The Recognition Factor: Transforming Workplace Culture | A Scratchie Podcast

Safety and Success: Mike Frick's Journey | Episode 17

• Scratchie • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What if improving safety performance could actually boost your profits rather than drag them down? Mike Frick's remarkable journey proves exactly that.

From his early days in construction where he learned safety fundamentals from his father ("not losing my fingers was my incentive") to running teams with zero accidents and industry-leading profit margins, Mike shares the practical wisdom that transformed his approach to workplace safety.

The turning point came after attending OSHA training, where Mike initially felt overwhelmed by regulations. "By the time I got out, I didn't want to be in business anymore because I had to abide by all these rules," he recalls. But a mentor showed him how integrating safety planning into daily operations could actually enhance performance rather than hinder it.

Mike's secret weapon? Human connection. "I make sure that they know that I care for them," he explains of his leadership philosophy. This simple approach created an environment where workers followed safety protocols out of mutual respect rather than fear. The results speak for themselves – while managing projects for Kiewit Construction, Mike maintained zero accidents while simultaneously delivering the highest profit margins in the company.

Now leading Bear Ironworks, Mike applies these principles in manufacturing, addressing the unique challenges of repetitive tasks through innovative incentive programs. Rather than punishing unsafe behavior, he rewards safe practices, aligning workers' immediate interests with their long-term wellbeing.

Whether you're in construction, manufacturing, or any safety-critical industry, Mike's experiences offer a blueprint for building a safety culture that enhances rather than hinders performance. Listen now to discover how genuine care combined with thoughtful incentives can transform workplace safety while boosting your bottom line.

Ready to take the next step? Visit https://www.scratchie.com/book-a-demo to see how Scratchie can help you recognise and reward safe behaviour on your projects. The future of construction safety starts here.

Speaker 1:

Good morning everyone. We have Mike Frick here this morning from Bear Ironworks. Mike, how's it going? Doing good, how are you doing? Great thanks. Mike and I met only a couple of weeks ago and in those initial discussions we spoke about some of Mike's experience in industry and in safety and you know when doing really well and what his secrets were for that and I found it really interesting. So, mike, do you want to just open up by telling us the story that sort of led you into industry and you know and what you did there and things like that.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean in the beginning was, my dad was a construction guy and he was also at a ranch. We raised cattle and so we did both and he always told me he goes you're a very safety-minded guy. I mean I guess it was because of him he didn't realize what he instilled in me. Maybe Right, not losing my fingers, that was my incentive.

Speaker 1:

That was the definition of safety-minded yeah, it's home.

Speaker 2:

So as I go into my career, I'm pretty safety-minded. Right off the bat, 24 years old, I go into my own business and I'm doing that kind of work In construction yeah, in construction and mining.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And so I did well at that. I had a couple of accidents in my own company, two of them really. One where the guy cut an artery in his arm. It was probably 50 miles from a hospital on a dirt road and you got blood squirting out and luckily the guys on the job were able to put pressure on there and hold. And you know, you got blood squirting out and luckily the guys on the job were able to put pressure on there and hold that together for until he got there.

Speaker 2:

Another guy fell off of a scaffold and, um, you know, in the united states here we got osha's that we have to deal with and um, yes, the uh, I took a class on that. I had some my bonded organization here and they was like, hey, you should be on the safety committee. And I'm like, sure, okay. And so they said you should go to be an OSHA trainer, you should train safety. So I went to that as a week-long class and by the time I got out I didn't want to be in business anymore because I had to abide by all these rules and everything and one guy goes no, let me show you how to do this.

Speaker 2:

And he talked me down and said this is how we go about doing things like this. You can do it. And, as a matter of fact, when I was able to do my safety better, according to law, I actually upped my game in my company. So I was doing better in the company.

Speaker 1:

And why is that? I've heard of that before. I mean the famous Alcoa story where he focused on safety and the whole business lifted. What is it about that?

