- Sir Brian Appleton- “Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.”
- Sir Brian Appleton- “Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.”
- William Blake- “What is now proven was once only imagined.” Hindsight is a wonderful thing but foresight is better, especially when it comes to saving life, or some pain”!
- Dave Collins- “Spruiking zero harm or crusading safety ‘because you care’ raises as much suspicion as having a folder on your computer named ‘DEFINITELY NOT PORN’ – would you get on a plane that had “ZERO CRASH” emblazoned all over it?”
- Dave Collins- “If Safety is “Zero Harm” then Love must be “Zero Hate”
- Dave Collins- “Off the shelf Safety Systems – if you want a good dust collector, buy a vacuum cleaner.”
- Dave Collins- “When planning your next family holiday would you get “Zero Harm” T-shirts printed for all the kids and tell them that the main aim of the holiday is not to get hurt?”
- Dave Collins-“Would your loved ones prefer to be told: “I will never hurt you” OR “I will always love you?”
- Dave Collins- “Do I believe in the concept of Zero Harm? Let’s just say I believe that nothing is impossible.”
- Dave Collins- “Anyone who loves the concept of Zero Harm obviously has nothing to love.”
- William Edwards Deming- “Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.”
- William Edwards Deming- “Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.”
- William Edwards Deming- “Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “If you’re a lawyer, you talk about great law cases. If you’re an engineer, you talk about giant monuments or innovations.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “The stories that other disciplines have all have heroes, and in safety, our stories don’t. Our stories have villains and they have victims.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “I think mostly we tell stories simply in order to motivate people through fear.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “Our big ideas in safety result from disasters like Deepwater Horizon, Chernobyl and Piper Alpha.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “We use stories of the past to tell us what we should have done, and then we turn those into stories about the future: what we should do instead or bad things are going to happen.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “What I find most sinister is that we don’t just do this with the big accidents… We do it with very human stories as well.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “We figuratively and sometimes quite literally drag out maimed and injured people as object moral lessons in the ways people should behave. We say, ‘This is what happens to you if you don’t follow the instructions.”
- Dr. Rae Drew- “Essentially what we’re doing is we’re drawing upon the ghosts of disaster past and specters of disaster future and we’re using it to justify the bureaucracy we want to put into the present.”
- Albert Einstein- “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
- Albert Einstein- “Concern for man himself and his safety must always for the chief interest of all technical endeavor. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”
- Albert Einstein- “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
- Albert Einstein- “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
- Albert Einstein- “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
- Eleanor Everet- “For safety is not a gadget but a state of mind.”
- Max Geyer- “For if you force your people to stick rigidly to procedures, and their thinking to be stifled from their induction, and then blame them for failing to recognize a changed condition (and suffering an injury) to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make robots and then punish them (for being robotic).”
- John Green- “Our systems have become the equivalent of the Internet – it’s where you go to get answers without even really knowing the question or the context. Through the excessive use of processes, procedure, checklists and forms we have dumbed down their curiosity.”
- Kevin Jones- “We would also ask real estate agents, who much they think our house is worth. But we never ask a safety professional, socially, how do I stay safe at work. In my experience, when people find out I am a safety professional, there is a deafening silence as, either, people don’t know that safety has a profession or my skills just seem irrelevant.”
- Phil LaDuke- “Injuries happen when workers get caught between the official way versus the real way.”
- Phil LaDuke- “When everyone agrees with me it’s time for me to quit.”
- Phil LaDuke- “We can get a monkey in here to try hard; you get no points for being stupid.”
- Phil La Duke- “For every misunderstood genius there are 100 perfectly understood idiots.”
- Phil LaDuke- “Telling me to be careful is very different to saving my life”
- Phil Laduke- “Too often we exaggerate the risk of a hazard and categorize what is merely possible as probable because it is easier to enforce than if we make an honest assessment. Some safety professionals, in the name of “zero-injuries” will heap regulation after regulation on a job until the organization rebels and simply refuses to comply. When it comes to making the workplace safer, the more complex and/or burdensome the solution the far less likely the compliance. We have to understand that there are limits to the amount of protection we can provide to people and if when exceed the perceived reasonable limits we not only fail to protect in that instance but we lose credibility and jeopardize compliance with safety protocols that are essential for basic safety. When safety professionals’ risk tolerance is out of alignment with societal norms the safety professional is doomed to a life of frustration.”
