Leading and Learning Through Safety

Hosted by Dr. Mark A French

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223

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Do you want to engage your culture? Safety is the first step to creating the motivation needed for people to perform their best. Each day, we have the chance to lead our teams and learn more about our people through an understanding of our safety climate. Through looking at current issues in HSE, we chat about creating cultural value through safety. Your host is Dr. Mark French, CSP, SPHR aka The Safety Dude.

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October 23, 202620 min

Episode 220: Adult Learning

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French continues the Back to Basics series by exploring how adult learning theories can help leaders introduce meaningful change while maintaining a sense of safety, security, and predictability in the workplace. Safety is more than freedom from illness and danger. It also involves creating an environment where people feel secure, familiar, and confident about what comes next. When organizations introduce change, particularly to established processes, leaders must recognize how employees' previous experiences influence their willingness to learn and adapt. Dr. French examines four adult learning theories and their applications to safety leadership: Andragogy: Adults learn best when training is relevant, self-directed, and connected to previous experiences. Experiential Learning: People learn through experiences, reflection, and experimentation. Social Learning: Observing others' behaviors and consequences can influence how individuals approach their work. Transformative Learning: Critical reflection allows employees to challenge existing assumptions and embrace new perspectives. Through practical examples, including a failed safety incentive program and improvements to lockout procedures, Dr. French illustrates why understanding employee experiences is essential to successful organizational change. The central message is that effective safety leadership requires more than introducing new rules or procedures. Leaders must communicate clearly, encourage participation, and create opportunities for meaningful learning. When employees understand why change is necessary and have a voice in shaping improvements, organizations can build safer workplaces while preserving the security and predictability people need to thrive.

October 16, 202620 min

Episode 219: Safety Motivation

Change is essential for organizational growth, but why do employees often resist it, even when the change is designed to protect them? In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French continues his exploration of the fundamental definition of safety and its relationship to human motivation, organizational change, and leadership. Safety represents our desire for freedom from illness and danger while maintaining a secure, familiar, and predictable environment. However, this creates an interesting paradox: improving safety often requires disrupting the very predictability that makes people feel secure. Drawing on Maslow's hierarchy of needs and principles of adult learning, Dr. French explores how leaders can use safety as a foundation for meaningful organizational change. Successful change requires engaging three interconnected dimensions of human motivation: The Body: Demonstrating how change protects physical well-being and reduces exposure to harm. The Mind: Providing logical explanations, effective communication, education, and measurable results that demonstrate why change matters. The Soul: Connecting emotionally with employees, addressing fears, encouraging participation, and creating personal meaning. While logic can help employees understand change, emotional engagement often determines whether they embrace it. Dr. French emphasizes that meaningful change cannot rely on communication or compliance alone. Leaders must understand individual motivations, invite employee participation, and recognize that different approaches work for different people. Ultimately, safety offers leaders a powerful opportunity to build trust, inspire engagement, and create lasting improvements throughout their organizations.

October 2, 202620 min

Episode 218: Defining Safety

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French goes back to the fundamentals of safety, motivation, and leadership to explore a deceptively simple question: What does it really mean for people to feel safe? Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a starting point, Mark examines safety as more than freedom from physical injury or danger. Safety also includes the desire for an environment that feels secure, familiar, and predictable. That broader definition creates an important connection between safety leadership and change management. When leaders introduce a new procedure, safer work method, or different expectation, they may unintentionally disrupt the familiarity and predictability employees have built over years of experience. This is particularly challenging when experienced employees have performed a task the same way throughout their careers without being injured or witnessing a serious incident. Their resistance may not simply be stubbornness; they may be protecting a system that has provided them with a sense of security. The episode challenges leaders to rethink how they respond to that resistance. Rather than viewing passion or disagreement as inherently negative, leaders can redirect that energy toward improvement. The goal is to help experienced employees recognize risks they may not have personally encountered and involve them in creating safer approaches that can be transferred to the next generation. Ultimately, effective safety leadership requires understanding what motivates people, recognizing why change can feel threatening, and helping employees move from what is familiar toward what can be safer and better.