Speaker 2:

You know, I think you just take things more serious and you become a better manager. So when you do that, you know everything starts with safety, the old saying safety first you start there and then you know. You go to quality, and then maybe you're dealing with your equipment and the people and you're just. It seems like you're gaining more knowledge and you want to do better. So everything you do is better. And then you know at the same time too, if you're not having accidents, you're working, so you're producing, you're production. It's quite simple, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, you know, because I was in construction too and I remember if you keep your site tidy not even safe at this point, just keep it really tidy, then you know it's going to be working better, yes, than a tidy site. And, of course, safety is a big component of tidiness. They're very much related, yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm big on that. Yeah, keeping everything nice and neat.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you went to an OSHA trainer role and yeah, how did that go?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean the guy that got me to go into it. He was actually a retired OSHA. He worked for OSHA and I said, man, I can't be in business anymore to do this. He goes no, no, there's things you can do.

Speaker 1:

So later on, when he said, when you were worried about the compliance regime and you just felt overwhelmed, and then he gave you some practical tips as to what worked, can you, can you kind of like unpack any of that?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean like, um, I can't remember the exact examples he was using, but, like you know, let's go to ladder safety maybe, and I mean there was so many things, there was a lot of things, and I'm like, man, I'm not going to be able to remember none of this.

Speaker 2:

And I had a book you know that we had, you know, by all the rules and everything, and maybe it was ladder safety, like you have to stake it down at the bottom and tie it off at the top, type thing, or something like that. And I thought, man, that takes too much time, I'm not going to be able to do that, I'm not going to be able to remember to do that. And so then I think what he talked me into and I started stumbling on it back then is you start having a plan, you know, kind of a work plan, and then in that work plan you have your safety what's the things that are going to hurt you in this task here, what kind of things can hurt you? And then address them and then go over that with the crew and say, hey, this is the things that could hurt you on, this is what we need to be aware of today. And so you know getting better production. So now you're planning, you're, you're planning for you're having a conversation yeah, with the crew yeah is that?

Speaker 1:

is that right? Is it? That's so? Before starting, you have a simple conversation with a crew, Say guys, what are we going to do? What can hurt us? Is it those sorts of elements? Is it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and they buy into it. And every time you get someone to buy in, you know your small crew three or four guys or ten guys maybe and you bring them together and go what's going to hurt us here? In the beginning it's a little uncomfortable for them and then pretty soon they get involved with it Right, and so they got some say into it. They'll start sharing a story, maybe of another job they was on and they would say this is what happened here. And then you incorporate that and let them talk Yep, and it becomes theirs, and then they get to own it Yep, and if you can do that, part of it.

Speaker 1:

That's. That's great. Yeah, right, and are there any from that? So that sounds like a really good management discipline that you, that the older kind of wiser um guy at the time handed to you and you thought I'm going to take that up and and that's going to make safety practically practical and also helpful. Yeah, are there any tools that help that that exist? Or is it simply you with a notepad and having a conversation with the guys?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know the way the OSHA book was laid out. You have your different like excavations, maybe because I was a dirt guy and you have. You go to that part of the book and go okay, what do we got to be aware of here today? You know you got to have a ladder so many feet to get out of the trench. Yeah, every every 25 feet, I believe it is.

Speaker 1:

And okay, um, and you, you're planning for that and um, you would go to the book, would you? Oh yeah, and then you know, then I bet yours I have some experience. I was gonna say yeah, and you kind of get to know.

Speaker 2:

You know this is what's gonna hurt me and I sometimes I tell people I'm probably the dangerous, most dangerous person, want to be around when I'm by myself, right, right, I've worried about nobody at that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I take chances and and then back. You know, when I was a kid or growing, growing up through the there or whatever, I know it's going to hurt you. And then you look at the other guys and you're like I know it's going to hurt them.

Speaker 2:

I know it's going to get them and this is what could really.

