129: 16 Broken Bones, Finding Your Why, and Human and Organizational Performance

Jill James:

This is The Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded May 2nd, 2025. My name is Jill James, HSI's, Chief Safety Officer. And today our guest is Ryan Word. Ryan is Safety Manager at FTI, an electrical solutions provider. Ryan is also President of ASSP's Nicolet chapter. Ryan joins us today from Menasha, Wisconsin. Welcome to the show, Ryan.

Ryan Word:

Thank you, Jill. It's wonderful to be here.

Jill James:

And I feel like maybe I just didn't do a great job with a couple of Wisconsin pronunciations, though I'm a Minnesotan. Nicolet, did I get that? Nicolet?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, Nicolet.

Jill James:

Nicolet, Menasha, yes?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, Menasha.

Jill James:

Okay, great, great. You'd think my Midwestern accent would have this down. Ryan, it's so nice that you're making time to be with us today. Really appreciate it, and I'm interested to hear about your origin story and where it started with safety.

Ryan Word:

Yeah, so I'm definitely not one to pick on a Midwest accent because I'm not from the Midwest. I constantly get accused of mispronouncing things up here. I'm originally from Georgia, and that's kind of where my origin story, if you will, started off. Originally, right out of high school, I wasn't sure what I want to do with my life. I went to college for a little bit, that didn't work out, so I decided to join the fire department because I was always interested in helping people, and the fire department seemed like a great career opportunity. So a small county in rural Georgia, I joined the fire department. I started to make a career for myself and I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed getting to help people, loved the job. But unfortunately, just three years into my career in the fire service, I was pretty severely injured when one of my coworkers ignored a fairly simple safety rule. Essentially, we had a supertanker at our fire station, which is a fire truck that can hold 5,000 gallons of water. And anybody who's ever operated one, there's a simple concept they teach you in tanker training that you only drive with that truck absolutely full or absolutely empty and nothing in between.

Jill James:

Because of the sloshing around of the water?

Ryan Word:

Absolutely, yeah. 5,000 gallons of water is 40,000 pounds. So you can imagine half a tank, you go around a curve and there's 20,000 pounds sloshing side to side, you get a dangerous condition. So we were at the fire station one morning and a call came out to go help our neighboring county for a fire and they needed water. So a fellow firefighter jumped in the truck, I jumped in the passenger seat and away we tore out of the station. And about a mile into our response, we went around a curve and the truck got a little shaky side to side, and I even asked him, "Hey, how much water is in the tank?" And he reached down and pushed the button and we were just shy of three quarters of a tank and we're like, oh, well, that's not good. Hey, about a half a mile up ahead, there's a school where we refill all the time. We can pull over, top off the truck and keep on going. And looking back, there are the famous last words, he said, "No, it's not really a big deal. We'll be fine."

Jill James:

Oh gosh.

Ryan Word:

And about a quarter mile passed the school, we went into an S curve, and that water sloshed, just like they warned you it might. We ended up rolling that fire truck almost eight times off the side of a highway.

Jill James:

Holy crap, Ryan. Wow.

Ryan Word:

And so I was just shy of 21 at the time, ended up breaking both my arms, broke some bones in my leg, messed up a knee. Both my shoulders, broke even a couple of toes just to pepper in some fun, and ended up getting hurt pretty badly, and that was the end of my fire career. And out of nowhere from something as simple as a safety rule, but you have to move on, there's nothing I could do about it at the time.

Jill James:

Yeah, I bet you were recovering for months.

Ryan Word:

Yeah, both arms and a sling at the same time is a fun time.

Jill James:

Oh, I can't even imagine. Who were you living with at the time? Were you living with family?

Ryan Word:

My parents. I moved back in with my parents after the accident, and probably much to their chagrin, I ended up on the couch in their living room for probably a couple of months because after the accident there was some recovery, and then the first of a couple shoulder surgeries. And so luckily, I've been trying to strike it out on my own but my parents, being the living parents, they are, brought me back home. They were able to help take care of me until I was up on my feet and moving again.

Jill James:

Yeah. Regarding your partner that you were with that day in the truck, was he injured as well?

Ryan Word:

He was, unfortunately, he was not wearing his seatbelt, so his injuries were actually a little worse than mine.

Jill James:

Whoa.

Ryan Word:

And really, I never had a lot of contact with him after the accident, maybe once or twice. My best guess, I think he felt really bad for how badly I got injured. So we never really had good conversation afterwards. So I followed him for a little while, while I could, in his recovery, but unfortunately I never really got to talk to him much after that.

Jill James:

Probably not an uncommon thing with situations like that. Well, I'm glad that you survived, Ryan.

Ryan Word:

Oh, yeah, me too.

Jill James:

So as you were recovering and you were starting to get back up on your feet, like literal feet because your toes were broken too, what did you decide? Gosh, I have to reassess, I was on this trajectory to do this job. Now what?

Ryan Word:

Well, that's really where convenience came in. My father owned a construction company, so, and my mother worked there as well. So being there at the house with them, seeing the construction all the time, my dad had a need for some help around the construction site. So as I recovered, I started working for him, got into a little bit more of the construction side with him. I'd always had a little bit of background in construction, he had owned a construction company most of my life so I've been on site since I was a teenager. But I dove back in, and that's kind of where I got my foot in the door into construction as a career as, hey, I can't be a firefighter anymore. I have some background experience and support in construction already with my family. So I changed my career over to construction and decided to try it out that way.

