The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast my name is Trace Blackmore the host of the scaling up H2O podcast and not just
Trace Blackmore Trace Blackmore cwt that certified water technologist
and Nation I hold several designations but I can’t say that I am more proud
than anyone than the certified water technologist designation the cwt means
that I have so many years in the industry that I decided that I was going
to sign a code of ethics on how I would conduct myself as an industrial water
treater that I would submit my application for peer review and that I
passed an examination proving base knowledge was Within in my ability about
industrial water treatment of course each and every 5 years I’m responsible for so many continuing education units
letting my customers know that I am staying up toate with what is relevant
in the Water Treatment Community Nation that’s what those three letters actually
stand for and I will tell you when I meet other cwts you can immediately know that those
individuals are not just part of the industrial water treatment industry they
have decided to be on the top Echelon of the water treatment industry they
submitted to things they didn’t have to do because they cared about this industry they cared about their
reputation and they wanted to make this industry better than when they found it
that’s what I say the certified water technologist designation stands for and
it’s my hope that if you have not achieved that prestigious designation
that that is on your list for this year that is a very lofty goal they do not
just give those things away and I know sometimes it’s hard to figure out where
to start so the team here at scaling up H2O is here to help and we have a free
course for you that takes you all the way through the cwt handbook so you know
what you’re getting into you know what you have to do you know what sections
you have to study for and that is our way to try to promote more people
getting those wonderful three initials behind their name and to get that free
course you can go to scaling up h2o.com
cwt prep once again that’s scaling up2.com
cwt prep now if you do sign up to take the certified water technologist
designation we have a course to help you even further with that where I work 100
exam like questions for you to kind of get a baseline of where you are and I
give you resources of where to go to bolster any information you need to
study so many people are giving us great feedback about that but what it’s doing
it’s giving you confidence so not only you can sign up for that exam you feel
comfortable telling people that you did so Nation it’s my goal to get as many
people certified within this industry as possible and those are just some of the tools that we’re using to help with that
mission if you know somebody who should be a cwt I hope you mentor for them I
hope you encourage them so they feel confident to sign up and take that
certified water technologist examination Nation I get a lot of feedback when we get together each and
every quarter on the Hang about people that recently passed their cwt
examination so maybe that’s you maybe you’re a new cwt I would love to
celebrate that with you on the hang and of course the hang’s going to be April 11th at 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. eastern
time we start on time we end on time and we have a lot of fun in between to sign
up for the hang you can go to scaling up2.com hang and I hope to see you there scal up
Nation it’s hard to believe there’s only six months until the water treaters
favorite holiday industrial water week industrial water week 2024 is taking
place in the first full week week of October as it does each and every year
and as you know this is your place to celebrate each and every day of
industrial water week we’re going to be talking about pre-treatment on Monday boilers on Tuesdays cooling on
Wednesdays Wastewater on Thursdays and of course everybody’s favorite and best
career in the world industrial Water careers on Friday Nation something we
are trying to do this year is bring you into the podcast for industrial water
week so if you would like to participate you can go to scaling up h2o.com
industrial waterer week all squeezed together one word and we’ll have instructions for you there and some
different things that you can consider we would love to bring you into the podcast this year once again that’s
scaling up h2o.com industrial waterer week scaleup Nation
there’s no doubt there is a conference out there that is going to help you with
information you need it’s going to introduce you to people that you need to know but you need to be there and you
need to participate in order for those things to happen the team here at scaling up H2O has made that very easy
go to scaling up h2o.com go over to our events page and you will see everything
water treatment related as far as conferences go just by simply going to
scaling up h2o.com and going over to our events page now if you see something or
in fact don’t see something that should be on there drop us a line let us know about that we will get that on there but
I encourage you to always plan out where you are going if you’re not keeping up
with that there may be something in your backyard and you might miss it I have
met so many Wonder ful people at conferences I’ve had a lot of great opportunities at conferences but none of
those things happen if you’re not there so be sure to plan your calendar in
advance and our team is here to help you when you do that Nation a few years ago
I was in a car accident and I couldn’t work it actually it was so painful I had
to go through some procedures it was not my fault somebody rear ended me to make matters even worse it was a brand new
car that I had for a week it’s funny how that happens it was actually my lower back that got injured now I’m very
fortunate I do have some pain every now and then I live with it every day but it is manageable it was not manageable when
it happened and nothing else mattered I was in pain that was the only thing that
I could deal with I spent about two weeks at home I could not work I had to
go to all these doctors appointments so just imagine how different it would have been if I did not get hurt now of course
I don’t think there was anything I could have done differently it was not my fault but there’s so many things that we
can do differently that can potentially hurt us and if you’re hurt if you’re not
working if you’re not able to spend time with your family really nothing else matters so that’s the focus of today’s
episode and that’s what we’re going to be interviewing our guests
on scal up Nation I have two Lab Partners with me today two for the price
of one please welcome Mike hyim of McGowan insurance and Reed Hutchinson of
H welcome guys glad to be here yeah good to be with you and of course this is not
