Brian Fielkow Episode
Summary
Ben is joined by Brian Fielkow, a former CEO of Jet Co Delivery and author of multiple books about business and management. Brian shares his background and how he came to see safety as a core value rather than just a priority for businesses. He explains the importance of the C-suite in setting the tone for safety and ensuring a healthy company culture. Brian also emphasizes the need for process discipline and unconditional respect for safety processes, as they are often written in blood due to past accidents and injuries. The podcast is about safety process and PPE. The guest speaker is Brian Fielkow who is the CEO of Jetco Delivery. He begins by talking about why companies need to have a safety process in place and why it should be followed strictly for the betterment. He also talks about why workarounds and shortcuts are not a good idea in terms of safety. He then explains that the key to a successful process is that it needs to be understandable, actionable, and working. He No tl;dr;. Please.: In this episode, the host interviews safety expert Brian Fielkow about his book "The Making Safety Happen", which focuses on making safety a priority in the workplace. Fielkow discusses the importance of creating a safety culture and engaging employees at all levels to take ownership of safety. He also shares his experiences as a CEO and offers practical tips for implementing safety measures. The interview ends with a brief discussion about Fielkow's future plans and how listeners can connect with him
Transcription
Ben Hopkins
[00.00.08]
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to another episode at the Warehouse Underground podcast, Real Talk for warehouse DC and FC professionals of all levels around the globe. I'm Ben, the host of the show, and with me today is Brian Fielkow. He is the former CEO of Jet Co Delivery and now Executive Vice President of Risk Resources at Acacia. Also, he is an internationally recognized consultant, speaker and author of multiple books. And now he's released his third book, Making Safety Happen The Roadmap to a Safe and Productive, Profitable Business. So, as you know, in the world of warehousing and distribution, safety is everything. So anytime I get a chance to bring on somebody to talk about safety on the show, they're always welcome. And Brian is an especially good guest because he has spoken about this to many, many well-known companies. Check out his website. You'll see that later that you probably have heard of. So I'm honored to have him on the show today to talk about his new book and learn more from him. So with that, I will bring him onto the stage right now. Brian, sir. Welcome to the Warehouse Underground podcast. Thank you very much for joining. How are you, sir? I'm
Brian Fielkow
[00.01.25]
doing great, and thanks for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to join you and I look forward to a great conversation. Yeah,
Ben Hopkins
[00.01.33]
absolutely. So like I say, I took a look at your website and I should mention, you know, you you've had an amazing and I mean amazing career and done a lot of different things in a lot of different industries. So I don't want to talk about that too much for you. But can you just tell the audience a little bit about your background and really kind of what inspired this book at this point in your career?
Brian Fielkow
[00.02.02]
Well, sure. I mean, I don't come to safety, and I didn't write the book Making Safety Happen from the perspective of a safety professional. Um, I came to it from the perspective of somebody that has owned, operated, grown, sold businesses. And my evolution, different industries include, you know, waste and recycling and then logistics and transportation. Um, I've also consulted with advised and kind of looked under the hood of a lot of other businesses. But in my role as writing a lead in my role running and leading businesses. You know, it's an evolution. I came. I started seeing safety more as a department, uh, a checkbox, you know, you know, a compliance exercise. If we were compliant, if we would pass OSHA or Dot audit, everything was okay. And as my career progressed, I began to see safety as something different. Safety to me. Safety results are the product of a well-run, well led company. Um, safety is not a department. Safety is the business. Safety is at the foundation of operational excellence. I mean, can you imagine a company running safely? If it's if the culture is not healthy, if it's not running operationally. Well. And so that was the progression of my own career. And I've just taken time to sort of write about it so other people can learn, you know, the good, the bad, the ugly, what I've learned over my career. Yeah.
Ben Hopkins
[00.03.37]
I really love your your seat, your perspective on it from the very top, from being a CEO of an organization and seeing how it all runs. And so I think it's the the mindset shift of safety is very important. And I think you you alluded to that a little bit, but you talk about that a little bit more about the mindset from maybe it's a priority and it's always a priority in every company. I don't think you'll ever find a company that says safety is not a priority for us, but the mindset shift from just sort of a mere priority to more so embraced and embedded as a core value for the entire organization.
