Building a Safety Culture: Insights from Josh Sargent

00:00:00 Speaker 1
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service and gas compression. With more than 2,100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team. To assist with their premier power solutions.

00:00:27 Speaker 2
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host, KC Yost. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub.

00:00:47 KC Yost
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline. Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast. In this episode we continue our series discussing the pillars required for a resilient safety culture. Today's pillar is leadership. Our guest is Josh Sargent, Vice president of Miller Pipeline and Otis Minnesota Services. Both are very well known and respected pipeline contractors here in the US So hey, welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Josh.

00:01:19 Josh Sargent
Hey KC, good to see you. Thanks for having me, man.

00:01:21 KC Yost
Oh, I'm tickled to death. A pipeliner to pipeliner conversation. Today I'm going to enjoy the heck out of this. So anyway, listen, before we start talking about the leadership's role in safety, take a few minutes, if you would please and introduce yourself.

00:01:36 Josh Sargent
Yeah, sure thing. As you said, I go by many names. Sarge, Josh Sargent. I've been going by Sarge since I was probably 7 or 8 years old and I'm an executive leader for Miller Pipeline and Otis Minnesota Services. Currently serve as Vice president over Miller Pipelines Great Lakes region which is Michigan and Northern Indiana, and then responsible for operations at Otis Minnesota Services. So Miller focuses on the distribution side of the business and Otis focuses on the transmission side of the business. So I've been In the industry April 16th will be 26 years and it's been, it's been a good ride.

00:02:16 KC Yost
Excellent, excellent. Glad to hear that. And I see that you got your degree from Purdue the hard way. You were working full time while you did it, so yes, kudos to you.

00:02:26 Josh Sargent
Yep. Got married, had kids, went back. I was working for an LDC at the time in Indiana and they were gracious and helped put me through school. So I'm very appreciative of that. But yeah, it's a lot to juggle when you're raising kids and going to college and working 65, 70 hour weeks too. So it's the hard way, but it's a good way. You remember what you did?

00:02:44 KC Yost
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Hats off to you, man. Hats off to you so for those listeners who are not pipeliners, give us an elevator speech for Miller Pipeline and Otis Minnesota Services, would you, please?

00:02:57 Josh Sargent
Sure. Great question. Miller Pipeline, nationally known distribution contractor, specialty services contractor. Miller's been in business since 1953. They specialize in the installation and maintenance of natural gas systems, water, wastewater, infrastructure. Over 70 years now in business, and I think we've amassed more than 6,000 employees. We operate more in more than 23 states. And on the Otis Minnesota side of the house, two legacy companies, Otis Eastern and Minnesota Limited. A few years ago, Minnesota Limited and Miller Pipeline were together. We called it inverge back in the day, but Otis is. Yeah, the formation of Legacy, Otis Eastern and Minnesota Limited, kind of a powerhouse in transmission infrastructure services. Oms, we call it. You know, Otis Minnesota Services, they. They specialize and focus on station and facilities construction, pipeline integrity, work maintenance. And then new pipe gang spreads. Right. New, new. New pipe installations. So both companies have the same core values, KC. Safety, quality, commitment, reputation. Those are the four core values that everything's built on. They're. They're built to last. And if you get to go out in the field every day, you'll see those core values come to life. Otherwise, they're just little icons on some piece of paper or some mantra on the wall. It's our people. They give life and stand them up. Those core values. So proud to be a leader for both companies and looking forward to what the future has.

00:04:30 KC Yost
Excellent. Excellent. You know, when I, when I saw Otis Minnesota, I didn't recognize that. But then looking at the bio, it's Otis Eastern Service. And they've been around since like the 30s, right? Yes, sir. Working. Working in the pipeline industry. In fact, I think we, we talked briefly about it. My grandfather and my father both worked for a company called Old Hope Natural Gas Company with, then merged in with other companies and became CNG Transmission and then Dominion, and then Dominion was sold off and all of that kind of stuff. But, but, but, you know, my West Virginia roots and got tingly there thinking about Otis Eastern. I did recognize that company's name for my grandfather and my father talking about them years and years ago. And you actually have an office. You have an office in West Virginia as well, right?