the first time either of you have been on the scaling up H2O podcast so I
should have said returning Lab Partners well we’re glad to be back it’s a fun
opportunity and we appreciate you having us well I want to make sure the scaling up Nation knows who we’re speaking with
so Mike we’ll start with you do you mind introducing yourself to the scaling up Nation yeah happy to I’m a uh partner
with a mowan insurance group based out of Indianapolis Indiana we serve a wide
range of uh clients and the benefits in commercial and personal insurance areas
and risk management products across the country we are about 140 people strong
and my personal responsibility is would be related to our image and brand and our goto Market strategy we’ve been
involved with the water treatment sector and awt specifically for 20 plus years
serving really all verticals within the uh industry and uh really proud of our relationships and associations that we
have and Mike I want to add that you are my insurance professional we just had a
claim on uh bill we had a lightning strike and you took care of everything for us so I I thank you for all the work
you help us with well we appreciate that uh recognition and appreciate being able to work with you trace and your uh your
good company and we enjoy a long history together Reed tell us a bit about yourself if you don’t mind yeah I’m a
third generation owner operator of a water treatment company based out of Palatine Illinois and uh we help
facilities manage their water um providing chemicals equipment and most importantly uh technical Field Services
with our uh water treatment staff and we operate mostly across the Midwest and
our passion in this business is investing rewarding giving for for lasting impact really privileged to get
to be part of a legacy that goes back to my my grandfather back in 1968 and my dad after that and love getting to do
what I do here at HOH water technology with my brother-in-law Andy who serves as the CEO and and I serve as the COO
third generation that’s impressive I read an article I think it was an Inc magazine it said 50% of all second
generation companies fail and it was something like 90% or higher that third
generation companies fail yeah they like to say that the you know the founder creates the business the second
generation grows the business and the the third generation typically loses the business so uh we know the odds and we
feel inspired by that so we feel like we’re beating that and uh continuing to build uh on a on a great legacy but we
can it when you get to do it business like this with family and it works it’s it’s one of the best things we take that
seriously because we know a lot of times it just uh often times doesn’t work out well you and I are on this podcast and
or the three of us are on this podcast but we have the privilege of seeing each other each and every week we are all in
the rising tide Mastermind together so I want to thank you guys for being a member of that and it’s always difficult
for me to explain to the scal andup nation what that’s like since I was the
founder of the rising tide Mastermind I’m kind of curious for all the listeners in the scaling up Nation can
you kind of explain what we do every week and why you guys have been in the riseing tide Mastermind for so long yeah
I mean I can lead off I joined I think in Fall 2019 I think 2020 was maybe my
first full year on The Mastermind and I I joined because I was really invested in growing personally and professionally
um as somebody in the water treatment industry and was really excited by the opportunity to get to do that with
uh with peers um and so I originally joined a group of other business owners who were involved in the water treatment
space and and it’s been an awesome opportunity to not only make friends but to create a a sense of community within
the industry of like-minded folks who want to grow and help one another grow in the process and so uh every week I
look forward to connecting with what have become some of my best friends in the industry but also people that uh I
look forward to hearing how they’re work through challenges in their own day-to-day life and business and then
myself as well bringing issues to the group to get help uh processing sorting them out and and ultimately
accomplishing my goals and so beyond that uh we also spend a lot of time reading different development books
together whether it’s business or professional and yeah just produces a great conversation every week that when I look back over these last few years
it’s been uh been one of the key aspects of my growth personally professionally yeah I’ll I’ll Echo that for sure I’ve
been involved a little less time than uh certainly trace and re as well but my
calling to The Mastermind group was really out of kind of a search for better people to surround myself with
and be challenged and encouraged at the same time hear about some of the opportunities and the challenges that
Business Leaders are going through and how they’re dealing with that right and how they’re motivating not only
themselves but the the employees that they work with day in and day out too so learned a lot about a strategy with
regard to that I’ve done more reading than I have uh probably since college so
thanks to utrace so I appreciate that challenge as well but really fundamentally learning how to kind of
break down things into pieces that are achievable you can work on from a
project standpoint and so forth without having it overcome uh your day your week and your year so a lot of uh smart Minds
within that group and I’m certainly glad to be a part of it well I appreciate that anytime we can get another
perspective into the rising tide Mastermind I think the scaling up Nation appreciates that well another
organization that we’re all very passionate about supporting is the association of water Technologies and
you all got to present a paper last year at the convention where you were talking
about growth and the fact that when we grow we need to be concerned about
safety Reed you’re a third generation company definitely growing what was your
journey when it came to that yeah the story that we opened up our presentation with was really about the previous
decade of growth that we experienced at HOH and what we realized was a lot of
the dialogue around the the industry is excitement around growth and how to grow company and and we thought it would be
an interesting perspective to bring to the group around you know some of the pitfalls or poal risks when you grow and
and grow in particular really fast and that was really around safety and and
our story from 2013 really to about 2020 was one where we grew significantly and
in part due to one major acquisition that expanded our geography and also our headcount and on the surface that kind