Jill James:

Well, Ryan, I mean, you went from one high risk job into another high risk job. Oh my gosh.

Ryan Word:

Yeah, and I wouldn't have even seen it that way at the time.

Jill James:

Sure, because you're in your early 20s. Yeah, I mean, you had definitely knew you weren't invincible after rolling a fire truck eight times, but you're still in your 20s.

Ryan Word:

Right. So yeah, right around then, the economy was taking a bit of a dip so my parents decided to sell the construction company off, and they actually fulfilled one of their lifelong dreams. They moved down to Orlando, Florida. My mom always wanted to work for a particular amusement park in Orlando, and my dad went down and joined a big construction firm in Orlando. So I was at home back in Georgia for maybe another year by myself, and I finally decided, maybe I should go down to Orlando. There's a huge construction economy down there, and let's see if I can give it a go. And ended up moving to Orlando, applied to work for the same company my dad did, and went right back into construction. And started off a foreman, or a carpenter, and then a foreman. Eventually became a superintendent, and in a superintendent, especially working for a major theme park in Orlando, I really started to first see that glimpse of construction safety and that's kind of where I got that taste. And you take a firefighter, somebody who was dedicated to public safety, personal safety, and put them in a construction environment, especially at theme parks where they're extremely strict about their safety rules, and you kind of start breeding the start of a safety guy.

Jill James:

Yeah, that's very interesting. And so working at the theme park, did they have some safety elements that you were like, oh, this is interesting, that sort of opened your eyes to the world of workplace health and safety?

Ryan Word:

So I'll admit, my first interactions with their safety team came from me being more of the general contractor, construction worker. I was not a huge fan of safety people at the time. Like, oh, what are these silly rules? And it'll take me longer to follow your rules and it'll take me to get the entire job done.

Jill James:

All the stereotypical trappings, right?

Ryan Word:

Yes, all the things that I love to hear now.

Jill James:

Yeah, right, right.

Ryan Word:

I have to admit that I was just as guilty as saying them. But yeah, they offer a lot of support and a lot of training. And I've always been the inquisitive type who loves learning new things, so I slowly just started absorbing everything those clients had to offer. And then slowly started looking around at the company I was working for and realizing that we didn't really have that great of a safety culture. It was more accidents weren't happening, but not on purpose.

Jill James:

Not a proactive approach.

Ryan Word:

Not at all. And I saw it, I kind of looked at it, I even expressed interest to the company like, "Hey, should we have a safety person who does these things?" Especially we work for multiple large theme parks down there, and they are very strict at their safety. And it wasn't really a priority for the company, it wasn't something they were interested in, which is fine. Or I say it's not fine, it's their decision to make, not mine. But one day, kind of what the catalyst that changed my career was one of those large theme parks came to us and said, "Hey, starting next year, we're going to require all of our contractors to be certified through BROWZ," which is a contractor management and qualification system. "And as a contractor of ours, we would like you to be one of the first ones in this program to be certified and try out this new wave of safety qualification for us." So the company agreed, they were a huge client of ours so of course we're going to do what we can to make them happy. And they submitted their current safety plan through BROWZ for certification, and they returned it with a score of somewhere around 25 out of 100.

Jill James:

Oh, ouch.

Ryan Word:

Yes, and a lot of red letters and a lot of, "Hey, you are not compliant with all of these things." And there was a corporate conversation of, "How do we fix this?" They were talking about hiring a consultant, hiring... there's some companies that do out of the box safety plans where you just fill in your company's information. We had looked at a lot of those solutions, but we weren't really making any headway. So one weekend, I was like, "They told us everything that should be in this plan to make them happy. Why couldn't we just make it ourselves based on what they told us?" So I had a 1926 manual, and I took it home one weekend with my laptop and I spent the entire weekend writing a rough draft of a manual.

Jill James:

Go Ryan. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Ryan Word:

Yeah. I saw it, I figured it'd be fun because I'm a bit of a nerd, I guess. And that Monday, I took it to my father's office and said, "Hey, I know we've been talking about how we want to do this. I decided I'd take a crack at it. Here's what I made." And he sat down with me and we kind of went through it page by page, and he was the first one to really say like, "Hey, you did a good job with this. Actually, this might be the way to go." He helped me revise it. He's been in the business a lot longer than I was. So you know that corporate language and the proper voice and the way to speak, he helped out with, and we submitted it to BROWZ.

Jill James:

Oh my gosh, I can't wait to hear what happened.

Ryan Word:

And they returned it with a 91.

Jill James:

Oh my gosh, that's so awesome.

Ryan Word:

So I was tickled. When they returned it, they gave me more notes of what needed to be fixed, and that was really my first introduction to OSHA properly. I'd never had a 10 or a 30, but when they return it to you, they'll tell you, "You need to focus more on fall protection, reference sub part M1926-500," and they tell you where to go, what to look at, and what they're looking for. So I just took it, sat down with the manual and found what they wanted, and that was really that first taste, that first introduction. And I was pretty much hooked from then on out that, hey, I think this is a viable career path for me. Take a safety guy or a firefighter and put him into construction, and that's exactly what you breed was a construction safety guy.

