In a safety audit, she would be asked if she had a plan, and she would say yes. She could show a document that would list the right details and actions. She would be in compliance.

Part of why she was prepared was her experience.  She knew the threat was real. She knew that the time to act was now. She quickly executed her plan.

In safety, management frequently develops policies and procedures. Many are required through regulatory agencies like OSHA, and some are created out of necessity or past experience. Sometimes we shut the barn door after the horses are gone, but at least no more horses get out.

It’s time for a new level of policy. A policy of preparedness. A policy where we demonstrate our value for safety every day.

Where I work, we call it an obligation. An obligation is something that everyone is accountable for, and we have three of them.

The first obligation is simple, but it requires that management demonstrate discipline, openness and trust.

I am obligated to refuse to do something that I can’t do safely.

Simple, right?

My craziest boss would demonstrate this obligation for new employees in a way that stuck with them. He told them the whole plant was engineered for safety. That even the desk drawers were designed so that you couldn’t get your hand caught in them. He would ask a new employee to come up to the desk, he opened a drawer and told the new employee “Go ahead and put your hand in there. I’ll slam this shut and you will see how it works.”

Some of them did it, others said  “No, I can’t be sure of my safety.”

And that was his first point. Employees have to learn to trust their own sense of what is safe or not, and not assume they are protected.

And management has to encourage the challenge. Not just tolerate it, but encourage it.

How do you implement an obligation like this? Well, you start by asking employees if there is anything they do that raises concern over their safety. Do they feel under-trained or inadequately protected? They may not volunteer the information without being asked, you have to give them reason to trust you.  So that’s step 1. Ask your employees if they feel at risk in their day to day actions, and help them resolve that problem. That’s the first step toward going beyond compliance for a safer work place, and engaging your employees in making their workplace safer every day.

I’ll cover the other two obligations later this week.

Last weekend, as part of my first 20,000 days celebration, I ran my second half marathon. In spite of my September post on preparation, I did not prepare to the degree I had planned. So here’s what you do to make sure you have a good time, a good race, and no injury.

1. Set your expectations to match your level of training. If you are running a longer race, but haven’t come close in your long runs, be prepared to walk part of the way. You can run the whole thing with the right level of mental toughness, but your risk of injury increases if you exceed your training by too much.
2. Follow a practical pre-race ritual. This is different for everyone, based in part on your travel to the race location. Some nutrition to start your engine is a good idea, but most runners don’t want to have too much in their stomachs at the start of the race. Get to the race with enough time to register and pick up your number (unless there was pick-up available the day before). Check for the porta-pottys. If you need to use one, chances are they will be busy just before the race, so line up early.
3. Position yourself in a reasonable location at the start. Don’t put other runners in the position of having to run around you in the early running. And don’t put yourself so deep in the pack that you don’t have room to run.
4. The longer the race, the more careful you pace. Don’t start out at your best stride when the race is much longer than your usual run. If you routinely run 5k in 25 minutes, then by all means go out fast and back off a bit if you need to. But if you are an 11-minute miler running a 10k, don’t rush out at a 9 minute pace and expect you will keep it up.
5. Remember the words of my friend John: “To finish is to win”. You trained, you registered, you got to the start. Now get to the finish and don’t worry about your time.
6. Enjoy the rest of your day. If you ran a long race you may want to ice the legs a bit, even in an ice bath. This will reduce the recovery time.
7. Pick another race and set up a new training plan!

I know that I was not happy with my last finish time, but thrilled with the run itself and that I finished without injury. But I know what I need to do to improve and I’ll run my own 13.1 in May with a new goal. Assuming I train enough.

Enjoy your training as much as your racing, and, as always, let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

1. You have to work up to the distance. No amount of frequent short runs will prepare you, so you need to plan several weeks ahead of time to add at least one long run per week.
2. You need to mix it up with long runs, speed training, and short, comfortable runs. Training doesn’t mean every workout should stretch you to the max. Your legs need their own version of work/life balance.
3. You need to be aware of your nutrition needs. If you are training to the tune of 20-40 miles per week, then you need to be eating more and eating smarter. A good plan includes nutrition consideration.
4. You need to understand the change in your body’s need for rest. Training for these distances is tough, and you need better quality recovery time, which includes more sleep. We’re all different in this respect, but you need to be aware of it and adjust accordingly.
5. A plan keeps you motivated. If you are at race day minus three weeks, then you are starting to get some serious long runs in, the kind that take 2 hours or more depending on the race you are training for. Sticking with the plan will give you more confidence on race day. Which brings me to the last point.
6. Race day should be fun. You get to feel the excitement of the rest of the runners. On many distance runs there will be crowds and music throughout the race cheering you on. As the miles tick by you feel some sense of accomplishment. But, if you did not follow a plan you will likely be unprepared and will have some disappointments. You will walk more than you hoped to. You may develop blisters or pains for the first time because you didn’t do enough distance prep to know your body and your equipment.

