This is this show is brought to you by safety FM. The following program is rated for mature audiences and may contain adult language, adult situations and frank safety discussions. The names in certain details have been changed to protect the safe and unsafe. But believe me, every item and here is true. The safety stump speech today on safety wars, I'm often told that I should have a safety stump speech sounds good, but I tell you one speech ain't enough like on our previous episode, you need to have all this stuff prepared ahead of time. You need the size of your workforce, get to know them, then deliver a speech at Cannes speech is exactly that a canned speech. It doesn't motivate anyone unless they are into canned speeches. Here's the problem with most of the ones I hear they sound great, but they're not believable at all. And usually they get very preachy. It's a common fallacy to think that what we find interesting other people will we think, well, what motivates me is what motivates others. It ain't true. I got whacked over the head because of this from one of my former ministers. So the lesson is find common ground, find out what motivates the workforce and tailor make that speech to the workforce. Some other stuff you want to avoid for these stem speeches. But it's all according to what situation you're in. Mention a family. Why is that a problem? That's great when you're dealing with a middle aged workforce with kids, what if you have workforce right out of high school or prison That can't relate to that. I work a lot of folks right out of prison, going home to family. Sounds great and it works for me, but for not for many workers, it's also very hackneyed. Think about this. What if someone hates their family? It's more common than you think an alternative to all of this might be. Hey, how about a loss of income? Unfortunately everyone likes money and it can be a good motivator, although not the only one religion. Be careful of this. I use this one. Only one person's religious beliefs are congruent to mine and we know each other. HR may have an issue with this, but for one on one motivational talk it might be just the thing you need. I did use a variation of the golden rule. One time I had one guy named Bogden who did not want to work safely and told me I am not the foreman, I will not tell anyone or correct anyone because it is not my job. He did this, he would cut me down in the middle of a class of about 40 people. I knew him and I asked, Hey said, Hey Bob, does your son still work here? You had a 16 or 17 year old son working for the company, a summer job type of thing. If he was doing something wrong, that would get him hurt. Would you want someone else to point that out to him? He said, yeah, I said. So. If you expect that of your coworkers, why wouldn't you want to reciprocate these men or women? Are someone's son, father, brother, sister, mother is fast, whatever. After this little speech here, he was one of the biggest supporters of safety and remains. So today the bottom line, find out what motivates our workforce and go from there again. I was prepared for this and I had this prepared way ahead of time. Here is another situation I had to face many times. A normal, struck dumb speech would not work. And here I was spending worker against worker. It's a very high risk endeavor. I was hired to come in and help a company with a situation. They had a major catastrophic loss. One of the root causes and I hate that term because his four machines and not people was that the corporate culture was against safety C suite wasn't against safety, at least my face. But the workforce and mid level managers were because of that servile safety person. But I was replacing and the dictator that we always complain about. The fact was that they were looking at severe penalties from this situation lawsuits, OSHA citations and a whole bunch of other stuff. So I let a couple of safety audits. We would call them learning teams today and the visual, the hatred and the negative comments I received were unbelievable. This is a situation you have a workforce that is against safety against working safety, a little bit machismo, as they said in another age. They are risk takers. They want to egg someone on. That means urging or encouraging someone to do something that is usually foolish or dangerous. It was encouraged by management, especially the mid level management, not so much the sea sweep. How do you think I handled this? I took on a very high risk way of dealing with this, but I thought it was worth the risk and the rewards. I had the workforce in a room. I tell the management to be ready with what they were going to say and I would give them a great segue. I asked them to stand up, look to the person to her left, look to the person to the right, look at the person in front of them and behind them and say their name out loud. They thought it was hysterical and the looks I got were like well where is he going with this? This sounds stupid once they calm down I don't ask them to ask the person to their right will you pay my bills when I get hurt because of you encouraging me not to work safely? I also had a couple of questions that I won't share for them. There was a complete silence in the room when I asked why are you listening to them encouraging you to not work safely if they're not going to pay your bills or handle any of your other responsibilities? Does your coworker really care about you? Why are you listening to them when they are telling you to do stuff? That same stuff that caused last week's catastrophe and will likely cause another one. People were pissed to say the least but in my pissing them off I gave them something to think about and talk about and believe me, they're still talking about it. I said something that they could not plan for ahead of time. I did something that most people would not do and guess what? I was successful. I kept that client for another 11 years and I still have that client. The manager then gave the folks to talk to change things. Hopefully for the good. That was one of the beginning steps to change the corporate culture significantly. They have not had any major bumps in the road and their T. R. I. R. Dropped below one within three years. They also had the lowest tr i our total recordable incident rate in the state of New Jersey for their next code. That's quite an accomplishment. I still hear comments on that situation and from almost a decade ago the management said that no one ever had the balls to put them in their place. Eventually, most of the mid level managers that allowed these situations to manifest were replaced. Others became better managers. You see the safety stump speech does not have to be a speech. Just an insightful, nonconfrontational, non wiseass answer or comment. Maybe a series of questions your world can change on a dime and words mean things make sure they are the right ones. That's how we're going to win the safety war for safety wars. This is jim Poesl The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the host and its guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within this podcast are only examples. It should not be utilized in the real world as the only solution available as they are based only on very limited and dated open source information, assumptions made within this analysis are not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast, Jay Allen?