Jill James:

Oh, that's such a good story and makes my OSHA heart just warm. Ryan, hearing that you sat down on a weekend with the code of federal regulations and you read it until you understood it. That's fantastic.

Ryan Word:

Yeah, the construction people I work with now, they'll sometimes tease me for that because that's definitely not a normal thing just to sit down and enjoy reading the CFR, but.

Jill James:

Hey, somebody's got to do it.

Ryan Word:

Absolutely.

Jill James:

And yeah, I mean, I find it... Well anyway, I have my favorite paper copies and I use the online version, and I would say that I'm in those regulations multiple times a week. And in fact, about 45 minutes before this recording started, I was helping someone, it's so good. All right, so BROWZ now thinks that you're the bomb. What happens next?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, so I slowly just started diving more and more into the safety aspect of the business operations, even started working with some of the estimators, "Hey, I'm starting to understand what these requirements are. We can look at things in the pre-bid phase and actually come up with these solutions ahead of time." And really, just started sharpening my skills and abilities doing these projects every time a safety project came up or a project with a large safety implication. I was the superintendent for any of those projects. And I got to do some wild projects. Some that I can't necessarily talk about, but some that were crazy fun, live animals. I did a project with the tigers at one of the theme parks, and-

Jill James:

Wow.

Ryan Word:

Just crazy projects that I wouldn't have got to do if it weren't for that safety specification as a superintendent. And so I kept building up that repertoire of projects. And eventually I decided, as much as I like construction, I had gone up to a, I've been promoted to a project manager, I'm still kind of in charge of those types of projects. But I decided, we had one child, my wife was pregnant, and I was really looking at, well, what did I want to do? How did I want my career to progress? And I decided I thought safety would be a better fit for my personality and style. So I approached that company and said, "Hey, obviously I've been doing a lot of safety stuff for you guys. This is a place that I think we really have an opportunity for. I think this is where I see myself growing and expanding, and I think we should consider a full-time safety person, and I'd like to put my hat in the ring."

Jill James:

Fantastic.

Ryan Word:

And they pretty much said, "No."

Jill James:

Mm-hmm, because you were doing two jobs for them, being a superintendent and a safety person and being paid for one, not two jobs. Got it.

Ryan Word:

Yep, and their philosophy as a company was, they didn't like overhead. So even our HR person had to enter in time tickets, do something that generated revenue. They didn't like overhead in general. So the idea of having a safety person who's all overhead, doesn't generate profit, which now I can laugh at because safety can generate profit when it's done properly. But that was their philosophy is, this is all overhead, it's not worth the costs. No, you'll be a PM, you'll be a superintendent, and that's where you should be. And yeah, I said, "No."

Jill James:

Good for you.

Ryan Word:

Yep, so I started putting feelers out that obviously if I really want to make a career in safety, working for a company that doesn't believe in a full-time safety person isn't going to be a good fit.

Jill James:

Right.

Ryan Word:

So I put some feelers out and I was lucky enough that I found another company that worked with same clients in the same area, and I had applied for a kind of an entry level safety position with them to, I wanted to go into full-time safety, and I met their team. I was supposed to have an interview with their safety director, and the week that I was supposed to have the interview with their safety director, their safety director quit without notice. And I was already in the interview process, I'd interviewed with the CFO. And conversation was kind of, "Hey, we really like you. We like what you've done. We understand that this hasn't really been your role, but there's an opportunity here if you think you're up to the challenge." So I took over the role as safety manager for a construction and manufacturing company with about 1,400 employees.

Jill James:

Whoa.

Ryan Word:

As my first full-time safety gig.

Jill James:

Oh, congratulations. And now you had to spend another weekend reading the 1910 regulations if you had manufacturing.

Ryan Word:

You're not wrong. So yeah, I did the same thing with them. They had a good safety culture already, but some of the manuals and things were still a little outdated or loose.

Jill James:

Sure.

Ryan Word:

So I sat down and I looked at their manual and I rewrote their manual from scratch, and we kind of made it a training document based on the 26 or the 10, depending on which side of the business you were in. And that's such a great company to work for. I worked with them, really got to build that experience, especially being from a general contractor stepping into safety, I had a lot better experience relating with the guys in the field having done their job.

Jill James:

You sure did, yeah.

Ryan Word:

And yeah, that was the biggest development curve of my safety career, was finally getting that, A, the support of a company that's really interested in safety. There wasn't anything I took to them that if I couldn't explain why it was a good idea and why it would protect people, they wouldn't say no. They were fantastic to work with.

Jill James:

And so when you took that position, were there other safety people as well? Did you end up supervising people because you took the job that the guy walked out of?

Ryan Word:

So in the beginning, there was a gentleman who worked there who was in HR, and they moved him over to be over the manufacturing side of safety. So he had a HR background and he had the familiarity with the company, the culture, and what the company did. And so the agreement was kind of, "Hey, Ryan," he ended up being one of my best friends there in Florida, so I'll call him by the name. They're like, "Hey, this is Zach. Zach is, he's been here for five years. He's really good with the company, but he's newer to the idea of safety. You obviously, you're really passionate about safety, but you're new to the company." And they kind of put us together to co-lead that department.

