Why Authenticity Is Crucial for Effective Safety Management

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Chris Moulden, Vice President of HSE at Primoris Services, who’s a certified safety management specialist and Canadian-registered safety technician.

Chris prides himself on working with integrity, passion, and a value-driven cultural mindset and uses his leadership skills to help create proactive, sustainable safety-conscious workplace environments.

Many safety professionals discuss the importance of developing trust with employees and management, but Chris believes authenticity is the essential building block.

The term is currently a marketing buzzword, so Chris helps us understand exactly what authenticity in the workplace means. He explains how fear is generally the root cause of inauthentic behavior and why it’s so important to avoid disingenuous safety talk.

Chris explores how to develop authenticity and how you can demonstrate authentic safety leadership in the workplace. He regards HSE professionals as the ultimate team players with crucial roles to play within organizations. But Chris knows this isn’t easy - as he acknowledges; “with great power comes huge responsibility”.

♪ [music] ♪ - [Mary] My name is Mary Conquest. I'm your host for "Safety Labs by Slice," the podcast where we explore the human side of safety to support safety professionals. We move past regulations and reportables to talk about the core skills of safety leadership, empathy, influence, trust, rapport.

In other words, the soft skills that help you do the hard stuff. ♪ [music] ♪ Hi there. Welcome to "Safety Labs by Slice." I speak to a lot of guests on this show about the importance of developing trust with employees and management.

Today's guest believes that trust really starts with authenticity. But while the word authenticity has been bandied around as a marketing buzzword in the past few years, what does it really mean? How has it achieved and why is it important for workplace safety? I'll discuss these questions and more with Chris Moulden. Chris is currently the VP of HSE-Utility Segment at Primoris Services.

He has 14 years of experience in the safety field and is recognized for his ability to build positive relationships in culturally diverse communities. He describes himself as an entrepreneurial leader who uses a strategic lens to advise on global health and safety issues.

Chris is a certified safety management specialist and a Canadian registered safety technician. He prides himself on working with integrity, passion, and a value-driven cultural mindset. Chris joins us from Lake Forest, California. Welcome.

- [Chris] Thanks. Thanks for having me.

- So, when we first spoke, I asked you, "What gets you excited about safety?" And your response surprised me. Do you remember what it was? I've got it if you don't.

- Well, it probably had something to do with not safety.

- Yes. You said you're not excited about safety, but then you clarified that you were the number one risk taker in the United States and should probably be working for Red Bull.

- Yes. Yeah. That wraps it up right there.

- So, how does that perspective help you and your safety work, though?

- Well, I think being that I'm able to know what that risk looks like or know what that behavior might look like, it's really easy for me to identify it out there in the field, identify it with my peers, identify it with groups that I work with. So, I think that's definitely a strong suit with what I bring to the table.

- Yeah. And you also talked about how your passion is really more in the leadership realm. I mean, you're a safety professional. Yes. But leadership is kind of what gets you excited.

- Yeah. To me, it's all about leadership and, you know, using the buzzwords. It's like, it's authentic leadership. It's very important that most people understand that just because you got a title, that doesn't make you the leader. Like, there's a huge delineation between title and leadership. And sometimes, maybe more times than not, they do converge, but title does not dictate who the leader is.

- What is authenticity? Let's break that down.

- I guess in my terms, authenticity is being true to yourself. So, in anything that you're doing, you're operating from the lens that it resonates with who you are as a human being. And if you feel that however you're being doesn't feel right, then I would say that you're not working or operating from an authentic lens.

I guess may be a good example of being authentic would be or inauthentic would be asking someone how they're doing and then just scurrying on to the next question, not waiting for them to answer. That would be an inauthentic question. Folks and people understand, and they can see that they almost smell. Like, don't waste my time and energy asking a question if you're not interested in knowing what I'm up to or what's going on in my life.

S,o I think in terms of defining authenticity, I think for me, it's best to define it in story or in how it has affected me or how I've seen it in life.

- That leads to how has it shown up in your life? How has it affected you, and why do you feel that it's important?

- So, how is it showing up in my life? So, I know for many years, especially in my younger years of growing up. There was a story that I believed in my life that... I didn't know that I was believing this, but, you know, with some further discovery, self-discovery, realized that there was this inner narrative that I was more or less agreeing with that I wasn't enough or I wasn't able to get what I needed in life or I was stupid or whatever.

And when I recognized that this was just an inner narrative that I was agreeing with, and it didn't resonate with who I truly was from the core of my being, I was able to eradicate more or less that worldview of myself. And so, then from being able to get rid of that worldview opened up a lot for me in my life in terms of possibility and things of that nature.