Speaker 1:

This is something that's bad and we need to address this here right now, yes, and so that's interesting, because what I always found was that that one thing about construction is experience. It's like and the word is said so often that it almost loses its meaning but it's like when you have dug 150 trenches, you know what, can you have a much better sense of what's going to sort of get you. You have a much better sense of what's going to sort of get you, and so a book is not going to fix someone who's dug one trench in his time, right? And yet it seems like the legislation says use this book like the book will save you. You know what? 150 trenches has really given me much richer knowledge, right, and so we've. Actually, the reason I say this is because we've got a new feature next year, releasing early next year with our app, which is called ConvoCard. Convo is Australian for conversation, okay yeah.

Speaker 1:

And what it's doing is encouraging a conversation before you start work. So it's exactly what you're talking about, um is to get the the most experienced guy in the circle might not be, might be the laborer, doesn't matter and, like you say, um, have pull it out of the people, get them to own it, um, and then we're just on our app. You just record it, press, submit, you know, and then it's in.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, yeah, so yeah, I mean, that's the way you know. My the two accidents that happened when I owned my own construction business, I never had a pre-meeting right at all, right, right. And so later on in life I ended up, you know, going to work for a big construction company, one of the largest here in in the united states, and they were big on safety and uh who's that, if you don't mind, or who was it?

Speaker 1:

yeah, it was kiwit okay out of uh texas, I think well, no, they're out of omaha, nebraska. They've okay, yeah, they don't know yeah, okay, because I spoke to some kiwit guys. They were very progressive, like they searched us out when we were only in australia. Um, they came to us and said, hey, tell me more about it, and uh, so it's a very interesting company.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're on top of it, yeah. Yeah, a lot of my success is because of KeyWit. My dad was a KeyWit guy, nice, and they taught me a lot. I mean, they're super good teachers and they're really good at safety too. Yes, and it's easy to do safety, especially after you go to work for them. You figure it out. But, um, yeah, they have their problems, and so I was.

Speaker 2:

Um, I was a superintendent on a on a project and, uh, I had about 45 guys yep, uh working on the project and we had heavy equipment running everywhere and some labors and things like that. So once a month, all the superintendents have to meet in Denver to talk about things, and so I remember the one time going there, they sat us all down and they was mad because the safety I mean people were getting hurt like crazy. Having a safety instance is like crazy Right and they're mad about it. And they have this big old screen up on the wall and they're showing everybody in the room there's 75 of us superintendents and other people in there going this isn't good, this isn't right, and they're showing everybody's records and the worst guy, I think, had 10 in a month and I'm at the very bottom, at zero and I'm at the very bottom at zero and I kept on doing that zero, zero, zero all the time.

Speaker 2:

As a matter of fact, while I was doing the zero accidents, my profit margin was the highest in the company at the same time, nice. So they came to me and they asked me. And I've been to other jobs, I've visited other jobs and it seemed like a lot of guys were working mad all the time. It really did. You could just feel that when you got onto the job and then they came to me and they asked me. They was like so what are you doing? Working mad, mad. They just feel like they have a negative attitude. Right, got it, got it. Like they're working mad, not all of them, but a lot of them, yep, but you got a sense it's supposed to come with the guys that were at the top of that list.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And they came to me and they said so what do you think the trick is? What are you doing different than everybody else? And I said, well, I'm not sure what I'm doing different, but the one thing that I do is I make sure I'm not their best friends out there on the job, but I make sure that they know that I care for them. Got it. And once you know, every morning we would Kiewit has a big deal company-wide. Every morning before you start your shift, you get out there and you talk about things and you do what they call stretch and flex and you stretch and do all this. Usually the superintendent doesn't go out there and begin that. They have a foreman, go out, their engineer. But I'd make sure I'd go out there every morning and you know, get with the guys and ask them hey, what are you? How did your kid do last night? Playing football or whatever. Right, and make sure they care for you, because once they know that you care for them, they'll do anything in the world for you, as far as they can.

Speaker 1:

I mean as much as they can, yeah right.

Speaker 2:

You go ask them to put their safety glasses on. Okay, I'll do it, Yep, and you're not mad at them when you do it right? You just say hey. So that was my secret to that, and so from that time on, I've really kept that up.

