Safety is a Team Sport

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr Todd Loushine, a former OSHA compliance officer and EHS practitioner who now teaches the next generation of Safety professionals as an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Todd uses his wide-ranging experience to improve worker success, satisfaction and safety - and in this highly-engaging discussion, he focuses his wisdom on the importance of learning and practicing civil discourse.

Many guests on our show believe Safety education doesn’t adequately prepare tomorrow’s HSE professionals, but 

Todd provides a more positive perspective.

He explains how students can be given the right level of challenge, guidance and soft-skill training to help them become successful Safety practitioners.

Debates about Safety do not always remain civil - especially on social media - and Todd explores why this happens and how the professional can raise the standards of discussion, openness to ideas and collaboration.

Both entertaining and enlightening throughout, Todd compares Safety to a teenager(!) and shares his vision of the profession without a regulator.

- [Mary] Hi there. Welcome to "Safety Labs by Slice." We've had lots of guests on the show who feel that formal safety education doesn't prepare tomorrow's safety professionals to work effectively in the workplace. Our guest has a different point of view. Today, I'll ask him about that and about the importance of learning and practicing civil discourse in the safety profession.

Todd Loushine began his career as an OSHA compliance officer and consultant with Minnesota OSHA. His goal in the field was to improve worker success, safety and health, and job satisfaction. Todd has dedicated his career to contributing to OHS as a profession, and after six years in the field, he chose to teach the next generation of safety professionals. He's an associate professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Todd joins us from Madison, Wisconsin. Welcome.

- [Dr. Loushine] That was excellent. I can't believe you memorized all that.

- Oh, yeah. I memorized it all.

- Well done.

- So, lots of people say that safety school does nothing to teach you about the real world. I'm simplifying a little bit. And that the real education starts once you're on the job. And you have a bit of a different take on the role of formal safety education. Do you want to tell me about that?

- Yeah, and I'm going to relate it to my experience as a student too, that I understand, people think, "Oh, I'm going to take these classes. And once I've completed those classes to a certain level of competency, I'll be awarded a degree and then I am a changed person and I'm going to go out and practice." But what it really is the individual student practicing time management, practicing their learning technique, how to read and comprehend, take notes, review.

There are certain grading points in which they work up to in order to prove that the skills they're developing are working. And I think that's why also a lot of university degrees require students to take courses outside of their discipline or their focus of study. So, let's now take that to the next level, and that is practicing safety that are there...you know, chemistry, you take chemistry, you take physics, a math class, obviously, before statistics.

And you take a bunch of safety classes. And, of course, it's interesting I've looked at a lot of different curriculums for different degrees, and there's variances there, but they tend to have the same language, whether it's a combined inner course or separated out. And I know a lot of people view it as well, as long as I'm exposed to and I know certain tricks of the trade that come out of it, that I'll be okay.

And that's not what it's about. It's the same as the example I gave when I went through and what I understand that it is about the time management, it's about problem-solving, which I feel is sort of the oversimplified version of social...or I'm sorry, scientific inquiry. That, you know, you're attempting to solve a problem and you're being given different scenarios, different situations, and you're developing those skills.

Once you get onto the field, what you do is, you know, you're gaining, how did I practice that? How did I solve those problems? What was the limiting agent? And what did I build? What were my reference points or my sources of information to start to understand things a little bit better? And then, of course, there is the trial and error, and I think that's what a degree is supposed to do is teach you problem-solving.

Now, there are people who don't go to get a formal degree, and they are very successful in the field. Well, they may have a natural talent to problem-solve. And, you know, yeah, they can be successful. Are they put through multiple or a series of trials and tribulations, which are your coursework and other thing in order to hone those skills to really understand...you know, because I do feel that being able to try something, fail and learn from it is really where true intelligence comes from.

And when you really fully understand that path, that's where wisdom, you know, springs from. Does that kind of narrow what you'd wanted to hear me say from that question?

- Yeah, I mean, it sounds to me like what you're saying is that it's not necessarily about the content so much as it is about learning to learn, learning to inquire and...like critical thinking skills, that kind of thing.

- Exactly. And that's where I would draw a difference between different programs. And I know I've spoken to different, you know, students from different universities and they've had complaints. And I know that some previous guests on your show have said, "Oh, they just taught me about the standards." It's like, but that's a reference point to build from. That's sort of the simulation from which you practice other things. If you are in a degree program where the only problem-solving you're really being tested on is multiple choice, that's not really testing your ability to problem-solve.

There needs to be case studies. There needs to be getting out into the field and trying things. And you should be allowed to fail as well. You know, I've seen some literature that shows that some people, hey, as long as they show up to class enough, they'll pass. There needs to be a minimum level of competency that's set by the professors, you know, as a group, not individually so much.

And the student should be challenged to the point where it's almost uncomfortable. But the faculty member or the professor should be there to recognize that and to tell them what they need to hear in order to get back on track. Saving for that, if you are just kind of tumbling through and surviving an exam or surviving a paper, whatever, you're not really developing those skills.

But if you were to take those two programs or degree programs right next to each...oh, they're covering the same things. But the student over here who's being challenged and forced to grow, forced to re-look at things, forced to develop those skills, they're the ones who are probably going to come out and be a successful practitioner right away, whereas the other group, there's no challenge there. And so it's all upon them.

What did they walk away from other than just a, you know, piece of paper that acknowledges they completed the coursework? So, that's the big difference is that it's not about what you know, it's about how you go about using what you know in your resources to better understand things.

- Because the information, I mean, in this day and age, information is everywhere. Insight and learning, you know, how to, I guess, analyze or understand that information there's a big difference there. Does that sound right or...?

- Definitely. And here's the other thing too. And I think this is something we're going to get into. And I was preparing for this by going onto LinkedIn and reading, and it's almost like taking poison a little at a time. You kind of become resistant to it. But it's just interesting how so many people have to cut other people down in an effort to say, "Well, no, it's this way," or, "I have a different viewpoint."

We're all on a path to understanding. And some people get stuck or lost on that path to get to understanding. And it's the people who can...you know, you believe something today and then you hear what other people talk about and you're like, "Oh, I can think about that. I understand from where you're coming from, and I see how it affects what my previous experiences or what I see in front of my face are. So, let me try it too. And it may work and it may not."

