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 an open enrollment offering of our What Went Wrong: A Guide to Investing & Correcting Problems™ course.

Accidents and incidents don't "just happen." They are caused. If the organization wants to learn from the experience, they must understand what really happened and determine what to do to avoid the same thing from happening again in the future.

To accomplish this, every company has an accident and incident reporting and investigation process. Many have invested in computer reporting systems, quantitative and statistical analysis techniques, and purchased propriety investigation methodology.

All of these processes depend on effective execution at the point of the investigation. In most cases – all but the most significant accidents – front line supervisors are entrusted with execution of the system.

What Went Wrong™ workshop teaches practical skills and techniques that successful supervisors and managers use in the investigation process. Taught are methods that complement investigation systems – whether commercial or company specific:

• When and how to complete the initial incident/accident report forms
• Why investigations are so important – particularly for near miss incidents and minor injuries.
• How to deal with all of the normal human behavior that shows up after an incident, from fear to finger pointing.
• Efficient ways to get the investigation process completed without spending hours
• Getting the support from the organization to fix the problems that created the situation.
  

Workshop Objectives

At the completion of the What Went Wrong program, participants will be able to:

• Understand and meet the company-specific requirement for submission of complete and accurate incident reports
• Recognize the two fundamental parts of the investigation process: finding causes and fixing problems
• Apply the Injury Triangle to the investigation process
• Understand the differences between near miss cases and actual injuries, to fully appreciate the value of investigating near miss incidents
• Ask better questions in the investigation process
• Know when it's time to say "case closed"
• Effective deal with complex problems involving people, objects and energy.

The Program

What Went Wrong™ is a highly interactive one-day workshop. Classroom lectures, individual and group exercises, and extensive practice using case studies are used to bring real world problems into the classroom. The course is taught by an instructional staff of senior line managers, each with more than thirty years of experience in the practice of incident investigations in operations.

Upcoming Workshops

Managing Safety Performance:
Skills for Supervisors & Managers™

2012

April 23rd & 24th - Houston
June 25th & 26th - Houston
September 17th & 18th - Houston
December 3rd & 4th - Houston

(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 - 2011 Balmert Consulting

updated April 19, 2012

Managing Safety
Performance News™

The leading source of Darn Good Ideas™

April 2012

May be you’re not old enough, like me, to have seen the series when it was first broadcast, but I’m sure you have heard the words and know exactly what I’m talking about… “You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Beyond the television series, the Twilight Zone has become one of those iconic expressions of our pop culture. I often feel like it is my mailing address, the place where I live.

In this month's Managing Safety Performance News™, Paul takes us on a journey to explore another facet of The Case for Safety™ traveling through the Twilight Zone. When you read the story you might think it eerily similar to events a hundred years ago this week or 23 years ago in Alaska. History seems to repeat itself... but it needn't.  You might ask “Why?” That answer is your next stop, the Twilight Zone.

~ V. Scott Pignolet

by Paul Balmert
Principal, Balmert Consulting

"I want to talk to him. Try and talk some sense into him."

~Red - The Shawshank Redemption

I watched a minivan cruise through an intersection the other day, its driver so engrossed in conversation that she didn’t even see the red light she ran. She was lucky: the other driver – the one with right of way – was paying careful attention and stopped in time. She never looked back. I doubt she had any idea what happened, or what could have happened to that other driver – and to her.

What if she hadn’t been so lucky?

She’d get to spend the rest of her life living in regret. It’s a lousy place. There’s a powerful scene on that subject in The Shawshank Redemption: prison inmate Red’s annual hearing with the Parole Board. What’s the point of that? Red, the lifer, knows: “…so young fellows like yourself can wear a suit and a tie and have a job.”

Bored with the process, Red asks the Parole Board: “What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?”

The Board wasn’t expecting to hear those words, not from a prisoner who’s supposed to be begging for an early release. “Well… are you?”

“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here and because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. Try and talk some sense into him. Tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that is left.

“I gotta live with that.”

ON MAKING MISTAKES

We all make mistakes. It’s because, as human beings, we’re nowhere close to perfect. You just hope yours aren’t terrible mistakes. Sometimes what separates tragedy from nothing is a matter of a few feet and few seconds. The statisticians describe that as random. Luck, by another name.

There are all sorts of ways to slice and dice our mistakes. Grade school religion class taught me there were two kinds of mistakes: sins of commission – what we did – and sins of omission – what we didn’t do, but should have. Between the two, it’s no wonder we all walk around with a guilty conscience.

Mistakes at work were a different case, thanks in part because the root cause investigation process gave us an official list of what to blame for our mistakes: procedures, training, equipment, design. There are normal errors, management system failures, and the latest excuse, culture. When culture’s to blame, everybody’s a victim and nobody’s responsible.

Sweet!

For just one moment, let’s be brutally honest. When we make a mistake, that’s not what really goes on inside our heads. Sure, we might offer one of those reasons to excuse our guilt – if the consequences aren’t all that serious. Talk on a cell phone, run a red light, get a ticket: we’re mad at the person who called us, or the cop who pulled us over and writes out a ticket. “Everybody does the same thing. Why did he pick out me?”

Run a red light and kill some innocent person?  We gotta live with that.

And so we will… miserably!

ALIVE & WELL... IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE

What makes Red’s soliloquy to the Parole Board so powerful is this: at some point we’ve all thought exactly the same thing about some mistake we made. We wish we could go back and talk some sense into that “young, stupid kid” we once were.  But that can only happen in a movie or a TV show.

Now there’s an idea: for a TV show!

One like the Twilight Zone, if you’re old enough to remember the coolest show on TV, with the most amazing opening, hosted by the coolest writer in Hollywood: Rod Serling. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check him out on You Tube. Fifty years later he’s still cool.

In 1969, I got to spend an hour sitting in a small conference room with six other people, one of whom was that Rod Serling. In Ithaca New York, of all places.  For this kid of the Sixties, it was a huge Moment of High Influence™. As reserved as I was, I just sat there and listened, in awe of his creative genius.

I wish I could go back and talk some sense into me: “Stupid kid: you won’t get many opportunities in life better than this one. Ask the guy some questions: How does he come up with his ideas?  How does he convert an idea into twenty-two minutes of film? What can he you tell you the process of execution – of an idea? What an opportunity… lost forever.” 

I gotta live with that.

Knowing the kind of guy he was, If Rod Serling were alive and well today, I know he’d see the possibilities of a TV show based on Red’s soliloquy. Start with some real life event that ended terribly; freeze time, and go back and talk some sense into someone who’s making the big mistake.  I can just hear him...

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