Speaker 1:

It's so interesting. There's a really interesting and great guy. His name's Clay and he's an Aussie and he's living in Thailand for what it's worth doing safety stuff and he has such a similar story. He went to oil and gas. He was the safety guy. He wasn't a superintendent, he was the safety guy Oil and gas a superintendent. He was the safety guy Oil and gas a big company that heard it all before and he was there.

Speaker 1:

I think he was about to give a half an hour induction, kind of safety thing, and then he sensed the audience and he said look, and he basically said don't worry about this half an hour, you already know this sort of stuff. He realised that the problem wasn't a lack of knowledge, the problem was attitude, and attitude was about connection with them. And once you connect with people then they start to kind of engage and brighten up and, like you say, then all of a sudden everything lifts. So it's it's very, very similar to what you just said is that we're not talking about kumbaya. You were careful to say at the start you weren't there to be their best friends or anything like that. There's still got to be an air gap between you, know, but but what you're saying is that this connection is very, very important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is. It's amazing how well it works. Yeah, it's fun To me. It's fun to get to know your workers and see what they're up to and understanding them a little bit. I had one guy one time, I don't know, I was doing oil and gas work and also we were building locations and doing things and gas work. Then also for Kiewit, we were building locations and doing things and they sent me out on a job we were just getting started for Occidental.

Speaker 1:

Oil as a matter of fact.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, occidental, it's a small little job and I had three guys on the job. They wanted me to get it going. He was going to build it big and so they sent me three old guys the guy's about ready to retire and the one guy he was just always. It seemed like he didn't want to do anything that we told him to do and we said, well, we have to have steel-toed boots on out here, and he goes.

Speaker 1:

I ain't wearing them.

Speaker 2:

I ain't going to do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm like so I got to go back to my bosses. And then Oxygen Oil is like how come he's? He's got to be fired, he's got to be terminated, he can't be on our job site anymore. And so so I went up to him and he was running an excavator and I said man, they want me to terminate you or get you off of this job because of it. And I slowed him way down so that he wasn't mad anymore and I said listen, you listen. You got to tell me why. You got to tell me why he goes. Just a second, I'm going to show you something.

Speaker 2:

He pulls off his boot and his toes were all messed up. He was in Vietnam, right, and he got I forget how it happened, but it was caused by trap metal or something like that, right, yeah, and he goes I can't wear steel toes because my toes come up and they hit the steel toe. And then I went back to occidental. I says he can't wear them because this is the reason why they're like oh, okay, well, there's a reason for it. We, I see he's gonna be in the excavator all the time. He's not getting out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah yeah but sometimes you got to find out why, why someone doesn't want to do it.

Speaker 1:

You know yeah, there's an underlying reason maybe yeah, and he's a bit too proud to sort of say it from the, from the start, which you can't deny in front of everybody yeah, they're right oh yeah, yeah okay, interesting.

Speaker 1:

Um, what about so with your safety record? I'm so interested in that relationship between safety and performance because in kind of recent years in safety let's say the last 20 years, you know the purest safety people said don't mention performance, because you know if you concentrate on performance then that's at the expense of safety, and it never sat well with me. It was like no, no, no, the two of them coexist Absolutely. So can we talk more about um, how encouragement works for you? So you've spoken about connection, uh, the um, and how important that is. Um encouragement versus so carrot versus stick, um encouraging them to do to be more safe versus making sure they comply. You know you got any thoughts on that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, actually I've had a little bit of a situation. So I went from the construction industry to the manufacturing industry. So we manufacture construction products now rock screens mainly, yes, and so it's a little bit different character, but not a lot in the men like welders and guys working in the shop all day long and they do the same thing day in and day out. And here I am bringing in all my safety stuff right for eight guys that I have working in there and it's been a little rough trying to get them to keep the seat belt on the forklift. You know little things like that. The big things are doing great, they do great.

Speaker 2:

So we just recently brought in a program where we say hey, listen, if you don't get caught, if you get caught not wearing the safety, the seatbelt, then we're going to put a mark against your name and then at the end of the month we're going to reward you with money or days off or whatever that thing might be. And since we've done that, there hasn't been one person get caught. And we have a shop foreman that he's a stickler on it. He's even an OSHA trainer also and he's a stickler on it big time. And he goes yeah, and I have to split this reward up with everybody. What do I do? Everything's been going great since then.