Brian Fielkow
[00.04.19]
Yeah, but normally I don't get too hung up on words. But in this case I do, because the words really matter. Um, if you think about priorities, priorities shift. They compete with each other. So you could come to the office tomorrow morning with a nice list of things to do, you know, all set in the order of priority. The phone rings. You have a problem with a customer, or you have maybe some equipment that's down. Well guess what? Those priorities just move, right? What was number five on the list became number one. You know priorities compete. They do compete with each other. Uh, they should compete with each other. That's the joy of being in business. Values, on the other hand, must be immutable. In other words, if something is a value in your organization, let's say integrity. I don't care what the pressure is. I don't care what the situation is. Nothing. I mean, nothing can compete for our core values. That's where safety belonged. Because if safety was a priority, that might mean that, you know, today's production pressure or today's shipment delay, um, might say. All right, look, let's take some shortcuts and get this done. Let's bypass process. No, it doesn't matter what the pressure of the day is, and you'll have them. It's part of being in business. Nothing. I mean, nothing can compete for safety. That's why safety has to be a non-negotiable core value that no other issue, such as, you know, a deadline or extreme pressure would let you compromise. That's why safety is not a priority. It's a non-negotiable value. Yeah.
Ben Hopkins
[00.05.55]
And I think sometimes in the warehousing world, not everybody, but sometimes you'll have some managers that will say, well, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to be safe or do you want me to ship orders? Do you want me to receive or do you want? And it's. And the thing that we've kind of brought up on this show before is that it's not really that way. It's not an either or. It's more of an and also, you know, safety as an and also you must do this and be safe. You must have safety embedded in everything you do. It's not like you have a choice to do one or the other. And so I really like that because I think that gets that gets lost a lot, especially when I think when people think about safety as a department. But it's not it's not a departments everything. And I think that that's a great way to to look at that now. Now, Brian, let me ask this question to you, because I especially like your perspective coming from the CEO suite, because a lot of times in the in the warehousing world, you will have I don't want to say that there's a gap, but sometimes you will have a perceived gap between the floor and the safety posters that are there on the floor and the safety practices that are there and the floor and the facility and sometimes how maybe the the C-suite view safety, right. And and maybe how they do or how the floor views them, uh, viewing safety. So what does it look like in practice for you to really elevate safety all the way up to that C-suite board level? And how have you kind of talked to people and advise people about that in your experience?
Brian Fielkow
[00.07.30]
Well, you know, when people talk about a healthy company culture, healthy safety culture, they treat it maybe as two different things. The reality is, there is no such thing as a safety culture independent of your company culture. It's one and the same. Right. Healthy safety will not bubble up. It will not take root if the overall culture is not healthy. And where does that start? Let's go right back to your question. It starts with the C-suite. This is nothing that the executive suite can delegate. Now, look, your executives don't need to become safety professionals, but what they have to do is make sure that their messaging is crystal clear, that we're going to be safe and productive. As you said earlier, it's not an either or a position. Executives need to be visible whether they're walking the floor, um, preferably walking the floor with frontline employees so they can see what they're seeing, whether it's the messaging internally, whether it's messaging to the customers. The executives set the tone. Um, and what I've seen very effective executives do is when there is a significant injury or a near miss, you know, they're going to engage. They're not going to just delegate and say, well, that's that's an insurance problem or that's that's the safety director's problem. They're going to show a level of curiosity and a relentless commitment to continuous improvement. The audit permeate permeate the organization.
Ben Hopkins
[00.09.03]
Yeah I think and and it and it goes to that old adage, I mean, people respect and follow what their leaders do way more than they do. Follow what they say. And when it comes to safety, I think if they're setting that tone,
Brian Fielkow
[00.09.19]
you have to be aware of the fact that everyone in the company is watching. I mean, everyone in the organization is watching because they want to know what matters to my leaders and what doesn't. And I'm going to respond to what matters to them and what doesn't. You know, maybe, maybe not so much. So I think if they set that tone of of safety, I think everything else will fall into play. But I think the risk, Brian, is that like you said, if it's just sort of a lip service thing. If they're chopping it off or turning it off, this is insurance, then they're going to get that same type of feedback coming back from from the floor level too. And and they don't and they don't want that. So I love that philosophy that, that you have on that. Now let me ask this question. So one of the things that we hear in the world of distribution a lot is discipline to the process, whether that's a picking process or a packing process or receiving. There's there's process discipline that all managers preach down to their employees because there's so much going on that, hey, if you stick to this and you execute this well, the outcome will come, right? The outcome will come. So do you see that the same way in the world of safety? I mean, how do you ensure that people are are very I want to say have an unconditional respect I think is the way that you put it in the book and unconditional respect for the process itself.