00:05:23 Josh Sargent
Yes, down in Moundsville. You're mentioning the legacy, the history. Right. With Charlie Joyce. Right. And Jimmy Joyce and Casey. They're Charlie's son. So we have an office in Wellsville, New York, south of Buffalo as well. And it's a small world. I didn't realize. I've done a lot of work in Detroit for Miller. And I didn't realize that the Joyce family had done so much of that integrity work for Sunoco through that area and even shared a yard with some of my competitors and things. And every time I'm in. In Wellsville, I'll run into Mr. Jimmy Joyce, and he takes me down memory lane. Yeah.

00:05:55 KC Yost
Is that right? Is that right? Well, if you have a chance, mention my last name, Yost. He may remember dad or. Or even my grandfather, but that's. That's very cool. By the way, how close are you guys to the penitentiary there in Moundsville?

00:06:10 Josh Sargent
Closer than we want to be. I can tell you what it's not. It's not one of our recruiting strategies. I can tell you that I had.

00:06:19 KC Yost
A great uncle that actually was a guard at the. At the prison and lived two blocks from the prison. And my great aunt always felt very comfortable because she knew that if someone escaped the prison, they would be running, and they'd run right by her house to keep on going to try to get away from the prison. So she felt very secure within two blocks of the prison.

00:06:46 Josh Sargent
I tell you what. I tell you what generation. Yeah, exactly. On generation. I think the toughest men and women I've ever worked with are pipeliners, boilermakers, and iron workers. So she was in good hands if anybody tried anything. Right. They're tough people.

00:06:59 KC Yost
Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right. So let's. Let's talk a little bit about your background and your role within the organization. Can you. Can you elaborate on that a little bit for me, please?

00:07:12 Josh Sargent
Sure. Yeah. I'm an executive leader with. With both companies. Responsible for the profit and loss. Right. Responsible for safety, by the way.

00:07:20 KC Yost
By the way, do the companies operate independently or is there some interdependency between companies?

00:07:28 Josh Sargent
I can start there. Both companies are owned by Arterra, and Miller takes care of the distribution side of the work, like I said, and OMS the transmission side. But we do have centralized functions, functions like HR, payroll, AR.AP. those functions service both companies. Both companies. Brands stand alone. And they're gonna stand alone. That's our strategy. But we are serviced by kind of a centralized function group that helps us become more efficient, you know, to keep our overhead just as low as possible during this downturn. In the transmission industry.

00:08:01 KC Yost
Yeah, but in the pipeline industry, name recognition is so important, and you've got some awfully solid names right there. So. Sorry, I got off on the tangent. Go ahead, go ahead.

00:08:13 Josh Sargent
Yeah, natural gas kind of found me by accident, KC. I mean, I, I had, you know, secret desires to kind of join the military. I had a hip surgery when I was younger, so I couldn't pass physical. Right. I wanted to be a police officer, want to be a firefighter, you know, one of the adrenaline type things and just couldn't get in on that. And natural gas family by accident. Met a welder who was a good mentor and friend to me. And I landed a position with an LDC down in Indiana and was there many years and came in as an engineering associate and worked my way kind of through different departments, compliance and administration, supervision, and eventually left the LDC to jump onto the private side because I just had to go. I'm kind of geared to go. I don't like, I don't like, you know, idle time. And so the contractor world was where, where it was. Right. So jumped over there in 2014 and haven't really looked back, like I said. Went to college, local trade school in Kentucky where I came up and got a two year degree in mechanical design and then went back to Purdue after I got married, I married an IU teacher. So, you know, rooting for sports teams is a little tense in my home. You know, she loves iu, she still thinks they're relevant basketball after all these years. And I try to tell her, you know, Bobby Knight was a good one, but he's, he's not there, so. But yeah, it's been a good ride. We have three daughters, we live in Indiana, and I've been in natural gas, like I said, 26 years. And I've been blessed, KC, to kind of work through every department at an LDC and then go to the contractor side so I can kind of bring those two entities together and talk about what really drives efficiencies in the field. Because sometimes theory and reality are often strangers, right?