Jill James:

Nice.

Ryan Word:

And Zach was more in charge of the manufacturing side and I was in charge of the field side. And it started with the two of us and we really worked well together and built each other up. By the time I left, we had hired in, I think he had three and he was hiring one more when I left. And it didn't end up, we had a good team that we were supervising there in Florida there at the end of my time with that company.

Jill James:

Yeah, so then what happened? And how great you were able to have that opportunity and have someone to walk together.

Ryan Word:

Oh, yeah. No, I can't express how much I appreciate having a partner right there for us to grow and bounce ideas off of, and we really got to be creative and innovative. For me, the next step, while I was in Florida living in construction, I met my wife down in Florida. So I told you, I'm from Georgia. I'd moved down to Orlando, and I met my wife in Orlando, and we ended up getting married. I was thinking, I'll call her my wife, and we had two children, and by this point working for that company. My kids were just about school aged and we were looking to see what we wanted to do for school. And unfortunately, the schools in our area down there weren't that great. And Orlando, although it's fun for recreation and for adults and my wife and I had wonderful times there in Florida, we really didn't think it was the best place for raising our kids. So my wife is from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Jill James:

Here we go. This is how you got to the Midwest, okay.

Ryan Word:

The first thing everybody asks when I tell them Orlando to Oshkosh is, "Why?"

Jill James:

Well, obviously because of the winter and ice fishing, right?

Ryan Word:

Right. Yeah, no, knee-deep snow is something I never experienced in Florida, so.

Jill James:

Awesome.

Ryan Word:

So yeah, my wife was wanting to come back home to be nearer her family and to be kind of closer to the environment that she was used to. I'm more of an outgoing people person, so I knew that no matter where I moved, I would be able to implant myself, build community up around me and work. So we decided that we were going to pack up our family and moved to Wisconsin. So I did look for some, I started looking for jobs in Wisconsin, and I told my boss down in Florida, the CFO I was working for, that I absolutely love this job. I love everybody here, this has been such a great opportunity, and it broke my heart having to do it. It's probably one of the hardest things I've ever done was I wrote the resignation letter to give to my boss. And the way the campus was set up, it's almost a quarter mile walk from my desk to his desk. And I got up the nerve that I needed to go talk to him, I walked all the way across campus, and he wasn't at his desk.

Jill James:

Oh, man.

Ryan Word:

And I walked back to my office and I tried it again later that day, and he wasn't there. And it took three-

Jill James:

Oh. I mean, it seems like you need a theme, I feel like there's a theme song accompanying you on this walk every time.

Ryan Word:

I mean, I've never been in a position to resign from a job that I love. Usually, if you're changing your employment, it's for a reason.

Jill James:

Yeah, right, right, right. I've done that too, and it is, yeah, it's sad.

Ryan Word:

So that was quite difficult, but I met with him and he was super supportive. He said throughout his life, gosh, he had great mentoring words. He told me about how throughout his life they had moved for his job, moved for his wife's job, and that you do what you have to do to support your family and if that's the move I needed to make, then he would support me entirely, and he did. So I ended up packing up the entire family and moving north. And when I first moved to Wisconsin, I don't know if it was just stereotypical or just the luck of the draw, but I ended up in a cheese plant.

Jill James:

Yes, for anyone who's listening who doesn't know that Wisconsin is the cheese state, and they actually wear cheese heads at the football games.

Ryan Word:

Absolutely.

Jill James:

That is pretty funny, Ryan.

Ryan Word:

I mean, it was the stereotypical, obligatory safety guy at a cheese plant. And not a bad company at all, but my whole background was in construction. I had some experience with the 1910 being there in Florida, but construction is where I was really more passionate. So I only worked there a few years, and luckily I ran into FTI where I work now. And it started as just, I knew somebody who worked at FTI and I reached out. They showed me the website, I saw the job openings, and at first, I thought it was just a small mom-and-pop shop out of Menasha. And they have a YouTube series called Charged, where they talk about their Ladders Last program, where ladders are the last tool that's acceptable to be used. And regardless of cost, they will use any other tool before a ladder to reduce falls.

Jill James:

That's awesome.

Ryan Word:

And they had a No Knives policy, where you're not allowed to use any straight open blade knife at all across the entire company. And they have this video series that explains, it might be difficult, but these are the things you have to do if you really want to keep people safe, and then I was hooked by that culture. And yeah, luckily I was able to start here with Faith. And it's been two years now I've been with Faith Technologies, FTI, up here in Wisconsin. And I don't have to rewrite the manual, so they already had a wonderful manual.

Jill James:

Wonderful, okay.

Ryan Word:

But now it's just been wonderful that I actually get to operate in a good safety culture. I'm not building one up around me, I'm getting to be a part of a good team and it's allowed me to really explore the safety space, because Faith is a huge proponent in being involved in our safety community. So like you said at the introduction, I got to join ASSP, I become a member of the board, became Vice President of the board, and then just got elected in as the President of the board. And I've got to do a lot of speaking opportunities and engagement and other opportunities I've gotten because Faith really believes in us being part of our safety community and supporting us in those actions.

