Moments Make the Leader with Patrick Nelson

<p>In 2005 Patrick Nelson, while serving in the US Army paratroops, had an experience that changed his life and his perspective on being a leader.  Leadership, good or bad, is made up of moments.  On this podcast, Patrick helps us see the impact of those moments and how leaders can engage safety through story telling.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch. It was a summer a while ago, and my wife Laura, pregnant with our first daughter and I were traveling back from a quick trip to visit my family and celebrate a birthday. It's about a five hour drive one way, and we're like, we always do with family trying to fit it in with an increasingly hectic work schedule. So we had left late from my family's house and our ETA back to Maine was somewhere around two a.m. and as was my habit, I was driving and around two hours or so out from our home. Laura asked if I wanted to take a break and have her drive. And I remember in the moment choosing to tell her, nah I'm OK. And then she should go ahead and catch some sleep so she would be all set for work in the morning. Leading my family, right? I remember telling her that, and then she asked me if I was sure and she had this look on her face like, Are you really sure you're OK? And [00:01:00] the next thing I remember is her screaming at me, and then we were in the guardrail. So leadership, good or bad is made up of moments, and these moments are where decisions and choices get made. Sometimes they're obviously critical to the team's path, while other times the purpose of those moments is not so obvious. Sometimes the choice in the moment is easy, and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes you can clearly see the potential impact of the choice, while in other moments the future of that choice is cloudy, but always. In hindsight, if we look closely enough, we can see the choice or choices in the moments that were made that were the cause of the success or failure and the night that we crashed into the guardrail. I was given at least two of those moments, and it's only by the grace of God and my wife screaming at me that my family has more. So as a leader, whether you're a spouse, your coach or manager, supervisor, [00:02:00] CEO, Commander, Sargent doesn't matter. You will have leadership moments where you're going to be at a crossroads and have the opportunity to choose to act or pass on that moment. And when it comes to safety, these moments are all around us. You think about a moment where you saw one of your team maybe not wearing safety glasses or choosing to take a shortcut that you yourself had taken just the day before, or maybe even with that employee together? Or that employee might be rushing to get the job done, making normal work a crisis. And you didn't take a moment, you name it. I expect we've all had an experience like this to reflect on. And then when you do choose to act on that moment, especially in the workplace for workplace safety, what do you get in the response when you act on that moment? It's my experience that that receiver is not always gushing to thank you and really appreciative of you stopping to have them put his safety glasses on. Most likely, they're [00:03:00] sullen and possibly can't understand why you're bringing the nanny state to bear in this particular opportunity, because it was just for a moment that they weren't wearing their PPE or that it took too long. And why are we doing it this way here anyway? Or add your excuse, you can find any excuse so you don't act or you don't act in a way that can engage the individual or your team, and the cycle of moments start all over again. Well, today I have the distinct privilege of speaking to someone who sees the importance of recognizing these moments and choosing to engage. Joining me on the podcast is Patrick Nelson. Patrick is an experienced leader, having served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, leading soldiers through three combat deployments earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Beyond his military career, he has a master's degree in sports management from Minnesota state and another in organizational development from Pepperdine University. Patrick [00:04:00] lives in Minnesota and is the CEO of Loyalty Point Leadership, working with small businesses and Fortune 500 companies to deploy leadership development programs. There's a ton to Patrick's story, and we're only going to scratch the surface today. So with that introduction, Patrick, welcome to the podcast today.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:04:20] Thanks, Peter. It is great to be here, and I just want to thank you for sharing that very personal story at the beginning because I think as you'll find throughout our short time together today that sharing stories is very important to me to really move the needle on safety. So I think it's awesome that you did that. Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:04:40] I appreciate that. And yeah, I noticed that like we, we just met a couple of days ago talking over WebEx and trying to figure out, Hey, so how does this all fit in with the safety podcast? And I have found that you speak the truth like stories are very important to you. And you found that it really does make [00:05:00] an impact. And that's going to be part of what we talk about today because, I don't know, engaging in safety. I have found in my career it's been 18 years with MEMIC. Now, as a safety management consultant, engaging people in safety is really important and I think you've had a similar experience as well with trying to engage people regardless of what that is.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:05:22] I did, yeah, you know, when I was in the military, I used to have to give pre-mission briefings before every combat mission we rolled out on, much like the civilian world, whether it's a start up meeting the shift change a tower talk whatever you want to call it. I was faced with the same challenge that many people are faced keeping people engaged in those meetings. You're providing some valuable information, but a lot of times that information is the same thing those employees are hearing every single day. And I sat in on a couple of these with different clients throughout the country, in different industries, and it seemed [00:06:00] like people were more worried about finding the pen to sign in than they were listening to what the person had to say. And one of the things that I learned in my time in the military giving these briefings is the power of being able to use personal stories to keep people engaged. I knew that I had to get creative and think outside the box instead of just going through my little checklist. And you know, hey guys, make sure you got your helmet on. You got your eye protection, everybody's got their gloves on. Telling very personal and brief is a very key word because we don't have the longest attention spans, but personal and brief stories related to those topics that people can specifically relate to is really what's going to get people engaged.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:06:46] Yeah, right on. So like when you were given those pre mission briefings and possibly before you started seeing the value of telling those stories, like how did you know that you were getting the message across? [00:07:00] Or maybe that you weren't getting the message across? Like, what was the what were the team's reaction when they were like, All right, Patrick, I've had enough of this. Let's just get going on the mission.