of growth is uh really attractive and and um we know that that kind of catches
people’s interest but the story that felt a little bit more vulnerable to let people in on was that one of the things
that we overlooked when we grew uh that fast was we didn’t Steward our culture
and some of our systems and processes around safety uh in a way that we felt
was not only reflective of our values but also in a way that just started to impact us from a business operation
standpoint and what we found was there weren’t any major safety instances where where somebody was hurt or killed but we
had a slow buildup of uh incidents that began to create uh claims that over time
produced a safety record and an insurance record that began to really cost us and what we learned in that
process and what I learned in particular was that it’s it’s really far easier and faster to lose a good safety record than
it is to build one and I think in hindsight the lesson we really wanted to kind of share with growing water
treatment companies in our community was to really invest an ounce of prevention as they do grow into safety practices
that help kind of Steward a good record and to also begin to kind of think through hey safety more broadly is not
just about minimizing claims but really ensuring that people are safe and know
that they’re cared for and that that kind of leadership uh in safety when you’re growing helps prevent the types
of claims that can kind of crop up when you have just a lot more people uh involved and so so our hope with the
presentation was really to kind of help teach a lesson we learned over the years and hopefully help companies avoid a
costly and kind of timely process of uh having to correct a record and so working with Mike uh over these past few
years has been instrumental for us in terms of yeah not only correcting our safety record and and bolstering our
safety culture but putting measures in place that ensure that as we continue to grow that our people are not only safe
but our our cost to ensure business uh stay reasonable as well Peter Ducker says what gets measured
gets improved you all Reed have a metric that you look at within your Safety
Committee and and by the way you also have a Safety Committee that you’re not only looking at oh did something happen
but how do we prevent things from happening how do we make things better can you tell us about how you created
all that how you’re monitoring it and what it’s been doing for you yeah I mean our safety measures have evolved over
the years the the big lagging indicator for us was the experience modification rate the the EMR and and that was really
um it’s really this ratio I might could speak maybe a little bit more to it but it’s essentially a ratio that reflects your your your risk level for insurance
providers to insure you and the higher it is the more costly it is for you to uh get your insurance and for us that
number I think typically you want to keep below one um that’s where we had been for a long time and uh we crep up
as high as 1.9 and again for us there wasn’t any one single major incident uh
that triggered that it was a number of smaller incidents uh that over time began to accumulate and so for a long
time that was really our main measure that we were to some maybe surprisingly open about with our employees most
owners maybe aren’t sharing what their moderate is with employees first kind of educating them on it but it was
disrupting enough of our some of our customer relationships that we felt like we needed to confront the problem and
just say hey this is a actually a key measure for us for a number of reasons and we need to begin working that measure down and so we’re excited that
that number has been below one for a number of years as low as 08 and um we’re really proud of that it’s made
things a lot easier for us um we think reflects our Improvement but kind of getting beneath that lagging measure
some of the other things we’ve measured really have been just ensuring that safety incidents are documented even
when they are near misses and creating a feedback loop that our Safety Committee
and team is reviewing on a routine basis and so if we aren’t seeing any kind of safety incidents or near Mis records
being generated then we know that we’re actually not uh creating enough attention to safety issues that are are
inevitably there and so that’s one of our key leading metrics is are near misses and incidents being reported in a
timely fashion such that we can review and better understand what some of the roote issues are and put some
preventative measures in place Mike it’s always interesting to peek behind the insurance curtain and see how we get the
rate that we do and re just brought up the mod rate can you tell us a little bit more about that should everybody be
looking at that should everybody know what it is well most certainly I think the the education that goes along with
that critically important I wanted to kind of go back though quickly to read story because it really showcases a
company HOH in particular here that recognized and then embraced the change
that needed to be made right and they put in place certain activities and continue those today in a very
successful way to maintain uh the success that they’ve had and if you
really think about it when we talk about this we don’t deemphasize safety but
what we do is put the focus more on culture right and culture being the attitudes and the behaviors and the
perceptions of all of your workers and employees how they’re performing how
they’re conducting themselves how they’re thinking about their job because in many cases they’re operating
independently uh in the field and so forth so you’re relying on that human
behavior element to really carry forward the culture of the organization so
safety certainly is the focus but culture really becomes the glue that keeps this ongoing uh as as time goes on
and as growth continues to evolve right back to the modification yes it is a
factor uh that all companies should be recognizing and becoming as educated as
possible and and it really takes into account two main components certainly
claim and loss activity but it also takes into account payroll and those two
are the major components that feed into a modification some of that is within our
control some of that is is not within our control a 1.0 we call that being
average but today we talk about why the average right be better than average and
so we look to find out what the minimum mod is of an organization and then what
are the strategy is identifying the the steps the strategies necessary to ultimately achieve that minimum mod
because we really shouldn’t be satisfied until that minimum mod is achieved that
can be significant from a dollar and Cent standpoint that can be very
significant from a business opportunity standpoint and whether we like it or not