Ben Hopkins
[00.10.45]
And that leads to the positive impact down the road. You speak a little bit more about that because I really like that philosophy.
Brian Fielkow
[00.10.53]
Yeah. I mean, you know, they say that a lot of processes are written in blood. I mean, in other words, the easiest because of past adversity. Right. So we learn we document it and we we refine our process. So that's why. Well if a process is on the books, there can be no workarounds. You know the problem with the shortcut. The problem with the workaround is they might work for a while. Uh. You're lucky. Right. And all of a sudden, you get the idea that, oh, this shortcut is safe because nothing bad has happened. No, no, the shortcut is not safe. You got to stick with process. And the fact that nothing bad happens just means that nothing bad has happened yet. Um. Sorry. So the problem, I think, with process generally is that in many organizations it may not be that we have too little. It may be that we have big clunky process, these big handbooks that, you know, nobody reads, whether they're digital or whether they're printed. Um, I would look at this one question is. Who is the audience for whom the process is intended? What's that audience's average comprehension level? I mean, are they reading a six, seventh or eighth grade level? What's their primary language? Is it? Is it English? Is it Spanish? Um. And your processes have to meet people where they're at. So if you have a process that's written in a collegiate level, you know, one that you pulled off the shelf somewhere and your your intended audience reads at a junior high level. Well, I'm sorry, but you don't have process. You've got clunky words on paper that nobody understands. So the key is that the process has to be understandable. Then you've got to train to it. And if I could recommend a book for everybody to read. Um, it's called the Checklist Manifesto. Uh, it's by doctor O'Toole, and it's probably, I don't know how old the book is, probably 14, 15 years now, but it's every bit as relevant today. So Doctor Gawande was running a network of operating rooms in, um, New York. Highly trained professionals, skilled professionals, all the process you want. And yet people were getting injured and dying on the operating room table. So Doctor Gawande took a lesson, a page out of the playbook from airline pilots right before every flight. What happens? They do their checklist after every flight. What happens? They do the checklist. And so he converted the operating room into a checklist environment that before every operation, you know, having helped you, if you don't do the pre-op checklist and then having help you go to the post op checklist. That is what drove air out of the system. Right. In other words, we need more. We need better process, which in my mind means simple, something that we can repeat every day. We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught something new. So what I would look at is not whether or not you have process. I believe you do. Um, I would look at whether or not that process is understandable by the intended audience, whether the process is actionable. Um, in other words, whether it's in the DNA every day without fail, you know, and then whether the process is, is working, you know, determined by whether it's being followed and what your results are. But the process, if it's in place, it can't be disregarded.
Ben Hopkins
[00.14.27]
Yeah, I think that there is so much wisdom in that. And Brian, in my former life, before I did all this, once upon a time, I flew F-15s in the Air Force. Not everybody knows that about me. And so everything you're saying about the checklist is spot on, right? And so we would have a mantra in our head. Any emergency happens, anything happens. AV eight first, navigate second, communicate third, and then pull out our checklists. And they were always very simple, very simple, very easy to follow. Now when we got back to the ground, if we wanted to go in and do further research and more type thing. Yeah, sure. We have very complex manuals, but that was designed for a setting on the ground when you had all of your brain bites available to you right in the air. If you if you were flying, you didn't have time for all that. And so any type of process or checklist that was designed that had, you know, 15, 20 steps in or very complex would never happen. So it needed to be digestible for the audience that it was intended to. And then if it was and they didn't do it, then that's kind of on them, right? That's a behavior type issue. So, uh, I love that, I love that. By the way, that's awesome. And it brings me in my last question, and I think we talked a little bit about this before the show when we had an exploratory call. And that's sort of safety manuals and procedures. And a lot of companies love to highlight and tell their manuals. I have these manuals, I have these procedures. If they if they quote unquote get audited, they hand the, you know, the inspector, look at this incredible manual that we have and everything. But it might not always be translating to actual behavior. So why do you think that is? I mean, is it is it just the communication piece, or is it the verbiage that that's used to write it, like, what do you think causes this gap between safety manuals and processes, which is often very stout? And then the actual behavior of what you see on the floor doesn't always
Brian Fielkow
[00.16.28]