Speaker 1:

Right, okay. So you, you, you had a choice with um, with how to motivate them carrot or stick, and um, you, you know the price of the stick. It's hard enough at work People when they disengage. It's a vicious circle. So you decided to. Well, it's kind of like a backhanded compliment. It's like a backhanded reward, because you're saying when we don't catch you doing an infraction, so you get like a demerit in that system. So if you have your seatbelt off, you get a demerit. Whoever has the least demerits at the end of the month, whoever has the cleanest record, gets the reward. Is that?

Speaker 2:

basically how it is. There's like the first place, second place, third place type thing, right right right, that's an interesting way to look at it.

Speaker 1:

We've got a trucking company as a client and I'm not sure if you're aware, but trucking now has all these telematics. They've got the device that I think, geotab, is the world's largest. It's an American company and you know how fast are you braking, how fast are you accelerating, how long is your truck idle Like thousands of data points Right. And then they integrate with in-cab cameras and so the cameras are looking at everything that you do. So if you smoke a cigarette, it knows about it, god forbid. If you're on the phone, it knows about it immediately and it pings you and it rant, rant, rant and then you get a demerit point. Well, that's the thing.

Speaker 1:

And, as you can imagine, you're a truck driver. You're going oh, my god, like, um, my, my job is hard enough. Now I've got big brother there just watching me 24 7. This doesn't feel great at all. And so what scratchy's doing is taking that table of all the mistakes people make and the demerit points, flipping it the 180, and saying who's the least demerits? You guys get a prize. So at least now they know that there's a bit of a balance there. They go okay, if I do the wrong thing, I'm going to get whacked for it. I get that. But if I do the right thing, I'm going to get recognized for it. I'm going to get rewarded good.

Speaker 2:

So you know, we kind of do that a little bit on that. We, if they come up with a safety idea, we definitely recognize them right, like if it's something really cool that is really going to save something, yeah, we really will buy it. We'll buy the whole. We buy the whole crew lunch for the day, right? Things like that yeah Nice.

Speaker 1:

Everybody gets rewarded for it and how has it changed between construction and manufacturing? You sort of started to talk about how, with manufacturing it's kind of a process, so there's more routine to what you do, and that's got its own maybe complacency or something isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, complacency, they're doing the same thing, right? You've really got to remind them of it. And for a welding shop. I don't know what kind of welding shops everybody's been in, but the welding shops I've been are just dirty.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

They're iron laying everywhere. We all I mean at the end of every day, we clean it, we clean everything up yeah, yeah, right it's nice and neat, sweep everything and put our iron away and got it.

Speaker 2:

Um, so yeah, the it's the same. It's hard to write that safety because on construction, every day it changes, especially in the yeah, dirt world civil contracting you may be doing concrete one day and dirt work the next day, type thing, or installing something or something different every day. Yes, where we're at, we do the same thing and we try to, you know, learn from our mistakes too. If someone does something that was a close call, like man, we could, we could do something better. We make things like we make our own hoist to hold things in a certain position, yes, and then make it safer, got it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so there's one manufacturer who is a client of ours in Australia and they spray this epoxy and so it's like it's terrible really. There's kind of epoxy in the air and all that sort of stuff and they have all the breathing equipment, they've got all the right safety stuff. The problem they had was the guys complying with it and so they wouldn't wear their breathing apparatus, like you know, some of the time. But it's like they should be always wearing their breathing apparatus when they're spraying and you know, there of the time, but it's like they should be always wearing their breathing apparatus when they're spraying. And you know, there's a couple of ways. If you don't work in industry, you go oh, just fire them, and you go. Yeah, it's not that simple because there's usually other factors, like you say, just try and unpack that. And so what they did was they said if we catch you similar to what you've done in your manufacturing setup, if we catch you doing the right thing all the time, we will reward you on the spot. So it's not even the demerit thing.