the modification is an evaluator a main evaluator by the customers that water
treatment organizations serve to determine eligibility if you’re above a one you may not be eligible without
providing a a substantial amount of information to support why you’re above a one if you’re below a one the door
becomes more open right so it is something to to be focused on and uh we
do an awful lot of uh spend an awful lot of time uh talking about that and
analyzing that what are some things that listeners can do today to reduce that
rate well I think in terms of of strategy we talked about some of the
fundamentals earlier here but a Safety Committee certainly is I think a first
step to designing a structure within an organization that’s going to be sustainable we have to have that topown
leadership though and again Reed has been so great in terms of his level of ownership in making sure that safety and
that culture are consistently communicated within the organization it
truly has to become one of the main strategic pillars of a company in order
for it to carry on and be as robust as as possible Reed how did you start to
implement some of the things that Mike just mentioned yeah you know it’s funny I I
think in 20 in particular we’ started to make some improvements but because the
mod once it starts to increase it takes you know over three years to really of a
good record to start to see some measurable measurable drops there and I think for us I mean I I took advantage
of the fact that we didn’t have a great mod and that it was impacting certain client relationships where we were
needing to get waivers you know to to work with them and that confused some people on our team and so really what we
took the opportunity there was just to be honest and transparent with with what what it was and educate and to use that
as the starting point to say hey we need to we need to pay closer attention and we need more engagement from our field
staff in some of the safety measures that we’re putting in place I would say earlier on I think like what Mike had
highlighted was was first starting to assemble a cross functional group of people to begin starting to work the
issue pretty soon after we started a Safety Committee we we began a routine of safety trainings and making sure that
that pattern was really consistent for our group and then really for us then
honing in on the incident reporting process and starting to kind of dig deeper into near misses that was
probably the next Evolution uh uh that really started to see some improvement where we weren’t waiting for something
bad uh to really kind of come up before our folks knew that we were really interested in in understanding how
things were currently going and so we we just shifted our perspective to saying we know that there are times where folks
are not safe there are certain risks at play we just can’t see them so we do need engagement from our team to be
communicating back and forth with us so we can uncover these sooner before they become uh an actual issue and I remember
at one sales meeting in particular talking about how we have a plan we’re excited about uh we’re we’re looking
forward to Growing this year but if there’s one thing that could completely derail our plan it’s you know really
somebody getting hurt and so really kind of bringing safety into the conversation
recognizing that this is you know not only about uh the personal well-being of our ourselves and our team um but if
we’re really excited about our plan for growth we need to start incorporating the risk you know that poor safety
habits and poor safety practices could could uh could impact there and and making that connection uh with our team
uh because I think often times for us safety feels like a compliance oriented
task it’s an afterthought it’s something we’ve got to check the box on and and that really wasn’t working for us and so
finding ways to make it relevant to our team and and kind of relate it to the things that we’re trying to accomplish
together so that it gets uh gets the kind of intention and engagement it deserves Mike mentioned earlier that it
has to be embedded in your culture and what you just said Reed definitely embodies that I’m curious what was the
mindset shift of your team when you empowered them to do something about
safety it didn’t come down from the top it was actually made by the team yeah I think what was really important for us
you know around empowering our team to to own this issue was you know first and
foremost picking picking people who who shared a passion for for correcting the
issue first and foremost so I could think of really one key leader for us in
shifting our safety culture was our HR leader and so she in particular you know all already carries a certain amount of
love and care for our people wanting to make sure they’re safe but also she was facing the brunt of issues that would
come up um with insurance as well and so finding those people that are most
affected by it and starting to kind of hand over some responsibility to them to begin enacting change including having
to kind of put some things in place that other team members would be required to do and I think there is a certain part
of this that uh was us going to our team saying hey this is a requ requirement we need to start following this process but
that requirement mixed in with a message of hey first and foremost this is not about just lowering insurance rates it’s
about caring for one another and caring for our co-workers I think that begins to kind of call out you know a part of
people that they begin to see that it isn’t just a business um initiative it is actually connected to things that
they they hold dear and I think for for us too uh when we could start to see
some progress and see some wins that our team could take credit for um and start
to feel the benefits of it as well you could really begin to see the the conversation shift completely but yeah
finding those leaders to that are most affected by the problem and getting them uh enrolled on the team uh that was that
was a huge step for us I’ll add on to that Trace if I could that I think the
communication piece of this is critically important too uh employees are really watching leadership right and
they’re waiting for direction for advice for empowerment and so forth and how to
conduct themselves and when they see leaders taking the initiative that Reed’s talked about there’s a sense of
cultural development that goes along with that too and then continually communicating what the belief system is
right and not just simply about the numbers not just simply about the experience modification and so forth but
really about each and every person and showing the compassion and the interest in making sure that they go home as
safely and healthy as possible Mike you’re our Advocate you