match that. Well, it could be the reasons I talked about earlier whether they're understandable by the intended audience. The other thing that I often see is that the that the manual tries to foreclose every possible risk, right? In other words, there's a there's a federal case over paper cuts. Okay. And what I like to see in some of the stuff's necessary in the manuals, but I would like you to ask what are the most what are the risks in your operation that have the highest potential for a serious injury and fatality? And let's prioritize there. First, let's make sure employees understand what people call them, cardinal rules or life critical rules. In my old company, they were called the serious six. Right? What are the what are the processes? What are the violations, if you will, are the most likely to result in a catastrophic injury. Now, I'm not saying you ignore everything else. You don't. But what I am saying is that everything is. If everything is equally important, then nothing probably is. So what I really want to see people do is, is train to the processes that present the most, uh, acute risks, uh, if not if not followed. I think that lets you focus your training right away on the most immediate items. You know, um, a good example, uh, well known is, you know, if we remember back, probably 12 years, 13 years, 14 years, the BP, Deepwater Horizon, the explosion. Right? Sure. Yeah. Well, you know, that day, um, the the day of the explosion, there was actually a safety celebration. Um, and it's because they were measuring the wrong things, right? They were measuring try OSHA, try our scores, which are of extremely limited value. Um, what they were ignoring were the underlying systems anomalies, uh, bad pressure readings that led to the disaster. And, you know, BP was very transparent about it afterwards. And they learned and they made sure that everybody else learned from what they did and what had happened there. But the idea is, if you have 600 pages of process, how can we possibly know which ones are the most consequential? So having your processes understandable and then, you know, majoring in the majors, majoring on the serious injury and fatality risks probably lets you lets you focus your time and not just trying to kind of see what sticks if you throw everything against the wall. Yeah. And that's the difference, I think, between creating something that's just sort of a check the box. We have it here it is. And something that we really want to matter. We really want people to to use it. That's the big gap. So now let's transition the show a little bit inside the world of a warehouse or a distribution center and talk about something that everybody is familiar with and that's PPE. So everybody knows PPE. It is a fantastic okay. It's a fantastic last line of defense though for a lot of operations out there. But do you think that sometimes maybe PPE
Ben Hopkins
[00.19.44]
can create a false sense of security? And if you do what what what might that be. What might be the cause of that?
Brian Fielkow
[00.19.52]
I mean, I mean, I yeah, it absolutely can. Now look, I'll start off by saying the PPE is vitally important. Yes. Not saying that saying don't worry about PPE. Yeah, but but what I am saying is that it is the last line of defense. So I could walk around. I mean, we could get a clipboard out. I could walk around the warehouse and see everybody's wearing their vest and hard hats and boots and whatever is required in that environment. And that's all well and good. Okay. If I don't go any deeper than that, it's kind of perfunctory. Um, because, you know, what happens with PPE is, you know, you get a false sense of security. So I'm wearing gloves. That means I can reach in just this once. You know, I'm wearing a hard hat so I can, uh, you know, walk under that suspended load. Um, what you want to do is figure out. And this isn't always possible, but you want to figure out where you can, how you engineer the risk out. So, for example, let's let's take a real common warehouse example, a forklift and pedestrian traffic. I mean, forklifts and people are, uh, you know, kind of in close proximity all the time. So you can have the we call where our vests, and that's all good. Okay. But what can we do to separate the. Forklift from the person, so that we even have to worry about the, the, the risk of the, you know, a forklift striking the person, especially in really dense hi, hi, hi activity environments. You're always better off separating, you know the the risk the person from the risk in my example. And then your absolute last resort is, is the high vis vests. So engineering um the risk out is key designing systems. If you can't physically separate the, um, the, the pedestrian from the forklift, then think about, you know, blockades, think about, you know, traffic lanes. Um, think about how can we keep these two, the people from the forklift, as separate as possible within the reality that you live in? It's not a perfect world, but it's like, well, okay, everybody is, um, got the best sound. We're okay. So let's not think about any further. That's why I encourage people to call a timeout. Great example of PPE. We're beginning football season. And by the way I'm so excited for that. But, um, you know, you. Their helmets and their shoulder pads and everything. Ah, PPE. Aren't they, um, just like we wear in a warehouse. Well, just because I'm wearing a helmet doesn't mean that I can or should lead with my brain. But yet people do. They get the false sense of security. What do we have in common? Right. Yeah. It's about tackling. It's about tackling technique. It's about. It's about how to tackle without leading with your head. So the helmet does not make it safe for you to put your brain forward. Use that same example in in the warehouse. It it protects you as a last resort. But it's the technique in the football case. Um, it's the process design in the warehouse case that really protects your your team. I
Ben Hopkins
[00.23.07]
think I really like that analogy a lot. And can I, can I use that. Is that free to use the the football helmet analogy. Because I'm going to take back take that back to my workplace and put that one in
Brian Fielkow
[00.23.16]
practice. There is no there is no pride in authorship here. Use it. Use it liberally.