Speaker 1:

At the end of the month the supervisor will come around and say Joe, breathing apparatus, happy days, scan this, you win. Joe's like apparatus, happy days, scan this, you win joe's like awesome, you know, yeah, that's really on the spot, as it happens. Uh and so, uh, of course, compliance went through the roof, but also morale goes through the roof. Productivity improves, the connection between supervisor and worker improves, all that sort of stuff. So it's, it's an interesting thing. I think it was um charlie munger actually. Um, he's a he's omaha, omaha yeah, there we go.

Speaker 2:

Matter of fact. It's funny that you say that because warren buffett, which everybody knows, yeah, he's his partner, right? Yeah, so warren buffett's um teacher, I think in fifth grade. So peter keywitt and warren buffett were pretty good friends, all right. The one stock that warren buffett could never own was Kiewit stock. And he wanted to be an employee to own the stock. Okay, peter Kiewit offered him a job and so of course he didn't take it, but Peter Kiewit's sister.

Speaker 2:

There was an age difference there, but Peter Kiewit's sister taught Warren Buffett in like fifth grade in Omaha Amazing yeah.

Speaker 1:

Amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and his office is in the Kiewicz Plaza.

Speaker 1:

So it's in the office. Yeah, wait, so Warren's office is in Kiewicz Plaza. Yeah Gosh, that's a tie up. Yeah. Well, you know the story and Charlie Munger has many, many aphorisms, lots of quotes, and one of them is, he said, every time I tried to estimate the power of an incentive, I underestimated it. He said the power of incentive is crazy. He goes you know, show me an incentive, I will show you a behavior. Right, you know, it's interesting how that works. And we keep forgetting, we keep underestimating that. We keep saying no, let's save money, let's not. What I say to people from outside the US is who's got the best table service in the world? Where are the best waitresses and waiters in the world? People say it's the US. That's where the best service is. It's like what country has tipping built in to the DNA of service? And they go it's the US. And I'm like is that a coincidence? You know, it's like you put the incentive there, you get the behavior.

Speaker 2:

So you know it's interesting how that works. So you know it's interesting how that works. Yeah, when I worked for Kiwit, I was running a coal mine project for Rio Tinto, which I think was an Australian-based company, aussie company, yep. And so their safety incentives is crazy. Not only were they top wage earners at this mine, there's three or four hundred coal miners there, you know, strip mining big, big heavy equipment, and so they had a safety incentive and if they didn't get hurt, I think all of them got 20 grand $20,000 a year each one of these people.

Speaker 1:

It's just the wrong incentives.

Speaker 2:

So you want to talk about safety so they got my safety.

Speaker 1:

Oh so it actually worked. Oh, man it was.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, you go out on the job and if you didn't have your safety glasses on or you did something that was unsafe and you and sometimes you know how you like, hey, put them safety glasses on everybody's like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know yeah, doing that, these guys are all thank, thank you, thank you. All right, we have a lot of that going on.

Speaker 2:

Okay, they also had a tire incentive, so you got. You know, these 12-foot haul truck tires Got it.

Speaker 2:

Massive mining equipment Got it and so them. Things cost a lot of money and if there was a rock in the road, everybody had a radio and everybody would go hey, there's a rock over here, and such and such road man, the old road grader, was going over there and knocking it off the road. I think they got like $10,000 incentive after the budget for tires At the end of the year. They got to share in that profit.

Speaker 1:

So Rio really understood the power of incentives. Oh man, yeah. And I think what I've noticed with safety is the incentives are so powerful that if you are not careful, you're going to incentivize the wrong behavior. And what we've seen in oil and gas is an extension of what you said there. They say to the managers if you have low, lost time, injuries or, let's say, no LTIs on this job, we will give you a massive bonus. And so they get that. They get no LTIs Now. But what actually happens? Well, a guy slashes his leg and he goes out the side gate, right. It's like pack that guy off, he cannot. Well, I've got to have zero LTIs. And so they doctor things. So it's almost the right incentive, but not quite.

