Turbo Leadership Systems^™

Safety starts with you!

Denis, paper machine superintendent for a paper mill in northern Ontario, Canada, told Session 7B of the Leadership Development Lab (LDL):

"On February 4, 2008, at session 3 of the LDL, I received my red dot to remind me to apply five times more enthusiasm toward a specific project or goal. I knew where I needed to increase my enthusiasm – 'commitment in action' – toward my 90-day goal. The 90-day goal that I had started on at session 1 of the LDL was to do everything I could in the paper mill to help improve safety, quality and productivity. My plan included reinforcing our new housekeeping focus, following up on all hand injuries, ensuring that anyone who hurt their hand used our new injury report form. The form would allow us to collect all data on eye and hand injuries and compare this data to the results of the previous three years.

When I got my red dot, I decided to apply the ingredient of vitality we call 'enthusiasm' by requesting permission to attend all five PM crews supervisor's safety meetings. I decided I had to deliver a new safety message to all crews. So far this week, I have already attended one meeting and the remaining four are scheduled. I decided to use my new LDL training to start the meetings with praise for the excellent production and safety results so far in the first quarter of this year. I then continued by asking their permission to suggest a

new idea that I have to further improve the safety practices in the department. I was able to get a commitment from the first crew. I also commented that I would welcome the opportunity to be invited back again to attend their meeting in the future. I hope to have the same impact with the other four crews next week when I meet with them and their supervisor.

The lesson I learned from this experience is when I have a specific goal in mind, I must make a plan, put five times more energy and enthusiasm into the execution of the plan to reach my goal.

The action I call you to take is set a goal for yourself and continuously revisit how you plan to reach your goal. Then add five times more enthusiasm toward implementing your plan. The benefit you will gain is that you will definitely reach your goal on time."

Setting goals is relatively easy. Starting with excitement and optimism is how we start most new projects. Then reality sets in, 'this is going to require more of my time and effort than I realized. What was I thinking?' Winners renew their commitments time after time until their goals are achieved and they can check off one more project as completed, one more success I can add to my growing list of achievements, one more success to chalk up.