What You Don't Know

Will Hurt You: The

Top 8 Skills Safety
Professionals Need
to Master
By: Lorenzo M. Pagcaliwagan

What makes a successful safety professional? And what are the key
behaviors, actions and thinking processes necessary to craft this career
that is rewarding and meaningful and meets your needs and wants over
the long arch of your professional life?

These are issues that executive and career coaches and leadership
trainers grapple with each and every day. They are deep questions that
defy simple answers or superficial tactics. But deep as they are, there
are some basic fundamentals that every professional needs to master in
order to succeed in and enjoy his/her professional life. From my
experience as a safety professional, the vast majority of professionals
today have not received the necessary training, information,
understanding or knowledge they need to ensure theyll remain on a
positive track and build a career that will be fruitful, productive and
successful as the years go on.

What do safety professionals really need to know?

All working individuals and professionals need significant competency
and skill in all of the following eight areas in order to be successful, and
most are sorely lacking in several if not most of them. (My anecdotal
research shows that most are lacking in at least three of these skills at the
same time):
1) Communication Skill
In order to be successful in your job and career, you must communicate
powerfully and effectively with confidence and clarity. Theres been
much written about introverts as leaders and managers, and how they
can use their innate skills and gifts to succeed as leaders. Your
personality type and level of introversion/extroversion aside, if you cant
communicate your ideas in an empowered, clear and engaging way, you
simply wont perform or progress as well as your counterparts who can
communicate with ease and strength.

How to enhance communication skills:

Part 1 of 4. Understanding the basics of Communication Skills

A. Know what communication really is. Communication is the

process of transferring signals/messages between a sender and a
receiver through various methods (written words, nonverbal cues,
spoken words). It is also the mechanism we use to establish and
modify relationships.

B. Have courage to say what you think. Be confident in knowing

that you can make worthwhile contributions to conversation. Take
time each day to be aware of your opinions and feelings so you can
adequately convey them to others. Individuals who are hesitant to
speak because they do not feel their input would be worthwhile
need not fear. What is important or worthwhile to one person may
not be to another and may be more so to someone else.

C. Practice. Developing advanced communication skills begins with

simple interactions. Communication skills can be practiced every
day in settings that range from the social to the professional. New
skills take time to refine, but each time you use your
communication skills, you open yourself to opportunities and
future partnerships.
Part 2 of 4. Engaging Your Audience

A. Make eye contact. Whether you are speaking or listening,

looking into the eyes of the person with whom you are conversing
can make the interaction more successful. Eye contact conveys
interest and encourages your partner to be interested in you in
return.

One technique to help with this is to consciously look into one of

the listeners eyes and then move to the other eye. Going back and
forth between the two makes your eyes appear to sparkle. Another
trick is to imagine a letter T on the listeners face, with the cross
bar being an imaginary line across the eye brows and the vertical
line coming down the center of the nose. Keep your eyes scanning
that T zone.

B. Use gestures. These include gestures with your hands and face.
Make your whole body talk. Use smaller gestures for individuals
and small groups. The gestures should get larger as the group that
one is addressing increases in size.

C. Dont send mixed messages. Make your words, gestures, facial

expressions and tone match. Disciplining someone while smiling
sends a mixed message and is therefore ineffective. If you have to
deliver a negative message, make your words, facial expressions,
and tone match the message.

D. Be aware of what your body is saying. Body language can say

so much more than a mouthful of words. An open stance with arms
relaxed at your sides tells anyone around you that you are
approachable and open to hearing what they have to say.
 Arms crossed and shoulders hunched, on the other hand,
suggest disinterest in conversation or unwillingness to
communicate. Often, communication can be stopped before it
starts by body language that tells people you don't want to
talk.
Appropriate posture and an approachable stance can make
even difficult conversations flow more smoothly.

E. Manifest constructive attitudes and beliefs. The attitudes

you bring to communication will have a huge impact on the way
you compose yourself and interact with others. Choose to be
honest, patient, optimistic, sincere, respectful, and accepting of
others. Be sensitive to other people's feelings, and believe in others'
competence.

F. Develop effective listening skills: Not only should one be able

to speak effectively; one must listen to the other person's words
and engage in communication on what the other person is speaking
about. Avoid the impulse to listen only for the end of their sentence
so that you can blurt out the ideas or memories your mind while
the other person is speaking.

Part 3 of 4. Using Your Words

A. Enunciate your words. Speak clearly and dont mumble. If

people are always asking you to repeat yourself, try to do a better
job of articulating yourself in a better manner.

B. Pronounce your words correctly. People will judge your

competency through your vocabulary. If you arent sure of how to
say a word, dont use it.
 C. Use the right words. If youre not sure of the meaning of a word,
dont use it. Grab a dictionary and start a daily habit of learning
one new word per day. Use it sometime in your conversations
during the day.

D. Slow your speech down. People will perceive you as nervous

and unsure of yourself if you talk fast. However, be careful not to
slow down to the point where people begin to finish your sentences
just to help you finish.

Part 4 of 4. Using Your Voice

A. Develop your voice. A high or whiny voice is not perceived to be

one of authority. In fact, a high and soft voice can make you sound
like prey to an aggressive co-worker or make others not take you
seriously. Begin doing exercises to lower the pitch of your voice.
Try singing, but do it an octave lower on all your favorite songs.
Practice this and, after a period of time, your voice will begin to
lower.