And so, I guess to clarify that answer is I found that authenticity showed up in my life when I recognized that I was stopped in my tracks and I couldn't move any further because of this inauthentic belief for myself that literally had my self, you know, subconsciously sabotaging constantly and showing that, "Hey, see, that inner narrative is true."

And then once I realized, "Wait a second, it's a full internal mind game." And once I was able to get rid of that, then my life blossomed.

- So, what I'm hearing is when a person is looking for their authenticity or their authentic self, really, more often than not, we're getting in our own way.

- Yes.

- Would you say that's accurate, or do you think it's the world that pressures us to be inauthentic, or do you think it's really more of an internal battle?

- Well, good question. So, 100%, it's an internal battle. And so what happens is, I believe, is there is a divide at some point. At some point, we got to recognize we're either going to take charge of our life, or we're going to take that little victim card and stick it in our pocket and say, "Hey, life has been caused on me. Like someone caused my life to be this way."

And the moment that you relinquish that control, then I would subscribe to that you are now living in authentically. So, I guess that would take me down the road that it's really important, at least for my person, for who I am, is that, you know, I subscribe to that all things in my life that happened to me both negatively and positively are at some level was causing the matter.

And so when I can dissect and take a look at that and reflect back on what that looks like, then I actually have the ability to continuously improve myself as a human being in any area of my life. But the moment that I choose not to take responsibility for all things in my life and I know that's a radical statement because there's a lot of things that seem like they're imposed on you. And I also want to say that, just to further clarify this, when you're three years old, you don't really have control of that, right?

You're going to be put in situations that are going to shape who you are. But once you start to get into your teenage years and your younger 20s, and you start to want to have a little more self-discovery, for me, that really rang true.

- Yeah, of course, you're in no way saying that people who are actual victims are at fault. It's more about the resilience of how you deal with situations. But it seems to me that that puts you as a leader, like, searching for that authenticity in a pretty vulnerable state.

Do you think that that has something to do with why... I don't know. Maybe there isn't a lot of inauthenticity, but I think we all feel that there's a lot of inauthenticity generally in the world.

- Yeah. Well, you know, I've not done a study on the whole world. That's a lot of people. But I would say that you're probably pretty accurate there. And I think that inauthenticity probably is driven from the foundation that there's a lot of fear. Like, we're all scared. You know, we just came off a two-and-a-half year of a lot of fear.

A lot of fear-driven... You know, everything is fear, fear, fear. I think to a certain extent, all of us are going to be experiencing a level of PTSD about fear. And so that fear really, I think, is the culprit of creating an inauthentic environment, because I believe that an inauthentic environment is really someone trying to put a face on or trying to mask what they think might not be what people want to see or whatnot.

And again, when you've and then when you boil it down and really look at it, it's coming from the foundation that people are scared, or there's a fear-driven culture that is taking seed or has taken seed and it's blossoming.

- Yeah. So, COVID is an interesting case study unlike anything any of us have lived through before, where a lot of people were forced into a situation of self-reflection and a lot of the trappings of the exterior world. We were literally shut in for a while there. So, how would you tie this then?

So, for authenticity, you need to work on self-discovery. And that work involves vulnerability because you have to confront these stories that you're telling yourself. How do you tie that to workplace safety? Like, where is the link that this is really going to affect your professional life?

- Well, like, you said earlier, I believe that it affects safety from a leadership perspective. So, we are in a world right now where I want to say safety has matured and a lot of organizations are becoming more sophisticated and it's truly about, you know, process and all that, but it's truly about, I believe, a leadership commitment and how you're leading your people.

And so if the leader is coming from a space or a place where something is more important than the person, however, they still say that the person is the most important thing, then there's going to be a ripple effect. So, authenticity is extremely important, at least at a minimum, which is a big ask, is to have the leaders of the organization, in all different levels, coming from a place that there is a genuine authentic concern for the people of the organization.

And then from there, safety is kind of like a byproduct of creating a good safe environment. And when I say safe environment, I don't mean, like, making sure everyone has the proper PPE and all that, but, like, creating a safe environment, like, kind of a psychosocial safe environment where folks feel free to bring up concerns, free of reprisal and things of that nature.

But again, without an authentic leadership design or without authentic leaders, you'll never get there.

- I know you speak to groups. Have you ever had pushback on this issue? Has anyone ever said, you know, like, "Oh, you're being a snowflake and this is ridiculous," and people will listen based on authority and that sort of thing?

- Yeah, I have. I'm a relatively large man. I'm 6-2. So, for whatever reason, I think my stature probably stops that in its place sometimes, which I wish it wouldn't, but I have. I've had people push back on that. Some of the concepts that I talk about at this organization, at PSE, put people back on their heels and question it.