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:07:09] Yeah, that's a good question. You can tell, by the way, people look at you. I mean, you can tell when people are fully engaged in a conversation with you. Or you could also tell when they're kind of just stared at you blankly and their mind is thinking about 12 different other things. And that's something that I realize, especially in a combat situation where even though you're in a very dangerous place, it's still very easy to get complacent. Guys are thinking about home. They're thinking about their families, their mind can wander and the same thing happens whether you're working in construction or on the manufacturing line, especially what I found during COVID. People are thinking about their kids that are, you know, there's a kid have to home school. They're thinking about their parents that, you know, might be in an age population that may be at a higher [00:08:00] risk. It's easy to get distracted from the very important stuff. And so one of the things is just having that eye contact and making sure that people are engaged. And another thing that I actually used to do was I have one of my soldiers leave that briefing. I let him know the day before, Hey, tomorrow you're going to go ahead and leave the briefing, and I'd sit down right next to them and help them prepare. And I would stand right next to them when they were doing it to throw them a lifeline in case they needed some help to make sure that everything was covered. Worst case scenario, they were going to get up there and they were going to stink it up. However, it was going to be an opportunity for them to step outside of their comfort zone and a huge learning opportunity for them and to keep them engaged in the process.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:08:43] Yeah, that's awesome. That's that leadership moment. Like, here's the moment I have. I can either do it myself or I can. I can recognize that somebody else might have a better story to tell or have better impact with my team since, you know, they've been listening to me for the last, however many weeks or days. And then what I like to about [00:09:00] that particular instance that you described was you didn't just throw them the checklist and say, All right, buddy tag, you're it. It's OK, here's the day. Here's your responsibility. This is what we're going to go through. Let's talk it through. Let's make sure we can figure it out so that you're giving them the resource to be successful in that point, which is another great leadership piece, whether it's in safety or just leadership in general. Awesome. Awesome part there.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:09:26] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you know, Peter, it's inherent in anybody who considers himself a leader to be able to coach and mentor those that follow them.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:09:37] You know, we're initially talking about leadership here and you know, your experience in the military when you talked about it, it's a combat zone. So the choices that are made within that particular venue for combat, you can connect the consequences really easily. And even though you said you get complacent, you don't always see [00:10:00] it. Sometimes it happens surprisingly. But looking in at from the outside, there's more implications to not taking advantage of the moment in those situations that than there are, say, maybe in construction or maybe in manufacturing or something else where you doing the same thing day after day after day, but honestly. Even though you might not have the same number of opportunities to lose your life as you do in combat, you have a myriad of opportunities in any industry to be injured to change your life in an instant. You had a particular experience, I'm sure, out of many different experiences across your seven years in the military where you saw the impact of a moment. And I wonder if you might take some time and relate that story so that we can hear it and kind of get an idea where you're coming from. And then we can talk [00:11:00] about that story and how it's impacted you and how you see things differently for current and future.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:11:09] Yeah, absolutely, Peter. You know, I have that one traumatic experience that has changed my life, and it's been that experience from 15, 16 years ago that has led me to right here being a guest on your podcast right now. And it was June 8th, 2005. I was operating out of a small forward operating base near the Pakistani border. So I was in Afghanistan. This was the type of place we were short on everything except the enemy. We faced regular indirect fire attacks participate in several large battles that saw between 50 to one hundred enemy fighters each time. And on this particular morning, we were getting resupplied with some ammunition by a chinook helicopter. Resupply procedures were a common part of what we did, and our platoon was divided into two sections. So any time a resupply [00:12:00] would come in, one of those sessions would be designated as the hot gun. Basically, they were responsible for standing by to respond to any type of attack. The other section, which responds with unloading the supplies from the helicopter. So on this particular morning, my section was the hot gun. We're going to get resupplied with some ammunition. But the other section had a sergeant leaving to go on R&amp;R and I was going to go ahead and backfill his position with them. So as the helicopter approached, I hopped in the Humvee with my good friend Luke. And just as we were about to drive out to the landing zone, my soldier Emmanuel Hernandez, hopped in the back. Now he was supposed to be back with the hot gun, so I turned around and I was about to yell at him. But I thought for a second, you know what, I value that kind of work ethic. He wants to come lift some heavy boxes and help out the team. I know that our section will be fine without him. I value that in [00:13:00] my soldiers, so I didn't say anything. And as I was turning around. I noticed that he didn't have his helmet on, and so I literally opened my mouth. But I quickly realized I don't have mine on, either. It's kind of hard for me to say something if I'm not doing the right thing, so I said nothing. As we got out to the landing zone, a group of 10 of us stepped to the side of the aircraft so they could take a machine gun off the back ramp. The rotors on the helicopter were turning, couldn't hear each other. My platoon sergeant handed me a piece of paper with some serial numbers to items we were expecting, basically saying, Hey, it's your responsibility to make sure we get these specific items. So I grab that piece of paper from him and I turn my back to that group so I could ground guide Luke in the Humvee to back them up a little bit closer to the helicopter. And the next thing I remember. Everything went dark, and as I was laying on the ground, disoriented, unable to [00:14:00] hear. I thought maybe somebody came up behind me and had just hit me on the back of the head maybe played a joke that went too far.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:14:09] But then I looked up and there were bodies of blood all over the ground in my hearing came back, the helicopter quickly powered down and I heard that very distinct whistle of an incoming rocket. And so I got up and I dove underneath the Humvee for cover as rockets started to impact all around. And as I was laying there, I realized there's a rocket that had landed next to it, instead it knocked me to the ground. So as the barrage finally ended. I crawled out from underneath the Humvee, started making my way back to the soldiers that were still on the ground, unsure of what I was going to find. And as I was doing that, a marine yelled from behind me that I'd been hit. Now, up until that point, I had not felt any pain, but I turned my head and look at the back of my uniform and it was shredded and blood was starting to pour out. And it was at that moment that the pain all of a sudden hit me. The other soldiers quickly [00:15:00] triage those of us that were hurt, loaded us into whatever type of vehicle they could find and brought us to this small clinic on our base that was ran by an Afghan doctor who treated locals. Now my wounds were very, very minor compared to everybody else. I was peppered in the back with shrapnel, small holes in there, nothing too serious, but it definitely hurt. And I was quickly bandaged up by Luke, and I saw Sergeant Michael Kelly, a supply sergeant from the Massachusetts National Guard, who is recently attached to our unit.