sell our businesses to Underwriters trying to get us the the best coverage at the the best price the best cost the
best value however I should be saying that so when you hear somebody starting
to put together a Safety Committee what are some things that you’re looking for and how does that help you put our
companies in a better light to these Underwriters yeah when when we hear about an
initiative taking off like this we love it right we want to become a part of
that we want to provide our assistance and support to that because we’ve seen
it really play out e within water treatment and for our clients outside of water treatment as well and we have some
phenomenal success stories that we could point to uh where that has happened but
it really helps us in the long run because our job at the end of the day is
to represent our clients in the marketplace in the best light possible
accentuating the very positive aspects of the safety program or the accident investigation program or whatever it is
and talk about then not only what they’re doing but what the results of that activity is and the Investments
time and energy and resources that are being made to achieve that and then talking about the why again right not
just to look good on paper not is to have that good mod but again because
they’re truly developing a culture and a team environment where they care about each other where employee feedback is
embraced and encouraged and where empowerment is delivered to the safety
group to management to make sure that the people are operating effectively so
it helps the the clients that we serve there’s no doubt about it we’ve seen it it helps them attract and retain quality
people to their organization I think it really helps them attract and retain
quality customers too because customers then begin to see a change right a
change in the way an organizations employees are interacting with that customer they may even identify safety
issues that exist at a customer location right to not only protect themselves but to protect the employees of the customer
so it really begins to take on this more holistic approach over time and then
again we benefit from that because truly it makes our job easier right in the representation of the clients there’s
nothing better than to hang our hat on a solid safety culture and health culture
within our organization scar Nation we’re going to take a brief pause from our discussion
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evapco thanks evapco now we’re going to pick up right where where we left off with Reed and
Mike obviously the more we know about safety the safer we can be because we
know what to look out for Mike something you’ve helped my team with are all the
training courses that are available to us just by working with the firms that
you work with a lot of our listeners may not know of some of these resources that
are available to them do you mind telling us about them sure be happy to
the insurance carrier Market uh definitely has a wide range of services
and trainings available but we also as Macwan uh deliver on that as well we have two divisions uh specifically that
address that we have a compliance and advisory uh service that is a value added offering that we provide really
focuses on uh some technology products and some internal policies and procedures more of the administrative
and structural part of a a safety and health program beyond that then we have
a division called mawan Risk Solutions that’s more of a fee based offering but a customized fullon safety service
division where we would facilitate operate and partner with our clients on
uh safety programs training uh customized trainings that we develop
webbased and and so forth so a full range of products and services
that are not one- siiz fit all but rather dedicated and prioritized after a
careful risk assessment and that’s really where we like to begin with our clients is getting to know them
identifying what their business is and what kind of challenges and opportunities they face and then really
getting into a full risk assessment because this can be quite a challenge to
take on all of this at one time and even Reed and HOH didn’t snap their fingers and change that overnight right right it
took a lot of time and a lot of effort to get to where they’re at today but You’ got to start somewhere right
because the need is not going away we see uh continuing challenge in the
environment uh business challenges employee challenges that we face and so
no better time than to start on this process now and we’d be happy to to
partner and guide with anybody and really when we talk about safety uh we
immediately think of employee injury but we really need to broaden that thinking
I think a little bit too because more than ever we’re talking about vehicle
related incidents we’re talking about customer site issues that may bring on a
liability concern and certainly an employee injury concern also near misses
Reed Reed mentioned near misses before uh as well so this activity is definitely going on and it’s really up
to leadership to design structure that enables and empowers their people to bring that to
ahead Reed there’s all of these things that Mike just mention materials policies procedures trainings with all
of that how did you start to deploy that in your team yeah I mean for a long time we have we definitely had a safety
manual and policy and pretty early on I remember that was one of the documents that kind of first needed a lot of
updating for us to kind of uh make it more relevant but I’ll go back to I think the starting point for us was
getting the right people around the table and in some sort of a meeting Rhythm to start to kind of look at the issues and then really prioritizing
because I think when you hear it all it’s pretty overwhelming and to Mike’s Point uh this did take us uh a number of
years to I think get the The rhythms and the routines in place and then once once you get going uh you start to kind of
build some momentum so I would really kind of emphasize you know getting the right people together in a meeting
Cadence and then starting from there to kind of prioritize what things can we work on that’s going to have the
greatest impact and uh for us I think again like the ongoing measurement for us around incidents and near misses and
getting those it produces an important dialogue that allows us to kind of dig deeper into you know where are those
areas of risk that we’re we’re not aware of and starting to put measures in place I can think of even one really simple
one that for us we have a in our lunchroom we’ve got two kind of heavy doors and there were no windows on them
and something really small was that we would have people that would bump into each other on either end of the door
