Cowboy Safety

It was not unusual

In 2008 Chicago police arrested 24 police impersonators. So far in 2009 there have been 8. So it was not unusual to have one more.

Vincent Richardson, age 14, put on a police uniform but with no badge or gun, went into an unlocked side door at the 3rd District South Side police station, said that he had been assigned to that location, was assigned a locker, given a citation book and sent out on traffic duty. He went undetected for five hours.

 

According to a story in the New York Times on March 4, 2009, seven police officers will be disciplined.

How could this happen? How could seven police officers allow a security breach that could endanger them and the public? How could a 14 year old civilian fool them so easily and for so long?

First there was the basics. A roll call is required at the start of each shift. At that time the watch commander must determine if all officers are properly in uniform. Richardson had neither a gun nor a badge. It is believed that the roll call did not take place.

According to Police Superintendent Jody P Weis, “The other officers were either not paying attention or were too relaxed.”

All of what happened at the 3rd District Station is common place everywhere.

Cowboy Safety is designed to build these lapses into a safety program and to show how to prevent them from happening.

Cowboy Safety is a totally new way using principles that have been in place and recorded since as early as 466 B.C.

The Man Who Sold Hot Dogs

There was a man who lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs.

He was hard of hearing so he had no radio.

He had trouble with his eyes so he read no newspapers.

But he sold good hot dogs.

He put up signs on the highway telling how good they were.

He stood on the side of the road and cried; “buy a hot dog, mister?

And people bought.

He increased his meat and bun orders.

He bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.

He finally got his son home from college to help him out.

But then something happened.

His son said, “Father, haven’t you been

listening to the radio?

Haven’t you been reading the newspapers?

There’s a big depression.

The European situation is terrible.

The domestic situation is worse.”

Where upon the father thought, “well, my son’s been to college, he reads the papers and he listens to the radio, and he ought to know.”

So the father cut down on his meat and bun orders, took down his advertising signs, and no longer bothered to stand out on the highway to sell his hot dogs.

And his hot dog sales fell almost overnight.

“You’re right, son” the father said to the boy. "

We certainly are in the middle of a great depression."

In Plane Crash, the Loss of Momentum Is Still a Mystery

The above was the heading in a story in the New York Times about the commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo New York on February 12, 2009.

The description indicates that the plane, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, suffered an aerodynamic stall, meaning the flow of air over the wings was either disrupted or too slow to sustain flight, but the reason why remains a mystery.

Many businesses now are suddenly losing momentum.

Some are closing.

Some are cutting expenses in prime areas such as safety.

And they do not understand why they are in trouble.

Blame is placed on “the recession.”

But what is a recession?

In economics, the term recession generally describes no real growth of a country's gross domestic product GDP) for at least two quarters.

A recession is measured in lack of growth in the GDP. Why should that make any difference to you or to any one company? So what if the GDP is where it was 6 months ago? You were doing fine 6 months ago. Why are you having trouble now?

And whether you are the CEO or the Safety Manager you can feel it and your job is in danger.

Could a recession reaction be a societal attitude? Cowboy Safety is especially designed to deal with all of these issues. It repurposes safety into a mission critical function that is vital to future success.

 

Safety Revitalization

Are you directing a plan to cut back on safety costs? Are you on a company hiring freeze? Are you expecting layoffs due to sales declines? Or are you just doing continuous improvement?

If yes to any of the above then now is a good time to revitalize your entire safety program. Even if you do not have a safety program that is stated.

Cowboy Safety adapts old ways to new problems for improved organizational performance. Your company will never be the same.

One day review and actual implementation that day of some company visible positive action steps. The cost of this one day review is $495 plus any travel costs. We need a brief phone call with you in advance of the review.

2.       Mailing to you of a written plan with cost and benefit estimates. With the full program you can expect a minimum of $4 of measurable benefit the first year alone for each $1 of cost. In many cases it may be a substantially higher return.