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:15:33] He was laying on this elevated stretcher off the ground, and the local Afghan doctor who worked in that clinic was performing CPR on him. He's standing on this. I'll never forget this red milk crate because he was like five feet, two inches tall. And so he's standing on this red milk crate performing CPR on Michael. And I did a quick lap around the clinic to see who else was hurt. I came across my platoon sergeant, one of the just handed me the piece of paper right before [00:16:00] the explosion. He's laying on a stretcher, on the ground, on the outside of the clinic because the inside was already full of others who were hurt. The femoral artery and his leg was severed along with other severe wounds. And by the time I came back around, I couldn't have been more than thirty or forty five seconds and they have lowered Michael to the ground and we're zipping them up into a body bag. And I found my way into a small room in the back of the clinic where I found my soldier, Emmanuel Hernandez, he's laying on a table. His head is bandaged. He's unconscious. But we were fortunate to have a special forces battalion surgeon in our area that day who responded, so I knew he was giving the best care available and I could see his chest rise and fall. So I knew that he was breathing and I just I grabbed him by the hand, whispered to him everything was going to be OK.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:16:52] Medevac helicopters arrived brought us to four surgical teams spread throughout the country. I was on a helicopter ride with my platoon sergeant, [00:17:00] who had by then lost consciousness. But thanks to the quick thinking of the soldiers on the ground, we're putting a tourniquet on his leg and the medical staff that treated him. He survived and he kept his leg. The surgical team removed several pieces of shrapnel from my back. They left a few souvenirs in there that were little too deep to get out that I still carry with me. But they stitched me up and bandaged me up, sent me back to the landing zone for another helicopter ride to Bagram Airfield for some more advanced care. And as I was waiting there, my commander approach to see how I was doing. I said, I'm going to be just fine. How is? How is Emmanuel? And he looked at me. He said he was going to be OK. I just felt such relief. And he turned to walk away, and he got about four or five steps. And he turned around. And with tears coming down his cheeks. He said, I'm sorry that I lied. Hernandez didn't make it. And [00:18:00] my knees got weak as I hit the ground, my commander embraced me. Emanuel died because shrapnel from the explosion hit him in the head. He died because I was not doing the right thing. Because I didn't have the courage to speak up and to say something, and there's been so many days where I thought how simple it would have been if I would have just said, Hey guys, wait, let's go get our helmets quick.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:18:27] I mean, nothing would have been delayed. It would have taken a matter of moments just this morning at breakfast. Emanuel was telling another soldier how he couldn't wait to get home and started having kids with his wife. And if only I would have stopped and said something. His wife, Jessica, would still have her husband. His mother would still have her son. And Emmanuel would still have his life ahead of him. But guess what, we've done it like that hundreds and times before. And nothing has ever happened. It's so [00:19:00] easy, I don't care whether you're in a combat zone or you're out there, you know, paving roads or working on some type of line or swinging a hammer. It's so easy to get complacent and to sort of fall and get that tunnel vision and get used to doing things a certain way, especially if it's the wrong way. You know, if you stay in your industry long enough, you might have some lucky days, but you may not have a lucky career because sooner or later, whether it's your fault or not. Something can happen to you. I know it's such a cliche. So one in a million chance. But Peter, I'm here to tell you that it absolutely can happen. You know, I like to ask people this when I'm working with clients, I'll say, Hey, who here has ever bought a lottery ticket in their life like a Powerball Mega million? And most people raise their hand, right? And we bought that ticket knowing that the chances of us winning [00:20:00] are astronomical.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:20:03] But we have this sliver of belief that maybe just maybe it might be us. Well, let me tell you, if you have that attitude towards winning a lottery jackpot that it could happen to you. I definitely hope you have that attitude towards workplace safety because the chances of you getting hurt at work are a heck of a lot higher than you winning a lottery jackpot. Again, it's so easy to get comfortable to get used to doing things one way or another. And there's a phenomenon called the diffusion of responsibility when you're in groups of people. You're less likely to speak up to say something or to lend a hand. And why is that? Because you think somebody else is going to do it?</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:20:55] It's not my job.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:20:56] It's not my job, right? It's not my responsibility. Nobody [00:21:00] else is speaking up. So I guess everything's OK. And it doesn't matter to me if it's your second day on the job or if you've been there for twenty five years, you can get sucked into that diffusion of responsibility. I got another story that I'll share later here with you where that happened to me just two short years ago. But thankfully, I have an awesome wife just like yours, who spoke up and was able to help change that situation.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:21:30] Right on. Oh my gosh, that that is a hugely powerful story, and I thank you for sharing that and realize you're on the podcast to help share things, but that to share the story in the way that you did and for us to realize all of the all the decisions that that went into that one moment, like in that that hindsight 20 20 analysis of the plan and what happened [00:22:00] all the way back to that moment where you look back at them and you open your mouth and you were like, not this time. And then the story goes on from there. So that's a hugely powerful story, and it resonates, resonates for me. I know the diffusion of responsibility kind of thinking about that. I geez, I could go through my career and find hundreds of times where that's happened, where I almost raised my hand, but I didn't quite feel like it was my job. And as a leader, right, do you think about as a leader, it is your job, but that is your only job. So take away everything else that you have as a leader, if you're in charge of a family, you're in charge of a platoon, you're in charge of a team. Whatever it is, you're only job is to make sure that your team is properly equipped for success. And [00:23:00] if you don't take that moment to say something. Like you said, you buy the lottery ticket and some days you win and some days you lose, but as a leader, you really can't take those chances.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:23:14] Yeah, absolutely. For everybody listening right now. You're listening to this because more than likely you work in an industry or, you know, somebody that works in an industry where the consequences are very real if something happens. And again, it's not a matter of if a lot of times, unfortunately, it's a matter of when. Again, when I go into clients, I love to ask people. It used to be a variety of people. It might be that second day employee in there or that's employee who's been there 10, 15, 20 years. But I'll ask them who here has ever taken a shortcut when it comes to safety or not wearing the proper PPE? Been complacent been negligent not follow procedure and every hand in that room [00:24:00] goes up. We've all been guilty of it at one point in our career or another. But again, go back to what I said. You might have some lucky days, but if you stay in that industry long enough, you may not have a lucky career. We got sucked in to that comfort zone of being and we were in a combat zone where our lives are on the line. Twenty four seven. And we got sucked into it. So if it can happen to me during combat operations in Afghanistan, I know that it absolutely can happen to you.