So, a person who's continually attempting to understand and hear from others and try things out, they're the ones who are eventually going to get to that understanding. It's the people who are stuck, or the people who feel that in order to feel like I'm right and I'm righteous, I have to put other people down. And that is too common in this profession right now. And obviously, it upsets me, but I'm not going to try to get too emotional about it.

And I try not to engage in the sort of the pettiness of it when it comes to the comment section and what other people say. I understand people are just on different...they are at different points of their career, they are at different points of their journey. And when students get out of school, they're on a lower level, but they've walked the path. They were given some guidance, and hopefully, they'll continue on it.

And even the faculty, the professors, they're still learning too, because they were trained on the sort of the pursuit of what I don't know I don't know, which, you know, when you're in graduate school, once you really understand what that means, that really makes the path clear that you are very measured in what you say. You're very measured in how you proceed.

You're very measured in, I can listen to someone's complete opposing viewpoint, but we can be civil about it so I can understand from their perspective and we can both gain something from the experience.

- Yeah. And we're absolutely going to get into that. We're going to talk further about civil discourse. But I'm curious, like, in this learning path in the way it should be in your view, what's the role of the professor or the instructor, yeah, to guide people along? Like, what does guidance look like?

- I mean, I'd almost liken it to like a sherpa. They're there to protect. They allow the people to really test themselves to go as far as they can. And if they deviate or they're tired or they're demotivated, they should be there to kind of pick them up and keep them moving. I know that...and I'm going to give you references that a lot of your listeners are probably like, I'm too young to know this, but like in the Matrix, you know, the Oracle, it's like, "Oh, she told me this."

It's like she told you what you needed to know to make that next step. And everybody got different... She didn't teach everybody the same thing. It's what they needed to hear. My advisor in graduate school was amazing at that. I'd be panicked about something because my lab mates were at a different point of their, you know, dissertation or whatever it might be. And he was great at reeling me back in, refocusing me, and then I was motivated to keep going.

And I really think that's the role. And at the undergraduate level, it may be a little bit different because we've got a bigger group of people and there's not as much one-on-one as you would like. But, you know, I always try to make myself available to my students, even if it's a Saturday night. We can meet, you know, and I can talk through what their frustrations are.

And I also think that's a skillset too, is knowing when to ask for help. And I've actually had to train some students since post-pandemic that complaining to me, blaming me for making you feel anxious or stressed is not the proper way to begin the, can you help me...your question? It's more or less, this is where I am, this is what I'm thinking, but I just can't get through this point.

Let's move forward. And then I'm happy to help. It's the ones who go, here, fix this for me that it's like, "No, that's not what this is about." And I think that's what students need to understand, that sometimes you didn't put in enough time. Sometimes the faculty member was speaking at a level that didn't meet your frequency. You got to go talk to them to alleviate what that difference is, and then you can move forward. Because it really is if you take your classes at the experience to develop your learning technique, and that's again, time management, your ability to take notes, synthesize those notes, make an understanding of it, you know, prepare for whatever the test might be, whether it's an exam, paper, presentation, case study project, whatever it might be.

The more time you put into understanding what it needs to be or look like, the more successful you're going to be. Ergo, yeah. If we have the procrastinators, I can smell them, they wait till the night before. I can tell. I can tell that they didn't go through the thought process. So, yeah, that's the path.

That's the path they should be on. And when they graduate, they should have a level of confidence that wherever they get hired, their new boss, their new person that they're reporting to, that is their new sherpa, that's their new guide. But it's within a smaller context. So, it's not fully about them learning now. Now, they're actually providing value, which they've been practicing all along, but the value is mostly to their skillset and their knowledge.

- Do you think that there's an ideal balance between technical, and here I'm talking more knowledge content and interpersonal skills in safety education? And if there is, what would that look like?

- Okay, that's the million-dollar question. Yes, there is.

- I know.

- There definitely is. And the problem is because of, you know, how we grew up and who our parents were and our experiences, that is how our ability to communicate and relate to others. A lot of people call it the soft skills, right? You almost have to experience a lot of things. And yeah, and that's where complete, you know, 100% online learning without any interaction, it doesn't provide those abilities to try to ask somebody question, inquire about something, and realize that you're actually driving people away.

And that's where I like to bring students out to companies, and I like to make them uncomfortable. Okay, reverse that, cut that out. I don't like to make them uncomfortable, but I understand that putting them in a position that is uncomfortable challenges them. And then they have to dig down deep. You know, and allow them to make mistakes. And then tell them what they did wrong and why it was.

How else are you supposed to learn it? You know, I couldn't imagine someone not being given that opportunity to go to a workplace and start writing emails, I know exactly what to do here. Do this OSHA thing. Going to workers, thou must do this. You're going to be kicked out of there really soon. You're not going to be successful. I mean, I've been practicing right now, you know, for the last seven months.

And, you know, I had an injured worker who was reported at first aid. So, I went found her, and I asked about it, and I said, "Are you all right? You know, are you taking care of it?" I said, "I'm sorry that happened to you. If there's any change in condition, please let me know." And I do that with each touch point that somebody gets somewhat entered question. And today, it's extremely hot here.

We survived over a 100-degree heat load within our plant. We don't have air conditioning in our plant. So, I've been bringing around coolers of ice water so they can dip in their cooling claws and put it around their neck. And going around, handing out electrolyte popsicles, things like that. And a worker comes up to me, she goes, "Excuse me," she goes, "I just want you to know we really appreciate what you're doing for us."

And I'm sorry, that is more important to me than the incidents rates or anything else because they also know that that gives me some leverage on reciprocity. That if I ask them, "Hey, would you share more..." It's working. And that is the social side. There's nothing technical about what I'm doing, it's just getting out there and getting to know people. You know, safety is an attribute of work.

The workers are doing the work, therefore we have to understand how safety influences the way they do things, so they view things. And the only way to do that, the only way is to build relationships with them. Of course, you know, we have to also attend to all the other responsibilities we have with management and forecasting say, oh, yes, of course. But getting that on the floor and hearing what the workers are saying and getting them to come to you to ask questions, I'm bringing those very gently and very structured to the managers and then we're solving problems.

