a casino. Make sure that you tell your employer and we are back on the J. Allen show on safety FM. And how long are we talking here? Because, I mean, I would imagine from the time that you actually start having that conversation or even have the courage to have the conversation, what are we talking about? Timeline in regards of the change actually going into boys. So we way started. 2015 was when we started thinking, you know, we've got to do something differently. Um, about 2016 we started looking, or we we actually had Conklin come in and visit a bunch of our plants and give us some advice. And we, you know, I found this information for my CMM and contacted a guy named Jim Joy who helped write the the book on On Critical Risk Management. And so we really started, I would say, implementing a program in late 2016. And it was, I'm gonna say fairly well embedded by the time I retired in 2019. Obviously, there's still a lot of work to be done. Um, we, you know, we knew we had to continually be looking at or incident data to find out are their critical hazards that we're missing other critical controls that we have not identified. Right they are. Are we verifying of effectively? But I think we had a fairly good process in place by about 2019. So it was probably about three years from the time we said way really need to do something differently. And this is something that could help us To where we got to. Um we feel pretty good about how we're doing this today. We just need to continue to improve it and sustain it. So you're saying so? So then right there. Based on what you're saying, you're seeing this change going to place right? As your close toe, heading out the door and retiring. Yeah, I was actually in charge of the for the corporation of the implementation of critical risk management. And so I honestly had not had not intended to retire when I did, um, I actually plan to work another year or so. Um, So I felt like we had the right tools in place. We had the right systems in place. We had the right sponsorship. People are on board. Um, there were just some other things going on in the corporation at that time that made it for me the right time to retire. Well, I mean, I think that you know, you did you go out and then you change during the time, and then all of a sudden you decide to start doing your own business, But this is something that I was able to find online, and I thought it was pretty interesting. So I want to share it with you, and I'm sure you've already seen it. But I just wanna talk about it here for a moment. Steve Scott is a master of human performance, but not like you may be thinking. Steve is not an academic. Yes, he's brilliant, extremely learned in the HB theories. Steve is not a slick trainer of human performance, yet he has starred many, many successful classes all over the globe, to all types of people. Steve is a true practitioner of the principles and practices of human performance, and I don't say that lightly. If you are challenged by dangerous work, technical requirements and in threats entrenched in people. Steve is your man. He has the ability to help any organization, and I'm assuming that it says it. Says bet better, fast and in a sustainable way. Can't say enough about Steve and his ability to practice human performance. You need to bring him in your sight, and this is written by the one and only Dr Todd Conklin so high you get that kind of endorsement. What did you show this man? You know what I've When I mentioned we had taught in our site at a bunch of our sites and I spent, I think I was at all the site visits with Todd except one. So I got a lot of time Teoh spend with him Not just in the plants, but in airports and airplanes and dinners and things like that. So I got a lot of time to, um, talk to him and learn from him. And I think one of the things that that I tell people that are you know, that I'm trying to bring on his customers or clients today is, uh I'm never gonna be a smartest compliment. I'm never gonna be a smart is, you know, Ah, Sidney Decker or James Reason Or a whole Nagel or those guys. Um, and I'm also not a, you know, a technical safety expert. I don't have any degree in it. I have not spent my career doing that. What I did do was for, you know, the last 10 years I was at Alcoa, I have figured out how to take these, you know, stuff that really smart people came up with and how to apply it effectively in, ah, Borders Global Organization. And I think that's what impressed Todd was. Um, I think one of the things I'm pretty good at, it's simplifying things so that they remain effective yet makes sense and figuring out how to make a useful to the people at the pointy end of the stick. First line supervisors and operators. Um, that's what I think my strong suit is. And that's why I really like working with organizations that are, you know, really, at any point along that hop journey, whether they're just starting out or their years into it, Um, I think that's something that differentiates me from a guy like Todd, who is his brilliant, Um, but I've actually spent time implementing the stuff. So as you're so being as you're there, announced a practitioner level and going out there being kind of like the influence, or as you go into these organizations, what are you seeing? The changes within the industry? Because I know that what a lot of people say. That this is the new view safety. But from all the research that I can Yeah, they're Aikens. I see it go as far back between 27 to 30 years, just kinda, depending on who you're having a conversation with. What are you seeing there? That's that's kind of changed throughout the years, especially with you being a practitioner for such a long period of time. I you know, I'm I think the thing we see changing in organizations that really get it is, um, they're starting to realize that rewarding people for not having incidents and punishing them for having incidents is counterproductive. So