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:24:35] Yeah, complacency it's the bane of what we do. I mean, even if your job is different day to day, hour to hour, there's still things that are going to pull your mind away from it. There's still things that are going to force you into position where you're going to recognize a moment and then need to make a choice. And then when we get complacent, you start to think about, well, like coming [00:25:00] up to a yellow light. What do you do? Right. So the yellow light means, do I speed up and get through it before it turns red? Or do I slow down and pay attention, or maybe even stop and let the traffic go through? So if I've had the experience of being lucky time after time, after time, I might not take that opportunity to say something or to go back and get my helmet or to put my PPE on or, you know, I think we could probably swap stories for a few hours about successes and failures personally that we've seen and then that we've heard other people tell us about or things that I've had to go and investigate as loss control consultant of a fatality that has occurred on the work site where the same thing if we walk back to. The critical decision that was made that allowed the scenario to unfold the way it did. It was a leadership failure. Almost always, it's a leadership failure.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:26:00] Yep, [00:26:00] I absolutely agree with you, you know, the research is clear, ninety nine point some percent of all incidents are completely preventable. Yeah, save those lone acts of God. But there are opportunities there when you're doing, whether it's your root cause analysis, you're asking why five times whatever process it is that you're using, you're going to get back to that situation where that could have easily been prevented. And you'll probably find about five or six different situations where somebody could have easily raise their hand or spoke up, and they didn't for whatever reason it is. And so, yes, as leaders, absolutely again, our inherent responsibility to take care of those around us.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:26:45] Yeah. And so beyond the diffusion of responsibility, like why in your experience talking to all, all your clients and having your experience within the military and even outside that, why do you think leaders don't [00:27:00] make that choice? I mean, you have your personal experience. I've had my personal experiences where I haven't stepped up and made that choice. Why else do you think leaders don't step into the breach to say something?</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:27:15] Well, first of all, you chose your words very apropos there, because you said choice, because I like to say safety is not an option, but it's still a choice. It still comes down to that individual. And I think there's a plethora of reasons of why and a lot of the ones that I see is. Pressure. We have to meet our numbers, we don't want to come in and have to work this weekend, and a lot of times that pressure is driven internally. Now there can absolutely be external factors and it's the way a lot of times it's even the way people choose their words. You're not going to go into a company that's [00:28:00] going to tell you blatantly, you know, we disregard safety so we can meet our numbers. You know, a lot of them are going to expose like, Oh, no, safety is our number one priority. And if you need to slow down, go ahead and slow down, we support you. But yet the words that they're choosing are being received by the people that are out there doing the dangerous work as, Oh boy, we need to get this done and we need to get people to realize you don't need to compromise safety for performance or vice versa. You can be a very high performing team and be really safe at your job as well. We can do both at the same time. That is absolutely possible. So there's definitely that idea of the pressure driven situations where leaders may not want to step up and say something. Leaders may not want to what they see as rock the boat, and that was one of my things that held me back with not speaking up with Emmanuel.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:28:59] Look, we're [00:29:00] we're in a combat zone. I don't want to have to yell at him. You know, he's just trying to come and help. I don't want to say anything and have to get into him and. It's like I found out the consequences of not speaking up, and so one of the things is not knowing how to have those difficult conversations with people we don't like as humans. We don't like conflict. The majority of us, we do not like conflict. We're going to shy away from it. And again, one of the reasons is because we think, you know, if we go tell somebody that they're doing something wrong or give them that negative developmental critical or whatever nomenclature you put on that feedback is it's going to cause some adversity or tension there in that relationship, and we don't want that. However, there are absolutely ways to be able to have those conversations to take sort of that judgment that comes out of it, and it's really just focusing on the behavior of that person and try to make it as objective as possible. [00:30:00] And for me, it really starts with empathy, and empathy is really kind of been a buzzword in leadership circles over the last couple of years. But it comes down to empathy, and a lot of people think of empathy as this very soft and cuddly type thing. And you know, I come from I was in a unit full of paratroopers, one hundred and twenty alpha males in that unit, and I can tell you, I learned a lot about empathy.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:30:26] It's just what it really is. It's being able to see things from somebody else's perspective. You know, I'm not for treating everybody the same. I'm for treating everybody fairly. And its leadership is not a one size fits all approach to everybody, I had the opportunity to work with the diverse team of soldiers from all different walks of life and from all different areas across our country and even the world. And the one size fits all approach doesn't always work. You know, I'd have those soldiers where I could yell at them till I'm [00:31:00] blue in the face and it just would not get across or I'd have them where I just had to raise my voice just a little bit. And that was it. They understood. And so it's being able to really know your people and how to have those conversations. You got to know what motivates them. And I'm not talking about, you know, money or bonuses, right? Nobody's coming to work if they're not getting paid. We know that. But there are still reasons that people have chosen that job, especially in the market. Today, you can go out there and you can get a paycheck down the road. Almost any other place right now. There are reasons that they are right there in your organization and you need to find out what those intrinsic motivators are and really leverage those in your relationship and how you communicate with that person.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:31:50] Let's take a quick break. In our experience here at MEMIC, successful companies are safe companies, and those companies have good leaders from front line seasonal supervisors [00:32:00] to middle management and beyond. Growing the leadership team is a critical part of that success. MEMIC recognizes the value of leadership and safety, and that not all supervisors and managers have had formal leadership training. That's why we've created a series of resources and workshops specifically for supervisors and managers called integrating safety into business goals from the breakdown of three basic skills every supervisor needs through how recognition works and conflict management. Integrating safety into business goals is a great starting point for developing your leadership team. Already, a MEMIC policyholder then reach out to your MEMIC Safety Management consultant for more information about these resources. And if you're not already a policyholder and you're interested in how MEMIC can partner with you for workplace safety, contact your independent insurance agent and ask about MEMIC. Now, let's get back to today's episode.