- Andrew Lang- “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts…for support rather than illumination.”
- T.J. Larkin- “If it is not face-to-face it is not communication.”
- Chad Lilley- “Now: target zero; zero harm; no accidents, although they all look good on paper, they all focus on what you want to avoid. Imagine setting your business goals at the start of the year and presenting a goal of wanting to avoid any financial loss this coming year to the board. They would boot you straight out of the room! So, for what reason do we accept that with safety?”
- Rob Long- “Thank god we don’t have to rely on the brilliance of the safety trade to determine what is art, history, aesthetics, dance or intelligence, I think safety would paint over the Mona Lisa if they thought it was unsafe.”
- Dr. Rob Long- “Stress is not bad but a necessary part of facing life’s challenges. Whilst the dreamers maintain the delusion that ‘all accidents are preventable’ the rest of us know that the bumps and challenges of life are necessary for learning, resilience and maturation. There can be no resilience without stress, and no learning without risk.”
- Dr Rob Long- “It seems that risk aversion is the best excuse for the day when you want compliance. Every time something is banned or restricted it is because it’s a ‘safety requirement’. No wonder people think safety is an embuggerance! When we want to bamboozle people who don’t know the Act or Regulation we can mystify, dazzle and mesmerize them with it’s a ‘safety requirement’ when in reality it is often a convenience behind the scenes to make someone’s life easier.”
- Dr Rob Long- “Rules are parts of systems and systems serve humans not humans serve systems. Unfortunately, safety engineers seem to think that humans serve systems.”
- Dr. Rob Long- “if we accept that there is no such thing as ‘zero risk’ then we should not spin the meaning of words with assertions such as ‘all accidents are preventable.”
- Dr. Rob Long- “We make thousands of decisions every day in automatic mode without a mistake. Yet we don’t reflect and celebrate this wonderful mode of human decision making at work rather, we put the blow torch on the one moment when it doesn’t work and something goes wrong.”
- Dr. Robert Long- “Measuring Safety Performance by the number of injuries you have is like measuring parenting by the number of smacks you give.”
- Dr Robert Long- “What a strange sense of logic to fixate on the absence of something (injury) as a demonstration of the presence of something else (safety). Such a proposition misunderstands the dynamic of risk and being human.”
- Dr. Rob Long- “If your world is just about safety, then your world is too small.”
- Dr Rob Long- “The real enemy of safety is not non-compliance but non-thinking.”
- Dr. Rob Long- “The language of ‘bloody idiot’ and ‘common sense’ is everywhere in industry and demonstrates a profound inability to understand sense making, mindfulness, perception and motivation.”
- Dr. Rob Long- “If safety is ‘common sense’ then we need no trainers, training programs, safety officers, inductions or safety legislation.”
- Nelson Mandela- “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
- Thomas More, Utopia- “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
- Napoleon- “There is no such thing as an accident, only a failure to recognize the hand of fate.”
- Chris Paley- “We believe that we want to do what we are doing, otherwise how would we explain to others why we are doing it?”
- Dan Peterson- “Paper doesn’t save people, people save people.”
- Corrie Pitzer- “People don’t care what you know until they know you care.”
- Alan Quilley- “Anyone who believes that they have common sense has simply forgotten who taught them what they know.”
- Alan Quilley- “Let’s manage safety recognizing how humans are and stop managing safety the way we wish humans were.”
- George Robotham- “The biggest problem with safety is that managers and safety professionals often engage in acts of public masturbation.”
- George Robotham – “Be a life-long learner and encourage those in your team to be the same, I see an important part of my role is to help those in the safety team to develop their skills.”
- Rob Sams- “I’m just not that into safety anymore.”
- Wynand Serfontein- “Zero Harm” is a “do not” target. “Do” targets are possible, while “do not” is often impossible. The focus should be on aspects like “the best available and reasonable safety practices”, or “improved measures” or “better hazard/ risk identification.” These are things that can be done. If you tell me “do not get injured”, I am going to ask you “How will I not get injured?” What will your answer be? (If you do have an answer, I bet it will probably be a list of things I should DO.)