September 25, 202620 min

Episode 217: A Proactive Approach

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French challenges a common approach to measuring safety performance: relying on OSHA recordable injuries and other lagging indicators as primary measures of success. Using the simple example of water on the floor, Mark explains how the same hazard can produce dramatically different outcomes. One person may walk through the water without incident, another may nearly fall, another may suffer a minor injury, and another could experience a serious or even fatal injury. The hazard is the same, but the outcome depends on numerous variables. This raises an important question: Why do organizations judge safety performance primarily by outcomes that occur after someone has already been hurt? The episode expands this idea into a broader leadership discussion about proactive versus reactive management. Organizations would never intentionally wait until their bank account is empty to determine whether their business strategy is working. Instead, leaders monitor the activities and processes that influence future results. Safety should be managed the same way. Rather than asking only how many injuries occurred, leaders should examine proactive measures: How many hazards were identified and corrected? How often are leaders engaging employees in the field? Are high-risk conditions being identified before they produce an injury? Ultimately, safety provides leaders with an opportunity to develop a proactive mindset that extends beyond injury prevention. Understanding safety requires leaders to understand their people, processes, quality, production, and operations. The goal is simple: focus on the things that can make a difference while they can still make a difference.

September 18, 202619 min

Episode 216: Safety Tasks

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French explores how the tasks leaders assign can influence employee engagement, leadership credibility, and the effectiveness of workplace safety programs. Drawing from research published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology , the episode examines the concept of “illegitimate tasks”—work employees perceive as either unnecessary or unreasonable. Unnecessary tasks are activities that seemingly should not need to be performed at all, while unreasonable tasks are perceived as falling outside the legitimate responsibilities of an employee’s role. This distinction has important implications for safety. Safety activities such as audits, inspections, observations, checklists, and employee engagements should have a clear purpose. When organizations establish quotas simply to generate metrics, but fail to review the information, address identified hazards, or make meaningful improvements, employees can begin viewing those activities as meaningless exercises rather than genuine efforts to reduce risk. The episode also examines leadership practices more broadly. Assigning unnecessary work to discourage employees from seeking a leader’s time may solve an immediate inconvenience, but it can damage communication and eliminate opportunities for coaching and valuable feedback. Effective leaders should be able to explain why work is both reasonable and necessary. Safety processes are most effective when employees understand how their efforts contribute to protecting themselves and others. The challenge for leaders is therefore not simply to assign tasks or achieve green metrics, but to ensure the work behind those metrics creates genuine value. Ultimately, meaningful safety work requires active leadership, communication, follow-through, and purpose.

September 11, 202620 min

Episode 215: Statistical Safety

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French explores how statistics and risk prioritization can help safety professionals focus limited resources on the hazards that matter most. Using an example from his career in a chemical plant, Mark describes an unusual incident in which wind carried a small particle of dust around an employee’s safety glasses, ultimately resulting in prescription eye drops and an OSHA-recordable injury. While the incident deserved attention and an appropriate response, its low severity and low probability of recurrence contrasted sharply with the extensive investigation and corrective-action process that followed. The experience highlights an important challenge in safety leadership: organizations have finite time, energy, and resources. When disproportionate attention is given to low-severity, low-probability events, safety teams may have less capacity to address hazards with genuine serious-injury-or-fatality potential, including hot work, lockout/tagout, confined-space entry, fall protection, and line-breaking activities. Mark also emphasizes that root-cause analysis should be a learning tool, not a punishment. When investigations become exercises in blame, excessive documentation, or making people feel responsible for unpredictable events, organizations risk damaging both psychological safety and the effectiveness of the investigation process. The goal is not to ignore minor incidents. Organizations should investigate, learn, implement reasonable improvements, and move forward. Effective safety leadership means maintaining perspective and using data to prioritize prevention efforts where they can have the greatest impact: protecting people from the hazards most capable of causing serious injury or death.