00:10:02 KC Yost
Absolutely, absolutely. So we want to talk about championing safety within our organization as the main topic today. So what characteristics do leaders need to have to promote the safety culture in an organization?

00:10:25 Josh Sargent
Yeah, that's a good question. I think, you know, we like to promote from within. Right. At both companies. And the characteristics that we're looking for on such a promotion is just someone who leads by example. You see it, you own it, Right. It's not something you talk about, it's something you live every day. When it comes to safety, I think we look for great communicators, people who are, who have empathy, they can listen. A lot of our field team members, they need to be heard. Some of the best ideas, the best ideas come from the field. And we need leaders that understand, you know, you could say it two ways, the money train and the safety train. Start on the shovel, right? That's where they start. And we have to remember that when we're trying to put people in positions, that's a characteristic that we look for. Strong communication skills. And I would say folks that aren't scared to give good, constructive feedback, set expectations, care for your people and hold them accountable as you hold yourself accountable. I mean, it's not something that you're not going to wake up in 20 years, KC, and go, wow, we have a great safety culture. You know, you need people in place that are going to do it on purpose every day. Every day. So that's, that's what we're looking for from a safety culture here at both Miller Pipeline and, and Otis Minnesota Services.

00:11:41 KC Yost
So, so does that carry over to core values as well?

00:11:45 Josh Sargent
Yeah, I mean, you know, we, we have conducted something we call foreman leadership training at Miller Pipeline for years. And I think, I think we've trained more than 1500 individuals through that program. And we talk about our core values. Safety first and foremost. Right. Quality in everything we do, you know, doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Right. And then commitment to the team. Our last core value is a reputation built on integrity. If you, if you stub your toe on the first three, it's like reputation has to work overtime to do damage control, to try to make up for a lack in safety quality or commitment. And we often say in that training to use those core values as your sounding board, make all your decisions with them. You can't make bad decisions if you're going to use those four core values. With safety being first and foremost, we start every meeting with a safety message that's meaningful. It's not lip service. We don't pencil whip our daily huddles, our jha's, we try to really embed it as the backbone of our culture. And everything we do, and it starts from the top down. I can tell you, our executive leaders, you know, I'm proud to know that almost every one of them started in the ditch. Every one of them did. So, you know, you don't bid the work unless you've done the work. You know, what our men and women are going through in the field, and that's part of our safety culture as well. If you've done the work, you know.

00:13:09 KC Yost
Yeah, so you said in the ditch. You meant that metaphorically. Right. We don't want any OSHA people getting after us about in the ditch with.

00:13:17 Josh Sargent
Shoring and shore boxes and build a boxes. I mean, in the compliant ditch. Yeah. Not like we did back 30 years. Years ago.

00:13:26 KC Yost
Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I, I remember in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s, go out on a construction site and we would have tailgates. And what an interesting new concept that was to have a tailgate meeting to talk about what the crew was going to do for the day before they started doing it. I mean, that was the infancy of safety. Getting out in the field and to see where it's grown today, I think is remarkable. But in the Miller pipeline process, was there a moment when a leadership decision fundamentally shifted Miller's approach to safety?

00:14:16 Josh Sargent
You know, there's been many moments, and I could go back. I've talked to Kevin Miller and, you know, he's been in the industry, I would assume, you know, nearly or more than 50 years. Right.

00:14:26 KC Yost
So, yeah, he's longer than me. Yeah.

00:14:29 Josh Sargent
Yeah.

00:14:30 KC Yost
I'm only at 49, so. Good.

