The 14 Things -Safety

Why Safety Tells You Everything About Project Health (And the Seven Non-Negotiable Responsibilities Senior Leaders Must Own)

Here’s what most construction leaders miss about safety: they treat it as a compliance requirement, a program to manage, a metric to track instead of recognizing it’s the single most revealing indicator of whether your project is actually healthy. You can have great schedule performance and still be failing. You can hit budget targets and still be broken. You can please the owner and still be destroying people. But you cannot have excellent safety and be failing at everything else. Safety reveals culture. Safety reveals leadership. Safety reveals whether systems actually work or just exist on paper. Safety reveals whether respect for people is real or theater. When I walk onto a project site, I can tell you within 30 minutes whether that project is healthy just by observing safety not the metrics, not the posters, not the reports. The actual safety culture visible in how people work, how leaders respond, how the site is controlled.

When I was at Hensel Phelps, I was taught what’s called the Book of 14 those are 14 things that a project executive, operations manager, project director, or general superintendent checks to make sure a project is going well. I started using that throughout my career to much success, and I really appreciate that list. So, I’m going to repeat it here and talk about specifics, pulling from multiple different companies. I want to give Hensel Phelps a shout-out for this it’s a really neat list of things you can go through to basically do an assessment on how well the project is going. And safety is number one on that list. Not schedule. Not budget. Not owner satisfaction. Safety. Because if safety is right, leadership is engaged, systems are working, and culture is healthy. And when those three things are right, everything else follows.

The Zero Tolerance Out of Respect Approach

Let me start with a story. When I was a project superintendent, I wanted to make sure projects were 100% beautifully safe. And I knew, especially on the first projects I ran as superintendent, that I would have time to do everything I needed to do. So, I chose zero tolerance based out of respect, and I learned that from Intel.

If you’re doing something wrong at Intel you’re on top of a ladder without proper fall protection, you’re working on live electrical without lockout-tagout you get escorted out of the project and you never return. Now I don’t particularly like the thought that that would happen to somebody, but it’s better than the alternative in a place like that: getting hurt or killed. It’s definitely a concept based out of respect that I can get behind. And everybody there on that campus towed the line. They followed the rules. And I thought “oh my gosh, everybody can follow the rules.”

I’d always been taught that you have to walk up to somebody and coddle them, and not bruise their ego, and then beg them, and then incentivize them. And it’s like no, no, no. People are smart. There’s a minimum pay-to-play here, and we can get this done. So, I would always do it out of respect, never punishment.

What Zero Tolerance Out of Respect Means

I’ve heard stories from the gas fields or up north in the petrochemical plants or other places where somebody would use zero tolerance like they were a police officer trying to catch you and get you in trouble. That’s not me. Mine was a unified effort where if you weren’t following the rules, we were going to get you to a place that was safe. A place where you get more training, get the resources you need. Or and this is actually none of my business if it’s an attitude adjustment that person and that company need to decide for themselves, then they would have the time to go ahead and get that done.

But I’m not going to let the work proceed in any way, shape, or fashion where somebody could get hurt because they don’t have the right training, resources, equipment, or mindset. And it worked. I only had to send about 20 people home over the course of about two years on the first project where I was the lead superintendent. And it was amazing. The culture shifted. People knew the standard. And safety became excellent not through fear but through respect.

Multiple Valid Approaches to the Same Standard

Now here’s what’s important: I’ve heard other superintendents achieve the same result through different methods. I remember one general superintendent who said “Jason, I’m not going to send people home, but what I will do is walk the trades twice a week through the entire project. And basically, if there’s a pile of trash, I’ll ask who’s going to take care of it. Or if there’s somebody not wearing their safety glasses, I’ll ask that foreman to go correct it right then and there.” And they got the same results. I love that. I think it’s phenomenal.

Different approaches. Same standard. Same outcome. The method matters less than the commitment to zero tolerance of unsafe conditions. What matters is the standard is clear, the standard is maintained, and leadership owns it.

When I Had to Lead Without Direct Control

I remember when I was promoted to field director and was also project director on this project, overseeing a senior project manager and superintendent to make sure the project was delivering with the standards we’d set. Not having full control was tough for me. I remember having to take the superintendent and project manager out in the field a couple times gently and very seriously. I was like “hey guys, I really appreciate your leadership. I want to do it your way. But these are some of the things I’m seeing, and I really need this to be tidied up and figured out.”