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:33:00] Yeah, [00:33:00] it's great, so tie in for me, like how you how you use the power of stories to connect in and bring the message of safety because. I think it's easy to talk about success as a company and you can get recognition because you're successful as a company and we met our numbers here, but safety is one of those weird things where it's the measurement of the negative right. It's the measurement of the thing that doesn't happen. And yeah, you can only save so much money from an insurance standpoint, and you can show that you saved this much money because we didn't have this many people get hurt, but there are people who will look at that and go, Well, it's because we worked harder because we were luckier because of this or because of that. So. Engaging people in safety with the power of a story to help with that empathy, I think is key. So how does that how does that work together for you? How do you see using a story to tie [00:34:00] safety or make safety important for people?</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:34:03] Yeah, again, it absolutely comes down to engaging people, and in my experiences, I found that telling those personal brief, powerful stories is what really can get people's attention. And you know what? Three weeks or three months down the road, they may not remember every single word that you said, but they're going to remember how you made them feel. And so I really focus on that emotional aspect of it, things that people can easily relate to any time you start telling a story and you're using the words my son or daughter, my mother or father, brother, sister, right? People start to be able to pay attention. And through some of the work that I've done with some clients is I helped equip some of those people with the stories. And at first, I honestly did not know how it would translate into the civilian world again. [00:35:00] I had all that great experience in the military, very bureaucratic organization. My soldiers had to listen to me. They didn't have much of a choice. But again, I think a leader is somebody who influences outcomes and inspires others. Is that about being in control or having power, notoriety, prestige? Anyways, I digress. Telling personal stories and equipping them with every single person, I saw the impact that it can have. So these organizations I work with, they've the numbers are there, right? They've seen that decrease in their recordable incident rate. Like you were saying, the business case, we all know the business case for safety is there. But more than anything, it's that personal and moral obligation that we all have to take care of each other. And what's even more interesting, Peter. Is that I help equip these people with their own what I call a safety stump speech and some of the most powerful ones that I [00:36:00] heard and ones that really helped move the needle on safety had nothing to do with an incident on a job site. I've heard people tell very personal stories of, you know, accidents at home, accidents or situations that they even heard about, or that one of their friends or family were involved. And those are the type of stories when somebody can get up there and they start getting tears in their eyes and they tell these people, Look, I care about you. And I'm here to help you and to keep you safe. It's really developing that connection and engagement with the person. Again, it may not be remembering every single word that that person says in that story, but it's really that connection that's built. And it gets people to start to take ownership over safety. I mean, again, that I go into all these clients and that's what they say. We want our employees to start taking ownership of safety and in order to get their, [00:37:00] well one, it obviously has to start at the top and be mirrored up there because as humans, we have a tendency to mirror the behavior of others around us. So if people up there are not doing the right thing, I can expect others to be able to do the same. And the second thing is it's being able to empower people. To be able to tell their story and to share it with others, giving them the opportunities, and again, as you know, as a safety expert, Peter. It's about being proactive.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:37:31] Yeah, it really is. As you were talking about that, what was coming to mind for me is something you said earlier on was the words that you use are important when you are addressing somebody. From a safety standpoint, because it helps them engage, and if you promote that storytelling within your company and again, whether it's storytelling that happens because of an incident that occurred at your business or it's a personal story. I think that emotional connection can almost be like [00:38:00] this guy or gal cares. So when you're going to build that kind of emotional trust bank up with that person so that when you come back to them later on and you're in that moment, you have that, only you have that millisecond to make a decision. And you might not be able to be warm and fuzzy in that moment to tell that person that put their PPE back on or to put the lockout back on that or to get off the frickin top of the ladder or whatever it is.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:38:31] Right</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:38:33] They are going to know that you have their back and they're going to look at you and go, OK, he's not just being a jerk. He really cares and I'm going to do that and that's going to pay it forward later on. I think there's a key part in that. That's an awesome thought using stories that way. Patrick, thanks for connecting that for me.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:38:54] Yeah. Well, you're welcome. I love that you said the emotional trust bank. I never heard that before, [00:39:00] but I am going to be taking that now, and I'm going to help people open their own emotional trust bank in those relationships because I think that's important. What's interesting is you're reminded me of the very first platoon leader I had on my first deployment to Afghanistan. He was a guy by the name of John Post. And a young lieutenant, a few years removed from West Point, what this guy lacked in experience he more than made up for in his leadership behavior. So this was the type of guy and I've seen him do it. He could sit you down and tell you the 12 different ways you sucked at life, but you leave the conversation with a smile on your face. Ready to charge up that proverbial hill because you knew he cared about you. You knew he had your best interests in mind, and he was going to give you every single resource that you needed to be successful.