Ben Hopkins
[00.23.22]
Good. I'm definitely gonna do that. So I like that one a lot. I like I like a lot of analogies because I think that they they relate and they hit with people, and that one is very good. And I've not thought of that one before. And not only use that one so that that is excellent. So so Brian, let me ask this question to you because you you've been high up in the CC, you've been a CEO of a company. You know what types of things are looked at as quote unquote, profit centers and cost centers, right? So we drive in revenue and we have cost centers. And so sometimes in organizations, you will hear safety referred to as a cost center,
Brian Fielkow
[00.24.02]
which just
Ben Hopkins
[00.24.04]
makes chills go down my spine every time I hear that I can't stand it. But sometimes it's still out there. Right? I mean, you'll still hear that. So how do you challenge that mindset with executives that you interact with, or that you work with, or that you speak with to change that mindset?
Brian Fielkow
[00.24.21]
I mean, if people think safety investing and proactive safety is, is, um, expensive? I've got news for them. Consider the opposite. Absolutely. I mean, safety is the lowest cost, highest return investment you can possibly make. So I, I think that the way we talk to people about that is we talk about, you know, what happens when you're running safely. Right. You probably have more control over your insurance costs. Insurance is never going to be cheap. But I can tell you one thing that your insurance rating, your insurance cost does depend in large part on your safety performance. Okay. Um, these days, a lot of customers are doing due diligence on their vendors. They want to make sure their vendors are running safely. Um, safe companies invest in their employees. You wind up having better employee morale. People know they're cared for. Um, you're spending more time proactively building the business because you're spending less time cleaning up the mess. So what I would say, it's people that think that that safety is a, um, a, you know, a cost that somehow hinders crop profitability or productivity. It really is the opposite. And I can refer them. I'm going to go back way in time now, probably 40 years. But Paul O'Neill is the kind of the modern day example of this. He took over as CEO of Alcoa in 1987. Alcoa was not doing well, not doing well at all. And he had his first meeting with his, you know, with Wall Street, with the investors, the analysts. And he said, if you want to know how Alcoa is doing, look at our safety performance. And people thought he was crazy. They ran for the door. Um, but what he was saying is that we can't possibly be a well-run, well-respected, profitable company if we're just sending people to the hospital and saying, well, the cost of doing business, well, things happen, you know, and and Alcoa, Paul O'Neill set the tone, having helped you, if you didn't follow that tone and you worked at Alcoa 13 years later, he left to become the Treasury secretary under President Bush. In that 13 years, the stock went up seven times, seven times over, uh, way outperformed Wall Street. And he was the Alcoa to me is still under his leadership. It's still the case study of what safety leadership looks like and why it's inseparable from productivity and profitability. It's one and the same. Yeah. And. Hey, hey, the proof is in the pudding. They're all right there. That's not just philosophical. I mean, that that actually happened. That that's the reality. So, uh. Awesome point. Now for the leaders out there that are listening. Okay. If you are an ops leader or you're any type of leader at any level for for an organization, when you think about them, what are the
Ben Hopkins
[00.27.25]
hallmarks in your mind of a leader that is building a strong, resilient operation in any aspect, but really for safety too, that's built to last. When you think about those leaders, you know, what do they look like? What are the things that they do? How do you identify somebody that is doing the things that you know should be done when, when it comes to this?