- William Shakespeare - “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.”
- Barry Spud- “Safety is 30% Common Sense, 80% Compliance and the rest is good luck.”
- Mark Twain- “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
- Weick, Managing the Unexpected- “Nowhere in this book will you find any mention of perfection, zero errors, flawless performance, or infallible humans. That’s because human fallibility is like gravity, weather, and terrain, just another foreseeable hazard. Error is pervasive. The unexpected is pervasive. By now that message should be clear. What is not pervasive are well-developed skills to detect and contain these errors at their early stages.”
- Gerald Wilde- “Also, they may simply have been blinded by their zeal to do something quick and easy for safety – and thus doing nothing for it.”
- Proverbs 22:3- “A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.”
- Seinfeld, George with Cleaning Woman- “Was it wrong to have sex with the cleaning woman on my desk? If I had only seen the safety compliance video, this wouldn’t have been a problem.”
- South African Judge- “The concept of the bonus paterfamilias is not that of a timorous faintheart always in trepidation lest he or others suffer some injury; on the contrary, he ventures out into the world, engages in affairs and takes reasonable chances. He takes reasonable precautions to protect his person and property and expects others to do likewise.”
- Tier 1 company Supervisor- “Luckily my company has a Zero Harm policy so I don’t have to worry about safety as much as others do.”
- Unknown- “Like love, we cannot get enough safety, but not the kind we are used to – what would happen to love if every day were Valentine’s Day? So flooded are we with contrived and controlling safety that it is becoming dangerous.”
- Unknown- “Traditional Safety is not enough, but traditional safety is too much.”
- Unknown- “A health & safety problem can be described by statistics but cannot be understood by statistics. It can only be understood by knowing and feeling the pain, anguish, and depression and shattered hopes of the victim and of wives, husbands, parents, children, grandparents and friends, and the hope, struggle and triumph of recovery and rehabilitation in a world often unsympathetic, ignorant, unfriendly and unsupportive, only those with close experience of life altering personal damage have this understanding.”
- Unknown- “Attempting too big a change and / or changing things too quickly can create an adverse reaction and alienate the very people you want to make allies. Learn the context, culture and past before trying to make changes. Unless a crisis situation is apparent realize effective change requires a lot of effort and time.”
- Unknown- “Bring me solutions, not problems” The best way to influence management is to provide solutions and not bury them in problems. Another ex-manager said “If you cannot manage safety, you cannot manage.”
- Unknown- “Nothing is more central to an organization’s effectiveness than its ability to transmit accurate, relevant and understandable information among its members.”
- Unknown- “The greatest motivator is not money. It is the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, to contribute and be recognized.”
- Popular Quotes
- W. H. Cameron- “We now have unshakable conviction that accident causes are man-made and that a man made problem can be solved by men and women.”
- Edward Coke- “Precaution is better than cure.”
- Walt Disney- “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
- Ernest Greenwood- “Accidents, and particularly street and highway accidents, do not happen – they are caused.”
- Charles Hayes- “Safety First” is “Safety Always.”
- Horace- “Guard himself as he may, every moment’s an ambush.”
- Hartman Jule- “Carelessness doesn’t bounce; it shatters.”
- Machiavelli- “There is nothing more difficult than change.”
- Proverb- “Better a thousand times careful than once dead.”
- George Robotham - “If you cannot solve a problem it is because you are playing by the rules.”
- James Thurber- “There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.”
- Unknown- “Safety is a cheap and effective insurance policy.”
- Unknown- “Safety means first aid to the uninjured.”
- Unknown- “Prepare and prevent, don’t repair and repent.”
- Unknown- “Chance takers are accident makers.”
- Unknown- “Hug your kids at home, but belt them in the car.”
- Unknown- ‘It’s better to crash into a nap than to nap into a crash.”
- Unknown- “Luck runs out but safety is good for life.”
- Unknown- “Accidents hurt – safety doesn’t.”
- Unknown- “Working safely may get old, but so do those who practice it.”
- Unknown- “The door to safety swings on the hinges of common sense.”