And to their credit, they got it figured out. Through influence and really focusing on the morning worker huddle, they got the project to my expectations and didn’t have to implement my zero-tolerance-out-of-respect approach. They found their own way to the same standard. That’s leadership respecting other leaders while maintaining non-negotiable outcomes.

The Seven Safety Responsibilities Senior Leaders Must Own

So, there are lots of different ways to achieve excellent safety. But we have to make sure it’s done. And senior leader’s general superintendent, senior superintendent, project superintendent, project director, project executive have specific responsibilities they cannot delegate. Here are the seven non-negotiable safety responsibilities:

Responsibility 1: Own the Safety Culture, Don’t Just Support It

You can’t just be like “well, you’ve got to let the project superintendent and project manager run it their way.” No, you don’t. We have to make sure it’s 100% safe, clean, and organized at all times. That’s what we have to do. Whoever the senior leader is has got to own the safety culture, set the tone, make sure we are actually pulling the andon and stopping work when necessary, and coaching people on the project site.

I’ve seen general superintendents who don’t have direct day-to-day responsibility for the project because they have multiple projects literally set such a tone, such a positive influence, and do so much training. When he or she is on a field walk, they pick up trash, look at safety, and dig in so deeply that the project team really takes it seriously and gets the same results. That’s owning the culture, not just supporting someone else’s culture.

Responsibility 2: Make the Safety Plan Real and Job-Specific

One of the things I heard the other day from somebody who got to work with Hensel Phelps as a trade partner raved about their JIP brochure Job Information Policy brochure. This talks about everything specific to this site: the logistics, how to submit your pay application, where to go for orientation. Everything is on there. It’s absolutely remarkable.

When you’re talking about safety, a company should have a clear and visual safety plan. The first time I ever worked at Hensel Phelps, I got this pocket guide booklet. It had everything in there I needed to know when it came to safety. And it was very, very visual. When we started Leanbelt, we took the same concept and created our own.

Site-specific safety plans in the JIP brochure and in orientation have to be so remarkable that people understand exactly how to be safe on that site. Generic safety manuals don’t work. Site-specific, visual, accessible safety information works. If you’re a senior leader, you’ve got to make sure the safety plan is real and job-specific, not just corporate boilerplate nobody reads.

Responsibility 3: Tight Pre-Task Planning and Hazard Analysis

The problem is there’s too many words, too much administration around pre-task planning. If I was running a project today, every trade partner would have their own whiteboard with the pre-task plan items behind it. And I would make sure we had 100% yes, I said 100% compliance with crews visually understanding what they needed to do that day from a safety and also a quality standpoint, visually sketched out on those boards every single day.

Not forms filled out in trailers. Not generic checklists nobody looks at. Visual boards at the zone level where crews are working, showing today’s specific hazards, today’s specific controls, today’s specific plan. That’s what makes pre-task planning real instead of administrative theater.

Responsibility 4: Control the Site Like an Airport

I love this concept. I did a podcast a long time ago about signage like an airport. Well, unless you’re talking about Atlanta airport, a good airport let’s say Phoenix Sky Harbor. You can go in there and know where you need to go at any time. It is so clear.

You’ve got to have on your project site access, logistics, housekeeping, public signage, wayfinding signage all super clear. Fencing has to be beautiful. Access points have to be beautiful. Badging and sign-in has to be effective. Visitor personal protective equipment has to be ready. Escort rules have to be clear. Sign-ins have to be queued up properly. Everything needs to be done to where you’re literally controlling that site with clear visuals like an airport.

If somebody can walk onto your site and not immediately understand where they’re allowed to go, where hazards exist, what PPE is required, and how to access the areas they need your site control is failing. Make it as clear as an airport.

Responsibility 5: Be Strict But Fair

This is what I mean by this: You cannot allow people on your job site to come terrorize the job site with bad behaviors, not following the guidelines, not having PPE, not pre-staging properly, not queuing up correctly, not having the right things and trying to push through safety gates.

You have got to make sure that however you do it, everybody knows if something is wrong, we will stop. Now you can do zero tolerance out of respect my way, you can do it your way, but you cannot let unsafe work happen. Period.

You’ve got to make sure nothing is happening on your project site when it comes to the critical safety areas that kill people and destroy families.