just because you couldn’t see who was who was on the other side and so and oftentimes if it happened you think oh
all right that was just kind of a close call and you just go on with your day but eventually once we got into the
rhythm of meeting somebody decided to say hey I actually think this was a near Miss like I actually could have gotten
hurt and so that came to the Safety Committee and we talked through it and initially we kind of laughed thinking
like all right what’s it’s just door you know what’s the big deal but the more we thought about it the more we realized no
actually people are kind of affected by this and no one’s gotten seriously injured yet but even just for the sake
of helping our employees feel hurt that hey this is maybe to some just a minor inconvenience if we can come up with a
solution here that would be a win and so our creative solution was we actually cut out a small little window in the
door so you could at least have some visual indication of is there’s somebody on the other side and uh that has gone a
long way I recently had an exchange with somebody at that door and told them the story that hey this this actually never
had a window here for the longest time and uh we had more run-ins than you can imagine and uh a safety incident got
filled out and a near Miss report and we actually did something about it small thing but over time if you’re in the
Rhythm you know you begin to kind of see and hear you know what you’re looking for and if you start to kind of look for
these things undoubtedly they’ll come up you know and if they come up over the period of a few months you know they’re
they’re a lot more manageable to start putting Solutions in place and so I hopefully that example gives people an
idea of just kind of the value of starting small with a meeting and then the key thing there too is also being
willing to kind of follow through on on some of these ideas as well because you know like the window and the door
whether it was presenting a significant safety risk or not I think for our team members in terms of getting their their
engagement and buy into into it I think they get fired up when they see that their opinions are heard they voice
something and even if there’s a perceived issue following up and following through and actually putting
some solution in place goes a long way and then they’re more inclined to want to bring up additional things because
they have confidence so yeah one more that’s coming to mind is we had folks that talked about our parking lot being
dark at night and I that would be the last thing that I would have thought about and so through that after report
got filled out we ended up putting out uh lights in the parking lot you know even something as small as some folks driving fast through our parking lot we
end up putting out a sign here talk about you know slowing down and whatnot and so little things like that again
just kind of our our big wins just getting your team engaged and I think the format of just beginning to meet on
a routine basis whether it’s once a month or twice a month I think is the the best step uh for getting there Reed
those are great examples and I can’t help but think there’s got to be somebody out there listening saying okay well that’s because people were okay
sharing their concerns but what if people are concerned that oh I’m just complaining and I don’t want to act as a
complainer to my employer what’s that culture change where we can encourage
people to bring their ideas yeah it’s definitely it’s definitely repeating the permission to
and at some points with certain individuals being aware enough and managing by walking around to see you
know where these things are and if you catch that somebody maybe hasn’t reported one being very direct with them
to say hey actually you’re creating an issue by not saying something and so I really need you to do this this and that
persistence eventually kind of starts to break people’s habits of holding back the other key I would suggest there is
the importance of people’s individual supervisors and managers and for us I would say that’s been another key
indirect focus on our safety culture is really ensuring that anyone we have in a
supervisory role or management position responsible for for individuals on our team that they’ve really got to
understand and own you know their responsibility to the company and that they can’t be making safety a second you
know order issue they need to fully Buy in and create the environment where the folks on their team are are willing to
speak up and share and for us culturally this is somewhat already kind of been normal for us we run on the
entrepreneurial operating system the EOS and I think one of the parallels that I would kind of bring to this is the whole
idea of just raising issues and so everyone on our team’s engaged in a weekly level 10 meeting which which is
our our kind of standard team meetings but the main focus of those is generating and raising issues and then
identifying discussing and solving uh those issues at the root and so we try to draw a parallel with our team around
safety issues or just like other issues that we’re bringing up in our meeting they just happen to have a specific focus and so if you’re not bringing up
issues but you see it you’re actually not really living out one of our core values of accountability and so the
whole idea if you see something you got to say something and so you know for us trying to make it the safety practices
maybe not different than any of our other operating systems so trying to find ways where it integrat so it’s not
just something extra or something new drawing those parallels and then yeah even anchoring it in a in a values kind
of conversation um to really sink in for folks and get them over that initial
period of discomfort bringing something up Mike what do you suggest some of the
best ways to get started on thinking about safety and creating that culture that exists around safety are yeah I
think Reed captured some highlights there but the thing that came to mind as he was talking was really leading by
example and um I recall another client we had that not in the water treatment
business but they were having particular issue with their employees utilizing the PPE the
protective equipment that they that they provided to them and it so happened that the owner struggled with that a little
bit too and so he was called out one day by his own employee and rather taking
offense to that really kind of embraced that again because it really showed no
matter where you’re at in the organization you are responsible you are
accountable to each other not only to yourself but to each other as well and that certainly includes ownership I
think I would probably back to your question begin at the high level right
because this is going to require ownership and executive level buyin on a