And now the workers are coming to me and going, I've been asking for this to be, you know, corrected for 10 years. And here, you know, what did you do? I brought what you had said, you know, and put it in a language or in a context that they would understand. And yes, they did. You know, so I'm giving you examples of the way I do it, but again, I try to be, first of all, almost a role model for the students when we go out to places.

But more importantly, there is a time in which I have to step back and go, "Go it, try it." And if they aren't, it's okay. It's a safe environment. It's a project. And the site manager or site supervisor, whoever my friend is who's hosting, the host, that's the better term for it, they're there to observe as well and provide feedback. And I want honest feedback, not, "Oh, you're doing a great job, but here's where you could have done better."

And everybody should hear that. Not in a critical putting them down way, but in a you can get better way, which, you know, that's how they should be practicing, too. Nobody's really trying to do anything wrong, but there's potential for improvement, and that's what you want to tap into. Okay. I went really on different tangents there. What do we talk about again?

What's the proper breakdown? I'll start at 50/50. And then depending on the individual's current state of knowledge, skills, and abilities, you have to then customize. And I mean a good instructor can recognize that and will spend more time on the technical things with the ones who need it, spend more time on the social things, who need it. And again, it's communication relations, not really.

And that encompasses social.

- Yeah. And I mean, yeah, it's not as though everyone comes as tabula rasa, like, we're not all the same person when we arrive in any kind of degree program. Are you seeing any shifts or trends in the way that students approach learning? Like, in your time teaching, has anything...and I mean, within that time has been the pandemic, which is a huge interruption for many things.

- Yeah, I see a clear connection to what I've seen in the change in like the high school level, you know, that, you know, the testing is so important. You know, they got to score really well in the tests. And teaching to the test. That does not prepare students for college.

It doesn't. You know, well, you don't have to read...you don't have to read something and enjoy it and reflect on it, and then relate it to other things, you know, in your life. And that builds knowledge, but then the process you went by to read, have that discipline to read and set time aside to do it, to take your own notes, to really think about it, you know, wherever you are, that's what we need in college.

But when those types of learners who are consumers, in many ways, a consumer learner comes to a university, they're expecting to be spoon-fed. And simply by accepting the spoon-fed information, I've accomplished what you need, right? "No, no, we want you to write a paper."

"Well, what do you want it to say?" "I want you to read this book and I want you to tell me what you get out of it." And they're just, "What?" And so because that's more common than in the exception, I think the individuals, the professors at the lower level... Again, oh, I hope I'm not making anybody mad, but I think some of them have just been like, "You know what? I can't fight this tide. I'm just going to go with it."

And so I'm seeing some students get to me and they don't have the wherewithal to, "Okay, I've got a paper due in four weeks. What's my schedule?" You know, what does the professor really expect? Not the night before it's due, but, you know, at the point in which it's assigned. And you can tell which students have gone through that process because, you know, they have a draft, they're asking me specific questions about layout and everything.

I'm like, "Wow, this is going to be a pleasure to read," and then I've got other students going, "Oh, I forgot it's due tomorrow." I'm like, "Oh, boy, that's going to be a fun one to read." If they're just going to regurgitate whatever comes out at, you know, 11:55, and then they'll turn it in. And you can see it. You know, I could almost predict based on what the students say and do in class, where they're going to be on that curve.

And if I see an outlier, a deficiency there, a difference than what I expect, I'll go talk to the individual and find out. Because some students don't have to go through all that process and they provide an excellent product. And I see real talent there, but I want them to know, just like Michael Jordan practiced a lot, just because you have a talent doesn't mean, you know, you don't have to put in the work and the effort and demonstrate.

But then the ones who are really smart, but they don't do it, I find that they have a certain level of anxiety that prevents them from, you know, really telling their story versus they're trying to tell the story they think I want to hear without fully vetting what that means. And I've had a lot of students have breakthroughs. And that's where professors shouldn't say, "Okay, this one paper's worth half your grade."

Yikes, that's right there. So, there should be a smaller one and then a little bit bigger one. You know, it should build up to a much bigger product, but you give them a chance to fail-safe. And I know that's a Todd Conklin euphemism, but that's... So that's really where things are right now that I'm finding and we're finding that where we could assume a minimum level of technical expertise, and I'm including using hand tools.

You know, we used to assume they could all do that stuff or use a ladder, things like that. We have to build more of those basics or assume knowledge into it. And we also need to be very careful with not assuming that they are comfortable with writing a paper, or that if we assign reading a few chapters that they will do it.

We have to put in additional assessment tools or checkpoints to ensure that they are. The only reason I use quizzes. And any future students of mine who are, you know, listening to this, I only use quizzes to make sure they're actually doing the assigned readings. That's it. And it's very, very low contribution to grade, but it's just I expect you guys to read. And I can tell who's not, because the questions are not just something you can Google or have, you know, ChatGPT or whatever it's called, put it out there.

It's actual thing like interpretation of, okay, you know, in this chapter they talked about this, but how would you apply it to the situation? So, it takes like, okay, you did consume it versus just I can search the text for the answer.

- Let's swing around or circle back, as they say, to we had talked a little bit about the idea of civil discourse. So, the last time we spoke, you told me safety is a team sport. There's no podium, there's no gold medal for being right. Can you explain what you mean by that?

- Yes. What I've seen in my career, and it's almost 30 years now, is the rise of people who entertain. And, you know, long time ago when I was like in my 20s, I was like, "I would love to be a keynote speaker." Because one of my first keynote presentations I attended was Dr. Geller, you know, with Virginia Tech. And I was like, "That's amazing."

But his was both educational and entertaining. What I found is nowadays people are just really focused on the entertaining. And even though there isn't something learned, something that challenges me to say, hmm, maybe I can try something new, or hmm, maybe I can think of this in a different perspective, it's just, okay, I'll cherry pick and reaffirm what I think I already know.

And man, I feel really good about it. You know, so what happens when someone doesn't entertain you, but still they provide you with challenging thought, you know? Consider this other thing. They get negative reviews. Because again, I've sat on a lot of committees that review, you know, what people say. And so what's really good for you people kind of reject.