The Seven Critical Safety Areas That Cannot Fail

• Falls: Proper fall protection, guardrails, safety nets, personal fall arrest systems. Falls kill more construction workers than any other hazard.
• Cranes and Rigging: Proper rigging, qualified operators, load charts followed, exclusion zones maintained. Crane failures are catastrophic.
• Excavation and Trenching: Proper shoring, sloping, benching, competent person on site. Trench collapses bury workers alive in seconds.
• Electrical: All live electrical has GFCI protection, lockout-tagout procedures followed, only qualified electricians on energized systems. Electrocution is instant.
• Hot Work: Permits required, fire watch present, extinguishers staged, combustibles cleared. Fires destroy projects and kill workers.
• Confined Spaces: Permits required, air monitoring continuous, rescue plans in place, proper signage preventing unauthorized entry. Atmospheric hazards kill rescuers too.
• Mobile Equipment: Spotters present, backing plans followed, pedestrian separation enforced. Equipment strikes are often fatal.

Everything has to be done to the nth degree in these seven areas. And if those things aren’t working properly, that means the senior leader said it was okay. That’s a hard thing to hear, but it’s true. The good thing is if we are accountable and responsible, we can set the trajectory of the project site toward safety excellence.

Responsibility 6: Proper Training and Verify Competency

The project site will have proper training and verify competency in the orientations so people don’t come onto the project site unless they’re ready and fit for duty. I love that term “fit for duty” you don’t do something unless you’re fit, unless from a physical and mental standpoint, you’re ready to go, unless you’re clear and trained.

Orientation isn’t administrative paperwork. It’s verification that everyone entering the site understands the hazards, knows the controls, has the training, and is mentally and physically ready to work safely. If someone’s not fit for duty whether from lack of training, physical limitation, substance impairment, or mental distraction they don’t work. Period.

Responsibility 7: Senior Leaders Talk Safety First

When senior leaders come to the project site, the first thing you talk about is safety, the first thing you look at is safety. I mean, everybody should be thinking “oh my gosh, we have real work to do, stop talking about safety.” And the general superintendent, senior super, superintendent, project manager, project director turns around and says “no, this is our job.”

Inspect it like you mean it. If senior leaders show up and immediately start talking about schedule, budget, and owner issues without first observing safety and discussing safety culture, everyone on site learns that safety is theater. What senior leaders pay attention to defines what the project values. Pay attention to safety first, and safety becomes real.

Don’t Starve the Safety Program

The last thing I want to emphasize: make sure you have the resources so you don’t starve your safety program. You need safety staff. You need training budget. You need proper equipment. You need time in schedules for safety activities. You need visual board materials. You need orientation capacity.

A starved safety program produces compliance theater forms filled out, meetings held, posters hung without actual safety culture. A properly resourced safety program produces engaged workers, proactive hazard identification, and systematic risk elimination. Don’t expect safety excellence while starving the program of resources to achieve it.

The Three Indicators of Safety Program Health

You can look at three things to analyze how well your safety program is doing:

Indicator 1: The Site Itself (Most Important)

Walk the site. What do you see? Is PPE being worn correctly? Are fall protection systems in place? Are work areas clean and organized? Are access routes clear? Is mobile equipment operating with spotters? Are confined spaces properly marked and controlled? The site tells the truth about safety culture. Don’t look at reports look at the actual site.

Indicator 2: The Culture (Second Most Important)

How do people respond when they see unsafe conditions? Do workers stop each other? Do foremen correct immediately? Do trades take ownership of their safety? Or do people look away, make excuses, blame others? Culture reveals whether safety is real or just something leadership talks about. Listen to how people discuss safety. Watch how they respond to hazards. The culture reveals whether safety is owned or tolerated.

Indicator 3: The KPIs (Useful But Not Sufficient)

We’ve talked about safety KPIs before incident rates, near-miss reporting, safety observation completion, training hours. These metrics are useful for tracking trends. But they’re lagging indicators. The site and culture are leading indicators. Don’t manage to the KPIs while ignoring what the site and culture are telling you. Use KPIs to confirm what site observation and culture assessment already revealed.

Why Safety Reveals Everything About Project Health

Here’s why safety is the first of the 14 things senior leaders check for project health: if safety is excellent, it means leadership is engaged and present in the field. It means systems are working, not just existing on paper. It means culture is healthy and people take ownership. It means respect for people is real, not just words. It means coordination is happening because unsafe conditions often result from poor coordination. It means communication is clear because unclear communication creates hazards.