continual basis and these things can definitely run in tandem I talked before about safety and culture being a main
pillar of an operation and I really do believe that that can go side by side
with growth and other initiatives operationally that a company may have so it I think laying out at a high level
what that structure looks like and should be involving in a trusted advisor
to provide some feedback and some experiences and so forth I think is probably a step in the right direction
as well but then very quickly identifying those key leaders within the
organization that are going to embrace the same kind of attitude and culture that is being decided upon and
communicate be involved in terms of caring that forward and so forth the
activities that come after that can be numerous right and and really should be
unique to the organization unique to the needs perhaps some of the kinds of
claims and losses that that company has had in the past and trying to respond to
that and some of the things that are being communicated by the employee group
themselves right there’s no better source of information about what’s really happening and really going on in
the field while delivering back in the warehouse while uh blending or loading
or unloading containers and that type of thing no better source of information than the employee themselves and so
finding ways to draw out information from them and feedback and constructive
ideas is a fundamental component of what we’re talking about Reed during your
presentation you shared an anecdote with the audience do you mind sharing it here
yeah I was uh a number of years ago reading the book The Power of Habit by Charles doig and I was recently reminded
of it by by another safety resource that I had been looking into and and decided
that the story would be really helpful to share with the audience um just around the compelling reason to invest
um in building your safety culture and the story goes back to 1987 at a big
Steel company called Alcoa and they had a really poor record around employee safety um had even had deaths in their
facilities and that was relative L normal for the industry at the time and
so Paul O’Neal was a a new CEO and he really shocked that company when he
announced in one of his opening speeches that his main priority and focus was going to be establishing a zero injury
Target uh for the organization and it surprised people because they wondered
you know how effective it would be for him to be putting a safety goal as really the top priority even Beyond
Revenue growth or profitability or something of their other typical kpis and I think what’s really profound about
the story of Paul O’Neal at Alcoa was they ultimately accomplished that goal and over the period of his uh leadership
from 1987 to 2005 they 5 exed the value of Alcoa and some of the learnings there
and that Charles doig was highlighting in his book Around The Power of Habit was recognizing that when you focus on a
few or even one cornerstone habit not even just individually but within an organization
it has an an outflow on other practices in the organization positively and so
what they found at Alcoa was the focus on safety and hitting that zero injury goal it began to improve their focus on
quality and as they improved quality their production and throughput began to increase and so they saw a domino effect
by choosing to focus on One Singular metric like safety the overall quality of what they did improved and I think
that story is really compelling to me because I know for a lot of business owners you’re really focused on trying
to get a lot of things right and there’s a lot of different kpis to focus on but I I think it’s actually worth
considering raising the priority of safety as a measure for success in a business not because it’s the only thing
that matters but even strategically realizing that a lot of other things need to go right in order for you to hit
a really strong safety goal and so I think that that’s something worth considering is how can you integrate
safety measures into what you’re what you’re already doing and there’s maybe an outflow of positive impact on things
like quality and throughput and I think about the message it sends to our teams a lot of times safety issues happen when
people are in States like they’re rushing you know or they’re frustrated they may be tired or even complacent and
starting to realize that you know hey if we can focus on safety we’re eventually going to kind of get into layers of
Employee Engagement and performance that if we correct uh we’re not just going to have a safe company we’re probably going
to have a more valuable more profitable sustainable company as well so Mike
based on the things that Reed just mentioned how do we take that concept but then continually improve upon it
yeah I I think the example is a good one a zero accident culture really should be
a a part of an organization’s strategy and what they want to achieve over time but again that doesn’t happen overnight
and in order to get to that point I think this continuing to improve on the
strategies that you have in place dedicated to health and safety is critical and be continuing to learn as
you go too and again that learning really comes from the experiences of your entire employee base one of the
strategies that we’ve assisted with is a robust accident investigation accidents
again meaning not only employee injury but veh vehicle incidents and all and
also uh near Miss uh incidents as well and it’s a process that’s not a judgment
uh not punitive to the employee in any way but you’re bringing the employee in oftentimes in person to talk with that
individual about the incident right from their perspective have them go back
through in detail what happened what the environment was like were there any Witnesses what were the outcomes of the
situation and so forth and what are the Lessons Learned right and communicating that from their Viewpoint asking
challenging questions along the way I think can really share a level of information that you’re simply not going
to get in any other meeting or any other venue really and so through that it not
only provides that kind of information that’s going to bring you along that Continuum of zero accidents but it’s
going to help you identify where do you need to prioritize where do you need to focus the attention of the Safety
Committee what kind of training might be necessary what kind of physical obstructions and challenges is an
employee dealing with perhaps even every day just to get the job done and if
getting the job done is the one thing that drives an employee that’s got to
change right because safety and their well-being has to become number one that
has to be communicated continually by leadership that has to be exhibited by
leadership and it has to be celebrated by leadership when achieved so I think