B. Animate your voice. Avoid a monotone and use dynamics. Your

pitch should raise and lower periodically. Radio DJ's are usually a
good example of this.

C. Use appropriate volume. Use a volume that is appropriate for

the setting. Speak more softly when you are alone and close. Speak
louder when you are speaking to larger groups or across larger
spaces.
Tips:

Try to speak fluently and try to make sure people can hear you
when you speak.
A good speaker is a good listener.
Do not interrupt or talk over the other person--it breaks the flow of
conversation. Timing is important.
Use appropriate volume for your conversation setting.
Get feedback from your receiver to ensure you were properly
understood during your conversation.
Have confidence when talking, it doesn't matter what other people
think.
Make sure you're using proper grammar.
Don't over-praise yourself in front of your audience.

2) Building Relationships
So many safety professionals dont get this one basic point until its too
late you cannot do what you want in your career, and advance
successfully, if youre an island. And you certainly cant achieve what you
long for if youve alienated all your colleagues, peers and managers. One
terrible boss had taught me something very smart many years ago. As
horrible as he was at leading and managing, he did know one core
principle no matter how talented and gifted you are at your job, if you
dont have supportive relationships at work, you wont succeed. Another
way to say this is that if you hate who you work with and for, theyll end
up hating you back.

When building positive relationships, it is important to act in a respectful

manner. Be respectful to your co-workers by listening to their positions
and responding in a professional manner. Respect yourself by staying in
control of your emotions and using your best judgment when working
towards conflict resolution with co-workers. For example: If you are
having a disagreement with a co-worker, take a few deep breaths before
responding or agree to discuss the issue at a later time so that you can
walk away from the situation and come up with an appropriate,
professional response.

3) Decision-Making
Safety professionals must make scores of decisions every day from
whom they sit with at lunch, to what raise to ask for, to new assignments
theyll accept. Do you understand HOW to make a decision so that it:

1) aligns with what you really want,

2) adds to your skill base and experience, and

3) creates new opportunities for you that will be beneficial?

Further, do you know how to make decisions that will generate the
outcomes that are most desired for the system of the organization? Most
individuals have never learned how to evaluate with discernment whats
in front of them, or how to calculate the risks and benefits of each
decision they face.

4) Leadership
We as safety professionals are leaders and more often managers not only
with the workplace but with the people working with us as well. I dont
know about you, but I never received one scrap of training in my years of
safety professional career about how to be an inspiring leader and
manager. I had no clue about the traits, behaviors and actions that true
leaders demonstrate, and what stands them apart from the rest. Key to a
professionals success is learning how to empower, inspire and motivate
others, to build a vision thats compelling and to engender trust, loyalty
and support from others to strive toward that vision which is to ensure
safety at all times. In my safety professional life, I didnt understand the
importance of being other-focused vs. self-focused, or see how my every
action either built on or eroded my leadership and managerial ability and
impact.
5) Advocating and Negotiating for Yourself and Your Causes
In occupational health and safety, you have to advocate and negotiate
continually for yourself, for your people, for your safety concerns, for
your responsibilities, etc. How many safety professionals today can say
they know how to speak up for their own causes and support their own
advancement in effective, productive ways? And how many know how to
negotiate powerfully for what they want and what they need to imply?
That said, if you cant advocate powerfully for your own behalf, its a rare
thing that anyone else will.

6) Career Planning and Management

Im sure youve noticed your career doesnt tend to grow in the right
direction unless you proactively manage it. In doing so, can you answer
this question: When youre 90 years old looking back, what do you want
to have stood for, given, contributed, taught, created, and left
behind? What do you want people to say about you? In your professional
life, do you know what you want, and what you really want? Until you
can answer these questions (and more), youll struggle in creating a
career path that will lead you to the ultimate destination you
want. Youll end up floating in an aimless sea of missed opportunities.

7) Work-Life Balance
While the struggles of balancing life and work continue to hit OFWs with
young children the hardest, the need and desire for work-life balance is
an issue that everyone faces. Do you know exactly how to balance (or
integrate) your life and work? Do you understand that it requires fierce
prioritization, and a deep and unwavering knowledge of what matters
most to you, so that you can act from that knowledge with confidence
and power? Have you received training on how to negotiate the
conflicting demands of our home and family life with what our employer
wants from you? Most would answer Heck no, and I need it! to that
question.
8) Boundary Enforcement
From one of my trainings apart from my safety enhancement trainings, I
learned that boundaries are the invisible barrier between you and your
outside systems (work, church, family, friends, etc.). Your boundaries
regulate the flow of information and input to and from you and your
outside systems. If you are unable to 1) understand yourself, and your
own needs and wants, and 2) create an appropriate, protective boundary
around these non-negotiables, then success as a professional will be
extremely challenging. Developing sufficient boundaries and enforcing
them every day in your professional life is an essential behavior, and how
you defend your boundaries can make or break your career. Do you
know where you end and others (including your employer) begin?
We werent born understanding these basic professional fundamentals,
but theyre vital to our career success nonetheless. If any of these issues
feels challenging to you, Id encourage you to obtain some outside
training, and better yet, ask your employer for it. Training and mastery
in these areas will help you grow in your ability to manage yourself, your
emotions, your communications, your decision making and your career
planning so that you will be able to shape the direction of your
professional life, not be at the whim of it.

Thank you for reading. If you find value in these ebook please share them
with your friends.

To making life better,

Lorenzo M. Pagcaliwagan