You cannot have excellent safety while failing at leadership, systems, culture, respect, coordination, and communication. It’s impossible. Safety reveals all of those things. That’s why when I walk onto a project, I can tell within 30 minutes whether it’s healthy just by observing safety culture.

Conversely, you can have good schedule performance while leadership is absent, good budget performance while culture is toxic, good owner satisfaction while workers are being destroyed. But you cannot have excellent safety while those failures exist. Safety doesn’t lie. Schedules lie. Budgets lie. Owner satisfaction surveys lie. But the actual safety culture visible in how people work reveals the truth about project health.

Resources for Implementation

If your project needs help implementing zero-tolerance-out-of-respect safety culture, if senior leaders are supporting safety instead of owning it, if safety plans are generic instead of job-specific, if pre-task planning is administrative theater instead of visual crew-level preparation, Elevate Construction can help your teams create the seven non-negotiable responsibilities that turn safety from compliance program into culture revealing project health.

Building Safety Culture That Reveals Leadership Excellence

This connects to everything we teach at Elevate Construction about respect for people as foundational to everything else. Zero tolerance isn’t punishment it’s respect for people that says “you’re going home to your family tonight, every night, no exceptions.” Job-specific safety plans aren’t bureaucracy they’re respect for workers that gives them the information they need to stay safe in this specific environment. Visual pre-task planning at zone level isn’t extra work it’s respect for crews that ensures they understand today’s hazards before they’re exposed to them.

Site control like an airport isn’t excessive it’s respect for everyone on site including visitors that makes hazards, access, and requirements immediately clear. Being strict but fair isn’t contradiction it’s respect that maintains standards while recognizing people are human and make mistakes that need coaching not punishment. Training and competency verification isn’t gatekeeping it’s respect that ensures nobody enters situations they’re not prepared to handle safely. Senior leaders talking safety first isn’t lip service it’s respect demonstrated through attention that shows safety matters more than schedule or budget.

A Challenge for Senior Leaders

Here’s the challenge. Stop treating safety as a program to manage or metric to track. Start recognizing it’s the most revealing indicator of project health. Stop supporting other people’s safety culture. Start owning it personally as a non-negotiable responsibility. Stop accepting generic safety plans. Start making them job-specific, visual, and accessible. Stop allowing administrative pre-task planning theater. Start requiring visual boards at zone level showing today’s hazards and controls.

Control your site like an airport where anyone can immediately understand where they’re allowed, what hazards exist, and what’s required. Be strict but fair maintain zero tolerance for the seven critical safety areas that kill people while coaching people toward competency. Resource your safety program properly staff, budget, equipment, time. Don’t starve it and expect excellence.

When you visit projects, talk about safety first. Inspect it like you mean it. Look at the site itself to see truth about culture. Observe how people respond to hazards to see whether ownership is real. Use KPIs to confirm what site and culture already revealed.

Track the results: workers going home safe every night, families protected from tragedy, culture where people take ownership of their own safety and each other’s, leadership engaged and present in the field, systems that work in reality not just on paper, project health revealed through safety excellence you can see and feel, not just measure and report.

Safety is number one on the Book of 14 for a reason. It reveals everything about whether your project is actually healthy. Schedule and budget can lie. Safety culture doesn’t. Make it excellent, and you’ll know your project is healthy. Let it fail, and nothing else matters you’re destroying people while hitting metrics. Choose safety excellence. Choose respect for people. Choose zero tolerance out of respect that ensures everyone goes home safe. That’s the standard. That’s the job. That’s what senior leaders own.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is zero tolerance out of respect?

Clear standard that unsafe work stops immediately not to punish people but to protect them from injury. Based on respect for workers and families, not authority or punishment.

How many approaches work for safety culture?

Multiple. Some leaders send people home, some use presence-based influence, some walk sites twice weekly correcting issues. Method matters less than commitment to maintaining zero tolerance standard.

What are the seven critical safety areas?

Falls, cranes/rigging, excavation/trenching, electrical, hot work, confined spaces, mobile equipment. These kill people and must be executed to the nth degree without exception.

Why do senior leaders talk safety first on site visits?

Because what senior leaders pay attention to defines what the project values. Safety first demonstrates it’s real, not theater. Schedule/budget first demonstrates safety is just compliance.

How do you verify safety program health?

Three indicators: (1) site itself showing actual safety practices, (2) culture showing how people respond to hazards, (3) KPIs confirming trends. Site and culture are leading indicators; KPIs are lagging.