3.     Company image improvement in the community, in your market and in your industry as a by-product.

New low cost technology improvements. We are the only safety council with this feature and the only safety council that offers digital archiving tools. 

Example from a case study of a review: Look at this shop photo above. This is a normal and necessary situation. It is not and should not be like a beautiful living room. From these custom locations we can see where we are and can see where we could go based on exact circumstances and not textbook. On the Review day this shop might have some rearrangement for demo purposes. In another case on review day we backed a pickup to the door and filled it with most of the safety manager’s office material. Each situation is different.

Why Five Stones?

Can extra materials be a safety solution?

One of the best known Bible stories is the one where David kills Goliath. It is all in I Samuel Chapter 17. There is much that can be inferred from this story about many things.  There are also questions that come up for which no answer is given.

Why five stones? David refused the armor because he had not provided it but in verse 40 it says “he chose him five smooth stones out of the brook.” Some answers are that he needed five to kill Goliath’s brothers but there are no brothers mentioned in the Bible anywhere. Only Goliath came out on the field. And the Bible says that after Goliath was killed all of his associates ran away.

David did what we all should do. He was prepared. Now some might say that his refusal of the armor, PPE if you will, was foolish. David was showing that his hazard analysis and job steps would not require the armor.  

What about the foolishness of putting confidence in four wheel drive? In the winter look at the vehicles off the road, upside down, or turned on their side. Most of them seem to be four wheel drive vehicles. Those with two wheel drive are either not driving or they use another strategy to remain safe. Four wheel drive does not make one invincible.

David had no command from God to fight Goliath. But David knew what he was doing. There was a job that had to be done. He had past experience with a bear and with a lion. He was skilled with his sling. He knew that it would be helpful to have more stones just in case. One stone actually did the job.

When we set off on a trip in the winter we should not travel unless we have to go. But it is smart to make sure that there is excess fuel for the trip, blankets, flashlights, food, water, or whatever just in case something happens.

When we set out to do a job we need to make sure that we have the right tools, the right materials, the right PPE, the right timing and that we know how to do the job. OSHA compliance only involves the PPE. Yet if the job is done wrong or if parts are missing there is a loss nonetheless.

Cowboy Safety does a hazard analysis that goes beyond the basic safety engineering approach. It even quantifies the benefits obtained when the job is done right. With this approach the hazards and the resulting safety plan can become somewhat different.

Cowboy Safety requires top management involvement and the result is not an expense center but a profit center.

 

How to Deal with the Cause of Most Injuries, Fatalities and Losses

The Nation was shocked on February 4, 2009 to learn that Dr. Trent P Pierce of West Memphis Arkansas was critically injured when a bomb planted in or near his car detonated. Shrapnel was buried in his abdomen and face destroying one eye, damaging another and leaving him unconscious in a flower bed six feet from the door of his car. There were some reports that a spare tire had been placed in front of his car and that the bomb detonated when he moved the tire.

Had this happened to a G.I. in Iraq we would think nothing special of it because it would be expected in a war zone. It was unexpected in West Memphis Arkansas.

Some would say that this would not be called an “accident” because someone intended to kill him. The injury is just as bad.

All human and property losses hurt the bottom line and are worthy of a program to deal with them. Cowboy Safety is such a program. It adapts old ways to new problems to improve performance and reduce injuries and losses. It is in use by the military.

With traditional safety programs there is the cost to deal with everything that could happen. It is not worthwhile to have training programs to detect bombs in cars. It is not worthwhile to have training programs for highly unlikely or totally unlikely events. Cowboy Safety works holistically rather than analytically and eliminates redundancy. It is a way to plan for more events with lessened cost.

 Dr Pierce possibly could have avoided injury using Cowboy Safety. A tire in a driveway covering a bomb is not a part of the safety engineering approach to safety.

Cowboy Safety:

• redefines safety to cover real situations of planned, unplanned and highly unlikely events.
• returns to the bottom line at least $4 in the first year for every $1 of cost.
• reduces the probability of any incident.
• is fully compliant with OSHA, PEC, ISNetworld and others.
• views safety differently than the engineering approach.
• is easy to learn.
• can be implemented within 90 days or less.