Brian Fielkow
[00.27.49]
Yeah. You know, I don't look at and I don't look for is for perfection okay. I mean, any business might, might well will encounter setbacks and hurdles. Um, I look for leaders who are self-aware, who are excellent communicators. They leave no room for misinterpretation. Um, they create an organization that's accountable, that everybody is well trained and accountable to, follow the systems in place. There's accountability if you choose not to follow the systems in place. Um, they're getting their employees, their teams. And this is leaders at any level to think differently. They're managing how they show up. Right. Because, you know, I would joke around sometimes that you can have all the signs in the world and my logistics company about, um, you know, not using your phone while driving. If I, if I'm the one driving out of the lot with my phone. Uh, that's such a good look, right? In other words, you have to pull harder. You set the standard. They focus on employee engagement to make sure the employees are doing the right thing when nobody's looking, that there's peer to peer accountability so that we're we're kind of a brother's keeper idea, that we're watching over each other and that as we spoke earlier, there's there's there's clear systems, uh, clear, clear process and accountability. I think when leaders get those pieces together, not over complicated. Um, you know, that to me, is the hallmark of an effective leader and therefore an effective organization. And they're going to they're going to encounter adversity along the way. But when they do, the systems in place are in place to deal with it.
Ben Hopkins
[00.29.37]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the adversity is a part of business. I mean, it's a part of operation. I mean, it just it just is. You cannot put your head in the sand and say, you know, we know. I mean, you need to have guardrails set up, plan, set up, you know, the foundation laid so that when it hits, it's kind of like saying that we're going to go to the beach and never be concerned about a wave that might come up a little bit farther and hit and hit like it happens. You know, it's going to hit. It's going to hit our sandcastle. It will happen. So now let me ask this question. So we're, you know, making safety happen. Very cool books. So I got a copy of Making Safety Happen. I read through a lot of it now. It's a really good I hope people will really check it out. But if people are listening, if leaders are listening and they acquire the they acquire, they book and they read the book, how do they take that immediately and turn it into action? Right. So if they if they want to go back to their operation or their organization and they want to implement the things that they've read about in the book, you know, how how should they turn that into practical frameworks at their own site, of their own company, their own facility when they go back?
Brian Fielkow
[00.30.44]
Making safety happen. I wrote it kind of the way I read, which means you don't have to go chapter by chapter. The idea behind the book is you can go chapter by chapter, but find the areas that you think would address wherever you're at now, right? In other words, focus on what matters today. We'll worry about everything else later. Um, and when I try and I provide in the book lots of ideas, uh, for implementation, for any topic I cover. But here's the thing. It's not one size fits all. So if you if you like where I'm going. But, hey, this this idea doesn't quite fit my operation. That's absolutely fine. Figure out what does. It's not so much. The tactics aren't what I care about. It's. It's the strategy. Um, it's giving people ideas. Everything I've got in the book, for the most part, is low cost. High value. In other words, I'm spending your time. I'm not spending your money. Um, so I think you'll find ideas that are approachable. Not one size fits all. And you just. You take it. You. You work with a team. I mean, the best thing you can possibly do is get several sets of eyes on any one idea, kick it around a little bit and then implement it. And you know, you'll you'll see you'll with most of the ideas, you either see the needle move in a relatively short period of time. They're not like multiyear ideas that, you know, have to break through.
Ben Hopkins
[00.32.13]
Yeah. And I mean, no one's going to be able to write a book that is directly applicable to, you know, your specific operation because they don't, like you said they don't know. They don't know what the details of your place are, but that it's like the helmet analogy that we talked about earlier. Like I immediately got that right. Like, I see it from a different perspective. And that changes my, the, my way of thinking. And then I can say, okay, this has given me a new way to see things. This has given me new tools, new resources, new strategy. And now I feel better armed to go back and make something happen, right? Like, I've got a new language, a new understanding. I think that's the power of a book like this. I think it's not like a safety manual that say, go do X, Y, and Z. It's more of a philosophical change, which in my experience, Brian is really what people need, right? They really need that change in their mindset. Not necessarily. You know, I need to do this step and then this step and then this step. And I think, I think the book is great. I think it really gives people the the framework they need to do that. I really enjoyed it.
Brian Fielkow
[00.33.17]
Well thank you. Yeah. What people need is, is the ideas kind of some how to's in there. I mean, tactical, approachable. Um, but it's again, what they don't need is judgment. Like, you know, I've somehow found a magic answer. I mean, it's just not true. When people have the magic answer, I tend to run away as fast as I can. Right. We're kind of all. We're kind of all on this journey together. And if I can give you that 1 or 2 idea for an example like in the book, I will talk a lot about how to bring take your front lines with you. Your frontline employees in a lot of cases are unfortunately, regrettably, on the outside looking in. Yeah. And that's too bad. That really is too bad. So I come up with ideas how to bring them in in a meaningful, not some sugarcoated way. And that helped me turn my business around. So I'll tell people in the book what we did to make it work. That doesn't mean that's what you have to do. Take the idea. What I care about is how do we engage our front lines? How do we get our frontline in place to own safety? The way you do it is a function of your culture and what works in your business.