00:14:32 Josh Sargent
Yeah. So you might have your beat. I'm not sure. I don't want to quote how long Kevin's been in the industry, but his parents started the company. His brother, Keith Miller. Keith is an executive leader for Otis Minnesota. So it's a. It's a family environment, a family affair. These people care about their folks. And I would tell you, there's been many points throughout Miller's history where we come up with an interesting campaign or a different way to look at safety. Notably, for me, I can kind of only speak to my experience. But in 2018, they asked me to lead the Great Lakes region, and I agreed to. And. And we were trying to improve our results, and we got better year over year, Casey. Every year we got better, but at some point we plateaued. We kind of kept just really, really trying as hard as we could with all the great processes, and we couldn't get our. Our TR ir, our numbers, our dart rate, some of these numbers to kind of fall off of this plateau and get even better. And so one of the biggest turning points for me, I learned a little bit about Caterpillar Safety Services and reached out and didn't really know who to talk to, but I wanted to get. I wanted to go from good to great. You know, I wanted to really be good and I wanted my region to do. To do the best job possible at leading excellence in safety. So, man, was it an eye opener. Right. We had to really look at ourselves. And I reached out to Caterpillar Safety Services and met a couple just incredible subject matter experts and they helped us start a leadership assessment survey. And the results were eye opening. It wasn't so much about our effort, it was maybe somewhat misplaced. Some of the language we used, you know, some of the things that we learned. And what I loved about that survey is it was customizable and everyone got their own personal development plan. I could give you a lot of details about that, kc, but that was one of the biggest turning points for us because we had to look in the mirror and figure out it was a survey to where a laborer, an operator, a foreman, a fuser, a fitter, a welder, anyone could do an assessment on their leader. It was a leadership assessment and it got away from the blame game. The blame game of, well, hey, old Joe, he's just not as safe. No, that's not it. Who is a supervisor? Are they fostering the kind of environment that's empowering to that young man or young woman to be safe? Right. And it got into a lot of things, I mean, we got into questioning, do we really stop work when we talk about stop work authority? Do we really do the things that we think we do? And the survey helped us identify several, several points for improvement, really eye opening. So I'd recommend it to anybody that was at that plateau with great results. But I didn't want to stay there very long, you know.

00:17:10 KC Yost
Well, if you're going to call someone, call someone that's associated with the yellow iron that you're using in the field. Right?

00:17:18 Josh Sargent
Yeah, yeah. That brand recognition was really good. I tell you, one of the, it may be the most powerful aspect of Caterpillar Safety leadership assessment kc, was that it was anonymous. Right. And so if a laborer did a survey on his general foreman, his superintendent, those results were locked. I couldn't get to him if I wanted to. And that really helped our people be honest. You know, the honesty was at the forefront of the table, which is what we wanted. Right? We wanted good, honest feedback. It helped us change a bunch of smaller things that, that added up to better results, I can tell you that. Things that we were overlooking.

00:17:53 KC Yost
So, so, so what I'm hearing you say is they, they helped you recognize that it's not just about what you say, but how you say it. Right?

00:18:03 Josh Sargent
Yeah. Yes, sir.

00:18:04 KC Yost
In introducing safety. Okay.

00:18:08 Josh Sargent
Yeah, excellent. It was, it was, you know, some of the survey questions that I remember was like, you know, do you value productivity over safety? When the, when the timeline on the schedule is tight, you know, when you have time to be safe, you're safe. But when the Timeline shrinks. Do we, do we promote productivity over safety? Well, it's kind of a three legged stool. You know, safety and quality and productivity, they should exist, coexist. You take one of those legs away and you fall over. Like you've got to have all three. And we thought that was going on. And for the most part it was. But we found pockets of improvement that were really, really outstanding.

00:18:40 KC Yost
Excellent, excellent. So, so the impact was immediate.

00:18:44 Josh Sargent
Impact was immediate. Yeah. Yeah, I would say, you know, when you do a program like this, when you do an assessment like this, like a survey like this, I mean, word gets out, right? And so it was our folks in the field understanding that leadership was serious about improving leadership. You know, it wasn't so much based on our field employees. And the impact was immediate. Everyone saw an increased presence in the field. You know, we were more proactive in our safety report. But the biggest thing it built, Caterpillar, helped us build trust with our people. And we. And that was the biggest thing that it built because everyone got their personalized development plan. Everyone was in a room together. CATS trainers were outstanding. I mean, they really were. They were people that were versed in our work. They talked the same jargon, right? They fit right in. And that was, that was pretty cool. And our men and women opened up to them. So they provided a lot of feedback to us that we incorporated into many, many different aspects. At Miller Pipeline.

00:19:50 KC Yost
Did you pick up some methods that you would consider innovative to implement to ensure that your leaders on all levels internalize and champion, if you will, safety on a daily basis?

