Logo
Shawn M. Galloway Headshot
Report a problem with this profile
[email protected]

Shawn M. Galloway    

CEO of ProAct Safety, Safety Culture Expert, Bestselling Author

Shawn M. Galloway is the CEO of the global consultancy ProAct Safety and the author of eight bestselling books, including "STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence" (WILEY, 2013), "Forecasting Tomorrow: The Future of Safety Excellence" (SCE Press, 2015), "Inside Strategy: Value Creating from within Your Organization" (SCE Press, 2016), and "Lean Behavior-Based Safety - BBS for Today's Realities" (SCE Press, 2017). His work spans various dimensions of safety and leadership, emphasizing the integration of safety into business strategies to enhance organizational culture and performance.

Galloway has over twenty years of experience in safety systems, strategy, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. He has successfully assisted hundreds of organizations across major industries, including firms like ExxonMobil, ChevronPhillips, and Starbucks, in achieving and sustaining excellence in safety performance and culture. Renowned for his contributions to the field, Galloway has received numerous awards such as the Global Safety Excellence Expert and EHS Today Magazine's 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS.

An influential speaker and thought leader, Galloway has delivered insightful keynotes on safety culture and personal accountability in safety practices at various national and international forums. He is a regular columnist for several leading magazines and has created and hosted over 800 episodes of the "Safety Culture Excellence" podcast, the first safety-focused podcast in the industry. His speaking topics cover a wide range, including Business Strategy, Change, Employee Engagement, Human Resources, Leadership, and Management, providing valuable insights and tools that help organizations develop and sustain a culture of safety excellence.

Speech Topics

Creating and Sustaining Safety Culture Excellence

Organizations on the path towards excellence in any operational category must examine and plan to leverage their culture. Does the culture work with or against the plan? What will the culture support and what will it resist? Cultures are the most effective sustainability tool an organization has; it works hard to maintain the status quo. Or, if involved and leveraged effectively, it will develop ownership and reinforce the desired direction of change. Excellence in performance is only obtained through highly-functioning cultures. Cultures can be leveraged to obtain significant results, but only if there is a clear understanding of the starting point, the destination, and the overall executable strategy. Leadership must realize they are not only responsible for the culture of the organization, but also how it is managed, to drive breakthrough performance. Culture can be a barrier or an opportunity. How you look at it isn't necessarily the answer; how you manage it is. All organizations desire to achieve and maintain zero injuries and a culture of safety excellence, but how confident are they in their strategy to get there? Learn how best-performing organizations develop strategies to achieve the most effective sustainability mechanism in safety: a culture of excellence.

Shaping the Future of Safety Excellence

Much has been written about the need for safety to be integrated into business thinking for safety to become the way of business and a core value rather than priority. Not enough attention is placed on the need for business practices to be integrated into safety thinking. Safety is not simple. It is more than rule-following, common-sense and paying attention. Safety is influenced by culture, systems, leadership styles, history, economy, locations, etc. One of the most significant differentiators of successful organizations in safety is the way safety is strategically managed. For excellence in any operational category to be recognized, it is imperative employees make decisions and behave in alignment with the intended strategic direction. Safety is not a standalone strategy within a business; it must be an integral part of the overall operational plan. How clear is your strategic direction and how well can employees easily see the role safety plays within it? Without strategy, is the recognition of new safety results more than luck? Is the inability to improve because of the intervention or other influences? Everyone wants excellence in safety performance and safety culture, yet often forgets excellence is not just about results. Rather, it is the confidence and ability to articulate why great results were achieved and the knowledge of how to repeat and advance year after year.

My Safety or Yours, I'd Rather Not Rely on Luck!

Whether we realize it or not, every day we put ourselves in situations that could go horribly wrong. We all take calculated risks; some of us are just better calculators than others. At work and home, we end each day without an injury and consider it a safe day. How wrong we are. There are two ways to not get injured: consciously take the right precautions, or get lucky. For safety to truly become infused into company decisions, behavior and culture, it cannot be delegated nor managed by a corporate entity. Safety is not the sole responsibility of the employer; it is everyone's responsibility. Yes, that means you, too! If you disagree, I have some stories for you. Significant-event stories are shared in this heartwarming talk that not only inspire and motivate the audience, but also provide the thinking necessary to change behavior and increase personal accountability.

Stop Trying to Create a Safety Culture – Evolve the One You Have!

Safety culture has become the new catch phrase, program focus and desire of global executives. “We need a safety culture!” Safety culture is not new; stop trying to create it. Safety goals should not be focused on the creation of safety culture; rather, they should be focused on strategically improving the influential culture that already exists. Rather than questioning if you have a safety culture, ask, “Are we managing our safety culture, or being managed by it?” Based on the 2013 bestseller, STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, coauthor Shawn M. Galloway will share practical steps hundreds of organizations have taken to achieve and sustain Safety Culture Excellence.

Give Them Value & Get Out Of The Way!