 

Call for more info at 307-433-0557 or email info@mbsinstitute.org

 

How to Avoid Bankruptcy

If you owe more than you have and you can't pay the bills you are bankrupt. Kaput!

When you're bankrupt, the courts step in and take charge. If your goal is to be in charge it is not a good feeling to have the courts calling the shots.  A desire to remain in charge is the first and most important step to avoid bankruptcy.

This remain in charge feeling was expressed quite well by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a southwestern Wyoming homesteader in Letters of a Woman Homesteader. In writing of meeting her land difficulties unaided she said "I want the fun and the experience. For that reason I want to earn every cent that goes into my own land and improvements myself. Sometimes I almost have a brain-storm wondering how I am going to do it, but I know I shall succeed; other women have succeeded. I know of several who are now where they can laugh at past trials." Bankruptcy would not have allowed that fun and experience.

So how to keep the take charge feeling and how to know when you are losing it should be a part of your knowledge base. That alone can go far to keep you out of bankruptcy. Related to that is an action step of lowering your break-even point. 

The breakeven point commonly means the point at which your margin equals your fixed costs. If your fixed costs are $1,000 per month and your margin on each widget is $2.00 then you need to sell 500 widgets per month to break-even.

Events Likely and Unlikely

The safe ending of US Airways Flight 1549 flight in the Hudson River at New York City on January 15, 2009 might have been different if there had not been safety planning. A water landing is not expected nor is a crash due to a flock of birds. It is a most unlikely event.

On the other hand breakage and liquid on the floor in a grocery store is expected. It is quite likely and could occur numerous times per day. Why is it that on the same day as the water landing, a spill at a supermarket in Cheyenne Wyoming was in the aisle when we arrived and still there 25 minutes later when we left?

Cowboy Safety deals with planning for likely and unlikely events. It is able to do that because it inspires employees to treat events not as burdens but as opportunities.

Keean Johnson Knows Cowboy Safety

Many people right now are giving up.

"Times are hard." "There's no business."  "My budget is cut back. "People aren't buying."

Keean Johnson of Lakewood Colorado does not say any of those things even though he is in a business that is especially hard hit. He has just become a Broadway Show performer. He is not worried even though many shows are being cancelled and top performers are out of work. He is not worried that the acting industry even in good times has high unemployment.

He was featured in the Rocky Mountain News of Denver on January 10. The photo to the left was the full front page of Rocky Spotlight. Inside he got another full page with the headline "Broadway the Fast Way."

It is most ironic that the same newspaper with the same writer had another article called "Making it on Broadway gets tougher."

So how did Keean Johnson make it and make it in a recession?

Very simple. Keean Johnson does not believe in recessions. He does not believe in chance or luck. He does not believe that it take years to get to Broadway. He proved it by getting there in one year. He is a practitioner of Cowboy Safety.

Cowboy Safety adapts old ideas to new problems for improved performance. It starts with a can do attitude and a right now plan of action. 

John Wayne in "The Cowboys" had to get a herd of cattle to market but had no competent cowboys. He had the can do right now mentality and the job was done with a group of inexperienced children. All but one of the boys made it back home safely and with money in their pocket.

Cowboy Safety works with any type of problem. It works well in business where costs are increasing. The costs of traditional safety are growing but so are accidents and fatalities.

Cowboy Safety offers a whole new approach that is really not so new.

Teen Driving and Safety Contracts in General

There are a variety of teen driving contracts around. Here are a few links. There are plenty more. The idea is to get the teen involved in what is expected and what will be the consequences of failure. This type approach is a fundamental part of a cowboy safety program and not just for teen driving.

When the work process is defined, the risks are outlined and the failure consequences are known. The employees performing the task are involved in the contract the same as with the teen drivers.

Allstate Teen Driver Contract

AAA Teen Driving Contract

Safer Child Teen Driving Contract