they're taking those type of incentives, Um, out of people's, um, compensation there. They're removing those incentives from operators and managers, and they're replacing them with different incentives that are better leading and control based. I'm also seeing organizations that they don't blame and punish. They have leaders that are obsessed with learning rather than you know, How can I? Who can I blame for this? And then, like my Angelo away from it, that's what that's. The biggest change I think I see is really the way leadership at whatever level of the organization, the way they define safety the way they incentivise or or don't incentivise safety and the fact that they're obsessed with learning. Um, rather than blaming and punishing, um, I'm still, you know, maybe I'm pretty naive, but I'm still really, really surprised how many organizations air still stuck with that old school idea that, um, you know, all we need to do is have rules and make people follow the rules and punish them when they don't follow the rules and everything will be great. And, um, you know that to me that has just been proven over and over and over again as a Z counterproductive. It just doesn't work. I mean, I guess that you have almost look at it is that it's kind of a easier for them just to go in and point and say, Okay, well, this is the problem. This is the problem. And so then they could just make board and said, When you have the kind, kind of look at it and go, OK, maybe they didn't intentionally do it on purpose. Maybe they didn't actually come to work today to get injured. It's a shift in its kind of one of those eye opening experience, but like I say all the time, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here, so it's just getting them to that particular point on the journey. So as you're being able to interact with different organizations already, is your as your on your own? What are you seeing? Or are you coming in? Mostly for the people that are out in the line? Are you coming into the C suite people, or what exactly are you seeing mostly of? So what? Yeah, I think you always have to start with leadership. Um, I think that was one of the things we didn't do well at Alcoa. We put just a boatload of time and energy into training workers, and we had a lot of people in senior leadership positions that really just didn't get it. And so I think you always have to start with senior leadership. And, you know, my rule of thumb is, however much of the organization you put this to touch. That's the level of leadership we need to get in the room and talk about, and I, you know, I really want them to understand. You know, here's what the hop journey looks like. Here's what we're asking the organization to do differently and I want senior leaders to be able to walk out of that, saying, I'm going to stand up in front of my organization and I'm gonna tell him Here's what we're doing Here is why we're doing it. Here's what I'm going to commit to doing differently and here's what I need you to commit to doing differently. And I really believe if you get senior leadership to buy into that, to understand what, you know what the hop journey looks like, buy into its sponsor it and agree to, you know, change their behavior and drive that through the organization. That's a huge amount of the improvement that you're looking for from this whole hop. Thank is changing the way leaders behave. It has to start there. So do you think that most leaders would have a difficult time for the way that most people present hop? That it is a philosophy opposed to a program? Do you think most leaders would have a difficult time understanding that once it's actually brought up to him, I think they do? And, um, I think a whole lot of people have heard of human performance in terms of identifying air likely situations, and they still look at that as well. That's something that workers dio. And so when you really talk to them about, um um hot being a set of shared beliefs and shared beliefs and values and an organization or driven by leadership and they have to live it every day than it, it takes some explaining and some coaching and some, you know, some time to get them to understand that and that, you know, the most important thing in that whole organization is how leaders behave, um, much more so than what workers do out on the floor. If leaders. And, you know, if leaders do the right things, if leaders ask the right questions, incentivize the right things, disincentivize the right things really focused on learning and improving engaging employees. I think you'll see that reflected in the way employees behave. And I just think that's so important to get leaders a day every level, to understand that that this is not something we do the workers. This is a set of core beliefs that we want to see in grain in this organization must. Once they get it, the light bulb goes off, then it's it's much, much easier to drive it through the organization now. Stephen, if the listeners want to get more information about you and your organization, what do they need to dio so you can get a hold of me at the Steve at hop improvement dot com? That's my email or ah, I'm on. Lengthen that. Just if you just look for Stephen that Stephen with a pH for Stephen Scott on length and you'll find me well, Steven Way, I really do appreciate you coming on to the show today. I appreciate you having me one small of J. Allen home, wondering how you can show your love head of announcing Facebook drop like the views and opinions expressed on this podcast or those of the host and its guest, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within with podcast are only examples. It's not be utilized in the real world at the only solution available as they're based only on very limited in dated open source information assumptions made within this analysis or not reflective of the position of the company. 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