In 1901, a 63-year-old teacher, Anna Edson Taylor, plunged over the raging waters of Niagara Falls in a barrel. She survived and was the first person to try the stunt, but not the last. Of the 21 people who later purposefully dared riding the falls, 16 survived and five perished.

No one argues that going over Niagara is an unsafe act, but people continue to try.

Why?

This could be a good topic of conversation at the 2014 Behavioral Safety Now (BSN) Conference, the 20th anniversary of that event to be held at the Buffalo, New York Hyatt Regency on October 7-9. Attendees and their families may want to ponder the unsafe behavior of daredevils during a tour of the falls, but the main attraction is the conference itself.

Dwight Harshbarger, Ph.D., Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies

Outstanding performance in behavioral safety will receive special attention at the 2006 Behavioral Safety Now conference, October 3 – 5 in Kansas City. Keynote addresses will be given by the CEOs of two companies whose behavioral safety programs have been reviewed and accredited by the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. Lee McConnell, who heads the Acetate Fibers Division of Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tennessee, and Don Kernan, general manager of SuperValu’s Midwest Regional Distribution Center will address the conference.

• “The VBSP is working good for us, we have an excellent record and our BBS program is mainly responsible for it.” – Oil refinery

• “We love it (the Values-Based Safety Process); it’s going very well for us. We have 72% participation, and management is very supportive.” – Defense contractor

Quality Safety Edge has garnered some positive media attention recently. In an Inc. Magazine article presenting America’s 5000 fastest growing companies, QSE was listed as number 1669 in 2008.

The things leaders do and say creates your safety culture which in turn supports or discourages your safety improvement initiative. World class safety requires safety leadership. Without the right leadership support, sooner or later you hit a wall—progress slows down, maybe your safety data goes the wrong way.

Terry Receives Lifetime Achievement Award...

Congratulations to Terry McSween who this May received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Organizational Behavior Management Network at the 2010 36th Annual Association for Behavior Analysis International® (ABAI) Convention in San Antonio, Texas.

QSE recently presented a full-day workshop on the practical aspects of BBS at Congreso de Seguridad in Bogotá, Colombia. Attendance was full-room capacity and the reviews were universally excellent. Two different attendees took the opportunity to express to the group that BBS is truly the most effective way to improve safety. One gentleman was from a very large open-pit mining facility in North Colombia, and the other from another South American country. 

By Mike Johnson

Research clearly demonstrates that observable safety leadership actions are more important to improving safety performance than anything else leaders do. Safety leadership is developed through the day-to-day interactions between leaders and front-line employees.

Even a company of 100 or less employees faces safety concerns, but sometimes a professional behavior-based safety process just isn’t in the budget. Now it can be with BBS Essentials, a behavior-based process designed for full impact on employee job behavior and affordability. Developed by Quality Safety Edge specifically for smaller facilities with fewer employees, the process costs less, but achieves the same dramatic reductions in injuries that have made behavior-based safety the process of choice to achieve world-class safety results.