The things that aren't really good for you, but are, you know, sweet, make you feel better aren't... It's kind of like lucky charms, you know, bull lucky charms. It's like you got to...oh boy, that was a bad reference.

- That might be an old one. [crosstalk 00:23:47] to make those.

- I apologize to the mills. Me too, yeah. It's just, you know, the marshmallow stuff's not good for you, but ooh, you want it. The other stuff is good for you, the grain stuff, but, you know, you don't like it as much. We go to these conferences. And that's an old model go and we hear people talk. Some are entertaining, some are very educational, like I had said.

And we tend to review based on our visceral response, you know, to it. Do I agree with what they said? Okay, I'll say they're great. Do I disagree with what they said without entertaining me? Oh, they're horrible. What are we learning? Where are we developing?

Where is the point in which we can all get together and really talk things through without having a dominant speaker? We need more facilitators in this field instead of entertainers. I dare...and I'm going to say this in a negative connotation, pejoratively, we have shock jocks in our field right now. They get a lot of attention, and I'll try and listen to some of it.

I'm like, "I'm not learning anything." All they're doing is trying to either make fun of somebody or entertain, and what am I gaining from that? How is that improving my practice? How is that giving me ideas that would challenge myself to, you know, serve my employees or my charges a little bit better than I did today?

- I want to get a little bit meta now because you co-created a conference talk about soft skills for safety professionals. And it was entitled, "Stop Yelling at Me," which is a great title. So, partly, I want to ask about the idea of civil discourse and the idea of using conferences. So, like, what was the impetus for the topic and how did people respond?

- The impetus for the talk was exactly what I just talked about that. It was a team talk with my friend Jill James, and we were just kind of putting together ideas. And I had said, you know, I'm really disheartened by the level of discourse we're seeing on LinkedIn. And I think the immediate responses with people who are like-minded is to say...you know, get into your own little echo chamber and yeah, it's bad, you know, whatever.

But I try to then to search out, you know, what is their background? What are they talking about? And the problem is what I see is somebody will come in with like a dissenting idea but in, you know, a proper way, a civil way, and they will smash them down. And I know earlier in my career, I've gotten in a few of those, you know, fights too, and my students would then say, "Oh, that person said some really bad things about you."

I'm like, "So what? You know, you'll let the stuff roll off." But the idea is that this yelling thing. And through my career, I've dealt with different people who they think they're communicating, but it's communication with a definite form of intimidation. And that's not communication. You're forcing your ideas, thoughts, opinions on me.

I have nothing to...I don't feel comfortable, you know, saying anything back but just to say, I agree. And in the safety field, that's dangerous. You know, we shouldn't be yelling. But I understand why people do it. And so what we have to do is we have to, you know, acknowledge. Acknowledge the anger, acknowledge the emotion.

Yes, sure. But what are we truly trying to accomplish here? We need to understand, you know, from the worker's perspective, what happened? I need to understand from the student's perspective, why didn't things go as well. If yelling is how you approach it, you'll never get there, ever. And so you really have to understand the bigger picture of what you need to do.

What is the real goal here? And so in that presentation, what we do is we talk a little bit about, are you the yeller or are you the...so the person yelled at? And we had a really interesting group. We actually had a bunch of people who in there were yellers, they wanted to know why. And it's just some people, that's where you were trained. That's how your communication, relation, training, you know, growing up came from.

And maybe you've actually found success in that methodology, which seems counterproductive, but it's true. And we let them know is what you can do is you can actually use.. Years ago, I was trained on something called verbal judo. Have you heard of that? Yeah.

And so by, you know, your facial expression, your body language, and how you respond to someone's yelling or what seems to be like they're going to reach a level of violence, is that what you try to do is turn whatever the violence and yelling into talking, into the statement of ideas and thoughts, and relating to each other. It's a lot more difficult to hit somebody when they're trying to understand you and they're trying to help you.

Do you see what I mean? And we talked about breathing exercises. We talked about when you need to walk away from an interaction because you can tell it's not going anywhere at that moment. We talked about, you know, if you happen to be a hothead, that there are points in which you can catch yourself and actually recover in the moment and actually move ahead...progress to a resolution.

And I give examples in my life that even...you know, my blood boils. You know, I'm using that very...I can turn into the Incredible Hulk. But I've learned to control it. And I've also learned that if I start to respond that way, if I can see it, I do have to remove myself from them, you know, and kind of breathe. And then I can go back and I can apologize.

And I can assist and I can re-relate. And what can we do to come to a resolution? And I know for some people, that is an impossible task right now, you know, that you're thinking, you know, "They're below me. You know, I'm better than them. I'm older than them. You know, I'm bigger than them, whatever it might be." But that's not going to get to resolution. You can't choke and punch someone into understanding each other.

Okay, that's really an extreme version, but you understand. Okay, go ahead.

- Yeah, no, I understand. And I'm curious though, because you specifically mentioned LinkedIn. This is where a lot of this discourse is happening. One thing that I see happening, or that we even talked about on the show before, is that someone discovers a new book, a new point of view, a new idea. On the one hand, they can sometimes be a bit evangelical, like, this is a new discovery.

I'm the first person to ever get this. And that can be a little annoying. On the other hand, people who might have been working in the field for a long time can also be quite brutal in shutting down the kind of enthusiasm with an attitude of superiority based on their experience. Now, obviously, neither of those is ideal, but what's your approach to dealing with someone who has vastly different level of experience, whether they're way more experienced than you, or, you know, just starting out and just discovering all these ideas?

- Well, I think what a lot of people are doing is they're reacting in a short amount of time. And instead of being inquisitive to learn more about what the topic is, or in what context they're making that expression is to get to know the person. You know, because I mean, friends can argue, but in a civil way.

Strangers who are in the same field...you know, someone who's been in the field a lot longer and maybe had published something before, or they've been extremely busy, you know, they've traveled on the path and they're getting closer to the point of understanding that when somebody speaks up on something that they had thought 10, 15 years ago, they may think, "Well, I just got to crush them. That it's wrong. I was there. It's not right."