We're constantly questioning the status quo, and we're constantly looking at the, "Hey, go outside with wet hair, you're going to get sick." Like, those types of things that we have totally lied to ourselves our whole life, and we believed it. We're flipping over the rocks and over the stones and over the leaves and saying, "Is that really the worldview we should be having?"

So in terms of pushback, when there is pushback, I ask... Probably I'm framing it more back to them in a question and why would you be pushing back on that? What happened that would make this a question for you in terms of whatever we're discussing?

- Yeah. Why would you start with the default that this is, you know, inaccurate or that it doesn't make sense?

- Sorry, Mary. But also, I think it's really important, too, that everyone has a healthy level of skepticism, because that actually keeps them in the inquiry, right? It keeps them in the conversation. I will sometimes.... Well, actually, often if I'm speaking about something that really is meaningful and can move the needle from a cultural perspective, I will often say, "What you're about to hear is, one, radical."

So that piques the interest. And then two, "I want you to consider that everything I'm saying is not true."And so, what that does is it really brings them into the conversation, "Oh, okay. So, you're about to tell me something that's not true?"And so that might invite some... What that does is it really invites a healthy level of conversation about some larger topics that maybe folks aren't really open or open to talk about, typically.

And again, it creates a safe environment too, because I'm kind of unloading or I'm disarming anything that would be coming my way, because I've already said, you know, it's radical, and just consider it's not true. And then that creates a space where they can truly choose, is this something that they want to believe in, subscribe to?

And is this something that they also want to talk about with their folks?

- I think too it, in a good way, sort of undermines the assumed authority of the speaker at the front of the room. I am the speaker. I'm the expert. But I think authority is really a sticky issue for safety professionals. Like, on the one hand, you need authority to get people to follow safe procedures.

On the other hand, no one likes an authoritarian. So, it's kind of a sticky balance. And maybe that fear comes from a fear of loss of authority. I mean, maybe I'm off base, but do you think that authority plays a big role in sort of the mind in the world of the safety professional?

I realize they're not a monolith, but...

- Yes, I do. I think the word authority comes with some negative connotation. And to be quite honest with you, it's been some time since I actually heard the word authority. And so, as you're saying that, I was kind of self-reflecting. How does it make me feel that I just heard that word? The first thing that came to my mind was authoritarian, right?

And so even though authority is part of the hierarchical structure, I think it's really important to be humble. I think it's really important to get down to the level that folks are interested in talking to you at and coming from the direction of being more of a servant, flipping the org chart upside down and letting folks know that you work for them, they don't work for you.

I think the higher you go up the organizational chain, you know, sure, the view is that you do less, and so on and so forth. But the reality of it is, with great power comes, you know, huge responsibility. And I think the best leaders in the world, both who are no longer with us and who are currently on this earth.

Like, they subscribe to a serpent leadership style where their job is to make sure that their first clients which are the people who are reporting to them or part of their immediate team. That their job is to make sure that they are completely taken care of. Have what they need. And I'm not saying you got to be egregious about what that looks like, but it's really important that when your team has what they need to do, what they got to do, then you can win Super Bowls.

That's how you win Super Bowls.

- It actually brings me around to authenticity. So maybe like, the authentic authority. So, there's the authority we know, like, authoritarian where it's these are the rules. Don't question them. Authentic authority the way you're talking about servant leadership to me, sounds like it's built on trust.

- Yeah, it is. It's 100%.

- My question is, it's sort of about authenticity. Like, I couldn't ask you to say, "Can you give us some tips on how to be authentic?" Because I think but maybe I'm wrong, either a person is authentic or they're not. Do you think it's that binary? It's that easy or is it'll a little more nuanced than that? I don't know.

Can you teach someone to be authentic?

- I think you can talk to folks about what authenticity looks like, and if someone can conceptualize what it looks like, then they can maybe depart from there and say, "Well, what would I have to do in order for authenticity to live in my life?" And so I think once you start stepping it down like that, make it pragmatic, then someone can authentically see themselves from an authentic view.

I believe that a lot of it has to do with stripping down all of the safeguards that we've put in place to survive as human beings. And at the subconscious level, these things are happening, and a lot of us don't realize it. But when you start to realize that, or when you start to identify that there's a lot of inherited traits from a human being that we have in this because we are part of the animal kingdom that it's in us to survive, right?

So, a lot of the instincts that we have are there just so that we can survive. And the moment that you look at that, you can say, "oh, okay. Well, that's really not my goal in life, is to survive. I mean, we live in the Western culture where that's really not at least it's not in my purview. I'm assuming it's not yours either.

- I think most people want a little more than just survival.

- Yeah, exactly. Right? But if a dog chases you, there's inherited traits on what you need to do. There's these things. And so I think that also bleeds over into your professional life as well in the context of, "Okay, sure, you're not it's no longer a life or death situation, but is it the ego now trying to survive?" So, now there's deeper things happening.

