We look at things a little differently!™

Our consulting practice can be summed up in one word: Execution.

Execution simply means “faithfully carrying out the plan.” When it comes to getting results, our careers as managers at some of the biggest names in the industrial world convinced us that execution is the difference that makes the difference.

Sure, policies and procedures pay an important role. So do programs. But they’re just print – until they are converted into action. In the world of operations, line management determines how well that conversion takes place. When it comes to execution, no level of supervision plays a more critical role than that of the front line supervisor.

Whether we’re teaching or consulting, we take a practical, common sense view of problems and solutions.  Our training courses – from the Managing Safety Performance™ suite to professional development courses, like Influencing Skills™ – teach what to do and how to do it. Our approach to teaching is based on the Socratic Method, the oldest teaching technique on the planet, but still the best. Our consulting work is built on the Law of the Critical Few: find the real problem and come up with simple and effective solutions. That’s where the critical time and resources of management can be best employed.

We believe that’s what sets us apart from the rest of the consulting world. And why our work has helped make a real difference in the performance of our clients.

Balmert Consulting is proud to announce the addition of a new course Driving Execution: Effective Leadership Practices to Convert Goals into Results™. If you’re a senior leader interested in improving the execution in your organization, what do you do, and how do you do it? Balmert Consulting’s Driving Execution: Effective Leadership Practices to Convert Goals into Results™ course provides leaders with practical answers to those two questions.

Dr. Edward Aronson, PhD joins Balmert Consulting to work alongside Paul Balmert to teach the course. Dr. Aronson is an Adjunct Professor at Mc Gill University Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal. He brings a wealth of experience along with original research into effective leadership practices.

For more information about Driving Execution: Effective Leadership Practices to Convert Goals into Results™, the schedule for upcoming classes and more about Dr. Aronson visit our web site:

http://www.driving-execution.com

Managing Safety: Employee Motivation and Incentives

Paul Balmert, Principal of Balmert Consulting and author of "Alive and Well at the End of the Day: The Supervisor's Guide to Managing Safety in Operations" is interviewed on EHS Today’s podcast by EHS Today Senior Editor Laura Walter.

Laura speaks to Paul about how leadership impacts motivation; the critical aspects of incentives and motivations; the value of effective celebrations of success; the importance of understanding the reality of performance, and more. If you know Paul, you expect a take on all these important issues. You won't be disappointed.

There's a bonus: Laura also speaks to Sean Roark, with Incentive Management, on how to design effective employee incentives for safety.

Also you can find us on LinkedIn and Facebook. Become a fan.

While the organization depends on front line managers and supervisors for execution of safety programs and processes, rarely are they taught how to lead and manage the safety effort. Management just hopes they'll figure how what to do on their own.

"Hope is not a method."

As experienced line managers, we teach practical leadership techniques that every supervisor and manager can learn and put to immediate use. Our Managing Safety Performance courses provide the "what to do" and "how to do it" for effective safety leadership.

Today, thousands of managers and supervisors around the world are getting great safety results using the techniques we've taught.

Most of our workshops are taught at our client's work location however we offer some public sessions for people so you can come and see what we do.

Upcoming Workshops

Managing Safety Performance

Managing Safety Performance:
Skills for Supervisors & Managers™

2010

June 14th & 15th
September 13th & 14th
December 6th & 7th

(Click here to find out how you can attend as our guest)

More Info

Our consulting practice focuses on improving execution in the manufacturing and industrial services sector. A key step in the performance management and improvement process is conducting an HSE Assessment - determining the current state and identify opportunities and provide specific recommendations for improvement of Health, Safety and Environmental processes and execution - represents. Our definition of an HSE Assessment is “an evaluation against mandatory government requirements and recognized industry best practices.” In the typical HSE assessment we do for our clients, the evaluation cover matters such as management leadership, employee participation, incident reporting and investigation, management and staff organization for the required Health, Safety and Environmental work Our team of consultants brings a world of knowledge and practical experience to the task of understanding the way things really are, and what it will take to achieve the HSE goals that have been set for the operation. Our assessments are helping clients around the globe achieve the level of health, safety and environmental performance they have set for themselves.