Jill James:

Oh, that's so great. And congratulations on being the regional ASSP President. That's pretty sweet.

Ryan Word:

Oh yeah, thank you.

Jill James:

That's pretty sweet. Yeah, so I think you wanted to talk about your... You decided maybe on some formal education. What's happening with that?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, so unlike most of the people I work with and safety now, I never actually went to school for safety. Down in Florida I did my OSHA-1030 and eventually my 500 and 510. So I've had job site experience, I've had hands-on experience, but even the job I have now, one of the qualifications on the website was a bachelor's in safety. And luckily, FTI believes more in the interview and the talent than they do about the paper credentials so I was able to get the job. But I realized so many people have just that deep foundation from a safety education that I didn't have. That experience is wonderful and I still believe there's things you learn from experience that you may not learn from school, but there's a foundation from that school that you don't get any other way. So yeah, I'm now enrolled with University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, working on my bachelor's and safety degree with them. That way hopefully I can tag that degree with the experience and keep my career growing.

Jill James:

That is awesome. And shout out to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater where my friend, Dr. Todd Loushine is professor in that program, and he's been a guest on the show a number of times. That's great, Ryan, you'll, you'll get a good education there. That's really cool, yeah.

Ryan Word:

Yeah. I was sad with Dr. Todd, he was supposed to get to be my instructor this year and there was a change at the last minute. So yeah, I've got to meet and work with Loushine many, many times, but he didn't get to be my professor this semester, but I'm hoping our paths will cross in that setting as well.

Jill James:

Yeah, they absolutely will. And he's on the ASSP board too, so you'll probably cross paths in that way as well. I think you had told me you wrote an article for ASSP as well. What was that about?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, so when I first moved up to Wisconsin, I had joined ASSP and I mentioned my passion in safety and my experience was really in construction. So working in that cheese plant, I really didn't have as much challenge in my career as I was used to. So I started looking for other outlets in safety, and that's where I really got more involved with ASSP for the first time. And I did a professional development conference where I got to speak, and the topic I went over was called, Retraining is Not a Corrective Action.

Jill James:

Great.

Ryan Word:

And it was focused on looking further than just saying, "Oh, we need to train people again," as a solution to investigations. And one of my friends up here told me, "Hey, have you ever considered writing for the PSJ?" And of course, no.

Jill James:

Professional safety journal, by the way, if anyone's-

Ryan Word:

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, ASSP's-

Jill James:

No, that's fine.

Ryan Word:

... Professional Safety.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Word:

It's nothing I'd ever considered because I've never... It's not to make myself sound bad, but I've never been much of a reader. I've never been one that just wants to sit down and dig through, sit down and read a novel. With the exception of-

Jill James:

Unless it's the CFR, yeah, okay.

Ryan Word:

Absolutely. For some reason, I can read CFR all night long, but if you give me a novel, it's just-

Jill James:

Oh, that's awesome.

Ryan Word:

... not my cup of cake.

Jill James:

Okay.

Ryan Word:

So the idea of writing anything other than a safety manual, that wasn't really in my thought process. But I sat down and I turned what was an hour long PowerPoint into 2,000 words in an article, and had some co-workers read it and see if it made sense. And the more I put it on paper, the more that idea kind of went concrete in my mind of, Retraining is Not a Corrective Action. And I submitted that one to the PSJ, and actually they ended up accepting three articles in total, but that was the first one. And they published that one, I guess that was the first one they accepted, but they published it January of this year.

Jill James:

Wow.

Ryan Word:

They held it for an article that it fit better in. But then after I wrote that one, they kind of, one of the editors told me some of the things that they were interested in. And so after that article was accepted, I wrote two more for them, addressing cognitive dissonance in the American workplace, kind of talking about why people don't necessarily believe you when you tell them certain things. And why people like me, like I used to, fight the safety guy. Why, why? And then the third one was Stigmas: the Cause of Safety Silence is what it's called, but talking about the stigmas of things that people don't like to talk about in the workplace.

Jill James:

Ryan, those are, yeah, fascinating. Want to read them and we will try to get them in the show notes so as people are listening to this, they'll be able to find them.

Ryan Word:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jill James:

Oh, that's fantastic. So you are now a budding writer?

Ryan Word:

Yeah. Something I never would've thought for myself. They gave me a pen, like a lapel pen that says, "PSJ author," on the pen. And at first I felt so pretentious with the idea of calling myself an author.

Jill James:

I have one of those from them as well. It's kind of sweet.

Ryan Word:

Oh, but now, yeah, but now it sits in my desk and it's rather endearing and I've enjoyed it. And I've continued writing, I've sent a few more to them. I've met a few other people. So there's some other people even within my chapter that have written some articles that have been published. So there's a little community of people up here that have written and published, and I've really got to expand that network with them as well and it's been really fun.