The ego has worked so well for so many years to get you where you are today. And so how do you put that to rest? And you have to look at what's working for you and what's not working for you. And if it's genuinely not working for you, then you need to change directions. You have to pivot.

You got to change directions.

- Yeah, it sounds like... I mean, we're wired for fear, right? That's what the chasing a dog or, you know, the old saber-tooth tiger example is. We've got that biological wiring. And I think fear is wrapped up in the ego that you're talking about. Do you think that ego is a limiting factor in how, I don't mean job title, but how far someone can go in terms of leadership?

- Yes, I do believe that because, again, leadership, from my world view is not a title. And if we're conflating both of them, then ego can get you quickly up a corporate ladder. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be leading the charge. More than likely, it'll be miserable, and more than likely, you'll wake up in the morning thinking with...

what is it called? Imposter syndrome. Yeah. More than likely, that will take seed and then you look at all the things that happen after that. So then anxiety happens, stress happens, and then you're a perfect cocktail for sickness and all the other nasty things that could happen to you. And ultimately, this is kind of, again, not the truth, but my view is, you know, it makes life a little shorter for you.

- Yeah, well, no, I think that's probably proven stress anyway. So, relating back to safety professionals... First of all, do you think these conversations are common amongst safety leadership? Are they common now? Are they more common than they used to be? Are they not as common as they should be? Is the conversation happening?

- I think that it's happening to a certain extent. There's multiple different levels. And I've climbed... You know, I was a field safety representative to safety manager, project manager, all that stuff. And I think at that level, it may not be taking seed as much as it is from, say, like a corporate level. But I can tell you that when I first got into this industry, you didn't hear anything about it. And now I'm pleased to know that the conversation is being had and it's really allowing the folks who maybe aren't in the corporate role to see that there's something bigger happening, something bigger at play, something bigger about their influence in the field, and there's better tools to actually influence folks from a servant leadership perspective.

And again, servant leadership perspective, I guess you could say, is an authentic view. It's an authentic way of doing it.

- Do you think the role of the safety professional is changing them? Like, a lot of guests I talk to talk about the traditional role as being kind of like the safety cop. You know, the person who's walking around looking for reasons to write people up and that people are afraid of them and that sort of thing. And I'm sure there are still safety professionals who operate that way. But do you think it's changing in the wider industry, again, within your experience?

- Yes, it 100% is. But you can't take away the fact that we all have it ingrained in us just kind of slightly take a... We're going to take an off-ramp right now. But if you think about it, when you're driving on a freeway and you see a police officer, what do you do?

You're probably checking your speed, you're looking down and looking up.

- Most people look at their speedometer right away.

- Look at speedometer right away, right? You probably have all your pores open up and close really quickly and you're like... And you're looking in the rearview mirror when you pass that guy, that cop who's sitting on the side of the road, and your blood pressure went up, your heart... And you didn't even do anything wrong. Like, where did that come from? Where did that come from? And so early in my career, safety professionals were viewed like that.

I mean, you could see where you'd go out to the field and you can hear the radio racket happening, and they'd have these little code words and da da da, you know, whatever it was, you know, "Hey, mama's making pie," or whatever it is, and the next thing, you know, like, people knew to scurry around or do something different. So, back then, at the very least, you knew that they knew how to do it right.

So, you would see good working behaviors, but if that word didn't get out, then you're able to see, okay, some things maybe are being done a little bit differently than the expectation. And so, I believe back in the day, like, the safety cop would come out and say, "I'll write you up." I can't remember the last time I've heard of a safety professional writing someone up to be honest with you.

We're talking probably 10 years since I've heard that.

- Well, that's good. It's just sort of a stereotype that I hear guests referring to, and I think they use it as shorthand to mean traditional command and control.

- Yeah. Again, if you're in the safety business, you exist to serve an operational function. Like a safety professional, you know, unless you have your own private consulting firm, you're not out there for, say, generating income like maybe the folks in the warehouse on the construction project.

Your sole job is a servant job. You are a servant of the corporation. To advise and to make sure that the folks understand expectations, to coach, to correct where necessary. That, to me, is a recipe for success. You literally put on the same jersey as the folks in the field, and you could be the, you know, in terms of a football team, you could be considered the physical therapist or the coach on the side.

But no matter what, it's a one-team mentality and it's a mission-first mentality. And I think that we've come a long way from a belief system in terms of, like, safety is over there and operations over here. And so,I have really seen a convergence of what that looks like. And for those who are in operations that actually are open to that idea, they also realize holy smoke. So when we're safety conscious, it actually makes our workers feel more comfortable.

And when our workers are more comfortable, guess what? They're more productive. They do it first the right time, or they do it right the first time. And with that being said, it creates a safe environment, more hours high. I mean, it's a great recipe for success. And then when you're doing... And then what you realize is that when you have a safety-conscious working environment, you're actually more productive.