pulling all of that together the continual Improvement is an outgrowth of
that process but you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and you’ve got to do the detail type of work I’ll ask you both
this question if you could only drive home one point today what do you want that point to be I think my one point
would be is if you’re excited about growing your business begin to put some thought into to how you’re going to grow
uh the the culture um around safety in your in your company and so I think that would be the number one thing is just as
you can contemplate growth don’t neglect thinking through what maybe additional strategies your organization might need
as you grow because when you grow there’s a lot of good that comes with it but uh you also grow and scale whatever
vulnerabilities or weaknesses or issues you have as well and it’s generally
easier to do it before before you grow than after and like I shared at the
beginning it’s it’s a lot easier to lose a really solid safety record than it is to build one and so if you’ve got one
today and your organization’s growing it’s going to save you far less time and hassle to start investing a little bit
now at preserving it as you grow instead of needing to to fix or correct it after the fact yeah I would add on to that
that I think a solid safety culture is a business Builder and definitely not a
distraction and I think having that change of attitude Again by leadership
and an employee base is a a critical component you know a really well
executed safety cultural program can have great impact great positive impact
on an organization and it can help Propel growth and we’ve seen that happen
and it can help solidify relationships with employees it can help solidify
relationships with customers in a way that few things can right we’ll do our
best to service we’ll do our best to have product at your door in a timely fashion of a quality nature and so forth
that’s the expectation but when you deliver more than that and you exhibit a
true safety culture and a compassion for other people your fellow employee and
the employees of your customers that’s I think when you have really achieved
Excellence well I want to thank you both for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast Mike hyim of mcgallen insurance and Reed
Hutcherson of HOH thanks for having us we appreciate the opportunity always a fun topic to
talk about and always fun to do it with my good friend Reed yeah likewise Mike thanks for having us
Trace Nation those are two great guys in the industrial water treatment industry
I am glad that I can call them my friend and I’m also glad that they are helping
me and my company learn how we can have a greater awareness around keeping
everybody that works here safe as I mentioned before when you’re hurt
nothing else matters but there’s so many things that we can do on a daily basis
to just engineer potential accidents out of our day today and a lot of times we
just don’t think about it I know we are busy on our day today and we are hurrying to try to get to that next
account or get that order that the customer wants to get in or try to help them and whatever way we can we all have
good intentions and sometimes safety takes a back seat trust me when I was
laid up for weeks with that car accident that was the only thing that I could
think about again not much I could have done about that but think about all the potential accidents that you could have
within your day today and then maybe Elevate that to a Safety Committee like
Reed was talking about I know your insurance agent will like that and by
all means let them know that you’re doing things like that they love to let
Underwriters know that this company is not like every other company they are
doing all these things up and above so they’re not going to have claims they
have certified water technologist within their organizations I have heard
numerous companies get better ratings because they have certified people on
their staff and that is a mark of Excellence that they use in their
company to prove to their customers that their team knows industrial water
treatment well just like it works for customers our insurance people can use that to let Underwriters know that we
are A Cut Above other companies and this is why so I hope you have a great
relationship with your insurance professional I know I do with mine and
it’s little things like that I guess they’re not little things it’s things like that that allow us to not spend all
of our money on insurance to spend money on other things that we need here in the business but know that we are working in
conjunction with not only keeping people safe but getting the best products around us should something ever occur
thank you both Reed thank you Mike for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast and sharing some of those items I know if
you want to find out more of what you can do I urge you to call your insurance
professional tell them about this podcast maybe even have them listen to this podcast and come up with some ideas
where you all can collaborate together and make your company safe safer and
more efficient Nation our friend James McDonald always has a new installment of
drop by drop with James and here’s this week’s [Music]
episode welcome to drop by drop with James the podcast segment where we wonder explore think about imagine and
learn IND duster water treatment you guessed it dropped by drop
together today’s topic is a what if H and the topic is about boiler
bottom blowdown what if an operator opens and closes the boiler bottom blowdown valves
in the wrong water what would be the impact will this impact be felt immediately or long term what is the
logic of why boiler bottom blowdown valves are open and closed in a certain order is there logic is there any any
additional wear and tear on the valves based upon the order opened what if a valve starts to leak through and needs
to be repaired which valve would be easier to repair possibly without requiring the boiler to be taken offline
are the bottom blowdown valves of the same design or different design why the
boiler manufacturer’s operations manual should be followed when determining the proper order to open and close the
bottom blowdown valves of course but if the boiler operator asked you would you know how to answer
I’m James McDonald and I want to encourage you to be like water by forming bonds with those around you
dissolving new knowledge and making worthy ripples drop by
drop James thank you and Nation you’re actually going to hear from James
McDonald he’s our guest next week on the scaling up H2O podcast always a delight
when James McDonald comes by to be a guest and and I think you’re going to
enjoy what we have in store for you then until then have a great week
[Music]
folks