A plan will take just a little bit of your time, but will help you enjoy the journey more. You can get a plan for your running at Runner’sWorld.com, look for SmartCoach, and you can generate a plan based on your current ability and planned distance. The plan above is an example for someone planning to run a 5k race. You can learn more about the nutritional and rest aspects by lurking in the Runner’s World forums. There at a ton of generous, knowledgeable people there.

Exercise is a necessary part of a healthy lifestyle. If you enjoy running for the solitude, you may never enter a race. But racing with others can be a fun social experience as well as a good goal management opportunity. My next race is a half marathon in early October. I am following a training plan that should allow me to finish in the same general time as the last one a did a year ago. The best part of have a plan for me is the motivational aspect. I am on plan and feeling good!

Whatever distance you might run, do it for fun as much as for challenge, and, as always, let’s be careful out there.
Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

In my second or third year as a team leader, I was making a safety presentation to my team. I was reading a lot about Deming at the time, and the whole notion that quality, managed correctly, reduces cost. The same applies to safety.

When employees are fully trained and expected to work safely, the investment involved in getting them there pays off. They stay safe and remain able to work and contribute. They never become a non-contributing expense. One of my machine operators said “You’ve always been a proponent of safety Tim, but the way you just explained it, your interest is in lower costs, not my safety. If I didn’t know you, that’s what I would have understood you to say just now.”

This was a smart guy, a team member who had worked with or for me for at least 3 years at that point. He was trying to explain to the newer employees in the room that I cared more about their personal safety than they might think I did from listening to me. I assumed they already knew that.

I asked if that mattered, if working in the safest possible manner was it’s own reward, and something we do for ourselves and our family. The truth is that my employer at the time had a tighter standard for safety than many of us had. Things we might do at home to save time or money – like use a chair instead of a steady ladder – were simply not tolerated in the workplace.

But would people work more safely because they thought I was genuinely concerned for their safety, or because the consequence of discipline for not following rules was something they could not afford?

It occurred to me that I did not care about motive. I just wanted them to work as safely as possible. If they didn’t have a personal motive, then part of my work was to help them get one.

What’s your motive for encouraging safe practices at work AND at home? What is the motive perceived by your employees? Does it matter?

Let’s be careful out there.

Author Roger von Oech explains how it takes several different types of people to bring real solutions into being and make them last. I read the book and took a look at my new team. I was long on Warriors. These guys got their jobs by being fighters every day. They went out on the shop floor and worked side by side with the operators in problem solving and maintenance tasks. They barked orders and grabbed the reigns and made sure that stuff got done.

The next day they would do it all over again.

The problem with this behavior in leading safety is that you can’t power your way through safety issues. You can’t order people to be more safe, you can’t fight off an accident. If it happens it happens.

Are you a Warrior? Perhaps you are one of the other types. I’ll cover them in the next few Wednesdays and you can tell us all where you fit.

Let’s be careful out there.

A few years ago I went on a trip with my son’s chorus, and a night of bowling was on the agenda. When I noticed the choral director looked bothered by something, I asked him if he was having a problem with any of the kids. Turns out he was bothered by his bowling performance. He was into the second game, and he was wondering why he couldn’t seem to break 100. When I asked how often he bowled, he told me that he only bowls on this annual trip.

“You know something, Brian,” I said, “I don’t understand why I can’t sing like my son. I sing ‘Happy Birthday’ often enough, you would think I would be good by now, wouldn’t you?”  He got it, and he quickly understood that I would have to TRY and PRACTICE at least as much as his students to be able to get better.

We cannot just THINK about being safe, we must practice taking the extra steps to avoid accidents. Practice thinking through an unfamiliar task before attempting it, and practice constructing the safest procedure to do that task.  You might not ever get invited to Carnegie Hall for your safety performance, but good safety practices can give you a better chance at enjoying anything you might ever go there to see.

Is there anything you are trying to improve at, but don’t set aside time to practice? If it’s safety, bring it to the front of your mind and make a point of doing something a little safer today than you did it yesterday.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.