Certainly in the beginning you might realize, "Oh, why do we got to do this? Why are we going to do that?" But the working environment, the working experience, the employee working experience is so much better and you can operate from a team perspective. And so what does that do for supervisors or leaders? So, when you get that going, what happens is the supervisor or the leader, maybe they don't have to come in two hours before and stay two hours late because all of the stuff that they might have been doing, all of this paperwork and all that based on incidents or whatever it might be that they came in a little early, stayed a little bit late, that starts to erode.

And so what happens to the frontline leader or the supervisor or the PM or whatever it is? What happens to them is their employee experience at work actually gets better and it doesn't stop there. And then if their employee experience is getting better, then their life gets better because their life and what's most important to them, that gets more attention.

I'm not saying that safety is the silver bullet and has caused and created this positive environment, but for those who are open to the idea that safety is part of the team and safety adds value, it doesn't take away. There's plenty of upside wins from taking that mindset on.

- So good safety leadership can be contagious in a good way. In a good way.

- It is contagious. And safety leadership doesn't necessarily mean you need to be a safety, like an actual safety professional. Safety leadership could come from your frontline leaders. I have plenty of frontline leaders. Safety is part of their DNA. Over here at Primoris, a lot of people I work... so I work for Primoris, a lot of people who say, safety first, right?

And then you got micro saying, no, safety third. Well, in our values proposition, we've taken the word Primoris and we've stepped it out. So P stands for passion and R stands for resilience and I for inspiration, motivation, openness, reliability, integrity. And then the last one, an S, it's safety. And so what I really like about that is people actually including our clients.

It's like, well, I don't know if I put safety last. And then some folks feel like, "Well, why safety last?" And so we've flipped that narrative. It's not last. It's the foundational value that holds up everything that we do. It is like a thick concrete pad that holds up the support system.

It needs to be something that we all believe. And doing safety, safety isn't something you do. It's a mindset. And so it's just about being aware and being conscious to your environment, being conscious of who you are as a human being and how you show up for your folks. Making sure that what you say is the expectation, is what you do. One of the things I like to say is, well, safety in particular and a lot of people in leadership positions, like, we're great at getting data, we're great at talking about things.

But what I've come to realize is that nobody is listening. They never have and they never will. That's something that I say, and it often gets that's people on the edge of their seat or maybe triggers them to maybe dig deeper into the conversation. But to me, it's true. Nobody is listening. They never have and they never will.

And you might be asking yourself, Mary, like, "Who is this lunatic take on my podcast?" But the reality is, like, we watch, we watch, and that's going to give us more information than what's actually being said. So, if there is an expectation being spelled out, if the leader who's spelling that out is not following that expectation, the words are empty and meaningless. And truth be told, a lot of times the words are empty and meaningless.

I guess at best, at best what we do as human beings is we will take that information in. Whatever's being said gets processed in the brain. We make a meaning of it. And at best, maybe that meaning that we have made internally might come close to aligning with what your intention was.

That's a tough pill to swallow, to realize that your words are minimalistic in terms of what's being said. It's more about how you're saying it and how you exemplify your expectations.

- So if you want to influence people, don't talk. Just do. Is that a fair summary or am I missing something?

- Well, I think... so, the talking at least articulates it. I think dropping it down, putting in black and white solidifies it. It's truly the visible, expected outcome from leadership. They're delivering what they are being and they're doing exactly what they say is expected of those that are maybe doing the work.

Like, they're showing what that looks like. So, for instance, say you have something in your organization from a safety perspective. Hey, all incidents, report all incidents, even the small ones. And then, you know, a principal of the organization or leader in your organization, you know, they got hurt, and they don't say nothing. And then also that leaks out that, hey, they got hurt. They didn't say anything.

And folks start to see that. So, what is the true message? What do you think everyone will follow? What is the rule of law at that point?

- I would say it depends on how that... If the safety leader has requested everything to be reported and the person hasn't reported, and everyone knows they haven't reported, the ball is now in the safety leader's court. There are a number of ways you can react to that, and I think they would have really different outcomes.

- Hundred percent. So, there's two things that happened, right? There's two things that you need to get to the bottom of, and they're both extremely important. One, there's an incident that happened. So, what caused that incident? But more importantly for me, why didn't you let us know? And I'll tell you, Mary, even your principals have fear.

And it could be fear of looking stupid. It could be fear of whatever it is, right? So the whole thing of, you know, getting back to the fear culture, this isn't something that's proprietary to people who are new to industries. It's all of us. We're all scared.

