Leadership Reflections – Standards Over Feelings

We are in the peak of our 2024 Spring outage season. Last week we had 2600 craft working 161K hours on 160+ jobs. So far this year we have 4K+ craft working 1.3M hours on 500+ jobs.

When you have that many people spread across the continent (and in some cases the globe), how do you consistently deliver strong results?

I share my reflections in the below thoughts and in this video. 

Focus

Safety and Quality continues to be our focus. We continue to perform well, delivering quality work and remaining safe. The numbers continue to show we are focused on the leading behaviors that prevent injuries and events – 47 STOP Works, 663 Hazard Hunts, and 1989 Open Reports, 77% Leadership Tool Use & 90% Preventive Actions identified to SERs.

My recent jobsite visits also tell me we are focused on Safety & Quality. I see toolbox talks and after break refocus that reinforce our safety values. I see STAs being completed and discussed before we perform tasks. I see crews stopping and discussing changes as the work is performed.

Standards

We have many standards for how we work. Think of the lifting stand down last week – we have life saving rules for lifting, we have safe lifting practices, we have lift plan templates.

I have witnessed our lifting standards in action over the past two weeks. Below are reflections from what I have seen:

 Humility

Why do we have standards?

Standards are usually written for two reasons:

1. Sharing a best practice that can be used to deliver consistent outcomes.

2. Learning from a prior event that can be prevented. (“Many standards are written in blood.”)

Embracing standards requires humility – the humility to accept someone else may know a better way & the humility to admit “That could happen to me”.

Live our Standards. 

I saw a post the other day that sums up my expectation for our use of standards.

Elevate before you deviate.

IF you believe a standard does not apply to your task, I expect you to elevate before acting. And if we collectively agree a deviation is needed, ask:

• What is the worst thing that could happen? & Will we be safe when the worst thing does happen?

• Would I do this if my role model was watching? Would I want someone I care about to do this?

• Is this decision consistent with our values?

We must answer these questions YES.

Thank you,

-Jake