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:39:48] Yeah, and that's hard work as a leader. I mean, it really is hard. It's harder than going and doing the job that your, that your guys are doing or your gals are doing like that technical [00:40:00] skill of doing the job is one thing and you as a leader, you probably came from that world. You came, you got your job as a leader, as a foreman or a supervisor or a manager because you were good at that job or you were good at the tasks that you are now leading people in. But I think the harder part is connecting with those people and making sure that you are able to motivate them to do the right thing when you're not there, right? So that, you know, as a leader, when you go away and you have to manage the other project that these people understand what the expectations are and they're doing it for the right reasons. Because if they're only doing it, going back to our initial part of this conversation, when you're doing the pre shift meeting or pre-deployment meeting. And you're just checking the boxes if they're only doing it because they're checking the boxes that guaranteed at [00:41:00] some point in time, they're going to take that shortcut. And if you're not there to take advantage of the moment, somebody else on your team needs to be there to take advantage of the moment and if you haven't built that, trust up. It's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:41:14] Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:41:15] Right on. You know, thinking about influence there before I became the risk manager at the ski area that I worked at. You know, I was the patrol director and I was like, Oh, I figured all this safety stuff out and I got responsibility for being the risk manager. And the first phone call that I took as the risk manager was from a father. And it was a father of a young, like a 16 year old girl who was getting her first job as a lift operator or a lift attendant at the ski area. And he called me up and he had worked in the local mill. We have a paper mill within our area. And he was a supervisor and a manager up there. And so he gets working around equipment. I mean, he knows what [00:42:00] can happen if you make a mistake, if you get in the way of equipment is not going to stop, you know, equipment plus people, you add them together the equipment's almost always going to win and in the phone call, he said to me, it's like I expect you to make sure that my daughter has all the tools that she needs in order to be safe on the job. And I remember that meeting with this guy, I don't remember his name because it was a fairly brief, it might have been a five or six minute phone call. But I remember that conversation because it really made me think about the responsibility that I had, even just as a safety person who has. And if there's a safety person and I know there are listening to this podcast today, you are that individual that has all the responsibility for safety, but no authority. So I'm thinking, Wow, now I'm this guy is looking at me and I'm [00:43:00] responsible for his daughter's safety, and I need to know whether or not the lift op. supervisor has all the tools to help keep this guy safe. So then I have to develop a relationship with the lift ops. manager, a supervisor, so that I can influence him to make changes if he needs to. Because I didn't have any authority over his position, all I could do is offer him resources. And if I hadn't built up trust with him so that he knows that I've got his back, then it's just going to be a head nod. And as soon as I go away, he's back to his old jobs and tasks. And the successful part of that story was that the girl was successful. She had a great season. She enjoyed it really well. Got a thank you note from the dad at the at the end of the season and we went on from there. That was 25 or so years ago, but those little, those little connections of who is going to influence you. And it's typically because you will remember the [00:44:00] emotional connection of that particular story. That's pretty awesome.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:44:06] Yeah, absolutely, I mean, again, that's just reinforces exactly what we're talking about here. It happens in moments and we remember again, like you said, that emotional connection that we build with another person, that's what we're going to carry forward.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:44:19] Yeah, awesome. So I have another thought here to maybe explore with you a little bit. And it's about it's about role perception, right? And how that affects an individual's decision to say something or not say something. And it kind of goes back to that that leaders piece, right? So if I'm a leader and you might be the designated leader or you might be working in a team where you are all peers. So the leader is not physically present in your work group at that time and you're all peers. The diffusion of responsibility, right? So it's not my job type [00:45:00] of piece. How does role perception like somebody's role perception fit into their choosing to take advantage of the moment and say something or hide in the background and not take advantage of that? I'm not sure if I've asked that question well enough, but can you? You think about that and maybe throw that around in the safety mix for a bit?</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:45:22] Yeah. Well, you know, I can relate it to my experiences that I've had, especially here in the civilian world with the companies that I've had the pleasure of working with in a lot of it comes down honestly to culture. And again, if people are taking ownership, are we empowering these employees to be able to speak up, to be able to make decisions in the absence of maybe that person who's technically in charge? And there's several different ways. Are we empowering people to stop the job? I mean, it never fails when I go into an organization and [00:46:00] I start asking, Hey, who here can stop the job? And they said, Well, anybody can. And then I said, Well, how do they know? We tell them every single day. And then I ask them if they one hundred percent believe that every single person out there would stop the job if they saw an incident or didn't know something. And of course, the answer is no right. You can tell them to your blue in the face, but there's misconceptions out there where people don't feel empowered. One of them is when it comes to stop the job. There are some people, unfortunately, that think when you say stop the job or whatever again nomenclature you put on, it means you're hitting this big red button and you're shutting everything down. Stopping the job could mean those are the very rare circumstances, right? Right. Stopping the job. You mean you're just taking a step back. You're asking a question to get some clarity or something may have changed. And then you diving back into your work. Another thing that hampers that empowerment of people is they think they're going to get in trouble if they stop the job. [00:47:00] And a lot of that kind of comes back to that having that pressure on us to perform to meet some type of number. People think they're going to get in trouble. Now again, that's usually not happening. But as humans, we have this innate fear that if we do something wrong or if we slow things down, or if it's not the right reason, we're going to get in trouble for it. And so one thing that I tried to make clear to people is you need to go out there and you need to stop the job and you stop the job one. Maybe it's for no reason, but to show them you're not hitting this big red button. And that's OK to do so because I would rather have somebody out in the job nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a thousand because they didn't know something in order to catch up. One reason that prevented an immediate incident from happening. Because those nine hundred and ninety nine other times are learning opportunities, chances for us as leaders to help grow and develop those around us. So it's really [00:48:00] about being able to empower people to make those decisions to feel comfortable, to be able to speak up. And again, a lot of it points back to just people taking individual ownership over their safety at work. Nobody is getting paid enough to not go home at the end of their shift. Nobody wants to be that person knocking on the door, picking up that phone, letting that little girl or boy know their mommy or daddy is not coming home. Nobody ever wants to be in that position. But yet we don't talk about it. And so I think whether you're a large organization or a small organization is having those conversations. And again, just I think a lot of it goes back to being proactive when it comes to safety.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:48:48] That's interesting. I want to clarify something here. I think I heard you say that. As an example to kind of lead by that example, to stop the job, to get people to understand is as a leader, [00:49:00] go and stop a job. Right.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:49:04] Ya. Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:49:05] How many leaders do that like? I think so. If you're listening and you're a leader, how many times have you gone onto a job and stop the job to ask a question? And that's all you're asking. That's all you're doing. You're just asking a question for clarification. And it might be you're stopping the job for a moment, and it might be your stopping the job for 15 minutes because of the complexity of the question that you're asking. But have you actually done that? And whether it be because you see a problem or because you're just going to show that it is possible to stop the job?</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:49:39] Yeah, absolutely. And another point with that is whether you are a HSC safety professional or that's an additional duty or you're just a leader coming around and checking on your people. People should not pucker up when you come around thinking you're coming to catch them doing something wrong. If people are doing that, [00:50:00] then your visibility on the floor on the job site could use some work. You know,</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:50:08] Agreed.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:50:10] People should get excited when you come around, they should, you know, like, all right, he's here, you know, it shouldn't be some big surprise, like you're once a year sort of visit again. I know you've got other tasks and responsibilities that might tie you to the desk for a little bit. And I always have people say, Well, I wish I was able to spend more time in the field with my guys. Well, apparently you're not making it a priority.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:50:31] Surprise, right?</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:50:33] Some of those other tasks are tasks that are tying down to that desk and delegate them to somebody else.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:50:39] Yeah, that's you know, that was when I went from and again, so interesting job career path for me to get where I am. But I was a ski bum to start with, got a job as a ski school instructor, was a patroller for a while and then I moved from a patroller to the patrol director's job. And when I got the patrol director's job, I had [00:51:00] gone from skiing. I don't know, maybe one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty days a year, which is I'm pretty excited about that. Like, I like doing that to pushing a lot of paper right and dealing with all that stuff. And I remember having that same thought. I wish I could get out more. And so the thing that got me to do that was when I got in in the morning. The first thing that I did before I did anything else was I put my ski boots on, and if I hadn't, if I didn't put my ski boots on, I was destined to ride desk jockey for the rest of the day and deal with stuff that's happened in the office. But if I had my boots on, I had an excuse to go out and almost ninety five percent of the time if I had my boots on, I was going to be out for a few hours to be able to go out with my guys and gals and see what was going on out there and build that relationship. But I had to choose to do it. It didn't just happen magically, and you can't look at your boss and go, I don't have enough time [00:52:00] to be out there in the field because I have so much stuff to do. Your boss isn't going to go well. We'll take away some of that responsibility, pay you the same amount so that you can go deal with your people, you have to be able to figure that out. You might be able to go to your boss and talk about strategy. But don't expect the responsibilities to get lessened so that you can go out and do that, part of a leader is figuring out how you connect with your people.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:52:26] Yeah, that's absolutely what it is. And I like to ask people, I say, Look, are you a manager or a leader? Now you can be both. But those are very distinct positions. You manage things, data processes, equipment schedules, but you lead people. And it's kind of hard to lead people if you're not out there with them.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:52:47] Yep. Great point, great point. And I think we lose that in the in the cluster of everything that's going on, I think we do lose that and to be a good leader, there's a balance because in order to be a good leader, you [00:53:00] need to be able to spend some of that focus time to understand the impact of the product of the work that your people are doing. So you have those conceptual skills to be able to see where things are going. But then you also have to have some of those human and technical skills to be in the field, to ask good questions, to lend a hand. Maybe if you need to lend a hand in the field, that's awesome.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:53:22] Right. Absolutely. And you know, you can ask anybody what good leadership looks like and we all know it. We all know what good leadership looks like. I'll sit there and I'll ask people, I'll give them a piece of paper and say, Build me a perfect leader right there right now, whether they're accountable and empathetic and good communicators, good listeners, and that laundry list of things that we know go into making somebody good leader now look. I've been a leader in the military, I've lead people in combat. I teach leadership now and I don't encompass all of those things. We know a good leadership looks like. But it takes work to be able to do that [00:54:00] and exactly like you're saying. I mean, there's twenty five different other things that are pulling us in different directions. You got emails and reports and conference calls and meetings and. Again, it's being able to as a leader to find that balance. And again, a lot of it might come down to being able to delegate. And one thing I like to say is like, Look, you can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility as a leader because when it comes down to it, it is still your responsibility.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:54:30] Yeah, your responsibility to make that choice, to see the moment and act in that moment, act in that moment. That's great. Awesome. Well, gosh, it's almost been an hour. Holy cow. This has gone really fast, actually. So I guess, you know, we started this thing talking about stories and how the power of stories can really connect with your with your team and help build [00:55:00] that emotional trust up and then be able to help you connect with them to make safety important. You had mentioned you had another story that you might want to share, and I wonder if you want to lay that on us here?</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [00:55:13] Yeah, absolutely. You know, I love sharing this story because again, it just shows the impact that we can have on those around us. So this was February of 2019. My wife and I are coming home from church on a Sunday morning. We're making it right at a stoplight and it goes into two lanes. And I can see ahead that something is blocking traffic. People are starting to merge over. And as we creep closer, there's about five or six guys from the instant oil change business that's right there on the side of the street, and they're pounding on the windows of this car that's blocking traffic. And as I get closer, I see there's an older gentleman slumped over in the driver's seat. Again, they're pounding on the windows, trying to get this guy's attention traffic's blocking [00:56:00] like these guys got this under control, so I shoot right on by. But I did not get very far because my wife turns to me and she said, if that was you or my dad, I want you to stop because you know what you're doing. And she was right. I came back around the block. I parked, I ran out there by then. They had busted the back window. They had gotten the guy out onto the road. One guy was doing chest compressions. Five others were standing around their thumbs up there you know what? So I did what we're trained to do, I went up to his head, I put my jacket under a head tilt and lift, started