Leadership is something I'm passionate about, but truly doing whatever I can do to uproot fear in anyone's life is also a shared passion because I think that adds a significant amount of value. And quite frankly, when you can get out of your fearful state of mind, you also have access to authenticity.

- There you go. It was there all along. I would argue the fear might even be greater the higher up you are in an org chart simply because you may feel that you have more at stake, right? If you're on the floor and you say, "Oh, I made a mistake." That's one thing. If you're the CEO or, you know, senior management, it may feel a lot scarier to admit mistakes.

- I am not questioning that at all. I think that you're probably 100% accurate on that. But what you more than likely rarely will see is someone in a higher up rank exposing their belly to show you that they are fearful. And one reality of it is like a true, authentic leader, if they expose their belly and show and show that they are human beings, it only elevates their leadership status within their team.

And then their team gets energized by that because they are human beings, right? Or, you know, like, okay. This isn't an untouchable person. This is someone I have access to. I have access to his wisdom. I have access to them as a human being, and I can relate to this person. And then again, just what that triggers is a whole host of things that triggers empathy, and it triggers more of a team mentality.

And when you can truly expose your belly and show yourself as a humble leader, a servant leader, like I said, people will work harder for you. They will run through walls for you. Not that that's your intention, but for lack of better terms, like, they will. They get energized. They're part of something bigger than themselves.

They're part of an organization that lights them up. They have passion. Your turnaround, your employee turnover starts to minimize. I mean, these things are the byproduct of being an authentic, true leader, a servant leader in your organization. And it's all predicated, Mary, on trust.

- Yes. I was going to say you've just also laid out for those who, again, think that this is all too squishy or, you know, too wishy-washy and not important. I mean, you've literally just laid out the business case for it. There is a financial cost to employee turnover and certainly to accidents, right? And compensation claims and that sort of thing.

- I would say this, I would invite this to anyone who has questions about it or maybe has maybe a... they want to play devil's advocate or they say too squishy or whatever. Well, here's the cool thing. Similar to this coat I'm wearing, my invitation to anyone is that if you're okay with the results that you're getting, fine, because we're perfectly designed to get what we've always got, provided we do what we've always done.

If there's something that you're like, "Yeah. We could probably do a little bit better in this area." Well, I'm inviting you to maybe try on the coat, and if the coat doesn't fit, take it off. It's not something I could... This is not an imposed style that you need to take on, but I do invite everyone to try it out, and you might be super surprised on the outcomes that come from that.

- I think the way you're describing it to that whether we know it or not, safety is by default a leadership position regardless of where you are officially on the org chart because you're talking about a safety mindset. So, safety leaders are leading that mindset or shutting it down, depending on how they do their job, right?

- Yes. That's actually a really good distinction there, too. I mean, as a safety leader, you have the ability to change people's mindsets. You also have the ability to shut it down and just propagate more of that, you know, safety cop mentality or it's either all like this or whatever it is.

So, again, with great power comes huge responsibility.

- That's right. We're going to have to pay Sony for that.

- Oh, is that a Sony thing?

- No. Well, it's Spiderman man who's owned by Sony.

- Oh, really? I didn't know that.

- Well, it is. Yeah. I wanted to ask about demographic shifts in safety leadership. So, it's no secret that the boomers are retiring and maybe that was accelerated a little with COVID, but there are these new theories and ideas coming in. There's also sort of you could say an old guard, although just because you're older doesn't mean you're using older ideas.

But what effect do you think this is going to have on safety leadership? Do you think that younger people are maybe more open to new ideas? Again, this is a huge generalization. Or do you think that there's a danger that there's going to be a big loss of knowledge as experienced people leave?

- And you're specifically speaking about the safety industry?

- The safety industry, yeah.

- I don't think that we're at risk whatsoever. I think the safety industry is a relatively new industry, and I believe that most organizations use safety as a conduit to bring in new ideas to organizations. At least that's been my experience. So, there's plenty of seasoned tenured safety professionals with maybe some older thought processes who some come along and some are stuck in their ways.

I believe that the younger generations are more open to some of the more forward-thinking ideas around safety and how to move the needle around culture, perspectives, and things of that nature. So, with that being said, in addition to the knowledge gap, I think that's how you said it's.

- That's what some people are concerned about. Yeah.

- Mary, this is the way I look at it. Safety can be taught to anyone who's interested in wanting to know about safety. That's a teachable thing. I want to say, specifically speaking about the knowledge. Knowledge is taught, and if you're passionate about it, you're going to be just fine. I think one of the hiccups of the younger generation, and again this is overgeneralizing as well, is that there might be this I want to get to the top as quick as I possibly can.

I think that there is some of that in our industry, but I don't think that's proprietary to safety alone. I think that's in all industries, quite frankly, but I think that might be a gap, but with some good leadership and good mentorship and maybe an internal sponsor that could help guide that through an organization, for sure.