Speaker 1:

It's like right. And what we found was that If you reward the lag indicators, the LTIs, it can go wrong really easily. If you reward the good behavior as it happens, like you said, your guy wearing the simple seatbelt reward you know, breathing apparatus on reward Not all the time, but enough time for them to go, I might get rewarded for this If you reward that behavior, so the lead indicators, so to speak, then you get exactly what you want. Is that good behavior? Yeah?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing how you have to reward somebody to take care of their self.

Speaker 1:

It is. It is fascinating and the only thing I can think of because it's easy to say, you know, it's easy to sort of say IQ or socioeconomic or something like that, but I think it's the wrong way to look at it. I think predominantly James here is interested in present James. He's not so much interested in future james. If something's good for future james but it's awkward for present james, present james probably not going to be interested in doing it right, and I think it's a human nature thing. And so what we did with the breathing apparatus thing was to make it a real um worthwhile for present james. He might win a job, win a prize.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I think that. But it's crazy, I agree with you, how something from our perspective okay, we're here in our living rooms or wherever we might be, and you know life is good and we've got a few runs on the board, so we might see it differently. But you know, I would say if we were in that situation, whatever situation that work is in, you know, I, I don't, I wouldn't put it past us thinking the similar way to that worker.

Speaker 2:

You know yeah I think it's a human nature thing yeah, I'm old enough now, too, to have proof in my body. I can go from my toes to my head. Yeah, I mean, I just spent. I got these two teeth knocked out, my front two teeth knocked out when I was young and I just met back from the dentist today going hey man, you got a problem From that damage. It's going up into a bone now. Wow, and now I'm going to have to have it extracted. They're going to, you know, put something. And it was all because I tacked something with a welder. It should have been welded completely and I was using a tool the wrong way. Got it.

Speaker 2:

They would come back to bite me. And then you know, overlifting, I've had back surgery, I've had hernia surgeries twice.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's right yeah that's right.

Speaker 1:

Living proof. Exactly, mike was thinking about present Mike, not future Mike. We all do it. Yeah, exactly. So, no, it's. It's fascinating, yeah, fascinating, how that works. So, um, where do you see, uh, so, your sort of construction manufacturing? You're in that nexus. Where do you see safety heading in the us, kind of um, especially with a new um, you're about to looks like you're about to really get a lot more efficient in terms of you know, right, so doing all that, looking forward, what can you? Can you sort of see any changes on the horizon?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a little bit different out there. I mean, you still got a lot of construction that's going to happen in the United States and across the whole world. Really, I think I mean people are growing, you've got to have stuff built and construction is always going to be there. And I think people are identifying that safety is part of the construction plan. I mean the everyday plan. You know, I was just so I help with my stepson. He's got a construction business. He does what I used to do, yep, and so I've really told him you got to plan every single day and he's really getting in on that and understanding that.

Speaker 2:

And I think the younger generation is seeing it, because a lot of those older guys are like that's a real deal, this is a real thing. And if you get your safety figured out, the rest of the management of your company is probably going to follow suit. Yeah, so I think the younger people are doing it. I have a son that he went to college for construction and management and he worked for a big company for a while and he's seen it. He's seen you know how it works. And he for a big company for a while and, um, he, he's seen it. He's seen, you know how it works and he's a big believer. I think the younger generation maybe seen it better than than me my generation, you know right, yeah yeah, yeah, um you really.

Speaker 1:

Just a thought just struck me. I might, after this podcast, I might show you our plans for this ConvoCard that I mentioned before, because I really think, yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think this will be really worthwhile.

Speaker 2:

I'm very excited because it's exactly what you said and we've made something for that to sort of systematize it yeah, yeah, even though I have all this experience, after I talked to you the first time, I was like man, he's got this, this really cool app. I mean this thing, this is cool and I kind of wish I had that, and I probably, probably, will look at it some more here for sure now. Yeah, um, but it's a simple way to get something, a tool, to use in your, in your company. I think I'm not trying to just give you this thing because we're here doing this right now, but it is cool. It saves a lot of people, a lot of time.