00:20:07 Josh Sargent
Yeah, we never thought that there was any division between safety and operations, but one of the innovative things that we learned was stop talking about it that way. Hey, get with the safety department about this. Hey, get with the operations department about this. Right. We understand their function right within the org, but why do we talk about them separately? That was one thing we learned that we felt was innovated. We're all in this together. I'm a safety leader and you're a safety leader, KC. No matter if we're on a, on a cat excavator or a directional drill or we are officially titled as a safety leader, like it's everyone's job. And we knew that.

00:20:42 KC Yost
You know, just, just a quick interjection. I, I have set on a D6, but I've never operated it, so. Okay, go ahead.

00:20:50 Josh Sargent
You have to be better at than I am.

00:20:52 KC Yost
Right.

00:20:52 Josh Sargent
I've only operated during, during emergency situations. Right when I was the last man drawing. But I, I Think real quick what comes to mind. Yep, we did a few things and I'll just try to try to remember the best I can. KC but we, we took a look at our foreman leadership training, our state, our supervisor leadership training, which is something we do monthly for a class of 20. We made some, some slight modifications there during the interview process. KC, with Caterpillar Safety Services, one of our employees said, you know what would be cool? If Miller Pipeline had like a monthly newsletter. And I was astounded because we've had one for years and years and years, but at this person's role as a laborer, it wasn't getting to him, right? So he thinks he's got this novel idea of why don't you guys talk to your employees? We're thinking, man, we do and we send you so much, we don't know if you're able to read everything we send you. Right. And so from a technology or an IT perspective, we went back through and from the grounds up built how do we get to them. So we develop QR codes and you know, we're a union employer, so we want to be very respective of our bargaining agreements and when we send communications to someone, they have to be on the clock, etc. Right. And so long story short, with your own personal phone, you can sign up to receive what we're calling a two minute drill. And we publish these two minute videos for safety every week. And it's very YouTube like, right? I'm not saying it is that, but it's very, very, very much like that. And our generation loves that. So that was one small, innovative way we could get to them and say, hey, we do have a newsletter and here it is. We just weren't delivering it, right. The paper wasn't getting delivered to the porch. Right. So that was one thing we did. The biggest, I tell you, the biggest feedback we got was after the survey. My safety manager, David Shirley, an incredible, incredible safety leader for us, he put together a video and it was me and him and all the leaders. And we said, you said this and here's what we're doing about it. And it was the accountability. Thank you for taking the survey. We thanked all of our employees. We meant it. But you told us we need to improve this. Here's the actual data from Caterpillar and this is what we're going to do about it. After that, we started monthly foreman meetings to continue that feedback. And we've been doing that ever since. So everybody has a voice in the process. There's a feedback loop and if they bring us a problem, it's the accountability of going and getting it corrected quickly and not letting it, not let it sit down.

00:23:14 KC Yost
What about quarterly incentives? You guys have awards or bonuses that you pass out?

00:23:23 Josh Sargent
Yeah, we do. It's been a long standing tradition to promote the right culture at Miller Pipeline. But you can earn, you know, a cash incentive or days earn days off for a clean quarterly record that supports the core values for, you know, avoiding all the preventable damages in the field, you know, and strikes and digging damages, recordable injuries or any kind of true injury that way. There's several things that we stack up to try to give away quarterly to our field leaders because like I said, they're the ones making the difference. You know, they're, they're the ones you.

00:23:57 KC Yost
Don'T run into a situation where a guy smacks his thumb on a, with a, with a hammer and doesn't report it so he can keep the, keep it out of the recordable. You know, you don't have that problem.

