Welcome to Balmert Consulting

We look at things a little differently!™

Practice Overview

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.

Driving Execution™

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

Balmert Consulting Podcast Radio™

Balmert Consulting also announces the addition of Balmert Consulting Podcast Radio™ (BCPR) to our toolbox of ways for us to share our Darn Good Ideas™ with you.

You will find BCPR located on our website www.driving-execution.com. Or just click on the logo to the left to go to the site.

Currently on the BCPR Podcast Playlist you will find a presentation by Scott Pignolet and Paul Balmert at the ASSE Safety 2009 Conference in San Antonio in June. The title of their presentation: Execution: The Difference That Makes a Difference Achieving Superior Safety Performance™.

After you listen to the podast be sure to drop us a note and let us know what you think.

More Balmert Consulting

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

Managing Safety Performance™

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

February 1st & 2nd
April 12th & 13th
June 14th & 15th
September 13th & 14th
December 6th & 7th

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

More Info

Health, Safety and Environment Assessments

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 January 18, 2010

Managing Safety
Performance News™

The leading source of Darn Good Ideas™

January 2010

It is time to come clean. Hard to believe, but I am going to start the New Year with a confession: I had a central role in a major conspiracy - actually, several major conspiracies - that are repeated around the world every single day. No, this is not the stories about my two run-ins with the Secret Service courtesy of Gerald Ford and Princess Caroline. Those are for another day. Rather, these are the type of conspiracies that Peter Sandman has said that when it comes to business communications, "None of us are trustworthy."

In the 1970's (now surprisingly four decades ago) I was in charge of the painters and groundskeeping crew at DuPont's Cleveland plant. My major responsibility prior to any plant tours by our senior managers from headquarters was to prepare the parade route - to paint the side of the buildings, tanks, piping and equipment the visitors would see. And, only that side. In truth, to cover up the reality of the true condition of our plant, said another way, to put our best foot forward. Careers were at stake and best foot was more important than reality

We were always surprised months laters when those same visitors denied our request for more maintenance money saying we were in better shape than other sites.

In this month's Managing Safety Performance News™ "The More Things Change..." Paul talks about Performance Visibility. He gives us a good overview of the problem and challenges and offers suggestions for those on the front line and their senior leaders, all the way up to the board room on how to better understand performance if your objective is to send everyone home alive & well at the end of the day.

~ V. Scott Pignolet

by Paul Balmert
Principal, Balmert Consulting

"There is nothing new under the sun."

~ Ecclesiastes

There I was - early one rainy morning, on the way to a meeting with a client, rush hour traffic ground to a halt - looking out on an all too-familiar scene: concrete barricades hemming in the lanes; construction equipment - dozers, graders, dump trucks, pick ups - spread all over the adjoining right of way, earth mounded up. You know that picture all too well, symptoms of the highway construction epidemic we're suffering through - mud and all.

There's a lot of that going around. Eventually we'll recover and be the better for it. But it wasn't the highway construction that struck a familiar chord; rather, it was the mass of construction workers, gathered up in formation, preparing to deploy out to their assigned posts that day. But not without first holding their Monday Morning safety meeting.

On this rainy Monday, there was one leader talking to his crew, standing in the mud, holding a bull horn so he could be heard above the roar of the passing traffic. All in the name of sending everyone on his crew home, alive and well at the end of that day.  Good on him for that.

For anyone who's ever worked in operations, the tail gate safety meeting is a time-honored tradition. No person in his right mind ever wants to get hurt earning a living. No leader ever wishes to see any follower ever get hurt. But that wish doesn't stop things like accidents from happening, in large part because it's so easy to happen. That reality was never more evident than on this rainy Monday morning.

It doesn't take much imagination to think of a hundred ways a member of that crew could go home hurt, starting with hazards of the task at hand and including the hazards presented by the driving public, and all those important cell phone calls we just have to make. Our distracted driving isn't just our problem; it's their problem, too. And if it's their problem, it's their boss's problem.

One of many.

What else goes on that leader's list of tough safety challenges? The weather; the physical environment, starting with the mud; the amount of territory the supervisor has to cover; the condition of the equipment and tools on the jobsite; fatigue from long hours; the experience level of those doing the work - some whose values were formed years ago, others new to the workforce; changing policies and procedures; getting everyone to buy into the importance of safety, and focus on the task at hand; complacency; the omnipresent challenge of balancing safety with getting the job done.

Thinking about all those brutally tough safety challenges leads to a very important conclusion about safety in operations: that injuries don't happen all that often serves as testimonial to the collective performance of those doing the work - and their leaders'.  There's a lot of good work on that front that all too often goes by unnoticed. Send everyone home safe, and it's easy to ignore the significance of that accomplishment.

We won't make that mistake: Great work, folks!

Now, go out and do the same thing tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.

Continues...

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