Speaker 1:

Totally, it very much aligns with your, your management. Um, yeah, and it's funny, you know the people that we spoke to, because it's a whole new category the, the thought of rewarding people for being safe, is completely new in australia. Australia, the last and, and the states, for that matter, and we're only just coming to the states next year. We're not even there yet. But, um, you, you, we would find, when we explained in the early days, two, three years ago, what we were doing, you, you get this different reaction on the other side of the table and you see people's eyes glaze over and you're like, ah, it's, this is not for you, like it's simply, I'm not going to try and sell it, it's just. And then the other, and then in other occasions you see people go oh my God, where have you been? This is amazing. I want this tomorrow. And we had that conversation with McDonald's. We spoke to a very influential franchisee in Sydney with many stores, and we didn't even have to. There was no sort of pitch, there was no sell. As soon as he knew, he knew in advance what we did. He was like, let's go. You know, let's talk about implementation. This is awesome Because they found that rewarding their workers has this huge upside and they found that in their history since sort of 1970. Yeah, I don't know if, in fact, I might mention this story while we're here.

Speaker 1:

Peter Ritchie was so McDonald's Australia was a laggard. It was the bottom of the tables. We had the highest paid people in Asia in our region and lowest performing. We were terrible and losing money and everything else. Peter Ritchie was the founding managing director. He started to make money After a few years.

Speaker 1:

He started to make money but we were still at the bottom of the tables and, as you know, mcdonald's like quick serve restaurants, they measure everything. And we were still at the bottom, but we were starting to make money. Peter said to the States I'm going to spend a third of my profit on people, training, incentivizing, motivating. And they said a third is way too much. You don't understand, this is a thin margin business. And he said I'm still going to do it. So he did it and McDonald's Australia top of the tables, highest productivity, highest customer service, like you know, all the rest of it. And Peter Ritchie became something of a legend in well in Australia, but in McDonald's actually. Yeah, because then they started to look at Australia and they said well, actually that's working. I mean, it's a really good example of if you incentivize people, you get a disproportionate outcome. And so that was why and these guys were kind of the disciples of Peter Ritchie, so that's why, when we spoke to them, they were like let's do this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's neat, yeah it them.

Speaker 1:

They were like let's do it, let's do this you know, yeah, yeah, it works, it works, yeah, great. Well, um anything else to share, uh, anything you'd like to share with the, the listeners at all, in terms of um manufacturing safety, um life in Nebraska?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, no, it's been. Yeah, keywood did some work in Australia. I think it was actually TIC. Okay, their subsidiary did a. I think it was an LNG plant.

Speaker 1:

Okay yeah, some sort of big LNG yeah.

Speaker 2:

Northwest, yeah, but yeah, I don't know. I've had fun in my career and being safe is cool, because I can tell you that you know, when I did have two guys get hurt and it really was my only accidents and both of them ended up in the hospital, I mean I had a couple of cuts and stuff, but nothing serious at all.

Speaker 2:

But you know, when you've got to go to a hospital, especially the one guy he fell off his scaffold. But you know, when you got to go to a hospital especially the one guy he fell off a scaffold he busted his hip. He'll never work construction again. Luckily for him, he had a backup plan which was being a teacher, right, and he'd been going to the hospital and seeing him down and out because he, you know, he knows he's crippled for life and his wife is there and you got to deal with that and you're looking at this guy going, man, and the thing was I stepped out of that that work, that job site, that day and I looked up and I thought I I just about said something to him and I didn't right, right, yeah, and so that was my lesson learned is I always say something yeah guys might get tired of me saying it I might think they get tired of me saying it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but at least I'm gonna say it. I don't care how corny it sounds or how, that they may not like it.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna say yeah, yeah, that's a great thing to leave. Actually, we'll, uh, we'll end the podcast on that. I, uh, mike, I really appreciate uh the conversation and I look forward to, in fact, I, I, I might ping you straight after if you've got time and I'll go through some of the ideas, and so, yeah, we can carry that on. But, thanks a lot and yeah, and we'll speak soon.

Speaker 2:

Okay, thank you, see you.

Speaker 1:

Yep.

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Garry Mansfield

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James Kell

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