- Unknown- “Safety doesn’t happen by accident.”
- Unknown- “Working without safety is a dead-end job.”
- Unknown- “Know safety, no injury. No safety, know injury.”
- Unknown- “Safety never takes a holiday.”
- Unknown- “When you gamble with safety, you bet your life.”
- Unknown- “While on a ladder, never step back to admire your work.”
- Unknown- “Hearing protection is a sound investment.”
- Unknown- “To learn about eye protection, ask someone who has one.”
- Unknown- “Your safety gears are between your ears.”
- Unknown- “Personal protective equipment is self-defense.”
- Unknown- “Tomorrow – your reward for working safely today.”
- Unknown- “Unsafe acts will keep you in stitches.”
- Unknown- “Don’t learn safety by accident.”
- Unknown- “Safety is as simple as ABC – Always Be Careful.”
- Unknown- “Safety isn’t expensive, it’s priceless.”
- Unknown- “Be alert! Accidents hurt.”
- Unknown- “Better dead sure than sure dead.”
- Unknown- “When safety is a factor, call in a contractor.”
- Unknown- “Wishing won’t keep you safe – safety will.”
- Unknown- “Working safely is like breathing – if you don’t, you die.”
- Unknown- “The safest risk is the one you didn’t take.”
- Unknown- “Have huge but realistic goals”
- Unknown- “Safety isn’t just a slogan, it’s a way of life.”
- Unknown- “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”
- Unknown- “Change for the future NOT blame for the past.”
- Unknown- “Do the simplest thing that will work.”
- Safety slogans for the workplace
- 10 fingers, 10 toes 2 eyes 1 nose…safety counts
- 10 fingers. 10 toes, if you are not safe who knows?
- A spill, a slip, a hospital trip
- Accidents big or small, avoid them all
- Accidents hurt, safety doesn’t.
- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
- Are you part of the safety TEAM…Together Employees Accomplish More
- At work at play, let safety lead the way.
- Avoid the worst. Put safety first.
- Be alert! Accidents hurt.
- Be aware, take care
- Before you do it, take time to think through it.
- Behind the wheel, anger is one letter away from danger.
- Being safe is in your own hands.
- Best gift you can give your family is YOU! Please be safe
- Break the drive and arrive alive.
- Chance takers are accident makers
- Click it or ticket!
- Computer problems you can avoid, so you don’t have to get paranoid.
- Courtesy and common sense promote safety.
- Courtesy is contagious
- Dare to be aware.
- Do you have eye for safety or are you blinded by bad habits
- Doesn’t matter how far. JUST BELT UP!
- Don’t be a fool, cause safety is cool, so make that your rule.
- Don’t be a fool. Use the proper tool.
- Don’t be hasty when it comes to safety.
- Don’t be safety blinded, be safety minded.
- Don’t learn safety by accident.
- Don’t leave private information on a public computer screen
- Electricity can turn you off
- Eyes are priceless, eye protection is cheap.
- Falling objects can be brutal if you don’t protect your noodle.
- Forget the nurse with safety first.
- Forgot your hearing protection? Forget about hearing!
- Get in high speed pursuit of safety
- Get smart! Use safety from the start.
- Got crazy with the lighter? Call a firefighter.
- Hard hats, they’re not just for decoration
- Have another day by being safe today!
- Hearing protection is a sound investment.
- Housekeeping you skip may cause a fall or slip.
- If everything comes your way, you are in the wrong lane.
- If they email you asking for cash, be sure to throw it in the trash.
- If they email you asking for money, say no thanks I won’t fall for it honey.
- If you don’t know the sender, it might be a pretender
- If you don’t think it will happen to you, find the person who had it happen to them
- If you mess up, ‘fess up
- Is better to lose one minute in life… than to lose life in a minute.
- It only takes one mistake to bring us all down; don’t let it be yours!
- It’s easier to ask a dumb question than it is to fix a dumb mistake
- Keep a grip on life and protect your hands
- Keep safety in mind. It will save your behind.
- Keeping your work area clean, helps keep hazards from being unseen.
- Know safety – no pain
- Lead the way, safety today.
- Learn from others mistakes; don’t have others learn from you.