Jill James:

That's pretty sweet. So you had told me when we were planning this conversation that you're allergic to spare time, and I think we're getting a flavor for that now. The guy who sits on the sofa and reads the CFR and decides to become an accidental writer as well. What else do you do in your allergic to spare time time?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, so that's always been my joke, and my wife will tell you too, I'm allergic to spare time. I started, I work full time, obviously. I'm married, I have two great kids. Currently I have a foreign exchange kid at home as well. And then we decided to put my son in Cub Scouts when he was in kindergarten, but they didn't have a den leader to run his group of four boys. So I was like, you know what? We put him in the Scouts, I want to be able to spend time with him. I'll be the den leader. So I took over den leader for the Scouts. The next year they said, "Hey, we don't have anybody to run the popcorn sale."

Jill James:

That's [inaudible 00:34:47].

Ryan Word:

"There's only 50 kids and $30,000 worth of popcorn, but would you be interested?" So last year I became the Popcorn Kernel. And really, if I'm telling the truth, I only accepted it because the title sounds fun.

Jill James:

That's hilarious, the Popcorn Kernel.

Ryan Word:

But I became Popcorn Kernel, and then this year our Cub Master is stepping down, so they were looking for a new Cub Master, and of course, I can't say no. So this year I became the Cub Master for my local Cub Scout troop, I'm over our whole little army of Cubs, and that's a really great program. You mentioned ASSP, so I started off on the board. I went Vice President and was recently elected to President, so I could spend a lot of time with ASSP.

Jill James:

Yeah, but Red Cross and ABC as well. Yes?

Ryan Word:

Yeah, so Red Cross started as I was a CPR instructor in Florida and I found out more and more about Red Cross. I didn't realize that CPR training is one of the main ways that American Red Cross funds their disaster services that they provide people. And as I had more and more involvement with Red Cross, I slowly joined their disaster action teams, which respond to tornadoes, fires and disasters all across the country. And then again, because I can't say no, I ended up being a lead for the counties that I live in, or two counties that I live in the near. Here in Wisconsin, I lead a disaster action team, became a shelter supervisor for emergency shelters with them. I teach hands-only CPR through Red Cross as a volunteer. And then, yeah, the ABC, joined the safety committee there. Yeah, and-

Jill James:

ABC for anyone who doesn't know, it's associated building contractors.

Ryan Word:

So yeah, and then, yeah, just to boot, just because I guess I wasn't quite busy enough, I also started full-time college, so I stay pretty busy.

Jill James:

Oh, man. You had quite the bounce back from, I think you told me 16 broken bones.

Ryan Word:

Yep. Yeah, I mean, it was, yes.

Jill James:

What a return, what a return. Yeah, I'm glad you both survived. Yeah, Ryan, I know that you have a passion, and do you want to talk about what your passion is? I mean, you are a passionate person, we've been hearing them the whole time. However, I think there's one that you wanted to talk about for sure.

Ryan Word:

So one thing that I talk about a lot in my safety journey when I talk to people is finding your why. That's another thing that attracted me to Faith, because what's your why, is a mantra for them as a company. And it's something that I get to start off a lot of safety trainings with, is I personally got to live out the experience of what happens when safety goes wrong. I was severely injured at an early age, and we didn't even talk about it, but 10 years after my injury, I was on a job site in Orlando climbing a ladder, and one of the screws in my shoulder failed, and my shoulder came back apart. I ended up hitting the ground, having to have surgery again to rebuild my shoulder. And the second time they rebuilt it, I spent almost 16 weeks immobilized having to sleep in a chair upright, not allowed to lay down, not allowed to take a shower. And at that time, I had an almost two-year-old and a pregnant wife.

Jill James:

Oh, man.

Ryan Word:

And I couldn't help out in the house, I couldn't hold my own child, all because a decade before, somebody thought a simple safety rule didn't apply to them, and that became my why. The reason I do what I do is to stop little, what seemed to be insignificant moments, from having lifelong impacts on people and changing people's lives for the worst, just because we didn't think further than the moment we were living in. So that, what's your why, why do you do what you do, is such a thing that I'm passionate about that I work with people. It's also the same reason I volunteer. I believe in helping people, so American Red Cross, they embody that. I believe in sharing safety with the people around me. ASSP is where I found my niche there. I believe the outdoors and the things that Boy Scout teaches are good for children, so I ended up there as well. I find those things that are important to me. Why do I do what I do? Why do I follow the paths I do? And when you can identify your why, you really get to find your strengths and explore those strengths. So, finding your why has always been a big thing for me. And I love asking people that question, "Hey, why are you here? Why are you working? Why is it important for you to go home at the end of the day?" And if you can get people to answer that question, you get some actually pretty decent conversations out of people.

Jill James:

Yeah. When you talk with people about that, do you ever get deer in the headlights? Like it's something that people hadn't considered, or how do those conversations usually go until you start seeing lights coming on? Or does everyone that you speak with just innately know when you start drilling in?

Ryan Word:

No, some people are right there, they understand what I'm asking and they'll dive into it. You get a handful of people who they think their why is maybe insignificant. What do you care about? Well, really, I just want to go home and play video games, but that's important to you, and that's what you do. You don't live to work, you live for that, and if that's what's important to you, that's fine. The deer in the headlights people, usually, my question to them is, "Hey, you know, get PTO. What are you doing with your next PTO? What are you doing on your next day off? Tell me about your hobbies." Especially asking people about like their PTO, they will inadvertently give you their why.

Jill James:

Good tip.