They're on the same path you were on. It's just going to take them 15 years. And they're enthusiastic. Don't crush that. You know, reach out to them and say, "That's interesting where you are." And just maybe what you can do is just try to understand where they are and how they're applying it, and appreciate that they had the enthusiasm to step up and share what their thoughts are, but with the idea of maybe being a mentor, you know, or a peer reviewer to let them know that I read it and I thought this 20 years ago, but this is the next step for you.

That's where we need to be. Because then it's not the sharing of things. But just because you followed up the path doesn't mean you caught everything along the way. That I think sometimes what we need to do is appreciate not only the enthusiasm, but maybe some of what their viewpoints are and think back to when we were at that point. And did we have that level of enthusiasm?

If not, why not? What experience did they have that you didn't have? What resources are they accessing and using that weren't available 15, 20 years ago? So, we can learn from it, too. And I am finding that the older we get, the quicker we are to just kind of wave things off as, "Oh, you are too young, you don't know."

And to get angry. And I hope I'm not that person because I visualize, you know, the old guy, "Get off my lawn." Right? And I guess what it sometimes sounds like when they're like, "Oh, you're not wrong. You know, there's not evidence for that." They're just like, "Get off my lawn." It's like, "Come on, man, they're just picking up the apples that fell on the ground."

- There's also no argument against someone who says, "Well, I just know because I have X number of years more experience than you and you just don't know." I mean, there's no way to kind of, even the playing field and the discourse there because you're never going to magically have 20 more years experience in the confines of the conversation.

- Right. And that goes back to what I'd said before. If you are truly a scientist, you've adopted this idea of what I don't know I don't know. Allow yourself some time to reflect on what other people are saying, and then come back with something more gently.

Again, don't yell. And we seem to do a lot of yelling, you know, and it doesn't seem like you're yelling, but if you start out your response in a condescending way, you may as well be yelling. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

- No. What I was wanting to ask about is there are a lot of, I don't know if I should call them theories, philosophies, points of view, there's, you know, new view human operate and organizational performance. There's safety 1, safety 2, command and control.

There's all these labels. Do you feel like sometimes as you get older that things...ideas are maybe coming back to the fore that have already existed but under some other guise? Like, maybe they're rediscovered or remarketed, or, I'm not sure. Like, do you sometimes get the idea that the younger people are saying, this is a great new idea and older people are saying, no, it's not, but in fact, they actually agree when it comes down to it, when you get past the labels and everything?

- Well, yeah, of course. I do see that. And again, it's the path. You know, the higher you get on the path, the more viewpoint you have. And then you kind of understand things a little bit more. All these ideas, sure... I want to just say a disclaimer quick.

I don't think people are taking other people's ideas, claiming they're their own by repackaging it. I don't think there's anything going... You didn't intend that. But I want the listeners to understand that's not what we're saying. What we're saying is they have a discovery, they've experienced something on their path that maybe makes it a little bit...maybe it was an epiphany for them. Like, I have to share people.

And the easiest way to do that is to provide it with a new title or label so they can differentiate it from the other things. Well, the people who have been through that area, it's like, yeah, you know, we called it this, you call it that. It's not the same. But that's no reason to put it down, it's new to them. And it helps them understand, can we then look back at our past and our experiences and relate to how we felt when we discovered what it was called back then?

And that's okay. And here's the thing too, maybe there is something additional there. Maybe there is...or maybe there's something missing from the one we thought. No, we should reach out to them and, you know, add to it. But you're right. I see too much of this immediate rejection, and I really think that if these are true scholars that what they should be doing is attempting to contribute positively to the body of knowledge versus attempting to chop things off just because it's something similar to...

it's just, you know, kind of something similar they knew, different name. How can we really progress and grow if what we're doing is, you know, shutting down every new idea that comes along? You know, pretty soon people are going to be afraid to share new ideas or share their experiences. Let's bring it down to our practice now.

If workers come to us with ideas and we're just putting them down, that won't work, that's too expensive. They're going to stop bringing the ideas. And, you know, if you really practice safety, you'll know how important what I just said is. If you are quieting people, even if they have more of a dissenting viewpoint, you're going to miss something.

You're not going to understand the full picture of what's going on.

- As you were talking, I was thinking when you mentioned safety as a team sport, it's a little sad, a little disappointing that, you know, people are, I'm right. You're right. You're wrong. I'm right. All this kind of thing when in the end, the goal is actually quite noble. It's to keep people safe. And not even just safe, but well.

So do you win? There's this discussion about like, which is more important, the relationship or being right?

- Wow, okay. You just caught me off guard. All right. Is it better to be right, or is it better to have the relationship? I say it's better to have the relationship. And, you know, I'm going to refer to a story here really quick that, you know, as safety professionals, you know, especially when we're starting out, we have to present ideas. And if we can convince someone of our idea, then what we want them to do is invest in it, and then we'll take it to the work environment and see if it works.

But sometimes managers will not, you know, accept or buy into an idea unless it comes from them, or one of their trusted few. And so here's what I did in my youth. My boss was like, "No, you know, she won't give you the money." I'm like, "Let me try." And I kind of did a story approach to things and kind of talked about the issue so that she understood it. I had some open-ended questions.

And when it got down to, you know what we should do is she blurted out the answer, the thing that I was going to ask for, she funded it. I came back to my boss, I'm like, "We got the money." She's like, "How the hell did you do that?" And I said, "Because she said it, not me." You know, and so sometimes that's what we have to do. We don't always have to win. We don't always have to be the best and the most knowledgeable.

But if we can help others share their best knowledge, you know, and for them to feel more confident in what they're doing so they can...you know, if something doesn't work, they're just like, "Oh, it's the end of the world." But they try to learn from it and go on. That's what's important. That's what we need to be doing. I think further you get into your career, the more you understand that. That you're not just trying to look out to say I'm the best, but you're trying to lift up everybody around you.

And I know a lot of people probably thought, oh, he's talking, you know, like Peter Drucker type stuff and leadership stuff. Exactly. It's all aligned. Isn't it interesting that we would experience something here and somebody else in a different sort of field? It's kind of the same thing. Good. Okay.

So there must be something positive about that if in their application it works for them, in our application, it works for us.

- Yeah. I mean, and it's about taking credit, right? Like, getting older and being okay with not always getting the credit, which is not to say that credit shouldn't generally be given for ideas, but sometimes if the goal is truly to keep the worker safe, then does it matter if you've convinced your manager that it was his or her idea, right?

