I consult to a variety of industries—mining, manufacturing, construction, health care, and many others that support these businesses.  So, it is not uncommon for me to be asked (better yet questioned) regarding my qualifications to serve as a consultant to a particular industry.  A common question from a prospective client might be: “you’ve not ever been a miner (or a construction worker, or an assembly line worker, etc.) so how can you help us with our safety, HR issues, corporate and site initiatives?”  Or, I might hear, “what we need is someone with more mining (or manufacturing or construction, etc.) experience.”

My response to such inquiries is quite simple.  To the former I respond: “I don’t need to be an expert in your industry because you’ve got all of the industry expertise already working for you.  I am an expert in human behavior—trained to ask the right questions, to learn from and empower those in-house experts, and offer people-focused solutions.”  And, to the latter, I would respond “You don’t need someone with more mining (manufacturing, construction, etc.) experience, what you need is someone with an expertise in human behavior that can work with your in-house experts to find different solutions than those you’ve already considered.”

This is precisely what I bring to the table—a comprehensive and reliable expertise in human behavior driven from intense post-graduate study during which I synthesized 120 years of behavioral science into practical tools for business and industry.  Additionally, I personally have 18 years of experience applying these tools to help businesses improve safety, environmental, quality, and production performance when they’ve struggled to do so on their own or when they just want to get better!

So, the next time you are looking for someone to help you with a performance problem, check their credentials.  Those with an explicit knowledge of your industry, but without a comprehensive science-based knowledge of human behavior may not be able to offer solutions beyond those you’ve already come-up with on your own.  Their answers may be dressed up a little differently, but in the end they are likely guided from the same knowledge base that you already have.  A behavioral scientist will help you to think out of the box and find truly novel, practical, and successful ways to improve performance-whatever the issue being addressed.

As the Center for Behavioral Safety approaches its 10^th anniversary in April, I was reminded that we have served over ten major industries and their providers.  During this time I have personally trained dozens of senior managers, hundreds of supervisors, and thousands of front-line employees.  Moreover, as a consultant (and company) we have clients with whom we’ve formed long-term relationships (5, 7, 10 years), not because we create more work for ourselves on the same projects, but because these clients sought similar benefits for other issues they faced or saw the wisdom in periodic refreshing of an existing  projects.  Word-of-mouth referrals from these “true fans” of our approach produces several new clients each year.  This translates to an exponential increase in the number of people whose lives have been positively impacted as a result.

 Please remember—You are experts in your business.  We are experts in human behavior.  Together, we can make a difference^TM.