- Life’s short, don’t rush it
- Make it your mission, not to live in unsafe condition.
- Make safety a reality and don’t be a fatality
- My job provides my paycheck, but safety takes me home.
- Near miss reported today, is the accident that does not happen tomorrow.
- Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly
- Never give safety a day off
- No belt. No brains
- No safety – know pain
- One bad day at the grinder could ruin your whole life
- Pencils have erasers–mishaps don’t!
- Prevent a jam, don’t open spam
- Protect your hands, you need them to pick up your pay check
- Replacing a saw guard is easier than replacing a finger
- Safe crane operation is uplifting
- Safety – a small investment for a rich future
- Safety by choice, not by chance.
- Safety comes in a can, I can, you can, we can be safe.
- Safety doesn’t happen by accident
- Safety first, avoid the worst.
- Safety fits like a glove; try one on.
- Safety glasses – all in favor say EYE
- Safety in – we win
- Safety is a cheap and effective insurance policy
- Safety is a continuing journey, not a final destination.
- Safety is a frame of mind, so concentrate on it all the time.
- Safety is a frame of mind, get the picture.
- Safety is a full time job – don’t make it a part time practice
- Safety is a mission not an intermission
- Safety is about doing the right thing, even if no one is looking.
- Safety is as simple as ABC – Always Be Careful
- Safety is no accident
- Safety is success by purpose – not an accident.
- Safety isn’t a hobby, it’s a living.
- Safety isn’t expensive it’s priceless.
- Safety isn’t just a slogan, it’s a way of life.
- Safety makes good dollars and sense
- Safety rules are there to follow. So take care and we will see you tomorrow.
- Safety rules are your best tools.
- Safety saves, accidents cost you.
- Safety starts with “S” but begins with “YOU”.
- Safety starts with me.
- Safety: more fun than running with scissors
- Safety… it can charm you, or ALARM you!
- Safety…did it, done it, doing it tomorrow
- Safety…one habit you never need to break
- Save tomorrow. Think safety today.
- Seat belts are for kids – Hug them at home – Belt them in the car
- Seatbelts save lives. Buckle up every time.
- Shortcuts cut life short
- Speed thrills but kills.
- Stay safe, someone at home is waiting for you.
- Stop drop & roll
- Success is no accident
- The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.
- The door to safety swings on the hinges of common sense
- The only trip you take should be on vacation.
- The safe way is the only way.
- The stupid shall be punished
- Think sharp….never handle broken glass with bare hands.
- Think smart before you start.
- Those precious fingers don’t ignore, or they could end up on the floor.
- Those who work the safest way- live to see another day
- To avoid a scene keep your work place clean.
- To prevent a drastic call, install a firewall
- Tomorrow: your reward for working safely today.
- Trying to make up time could cost you your life.
- Unsafe acts will keep you in stitches
- Watch where you walk or you might need a walker.
- Watch your step – it could be your last tomorrow
- When you gamble with safety, you bet your life.
- While on a ladder, never step back to admire your work
- Wipe up and avoid a slip up!
- Work safe today–heaven can wait.
- Work together…work safely.
- You can't cure stupid
The Ps of Successful Safety
The 5 Ps
- Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance
- Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
- Prior Planning Provides People Protection
- Proper Planning Provides People Protection
- Proper Practice Prepares Perfect Players
- Poor Planning Promotes Poor Performance
The 6 Ps
- Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Production
- Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Proper Prior Planning Promotes Peak Performance
- Prior Planning Precludes Piss Poor Performance
- Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Proper Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance
The 7 Ps
- Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Piss Poor Planning Promotes Piss Poor Performance
- Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Positive Pre-Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Proper Planning and Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance
- Prior Proper Planning Prevents Painfully Poor Production
- Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Production
The 10 Ps
Prior Planning Promotes Proper Performance, Presentation, Passion, Play, Pray and Pay
Purpose, Prior Planning, Passion, Patience and Persistence Prevent Piss Poor Performance.
The 12 Ps
Purpose, Proper Prior Planning, Passion, Patience, Persistence and Perseverance Prevent Piss Poor Performance.
Piss Poor Planning Promotes Piss Poor Performance, Piss Poor Performance Promotes Pain.