- You're exactly right. And I mean, you're talking ego. You know, people need to feed that ego. And like I said today, I got, you know, a comment from a worker, thank you for doing what you're doing. That's all I need. And that's sort of the intrinsic, you know, value or rewards. And we could talk McGregor and all that, you know, Maslow's hierarchy and all the X and Ys and stuff.

But it really comes down to how do you feel. You know, I think some people have lived a life in which they need external recognition to feel good about themselves. And that's too bad. Work on it, work on yourself. Only you can make you feel good.

If you rely too much on other, you're never really...that's a void that can't be filled. Learn to appreciate what you have. Really try to impact people, you know, affect their lives. It's great when they come back and say things, you know, "Oh, this really helped me." But if I enjoy what I'm doing and I'm finding that I'm learning and success from what I'm doing, that's what's most important.

That's why some people...you know, I'm doing this other job, it's stressful. But I'm like, "I love it here." You know, I'm able to make a difference, you know, in little ways and in big ways. And my positivity is actually affecting the other people. You know, they're gaining more enjoyment out of the work they do because they see how excited I am when I do my job.

The safety professional can be that spark, can be that influence if they let themselves to be. If they're, you know, a grouch and won't listen to anybody, doesn't communicate well, their level of success is very limited, very limited because of how important it is, the relationships, the communication, and also how people feel.

And I was talking about how bad that was before, but in the work environment, if you can make other people feel pretty good about the work they do, that they enjoy it, that's going to go a lot further to not only keeping them safe, making them successful in the work they do, assisting co-workers, doing a little bit extra than what they're assigned to do.

All these things, as, you know, accumulation or additive for an organization will make the organization perform better, Which in turn makes it look like you are doing a great job. But that's way down the road. It's the things you do every day, the little things that add up over time that really make a difference in this field.

- Okay. So, I'd like to zoom out now a little bit to look at the field as a whole, rather than just the individual on the job. So, when we spoke last time, you talked about the safety profession as going through its adolescence compared to other professions like law, engineering. And I'm going to quote here, you said, "The safety profession is a bit like a teenager. It was rushed. And there were decisions that were made in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s that we just shot forward with it because certain people were really good salespeople."

So, can you elaborate on that?

- I can totally elaborate on that. So, when I was in graduate school...and I mean, people might think, "Well, what is graduate school?" I'm just going to give a quick preference. It's developing a skillset, a discipline to search out and find literature, consume it, summarize it, really identify what you learn, and then just keep adding it on and adding it on, and then going back and reflecting on it.

So, I went back to...you know, I started with Heinrich's work. Read from cover to cover. I've got a copy behind me. And then there were a few things here or there, and I, you know, consumed some of the earlier human error stuff because after, you know, the world wars, there were stuff on design and some of the human resource, you know, type stuff.

And it was my advisor that really forced us to consume these things. There was high involvement management. And then it got into the first or the earliest published research, at least in the U.S., and it was survey work. They were studying, you know, the companies that had the lowest injury rates. We all know that that's not a great indication of a program, but that's what they built it from. And they built the taxonomy of what is a successful safety program.

And my graduate advisor was part of that research group through NIOSH that really built what that is. And from that, safety climate was built. From that, all those other things were built. And what I'm finding is, like for my dissertation, I read one of the papers and at the end, the authors were pontificating that wouldn't it be interesting if this relationship was actually reversed?

I'm like, yeah. So, I searched it out and that's what I found. You know, my dissertation found that the workforce's perception of management commitment to safety is highly predicated on how management responds when they get hurt. I mean, just with all the other factors that I measured, it was that, that one thing. It collapsed that one thing, and it was actually a step-wise based on the different scores that they could give for an injury.

So, the severity of it, how many times they've been hurt, how long they were off, all that stuff, it boiled down to how did management make me feel? And I also found in my testing that workers shared experiences. So, someone didn't actually go through it, but their co-worker who they...that influence them too. So, I think everybody is aware of...and I don't want to like bash, like, people we've stood on the shoulders of because I really love the work that Heinrich did, Dan Peterson, all that group.

But if you really read their interpretation, their assumptions that went into their books, I found that I disagreed with a few of them because of, you know, the training I had received in psychology and sociology department. It's like, well, I assume that the wind is going to blow this way.

I assume people aren't going to be this way, you know, if you're to design something. But it's like, well, now the wind does blow that way and people are that tall. So, what they had promoted and now is the basis for newer ideas, you know, the foundation is a little bit fractured. But nobody goes back.

Nobody really enjoys the whole...you know, the wealth of what everybody tried and shared. And when you're really...and even my advisor, one of his findings was, and I had asked him about this, he clarified that workplaces with great housekeeping had less injuries. And what people interpreted was, well, if you clean up, then people won't trip over things.

I said, "Did you mean that, or did you mean that workplaces, where workers felt like they had more responsibility, tended to take better care of their surroundings?" He's like, "Oh, exactly what you said." I was like, "That is not what people are saying." He's like, "Oh, what can I do now?" But, so I think there are some misinterpretations out there. But here's the thing, some of the newer ideas that are coming up there are attempting to correct some of those misinterpretations, and I think that's where some people are fighting back against it.

And also, you know, people don't like change and sometimes things are more comfortable. But it would be great if we could almost have, you know, a time, a renaissance if you will, in which we would look back at what we think we knew and what we are experiencing now. Find the connections, but also understand what isn't the connection.

What are we missing? Are we measuring the right things? Are we providing the students in our universities adequate training when it comes to, you know, communication, relationships, the expression of empathy, things like that? I think we could do a much better job. I think that also for those who are already practicing in the field and have achieved great success, can we create additional levels of testing for them?

I think that'd be fantastic. You know, almost like a Jedi council. It's like, okay, you were a Padawan, now you're a Jedi and you want to be a master at the council table. Well, you got to prove it. You got to go through the trials like Obi-Wan did. I just really think that nobody is really fully laid out that this is great stuff, but, you know, here a decision was made and it went that way and nobody went back and checked that other path.