- Do you think, like, of all the things that we've talked about, authenticity and building trust and inquiring about one's personal fear, that sort of thing, do you think these are things that can be taught? Like, you just said, safety can be taught, right? You know, that's sort of technical. Do you think these are things that you can teach someone, or is it a little more complex than that?

- It's much more complex than that.

- Not a little, a lot.

- It's much more complex. But here's the great thing. I think that it operates in a different space than understanding. I think that it operates in a space of getting it, which is completely different than understanding. I believe that all those things that you just discussed, they're always in the background and every time you turn, they lie in a blind spot within yourself. And so, very similar to riding a bike, you know, you might be able to tell me how to ride a bike, but just because you told me how to ride a bike, that doesn't mean I know how to ride a bike.

And the understanding of knowing how to ride a bike doesn't make it that someone knows how to ride a bike. But there's a moment in your life that, you know, you can't ride a bike and then it literally happens in a nanosecond that it's like, all of a sudden, you can now ride a bike. And literally, you could put that bike down, pick it up 20 years later, you won't be very good at it, but you could write it again.

And so that's why, I mean, it's happening outside of the understanding realm. It's happening in a something clicks and you actually get it. And it doesn't require an understanding of all the physics and physiology and you know, forward momentum. So, I think that authenticity, trust, and things like that, it's a matter of want, it's a matter of do you want to do it?

And then what happens is something clicks based on your trajectory of your want and the energy that you're putting in towards that want. And then all of a sudden it clicks. And then people will ask you, "Well, how did you get there?" And then you'll be tripping over your tongue the whole time on telling people how to get there because it doesn't operate in the same realm as learning mathematics or things of that nature.

Just like riding a bike. What do you do? How do you really tell? "Well, you got to get on a bike. You got to put your feet on a pedal. Keep in mind gravity and balance." Well, remember, people who are riding a bike are starting to ride a bike. They're 4 years old. So, what value does that add?

Does that make sense?

- Yeah, sort of somebody might call that subconscious or intuitive. Like, it's not... Again, you're not going to learn it in a book.

- Well, you can't learn it. It's not learned. It's different.

- It's accessed maybe access, acquired?

- I don't know how to say it, but it's not a learning... Like, to me, learning is learning about physics and learning about math. Learned behaviors or learned things can be forgotten. You cannot forget on how to ride a bike unless you get in a car accident. You cannot forget it.

Even if you wanted to, Mary, you can't. And so I think that authenticity and trust, those are all things that operate in the same realm.

- Ingrained maybe. Something that's just... Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to be thinking about the vocabulary for this for a while.

- I think truly what embodies it is, you get it. It's something you get and it doesn't leave you.

- People describe it as a light going on, right?

- Yeah. And it's very important to understand this. It's not an aha moment. It's not an insight, because if it was an insight, insights go away as well. It's something that actually takes seed, and now you have it. I know we're probably getting close to the end here, but what's really important too, is a lot of times in order to make that shift or that pivot, you need to free up space.

And what I mean by space, and again, I know we're kind of being more of the theoretical and getting into the mind in this conversation, but it adds a lot of value when you understand that thoughts take up space, you'll realize real quickly that just like a computer, there's not much memory here, right?

And as things are more... when they're more impressionable to you, those will take a forward seat in your memory. And so there's only so much space there. But there are things in your mind that have shaped who you are today and that was what we talked about a little bit earlier in the beginning. And those things that you believe who you are, even though it's kind of an inherited way of being, it was the ego kind of nestling these things in there and you start to realize that subconsciously, these are things that you're sabotaging your forward movement in life.

But in order to actually create something new and get something different, you have to understand what caused you to be who you are today. You don't necessarily have to get directly to the source, but you got to get closer to the source. And then you need to reconcile with that and recognize that you agreed with that statement, whatever it was. And that's been propagating through your whole life.

And then the moment that you can reconcile with that, you can actually free that space up. And only then, Mary, when you have that free space in your mind, do you have access to creating something different and new and that's sustainable, right? And it doesn't operate in the lens or in the frame or in the mindset of understanding.

- Yeah, we are getting esoteric here, which is fine. I think everyone is interested in this kind of stuff. I'm going to move on and ask. Taking our conversation as a whole, which has been pretty wide-ranging.

- Mm-hmm. It has.

- If our listeners take away only one thing, what would you like that to be?

- I would say this do what you know, lights you up and put your time and your energy towards that. If what you're doing right now doesn't light you up, you're doing yourself an injustice and you're doing the world an injustice. That's what I would say. And I know that's probably irrelevant to everything that we just talked about, but to me, that's where the value will be added for you and that's where the value will be added for your country and the world.