September 4, 202620 min

Episode 214 - Safety System

Safety systems are more than tools for preventing injuries—they can become the foundation for how an organization operates and improves. In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French explores how organizations can build effective systems from the ground up, particularly during startups and turnarounds. The process begins with reliable data. Organizations need to understand what information they need, where it comes from, and whether it accurately reflects what is happening in the workplace. Without trustworthy information, leaders cannot make meaningful decisions. This same principle extends beyond safety into quality, delivery, and cost. The next critical component is a strong root cause and corrective action process. When organizations thoroughly investigate safety incidents and address their underlying causes, they develop problem-solving capabilities that can be applied across the business. The same methodology used to prevent an injury from recurring can help resolve quality problems, productivity challenges, and cost issues. The key is selecting an approach appropriate for the complexity of the organization and investing the time necessary to teach people how to use it effectively. Finally, effective systems require communication and feedback. Information must move throughout the organization and create a complete feedback cycle rather than simply flowing from leadership downward. Safety provides a powerful starting point because protecting people is a fundamental organizational responsibility. By building strong systems around safety, organizations simultaneously develop capabilities in data collection, problem-solving, communication, and continuous improvement that can ultimately transform the entire organization.

August 28, 202620 min

Episode 213: The Safety Gemba

Going to where the work actually happens sounds simple. So why can it be so difficult? In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French explores Gemba , the Lean management practice of going to the “actual place” to observe work, interact with employees, and understand what is really happening. Building on previous discussions about learning design and the Analysis phase of ADDIE, Mark explains that observation is one of the most powerful ways leaders can identify gaps between procedures, data, training, and the reality employees experience every day. An informal walk through the workplace can reveal opportunities for improving safety, training, quality, productivity, and employee support. But Gemba presents a challenge: when leaders go looking, they are probably going to find something. That discovery creates work. Employees may need resources. A process may need improvement. Data may not reflect reality. Leaders may even discover that their own assumptions were wrong. Combined with meetings, reports, metrics, and the constant pressure of “feeding the corporate beast,” staying behind the desk can become the easier option. Effective Gemba therefore requires more than physically visiting the workplace. It requires leaders to deliberately create time, overcome inertia, remain curious, and be willing to have their assumptions challenged. The goal isn't simply to walk around. It is to observe and learn . Leadership happens where the work happens—and sometimes making a meaningful difference begins with simply getting out of the chair and going to see.

August 21, 202620 min

Episode 212: What Should We Learn

What makes workplace training meaningful? It may have less to do with the presentation itself and more to do with what happens before the first slide appears. In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French continues the discussion on learning design by exploring the Analysis phase of the ADDIE instructional design model. Drawing from interviews conducted as part of his doctoral dissertation, Mark examines how experienced safety trainers—often without formally calling it ADDIE—use analysis to understand their learners, identify knowledge and performance gaps, and make required training more relevant. The episode explores a simple but powerful question: Why are we conducting this training, and what needs to be different when it is over? Examples from safety trainers demonstrate the importance of understanding employees’ previous experience, existing knowledge, job responsibilities, and actual working conditions. Whether conducting forklift training, fall protection training, or another regulatory requirement, meaningful learning begins with knowing what employees already understand and where genuine gaps exist. Mark also connects Analysis to the concept of Gemba—going to where the work actually happens. By observing employees and talking with them in the field, trainers can compare “work as imagined” with “work as performed” and determine whether training is even the appropriate solution. The takeaway is straightforward: Before designing the training, understand the work. Before teaching the learner, understand the learner. Great training doesn’t begin with PowerPoint. It begins with curiosity.

August 14, 202620 min

Episode 211: Learning Motivation

Safety training can check every regulatory box and still fail to connect with the people who need it most. In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety , Dr. Mark French explores one of his longtime professional interests: how to transform required workplace training from a compliance exercise into meaningful learning that employees can actually apply. Drawing from a recent experience attending an eight-hour regulatory certification course, Mark examines why technically accurate training can still fall short. Stock images, regulation-heavy PowerPoint slides, and worst-case scenarios may communicate the rules, but they do not always reflect the reality employees experience in the field. When training and real work do not align, employees may begin questioning the credibility of the message and underestimate the risks around them. Mark introduces the ADDIE learning model—Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate—as a practical framework safety professionals and leaders can use to improve training. It begins by understanding the audience: Who are they? What do they already know? What knowledge or skills are missing? From there, instructors can design and develop training using relevant workplace examples, hands-on activities, discussion, and actual equipment rather than relying solely on generic materials. Finally, effective training requires evaluation. Did employees learn something useful? Can they demonstrate it in the workplace? Did the training actually address the problem? The lesson is simple but powerful: meaningful training starts with understanding who you are teaching and what they truly need to know.