Leading a safety culture is vastly different from following and enforcing regulations. But the content of our safety meetings sometimes suggests that we’re more concerned about compliance than we are about culture. Our message in a safety meeting may very well include the latter, but it should never exclude the former. People are more readily engaged and respond more favorably to a safety message when the focus is on things that matter most to them.
Eric Svendsen, Ph.D., is Principal and lead change agent for safetyBUILT-IN, a safety-leadership learning and development organization. He has over 20 years experience in creating and executing outcomes-based leadership development and culture change initiatives aligned to organizational goals, and he personally led the safety-culture initiatives of a number of client organizations that resulted in “best ever safety performance” years for those companies.
Leading a safety culture is vastly different from following and enforcing regulations. But the content of our safety meetings sometimes suggests that we’re more concerned about compliance than we are about culture. Our message in a safety meeting may very well include the latter, but it should never exclude the former. People are more readily engaged and respond more favorably to a safety message when the focus is on things that matter most to them. 