Ryan Word:

Oh yeah, I'm going down to the Dells and we're going to go to the water park, or I'm going hunting, I'm taking three days off to go hunting. And you'll see people get really passionate about their PTO and then tell them like, "Great, so we have a why."

Jill James:

Fantastic. Yeah, yeah. And you use that why as one of the drivers to compel people to engage with safety for themselves and their cohorts.

Ryan Word:

Absolutely. Trying to get people from, where I first started off in my career in safety, where we'll do this because we have to, the client won't hire us if we don't do this. We've been doing this 15 years and nobody's been hurt, and retraining was the answer to everything, to getting people to care about their own safety. And realizing that really, your success is based on you. So what's important to you? My wife and kids, fantastic. Make the choices that take you home to your wife and kid every day. And when you can get people on board with that, you start really getting somewhere with talking to them about safety and getting them to buy into their own safety. And that's when you truly see culture start to progress and get better.

Jill James:

For sure, for sure. Yeah. Ryan, will you talk about human cause and performance? I think that's another one of your passions.

Ryan Word:

Absolutely. It started with me, HOP, human and organizational performance was a very interesting topic. Obviously I'm a safety nerd, I told you I sit down and read the CFR for funsies. So when I stumbled across this concept of HOP, I had read James Reason's book, Human Error, and then, oh my goodness, I can't remember the name. There was a podcast, the HOP Podcast, the podcast With No Name, and I'm kicking myself for not being able to remember the host's name.

Jill James:

That's okay, that's okay. You keep going. I can see if I can Google it.

Ryan Word:

I think the HOP Podcast With No Name was the name of it, but each episode was kind of a deep dive into, what is human and organizational performance? And I was smitten with the topic. So I started reading and doing research, did some psychological research, that topic alone was one of the things that got me back into college because I want my minor to be in industrial psychology for that purpose. But taking that information, digesting it, and trying to find ways that people could relate to it is what started that training session that I was doing with ASSP about, Retraining is Not a Corrective Action. So getting down to not blaming the employee for things that happen. So an accident happens and sure, we could say, "Jill, you shouldn't have done this. Let's just retrain Jill and move on." But that doesn't fix anything. One of the principles of HOP is, blame fixes nothing, and you can either learn and improve or blame and punish, but you can't do both.

Jill James:

That's right.

Ryan Word:

Taking those principles is what led to that presentation, and ultimately that first article through the PSJ. So, finding a way to relate safety to the human causes behind it. I'll give a, I guess an example of a story. Working at a plant, there was an incident where a newer employee reached her arm into a machine with a moving component inside and got snagged by the machine and almost pulled into the machine herself. And luckily, she escaped with only minor injuries. And when we first started that investigation, the first thing the supervisor said was, "Why would she put her arm in that machine?" And somebody else chained in with, "Well, we should just fire her and set, make a point. And let's make an example and make sure everybody knows that you don't do this or you get fired." And we said, "Well, let's hold on a second. You're right, why would any human just stick their arm into a moving machine with huge blades and pieces?" And-

Jill James:

Yeah, they don't set out to hurt themselves.

Ryan Word:

Right. So, let's look deeper and find out why. And we found out that this particular machine had been having the same problem for months. And what should happen is they should stop production, lock out the machine, get a tool, fix the little problem, and then restart all the machines. But that takes time, it inconveniences a lot of people, so it's not an easy decision to make that I'm just going to shut down an entire factory so I can fix my problem. So there's a tremendous amount of pressure on the employees, especially a new employee, not to be the one to shut down production. And when we asked her, we asked the employee like, "Hey, where'd you get the idea to do it that way? Why was your first thought to just stick your arm in there to fix it?" And she said, "Well, it wasn't my first thought, but I've seen other people do it, and I thought I could too." And that was an aha-moment. So we went back to the other operators and, "Hey, explain to me, have you seen this problem? Have you done this?" And at first they didn't want to talk to me about it, but eventually they admitted, actually, pretty much everybody, every operator we have has done the exact same thing. Just we've been here long enough to know the machine, and so we knew how to put our arm in and get it out before it got hung, she didn't. And so you start seeing a human correlation that A, this is a known problem that nobody's fixed. There's tremendous pressure on these employees because stop work responsibility includes shutting down an entire production line with huge implications, and all of our peers are doing the exact same thing.

Jill James:

Yeah, and I want to just pause for a second, Ryan, and say, huge implications means monetary implications.

Ryan Word:

Right.

Jill James:

And human beings need to know that their human bodies are of greater value than the financial piece to their employer, always. Right?

Ryan Word:

They absolutely should be. I wish more companies felt that way too.

Jill James:

Exactly, Ryan. Exactly, and that's a piece of what you were talking about with a finding your why, right? I mean, if your why is to go home, be with your family, go on vacation, go hunting, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Yeah, that has to be the overpowering message and it's so difficult. Right? It's so difficult in a society where I'm afraid that I'm going to shut down production and mess with the finances of the company, and instead, I'm going to put my body in harm's way.

Ryan Word:

Well, and that's that underlying pressure that exists on people that if you switched immediately to blame, you don't address those problems that still exist.

Jill James:

That's right.

