Safety Moment - The Power of Light in Darkness: A Metaphor for Organizational Growth

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So let's start with kind of an ancient metaphor. It's been around forever.

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In fact, it's such an ancient metaphor, I don't even know who to cite.

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Is it Egyptian? I don't think so. Is it Greek?

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Maybe. Is it Roman? I don't know. It's been around a long time,

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but I want to share it with you because I think it actually is an important

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way to sort of set the stage for the work you do.

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We'll be right back.

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Music.

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Hey, everybody. Todd Conklin, Pre-Accident Investigation Safety Moment.

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These are those tiny little moments.

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Let's jump into this metaphor because it's a really interesting one.

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So it's an ancient metaphor.

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And what it basically says is, no matter how dark it is, one single point of

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light will always be visible.

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So if you think about the sky, like the sky, and it's completely dark, it's as dark as can be.

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And yet you can see the light, the pinpoint light of a star,

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the first star of the evening.

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So no matter how dark it is, one single point of light is visible.

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The metaphor goes on. And this is kind of where it becomes sort of teachable.

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This is where it becomes a metaphor.

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When it's 100% light, one single point of dark is virtually impossible to see.

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And I want you to think about that as you think about the work we do.

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When it's really dark, anything you can do to bring improvement to your organization will be noticed.

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The transverse of that and where the metaphor makes its money is when things

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are really good, you have a high-performing team that likes each other,

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lots of trust, clear understanding of roles, responsibility,

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accountability, and authority.

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When you look at the organization that's functioning beautifully,

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one negative criticism hardly is noticeable.

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In fact, it's probably impossible to notice, or maybe I should say it's easy to ignore.

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When it's dark, a single point of light is incredibly visible.

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But when it's bright, a single point of darkness is hard to see.

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I think that's worth thinking about.

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That is a very interesting metaphor And it's certainly a good way to think about

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The work you do every single day,

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Learn something new every single day I bet you did today Have as much fun as

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you possibly can Be good to each other Be kind to each other Take care of each

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other And for goodness sakes, you guys Be safe Be safe.

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Music.