There's quite a bit out there of that. But I mean, you look at the ones that are supposed to be doing that research. You know, I'm one of them, right? But I'm so inundated with all this other stuff, that it's difficult for me to take the time to really build that when I'm constantly challenged to change curriculum, find new opportunities for students, spending more time on the, you know, the bigger projects to make sure they're ready because really that's what I get rewarded for.

You know, I get recognized when I have a student who gets out and performs really well, and that's what I tell them is that they're my product I bring to the marketplace. So, I got to make sure, you know, and I have to put an extra effort there. But back to the story, I think that...and I could refer to like a study I published in which I looked at who are the people publishing, and what did they use as references for their paper?

And the people who had the higher level of scientific training referenced more sources and those sort of studies tended to be more reliable. And that was based on 10 or 15 years of professional safety journal. And I would venture based on things I'm seeing even today is right now, journals have to beg people to be reviewers.

You know, if I get harassed enough, I tend to do it. And so there's definitely a lack of people who have more of the pragmatic type research, you know, everybody kind of gets their niche and certain things get funded and some people have to go to that funding for their career advancement. But I just wish we would kind of just drop the facade and all get together and go, "What do we really know? What's really working? Okay, let's start there."

Try not to take offense when we say you don't have something. You know, we're not saying you're incompetent, we're just saying that you would be more well-rounded if you had, you know, this training course or this, or if you went through these, you know, trials for the Jedi Order in order to be a better professional. But when it comes down to it's how you perform within the work environment of which you're put in charge. That's what it really comes down to.

But sometimes when people come and say, "Hey, I'm successful." You're only successful until you're not if you're just using the outcomes as that, you know, expression of success. And that's another big issue I have is, you know, ultimately if we could just get that really low incidence rate or, you know, the zero on the log, we're going to do great, or wherever you are in the world, however you do.

You know, nobody intends to get hurt. But when they do, we need to respond with empathy and care and make sure they get back to 100%. And then let's see if we can't prevent that from happening again by hopefully altering the work, you know, so they can still be successful. Okay. I know, now, I'm getting...yeah, standing on high.

- That's totally fine. I wanted to ask you one more question before we kind of wind down at the end of the interview. And that is, what do you see next on the horizon for the profession as a whole? Like, what are you looking forward to, and what challenges do you think might crop up in the next 5 to 10 years?

- I do believe that...and I've kind of like in private and I'll bring it public now, that I really think that the motto for the safety profession is to put OSHA out of business. That we don't need them anymore. And I mean, for years, for years, I've been not in a public format, my, you know, lectern or anything, but in discussions and in my classes, we discuss alternate viewpoints of, you know, what are the real measures?

Safety culture isn't a thing. You know, that a learning culture was going to be more successful. Safety doesn't drive, you know, job satisfaction. Job satisfaction will drive safety. You know, things like that. But sharing with them everything that's out there. So, I'm very much a...I don't try to align with one particular model, I try to share them all.

And I do think that we are starting to move past what I think for like maybe 30 or 40 years was the way to practice. And here's the thing, at least in the U.S. if you look at the injury rates. And we can't trust those numbers, so let's not say that I'm saying it's gravity, but they've been stagnant.

When something is stagnant, what do you have to do? You got to change the way you... Yes, that's exactly right. And I think people are starting to realize that. And I also think that newer technologies, use of the internet, you know, just a different perspective on what the practice does, especially I think the pandemic, you know, kind of heightened the value of safety professionals and have them reporting to higher-ups in the organization versus when you report to a lower level, your sphere of control is very limited, especially then also your resources are limited.

But what I see is our ability to really understand, what are we really here for. What are we trying to do? It's not just eliminate injuries, it's to make the work more successful, reduce the risk as much as possible, and hopefully, workers can elicit satisfaction from the work they do. I hope that becomes more of the, what does safety do versus the send people home in the same condition they came in.

Because they can come in and act a fool and go home in the same condition they came in. What have we done? You know, it's the little things we do that add up over time. And if we can express that...you know, I go out and I talk to the workers. I spend some time with the engineers and I help them out. My boss is having a bad day, so I talk them through it. You know, these are the things we can do.

We can be the positive influence like we're supposed to be versus the, you know, let's just, oh, as long as no one gets hurt, we can have that pizza party. Come on you, guys. Let's change. But I see a lot of change. I see a lot of change in the language. I do see some resistance. And I think it's really interesting that it's so quickly on the ESG approach.

I see a lot of people against that. And what they're saying is safety has its place. We've done some environmental stuff, leave us alone with this thing. And, you know, initially, I thought, well, you know, we're already there, but you're right. We already have enough on our plate. We do have a lot on our plate. And I think the more we try to pursue this idea of how the things we do every day contribute to worker success, to, you know, leader success and understand helping them communicate as well, I think we will then really substantiate what our field is, and I think then it can get more of a structure to the discipline itself versus like what the original antsy Z, whatever it said, that identify problems, fix the problems, train people, build a program.

You know, it's sure, but there's so much more to it. And, you know, I mean, I'm so grateful that I've had this opportunity this year to get back onto the field in practice. And just re-experience the things I talk about in class and how, boy, I would never say that in class again. And, oh, I'm going to bring in this case study that it's worked on because, wow, something really caught me off guard, but I was able to, you know, roll it.

That's where students can go. I get it. That not everything is perfect. That not everything is practiced by rule of thumb. That each situation, each workplace is different. And you get to just go in there with the skills you have and then just try to do better than you did yesterday.

And what I mean is every year you should be getting better [inaudible] yourself. We shouldn't be comparing ourselves to the, you know, the company across the street or another place with the same name because completely different management, completely different workers, probably different technology, probably different deadlines, their substance and transfer. It's got to be specific to the needs of that organization. And I'm not going to use the term culture because it's so many other things, you know?

- If you could go back...and maybe you actually have this unique opportunity to do this because you teach, if you could go back to the beginning of your safety career and give yourself one piece of advice...

- Oh my God.

- Because I mean, your whole job is giving lots of advice in a sense, but if you could give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

- Okay. So, this is going to be a little bit of a touchstone moment for you or for the listeners that when I first started, I was really excited. I had the enthusiasm and I wanted to go present. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I learned very quickly from, you know, the more experienced people, like, shut up kid. You just got here.