Ryan Word:

I could have fired that employee that day, but the hazard would've still been there, the pressure would've still been there, and eventually, it would've happened again, and hopefully not has been as severe, but who knows? But instead, by focusing on those human factors that lead us into danger, we found that to actually fix the underlying problem that they needed to fix every single day, cost maybe $100 to fix.

Jill James:

Yeah, isn't that... I mean, I've seen this story play out in my 32 years many, many times. And yep, that's usually it.

Ryan Word:

Oh, of course. But you don't get there if you don't ask those questions. And so that's why retraining is not a corrective action. If we had stopped with just retraining the operators, they still would've had the same root cause, the same problem every day they would've had to find their own solutions for. But by stopping, talking to those people, and in the end, that employee who was injured, we didn't write her up, we didn't fire her. We issued no punishment at all because we said, "What happened here was a failure on a human level. Here are the factors that contributed to it. You've all done this, she's just the one who got hurt. Here's how we're going to fix it." We fixed that underlying problem. The $100 that cost us 100,000 in medical bills, we fixed, and we implemented some new safety. So hey, now there's a lockout sensor on that door. If you open it, it locks out automatically.

Jill James:

Fantastic.

Ryan Word:

Which a lot of newer machines come with anyways, but that was older, it didn't, but we made those changes. We were able to fix those problems based on asking those questions and investigating past blaming the employee for doing, as the supervisor said, "That was just a dumb mistake." And looking past that mistake, looking past it and looking into the reasons why. That's been such a fun passion of mine is getting people to flip that switch and really dig deeper and look at that human cause.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. Holistically, holistically.

Ryan Word:

Oh, yes.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah, and treating people like people, I think is another phrase that you use, huh?

Ryan Word:

Mm-hmm, absolutely. And people get hung up sometimes, in the idea that I didn't fire her so HOP must obviously, it disables you from being able to punish your people. And that's not true.

Jill James:

No.

Ryan Word:

There are times that write-ups, terminations and things are appropriate.

Jill James:

Sure.

Ryan Word:

But that incident when we returned that employee back to her job with no write-ups, no adverse action, and instead we just fixed the problem, the communication with that team was transformed. The conversations, the near misses they brought to us. Well, hey, if it's that easy to fix this problem, can we tell you about this problem we're having on this machine as well?

Jill James:

I was just going to ask about that. Fantastic, what a great outcome.

Ryan Word:

Right. When all of a sudden you move away from that blame into that focusing on solutions, that culture started changing almost immediately. It takes a lot of support from the management but that one major incident that had high potential, when you stop and address it appropriately, it does wonders for your culture, which is I guess why one of the HOP principles is response matters. But I got to see it live, and especially after that incident, I was really hooked on it.

Jill James:

That's beautiful, beautiful. And I bet word spreads to other areas as well, and you have more and more people who are like, "Hey, I heard you did something over here. Guess what's happening over here?" Because it's-

Ryan Word:

You become-

Jill James:

Yeah, go ahead.

Ryan Word:

You become a partner in solutions instead of the safety cop.

Jill James:

Right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, because our eyes, as well-trained as they are, we don't get to see or know everything in a facility.

Ryan Word:

Absolutely.

Jill James:

Yeah. That's beautiful. Hey, the hosts of the HOP podcast, Andy and Matt?

Ryan Word:

Yes.

Jill James:

Is that who you're thinking of?

Ryan Word:

Yes, absolutely.

Jill James:

Andrea Baker and Matt Florio?

Ryan Word:

Yeah.

Jill James:

Yeah, good, good. Looks like an interesting-

Ryan Word:

Thank you for that.

Jill James:

You're welcome, you're welcome. That's what Google's for. That's beautiful, yeah. Ryan, other things that you'd like to share with our audience today?

Ryan Word:

Really, just the safety career is a good one. If you're passionate about people, if you're good at speaking to people, that's really the start of it. Just taking the time to care about people, taking the time to care about them going home is the first steps into this career path, because that's what it was for me. Was a firefighter, gone construction worker, and I saw that potential of people being injured. Obviously I experienced it firsthand, but being able, or being passionate about helping people is really the bare minimum to get into this career. Everything else you can add in, just like I did. Reading a manual, taking a class, eventually going back to school 10 years after I got into the trade, you can catch everything else up. But if you find yourself caring about the employees, caring about safety, you might be the next accidental safety pro and you'll get to enjoy a beautiful, fulfilling career just like I have.

Jill James:

Love it, and what a great way to end our time today. Ryan, this has been an absolute pleasure, and I'm so happy that your career turned out as well as it did, and the ways in which you've been able to give back all of these years, from Florida to Wisconsin. It's beautiful. Thank you.

Ryan Word:

Thank you. I appreciate you having me here. It's been, I've always enjoyed getting to listen to these stories on your podcast, so I can't really believe that I get to be among those stories here, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate getting to be a part of this with you.

Jill James:

Oh, I'm happy to be the archivist of all of these fantastic stories. Yeah, thank you. And thank you all for spending your time listening today, and more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. May our employees and those we influence know that our profession cares deeply about human wellbeing, which is the core of our practice. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. Or if you'd prefer, you can read the transcript and listen at HSI.com. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes, it really helps us connect the show with more and more safety professionals like Ryan and I. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.