clearing his airway with all the chest compressions, food and other not nice stuff were coming and blocking that airway. So I'm fish hook in some nasty stuff out of this guy's throat to clear that airway. Me and this guy are tag-team and CPR. I still hadn't heard the siren, so I started to question, OK, did anybody even call 9-1-1? I could barely detect [00:57:00] a pulse on this guy. He looked like he was dead. But Peter, out of nowhere, like Clark Kent coming out of the phone booth, this guy shows up with an AED, a guy driving in a car. He's not an off duty EMT, he's not part of a volunteer fire department. He's a guy in a car driving by. And he stops and he gets the AED, and I'm sure most people listening have been through the training. If you haven't, it talks you through it. It is dummy proof. We get it hooked up, give them a big old shock. We continue CPR. Finally, the ambulance arrives. We let them take over. I go back to my car and go home. And of course, now all I'm thinking about is that guy. Like, What's his status? Later that afternoon, I call the non-emergency number and the Public Safety Office because I have to ask knowing that they're probably not going to tell me anything, but I have to ask. And they said when we dropped him off at the hospital. Things [00:58:00] weren't looking too good. He had gone over 10 minutes without oxygen to his brain. Later that evening on a neighborhood Facebook page, people are talking about this incident and somebody shares in the comments, they said, Yeah, that was Carl from the Home Depot. So Monday morning, I wake up and I'm in Home Depot and I'm asking around about Carl if anybody knows anything and they said yeah, it's not looking too good. And Tuesday morning, I go back into the Home Depot. Same thing Wednesday, same thing. Thursday, I go in and they said Carl's sitting up in his hospital bed telling jokes. He had a major clog the Windowmaker artery that put a couple of stents, then he was going to be OK. Now, fast forward four months later, and I'm in Home Depot for like the fourth or fifth time that day because I'm not a DIY guy. I can barely change the light bulb in my house, according to my wife. We needed something hung up on the wall. We call her dad. But anyways, again, I [00:59:00] digress and I run into Carl. And I said, Carl, the last time I saw you, you were laying in the middle of the road and fish hooking pieces of your lunch out of your throat. And now I like to share that story, Peter, because. First of all, I could not save Carl's life, I played a very, very minor role, but a role that would not have happened basically if my wife didn't have the courage to speak up. To kind of stop the job and say, Hey. We need to do something. The guy with the AED is the one who saved Carl's life. He had the courage to stop. He could have easily been sucked into the diffusion of responsibility been like, Oh, that crowd over there. They got that under control. The ambulance is probably going to be here in like forty five seconds. And he could have just shot right on by that guy, had the courage to stop and to do something. Our words and our actions can have such a tremendous impact [01:00:00] on those around us or our lack thereof. Now, if you speak up and say something. Point out a safety incident you may not never know. What you truly prevented from happening, but if you don't speak up. Sooner or later, you're going to find out, just like I did, by not speaking up and telling Emanuel to put on his helmet by me, not wearing my helmet. Sooner or later, you're going to find out what your inaction can cause and so, you know, sharing that it's almost sort of the circle of life almost right, it's my decision to not speak up because again, it was a decision that I made to not say something. And Emanuel losing his life, but then that man in that car who stopped at the AED who made the decision to stop and to put into [01:01:00] action that AED and save Carl's life. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that's really going to move the needle on safety. It's not going to be. Here's the hottest new piece of PPE that's going to save your life. Here's the newest OSHA regulation that's going to move the needle. It's going to be getting people to start taking safety, personal,</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:01:18] Personal and relational, personal and relational. You've got to connect it back with them. Thank you very much for sharing that, and it is cool how there is that circle in there where you know the lack of choice versus the. Even though it was kind of a forced choice because, you know, sometimes you have that like you, you will see the moment. And you will start to pass by the moment choosing not to act, but then there'll be somebody or something else that'll smack you upside the head and go, Hey, dummy. That's your moment. That's your moment. And we all have those moments. And I think out of all of this, I'm hoping that people will [01:02:00] recognize the different moments that they have as they go through their life and as they go through their work that they can substantially influence the outcome of someone else's life if they take advantage of that moment. Awesome, thank you so much, Patrick, for sharing, for sharing your expertise and sharing your stories with us very, very engaging. I really have enjoyed listening and talking with you. So before we go, where can our listeners find out more about loyalty point leadership and more about you? As you know, as a speaker, as a leader, as a connector for leadership and for safety.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [01:02:47] Yeah, absolutely. You know, www.loyaltypointleadership.com find me on LinkedIn, Patrick Nelson loyalty point leadership. I'd love [01:03:00] to engage with anybody that wants to talk safety. I'd love to be a resource for you going forward and I'd love to learn from you. It's important leadership, a journey. It's not a destination. It's not like you go to some sort of leadership class and you get blessed off and now your leader go forth. You're good to go. We learn something from everybody, and I learned something from being on the podcast here today with you, Peter, that emotional trust bank. I'm going to carry that with me. That's going to be something. You can find me 10 years down the road and I'm going to be talking about that. So I appreciate that. And yes, would love for people to stay in touch.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:03:37] Thank you, Patrick. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us today and to all of our listeners out there today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, we've been speaking about leadership and engaging people in safety with Patrick Nelson, CEO of Loyalty Point Leadership, and about engaging your team. And he's been gracious enough to spend an hour with us today and talk about that. So again, thank you for [01:04:00] that, Patrick.</p> <p><strong>Patrick Nelson:</strong> [01:04:01] You're welcome. Have a great day.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:04:03] Thanks. And if you all have any questions about leadership, safety or like to hear more about a particular topic on our podcast, email me at podcast@MEMIC.com. Also, check out our show notes for today's podcast at MEMIC.com/podcast, where you can find out more about Patrick or other leadership podcasts that we've had, and then our entire podcast archive. And while you're there, sign up for our safety net blog so you never miss any of our articles or safety news updates, and if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it. If you took a minute to review us on Stitcher, iTunes or whatever podcast service that you found us on. And if you've already done that, thanks because it really, truly helps us spread the word about safety. So please consider sharing the show with a business associate friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. And as always, thank you for the continued support and until next time, this is Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast is good, but using what you [01:05:00] learned here is even better.</p>