And I did. You know, I licked my wounds or whatever, but they were right. And I've actually, you know, some of my mentees have reached out to like, "Oh, I want to write a book." "Oh, I want to go speak." Take your time, get out there, learn things, understand the experience. The best thing you can do now is keep a journal and reflect on what you're doing. Show personal improvement, develop your skills and knowledge and your value, and be able to express that to keep growing your career.

At some point, you'll be ready and you'll know it because you probably won't care anymore. It's like the point you don't care anymore about being loud, that's when you should speak because you're not... Exactly. But that's the advice I would've given myself. It'd been like, you know what? You are going to love these first five years. Enjoy it.

Take notes. And I did a little bit of that, but I wish I would've focused more on learning and development versus, I want to go present because I think I'm funny. I probably misinformed people. I'll be honest right now. I apologize to anybody who heard me speak when I was 23. I didn't know what I was talking about. But then, again, I shouldn't have been your sole source of information either.

And I did, you know, at least try to be right when it came to like an OSHA standard and how we were inspected because I had the paperwork, but I didn't really tell you how to fix anything. I didn't educate anybody. I entertained. Yeah. I was young, so I had the ego.

- Exactly. You were 23. I don't think any of us were fully developed at 23. Are there resources that you would recommend to people like websites or books, or you think listeners could learn a little bit more about some of the stuff you've been talking about?

- Well, I mean, here's the thing. Everybody's on a different along that path. And so they need different resources. Man, see, I am buffet learner. I will go to LinkedIn and I'll track some things. I've actually printed off a few papers that people have, you know, posted on there. I go to different conferences.

So, I participate in National Safety Council state, a local safety chapter, I go to their meetings so I can hear what they have to say because a lot of them are non-safety professionals. You know, it's ancillary to their work. I go to state things. I participate pretty heavily with American Society Safety Professionals. I mean, that's like a fire hose of information. But it's sort of the...and this is going to sound very cliche, but it's the side conversations I have when I go to like networking events or social events that I get the most input because then I'm having a beer and I'm sitting next to somebody, and something comes up, something we've read or something we've experienced and we can go back and forth.

And there's a mutual respect, which really comes back to what we originally were talking about. You know, that there needs to be more of a civil discourse. I think we just need to start being more civil to each other. You know, as far as resources, just are going to events, whether it's NSC, and I know that Safeopedia, I'm not trying to like, you know, promote anybody, but they're doing some new stuff too.

And that's completely virtual. There are podcasts, a lot of them. You know, this one here is excellent, by the way. The last speaker you had, I'm jealous. He wrote a book on things that I haven't been teaching in class that I haven't published yet. So, it's like, I hope he doesn't think I stole from him, but that was awesome and I'm going to bring it in because he's already said it. But there's great things in Australia, there's great things in Canada, there's great things in the UK.

It's consume, consume, consume without prejudice, and don't yell at people for bringing up ideas that you already had. That's what people need to do. I think learning to be more civil, learning not to respond negatively, would be a big help for everybody because you start online, bring it home, you know? Do it that way, too.

I'm finding and I'm teaching my students that being empathetic, being a good communicator, showing people that you care, you know, saying their name, asking them how they're doing. Things are better. You just made their day too. You know, and it's just there's so much more we could do. And I just wish more people would do it. And I'm not just saying that because we're in the U.S. and we all hate each other, but worldwide, I just think more people, especially online, as we meet online, we got to be better to each other.

We can be better than this. And I would like it if the safety field would be sort of a good example for other disciplines that we can do that. Because I mean, we do have a tough job. You know, we're trying to keep people from getting killed or seriously hurt. And I mean, one of the things that, you know, affects me the most is someone who maybe goes to a job they don't necessarily like, but they do it every day as best they can because they're providing for themselves and their family.

And they get like a disability or killed attempting to do that. That hurts me. That really does. I mean, if someone gets hurt, you know, falling out of the sky, well, they wanted to do that. You know, nobody's forcing them. Okay, I'm getting way morbid here, but I'm just saying that we do have a very big responsibility and it's not something we can do alone.

We do not know everything, by the way. Nobody does. All we can do is attempt to pursue a better understanding of things a little at a time. So, long story short, okay, I'm going to, oh, he's been talking for 20 minutes. Where do I go for resources? I go everywhere. But I think the most important is let's talk to each other instead of just criticizing or attending somebody talking at me, let's talk together.

I wish there was more meetings now in safety. I would love this, by the way. So, I'm giving ideas to NSC, ASSP, the Canadian Group, instead of going with a group of speakers, how about we go to a group of facilitators? And let's talk about what we're experiencing, what we think we know, identify where the gaps are. We can hand that off to the researchers and they can pursue it because they want to know that stuff too.

We can tell the government we need to fund things to understand something better. Yeah, like I said, I think we're a bunch of teenagers right now. And I think we can do better.

- Well, for those who want to do better, for those who want to reach out to you, where can they find you on the web?

- I mean, I've got almost all of my lectures on YouTube. You can find me there. If you think this is kind of entertaining, you'd probably really catch...I think I'm hilarious. But otherwise, I mean, yeah, LinkedIn, Facebook. I mean, I'm out and about, you know, ASSP, Wisconsin Safety Council if you're near me, or just reach out.

I think a lot of people reach out through LinkedIn because I try to share job. I try to help people, even ones I don't know. And so if you want to reach out to me, that'd be great, especially if any of you're like, you know what? You know, if you're like, yes, this is what's been missing. Let's start. Let's figure it out. Let's, let's, let's have this be the starting point that maybe we get a growing group of people who are willing to talk and be civil and to support people because you can't change everybody.

There's going to be people yelling at people. There's going to be people being negative. We're not going to get rid of that. But if we can be a bigger influence of support and really pursuing an understanding and really understanding it's personal growth, not, hey, pay attention to me, that would be better. So, yeah, just reach out to me through LinkedIn or, I mean, you can Google me. I'm all over the place.

You know, professors have to be. That's what we do.

- All right. Well, that is the end of our show. Thanks so much for joining me, Todd.

- Thank you. That was fun.

- And thanks to our listeners and those who post on our social media channels, and the "Safety Labs by Slice" team, keeping the discourse civil since 2022. Bye for now.