Leaders who view employees as the customers of safety programs constantly seek to provide them value. Those who view employees as the problem tend to micromanage and get in the way of their own progress. Truly inspired safety leaders market safety inside the company the same way they market their goods and services to external customers. They seek to determine their needs and meet them. They measure success by the amount of value added. They truly empower and engage their workers and then they stand aside and watch them create excellent performance. Great safety leaders are strategic thinkers. Their strategies center on adding needed value to the efforts of their workers. They never accept a practice as the best practice, because they know there is an even better one yet to be discovered. Their mindset is on a journey, not a destination, and they embody the principles of continuous improvement.
Explore, through the power of stories and easy-to-implement models, how to become this kind of safety leader in this moving and memorable talk led by one of the most prolific contributors to the safety industry.

Overcoming the Five Reasons For Undesired Performance

Leaders set expectations and manage the influences on them, but some spend too much time managing displeasing results. No effective leader can truly expect perfect performance from every one of their direct reports one-hundred percent of the time. Those who have unrealistic expectations misunderstand human behavior and its influences, and likely create undesirable work environments. Managing, coaching or counseling undesired performance is an integral part of any leader’s responsibilities. How is this handled in your organization? A powerful five-part model will be shared along with case studies and proven tactics sure to increase the effectiveness of how attendees manage influences on desired and undesired performance within their organizations.

Show more speech topics
From Lagging to Leading to Transformational Indicators: Measuring the Value of Safety

Many organizations suffer from a programmatic focus and demonstrate an activities-based culture, whether these activities add value or not. Measuring activities to determine the health of improvement efforts or culture tells you very little if excellence is your goal. Excellence is not just zero injuries or incidents; it is the ability to win through the achievement of great results, with strong and confident insight into how the results were achieved, and a culture that focuses on a continuous improvement mindset. Safety must evolve to measure not just the things we do to try to improve the lagging indicator results, but also the contribution of value from our activities to our results.

Forecasting Tomorrow: The Future of Safety Excellence

From the new bestselling book, Forecasting Tomorrow: The Future of Safety Excellence, explore what safety excellence will look like ten years from now and how it will be achieved. Emerging trends are becoming increasing visible regarding how safety is viewed, thought of, strategically managed, and how progress is measured. Moreover, the cast of characters, the roles they play, and accountability for responsibilities are evolving, all for the better. The seven predictions within this presentation are based on the authors' years of deep experience as a trusted safety advisor across all industry sectors. Tap this vital industry intelligence to create a powerful safety strategy for your business and turn your culture into a competitive advantage.

Behavior-Based Safety: Haters, Apostles and the Uninformed

People tend to respond one of three ways when it comes to BBS, and rightfully so. There are those who are strong supporters because they have witnessed transformations. Others adamantly despise the process, usually because they either do not understand the intention of the efforts or have had bad experiences due to improper or unethical implementation practices, design choices, or the culture and climate in their company wasn’t ready! Then, there are some who are new to the methodologies and are trying to determine if it is right for them and their organization. Case studies, lessons learned, most important considerations, and hidden pitfalls shared in this talk will be the most effective 90 minutes you will spend on this topic.

Key Ingredients: What Makes a Safety Strategy Effective

How effective is your safety strategy? Does it include all the necessary key ingredients or is it missing something important? A great strategy charts a course and explains where the organization is going, where they are currently against the plan, what it will look like when they get there, what data supported the decisions that were made, and what measurements will provide timely feedback to continue the path, course-correct and continuously improve. As you work to develop or enhance your safety excellence strategy, make sure it includes the proven, vital ingredients outlined in this powerful talk and is the subject of the 2016 book, Inside Strategy: Value Creation from within Your Organization.

STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence

Based on the 2013 bestselling book, coauthor, Shawn Galloway, will outline a universal process for identifying, prioritizing, and solving safety problems at the organizational, behavioral, conditional, or cultural levels. Using one process for addressing all safety issues eliminates the need for continuously bringing in new consultants, programs, and approaches that create the ‘flavor of the month’ mentality. The process is called STEPS (Strategic Targets for Excellent Performance in Safety)

  • Examine a standard methodology used by excellent safety organizations to identify virtually any type of safety issue or problem
  • Explore innovative ways to measure success and progress
  • Discover how one process can replace multiple programs and allow for seamless transition of focus without causing a flavor-of-the-month culture

The Transformational Leader: From Hands and Feet to Hearts and Minds

How do we get more effort from people? A leader’s ability to inspire and influence will become his or her single most effective, competitive advantage. Once higher levels are reached in an organization, individuals are less judged by what they have personally contributed and more by what they have led others to accomplish. Do employees perform excellently because you inspire them to, or because they are fearful? Do you have a “have-to” or a “want-to” culture? Sustainable excellence develops from a motivated and inspired workforce; it is not the results of behavioral manipulation or managed delegation. All leaders face challenges that intensify with each new hypercompetitive priority. The successful leader of tomorrow must become transformational to succeed. Attendees will receive tools and techniques that can be immediately applied, transforming their value to the organization, and helping them recognize sustainable step-change improvement in culture and performance.

Show less speech topics

Related Speakers View all

More like Shawn