- Yeah. No, I think it has to do with leadership, right? And in order to lead yourself, if that makes sense, you have to know where you're going. You have to know what direction you want to face, I suppose. So, I have a couple of questions that I ask every guest at the end. If you were to develop some kind of a curriculum or a course for teaching tomorrow safety professionals, and if we set aside all things regulatory and PPE and technical and all that kind of thing, what soft skill, as they call them, do you think would be the most important to help them develop?

Again, maybe you can't teach them but discuss with them and help them develop.

- Patience and empathy would be what I think would need to be developed. I mean, even people who are very empathetic, and truth be told, that's something that I've struggled with my whole life, with empathy, and I still do. So, it's something I have to consciously make an effort towards seeing it from someone else's shoes, and then patience is a virtue too, right?

You want to make sure that people have the experience that you're being patient. And I guess maybe the last thing would be recognize that when you're listening to people, the invoice is really the one that's digesting it and creating a meaning. And what you want to do when you're listening to someone is feed that back to someone from a gist perspective to verify that there is true communication that has taken place.

- Right. Don't believe what you tell yourself about what you just heard. Make sure that you check it out with the person who was speaking to you. Is that?

- Yes. That's a very important thing. It's not ingrained in us. And sometimes it can seem, like, robotic a little bit, but when it's something really important... when the conversation is really important, it's best not just to nod your head and assume that the meaning you just made is what's being communicated. It's best to try to feed it back and give the speaker the opportunity to clear up any miscommunication.

- Yeah, that's true. So often we think, "Well, you said this." "Those were my literal words, but what I meant was..." Not that people are lying, it's just that the same word means different things to different people. If you could go back in time to the beginning of your safety career and you could only give yourself one piece of advice, what would that be?

- I don't know. I mean, what comes to my mind, I'm fearful to even say. What comes to my mind is like, grow up and take it seriously. That's what I want to say. That's what came to my mind immediately.

- Yeah, it's funny. I think when I ask people that, something does pop into their mind right away and then they stop and wonder how that sounds, right?

- That's the fear right there.

- It is. And it's tough. Even when you said patience, I thought, wow, patience is something that I really feel develops as a person ages and gets a little more perspective. But it's hard to go to your younger self and say, "Hey, grow up."

- Yeah, I mean, and I know the question you asked previously was like something that you would want to teach your... I mean, you can't really teach patients, but I think it's important that folks understand that that's going to add a significant amount of value to your career.

- Yeah, that it's actually important. Don't dismiss it kind of...

- And I'd like to qualify the statement about grow up. Again, like, we said earlier in the podcast, I have historically been a very big risk taker. Done most things that a lot of people wouldn't dream of and that's who I was when I came into the industry and so that's why I say grow up.

Take it seriously.

- Now, I'm not sure this is maybe a difficult question again, because our conversation was really wide-ranging, but are there any resources like books or websites or speakers that you would recommend if there are listeners who might want to look more into any of the topics that we've talked about?

- Yeah, actually there is. Not necessarily relative to safety, but I mean, I think all things kind of tied together. Everything is communicating. Nothing happens in a vacuum. So, I think all things that add value to your life are going to add value to how you operate in life. So, I would say anything Todd Conklin related with human organizational performance. I think he's got a few books that are worth looking into.

I also know another gentleman who's got plenty of books out there, Eckhart Tolle, and I think he lives near you, to be quite honest with you. Eckhart Tolle is an amazing author. He's authored the book "A New Earth," a couple of others as well, which are really good books. So, I'll say those two.

So Todd Conklin, really safety specific, really forward-thinking. You know, people are not the problem. People are the solution. If you're going to fail, make sure it's a stay failure. Build safeguards into your process. That's Todd Conklin. Really great.

That's something that well, if you're not up to speed on human performance or human organizational performance, that's great. For self-development and really trying to look at your authentic self and dive deeper into that, I would say Eckhart Tolle is a great author for that.

- Awesome. Well, where can our listeners find you on the web?

- They can find me, I guess, on LinkedIn. LinkedIn pretty much is the only exclusive social media that I subscribe to. The other ones have...

- Lost their shine.

- It took many years off my life because I found myself going down that addicted, like just get sucked into it from the algorithms are sucking you in, right? And so LinkedIn is my professional digital business card is LinkedIn. So @ChrisMoulden.

- Great. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks to our listeners for tuning in and thanks so much for lending us your time, your ideas, and your authentic self, Chris.

- Thanks, Mary. It's been fun.

- I'd like to give a shout-out to the "Safety Labs by Slice" team who operate on trust and care and I think it shows. Bye for now. ♪ [music] ♪ - Safety Labs is created by Slice, the only safety knife on the market with a finger-friendly blade. Find us at sliceproducts.com.

Until next time, stay safe. ♪ [music] ♪