Ben Hopkins
[00.34.22]
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, I think it's just it's just a great. It's just a great resource. You know, I think everyone would not regret having this book on their shelf in their, on their desk, wherever that they can quickly access. It's it's really good. And people are always interested in learning. How do I make how do I make things better? For me, my operation in any level, but it's certainly for safety. So really cool. So Brian, so where can people find out more about you? I know you have your website. I put that up on the screen. So where do they find more more about you and the book. And you know, what are you working on for the future?
Brian Fielkow
[00.34.57]
Well, the book is, um, available to all major online retailers, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Apple. Um, it's available on at least on the Amazon in e-book format, Kindle format, and also in audiobook. So you however you like to consume it, it's there for you. Um, but I'm working on now is just exchanging ideas in the book. Right? In other words, you know, is there another book on the horizon? If so, way down the road? These things are these things kick your butt.
Ben Hopkins
[00.35.29]
Yeah. You take a little rest, Brian.
Brian Fielkow
[00.35.31]
Yeah, yeah. But now it's engaging. Now it's sort of helping people. It's getting out there, being visible, um, and helping people implement, you know, the ideas I share. And then I like to learn. I like when somebody comes up to me and says, hey, I read this chapter and here's how it helped me. You know, uh, take the business to a new level or, hey, I try this. And it didn't quite work. You know, I love the conversation that comes out of it so people can give me they can find me, as you mentioned on my website. My email is Brian if Brian Fielkow.com. Um, so to me, the book is the beginning of a conversation, not the end.
Ben Hopkins
[00.36.09]
Cool. Yeah. It's. It's really good. I would love to meet you in person one day. Brian, I know you're out there speaking everything, so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna keep a lookout for you. And if I ever see you out there, I'm gonna. I'm gonna come up and say, hey, you know, sign my book. You know, I carry it around with me. No. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Uh, but, uh, you know, very, very insightful, sir. Uh, very appreciative of you appearing on the podcast. It's great. I really hope that people will check out your book, because I think it's really good. You know, the way that you think about it is, is different than what you might hear from a normie safety pro, because you come at it from a different lens, and really only you have the ability to to provide that lens and others do not have. So I, I really like it. And kudos to you and best of luck to you in the future.
Brian Fielkow
[00.36.53]
Thank you. I really appreciate it. I hope your listeners, uh, got something valuable from this conversation. Thank you. Yeah,
Ben Hopkins
[00.36.59]
you got it, Brian. Well, enjoy the rest of your weekend, sir. Enjoy football season two. That's here. Can't
Brian Fielkow
[00.37.05]
wait. I'm ready, I am ready.
Ben Hopkins
[00.37.08]
All right. Thank you, my friend. Now we'll see you around. Bye bye. All right. Thanks again for Brian Fielkow for coming on the Warehouse Underground podcast. New book making Safety happen. Check it out today. It was very insightful, very good guests, and I really enjoyed chatting with him, as I do most folks that come on to talk about safety in all things. But Brian's different. He's talking about things not just about safety, which which I really appreciate, which is really cool. So thanks again, Brian. As the Warehouse Underground ghost, please sign up for the community. Like I always say, we almost have 350 people that have signed up for the community. It's free at the warehouse, underground comm and inside there we have a message boards, networking information, share resources. We've done some live events in there, some roundtables, and we have some more coming down the pipe in the future. So check that out today. Be a part of the community free at the Warehouse underground.com. And also please check out the other show that I do with my co-host Jordan. It's called the Tiger Team Show. It's a little bit different than this. It's all about life and warehouses, fulfillment centers, distribution centers. But we have a much more sarcastic, witty, humorous slant to it. So we have some warehousing stories and stereotypes and you'll get it. If you work out there in FXS, you will understand the humor right away. If you check the show out. It's like two people just chatting in the break room after HR went home for the day. That's kind of the vibe of the show. So check that out today, the Tiger Team show. And as this podcast goes, I will see everyone next week for another episode. Thank you for listening. Bye bye.