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Balmert Consulting is in the business of business process improvement. Our consulting focus - no matter what the problem or where it is found - will always "follow the money" to The Four P's™.

© 2000 - 2010 Balmert Consulting

updated May 20, 2010

Managing Safety
Performance News™

The leading source of Darn Good Ideas™

May 2010

In this month's Managing Safety Performance News™ "Headline Risks," Paul examines the news headlines starting with the three major events in April that left 39 workers dead. He compares those events to other injuries and fatalities that haven't made the headlines. I think you'll find the lessons he draws from all of this very interesting. I did.

~ V. Scott Pignolet

by Paul Balmert
Principal, Balmert Consulting

"April is the cruelest month"

~ T.S. Eliot

April has been a miserable month for safety. The month started with an explosion and fire in a refinery in Washington State; then came an underground explosion in a coal mine in West Virginia; later, an explosion and fire on a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Three major accidents; three different parts of the country; all part of the energy industry, a vital component of our industrial economy. Thirty-nine people who didn,t go home alive and well at the end of the day. Our hearts go out to their loved ones, and their co-workers, all of whom suffer from these tragedies.

At the order of the President, flags were flying at half-mast - for the victims of one of the accidents. Maybe we should just leave the flag there: did you know that the equivalent of one of these accidents happens every day of the year?

In a typical year, more than 5,000 of our fellow Americans die trying to make a living. I'll leave the math to you. Most of these tragedies don't make headlines. They should. But don't go blaming the media for that: the reasons for that have more to do with us than them.

The President said, "These people died trying to seek a better life." I'm not so sure. My immigrant forefathers made the risky trip across the Atlantic in wooden ships because they wanted a better life. When it comes time to hit the alarm in the morning, most of us get out of bed and go to work simply to make a living. Work is seldom the most important thing in someone's life. Nor should it be.

Should anyone have to get hurt or killed to make a living? Of course not. But, knowing that doesn't stop it from happening. The first duty of every leader is to see to it that everyone goes home alive and well at the end of every day. Making that happen demands leadership. There is no substitute for leadership - as hard as leaders try to convince themselves otherwise.

If any possible good can be found in tragedies like these, it's that the rest of us actually learn "the lessons learned."  The experts will dig into the wreckage and figure out what went wrong.  These are complex failures. But it's been my experience that found at the core of every accident are causes that are pretty simple to understand, like seals that leak, insulation that falls off, or water where it's not supposed to be. How those causes wound up being the causes is what gets complicated.

Those causes can come from only one of two sources: acts of God and acts of man. When in doubt, bet on the latter.

The simple truth is that fingerprints are almost always found on causes. In case you missed that: human fingerprints. To pretend otherwise will make you popular, but does no good to the cause of safety.  Sometimes the fingerprints were put there a long time ago - at the point of design, for example; sometimes they were put there from a long way away - by a decision not to train or maintain; sometimes they were put there because someone decided not to follow the rules. Today's popular categories of "Management system failure" or "Lack of a safety culture" are just the latest way of saying, "Don't blame me. It's not my fault."

For what it's worth, I'll venture a theory that the causes of the big accidents making headlines are different than the everyday ones that don't.  The failure to follow rules, processes and procedures are more likely to be the cause of the explosions and fires that produce fatalities.  The physics of explosions is well understood by those in the business, and rather predictable. That's why there are plenty of policies, procedures, programs and standards to control that kind of hazard.  On the other hand, there seems to be no limit to the imaginative ways we can find to hurt ourselves. People aren't predictable, and you can't have a rule for everything,

In these three cases, the experts will find out what went wrong. When they do, be sure to pay attention. No matter what business you're in.

You might be thinking that it's an outrage that more attention isn't paid by the media to all the individual tragedies adding up to the roughly thirteen job related fatalities that happen every single day of year. Don't blame the press - or even the President. They're simply reflecting how we view risk, and the consequences when risk turns into event.

No human endeavor comes with a no-risk guarantee. Serving as the President of the US might just be the highest-risk job in America: four out of 44 have been assassinated. That makes the presidency a hundred times riskier than the next most hazardous occupation in the US, commercial fishing.  Mining, refining, and exploration and production are safe - by comparison.  But it doesn't feel that way, and people - from the President on down - don't act that way.

CONTINUES...

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