00:24:08 Josh Sargent
I think that's always a concern. And I wouldn't call it a fear because you, you don't manage fears. Right. You manage goals and objectives. But what we've done is we've come up with some creative ways to show, hey, if you do cut your finger and you call the hotline and it results in just a first aid call and you can just do some self measures. We have a company that we've partnered with that gives licensed doctors and nurses on the phone to our people and we've done a couple Day in the Life videos that show, hey, it's okay to call. We want you to call. We really promote it. And I'm proud that the Great Lakes region is, if I'm not mistaken, and all of Miller does really well with it, but we have more calls into the hotline than most regions because we've created this culture where we want you to. Right. Myself, I visited every crew in the state on the job, you know, and talked to them about this and said, hey, we care about you, want you going home better than you came in. My boss, Dale Anderson says, we want you going home a little more tired then you came in, but we want you to go home as safe, if not better. And I don't, I think if you, if you worry too much about that, you can lose focus. We keep promoting, make the calls and we'll take care of you. You know, it's construction work, it's tough work. It's not easy. It's not easy. So we Want our folks to be taken care of.

00:25:24 KC Yost
So that ties back into a, if you will, a trust and influence relationship between management, the leaders, and the rank and file. Right. And so how do you look at trust and influence with relation to the safety outcomes?

00:25:45 Josh Sargent
Yeah, I've said it before. Trust is tough to measure. Trust is very hard to measure sometimes. You know, I mean, you think about that. You. You have to be a leader that's visible. You have to be a leader that can be trustworthy, that keeps your word, and you have to promote. I tell you, Casey, the most important thing that I do in my role is who I put on and promote and hire. Right. At this point in the game, I got to have the right people on the team. And if you're not the right person on the team, we have a little joke around Miller pipeline that maybe Mr. Dale Anderson came up with. We call it the New Horizons Club, and it's meeting new people and seeing new places, and we'll give you the T shirt and we'll send you to a competitor because you're not on the bus. Right. We want you to be on the bus. Right. So that's kind of how we do. But trust is tough to measure. We track engagement at Miller Pipeline through, like, safety reporting rates, employee feedback, and engagement scores. We track engagement through reductions in our incidents and near misses. We track a lot of near misses. You know, why are they going down? Does that mean our engagement's going up? Is the trust factor improving? One of my most proud moments is one year we submitted more catch ones, and. And catch one is just catching an employee doing something good. Right. And recognizing them for that. And they get a little swag, maybe a nice shirt, a ball cap, whatever that is. And we go out of our way to try to catch someone doing something good. If you're out in the field and you're driving around and you're doing an assessment of a job, you know, is this job set up correctly, or is it as organized as a soup sandwich? You know, you got to figure out, what are you doing here? You'll see the opportunities to improve. But we often overlook all that positive reinforcement that builds trust. And you say, hey, great job. I want to recognize you for doing a great job. And so we do a lot of that. And I think our leaders, who are rigorous and disciplined to build trust, they're going to see better results. Safety compliance, stronger teamwork, collaboration. And that's what we're promoting.

00:27:40 KC Yost
Yeah. So this is essentially leaders going beyond traditional safety protocols to inspire that, that deeper Commitment. Right. Isn't that. Isn't that what you're kind of getting at? You. You. You recognize and give someone a koozie because they're doing a great job.

00:27:58 Josh Sargent
Yes, sir.

00:27:59 KC Yost
Or do you give them the six pack of beer to go with the koozie?

00:28:03 Josh Sargent
I. I don't think the six pack is on the. On the company store where you can order it, but, you know, I can make that suggestion to that committee and see what they say. KC. I bet it gets shot down, but it's. It's worthwhile. Yeah.

00:28:14 KC Yost
You understand, I. I started pipelining in the early 70s. These. So there you go. I'm. I'm that old. All right, so leadership behaviors that inadvertently undermine safety, are those an issue with you guys? Have you learned that. That, you know, someone just inadvertently does that? Do you. Do you have that problem? I mean, it's. It's as much teaching the guys in the ditch, again, metaphorically.

00:28:47 Josh Sargent
Sure.

00:28:47 KC Yost
What to do and how to operate safely. But it also comes back to the leaders and how they are projecting themselves to make sure that safety isn't undermined. Am I saying that right? Is that a good question? Okay.

00:29:04 Josh Sargent
Yeah. You're spot on, KC. I know the things that come to mind there are. We do a lot of promoting from within. Right. And we do love strong external candidates. But, you know, if a foreman's running the crew and he's doing a great job, first thing somebody wants to do is take him and promote him to general foreman and then onward to superintendent. So transferring that knowledge, just because you can run a crew successfully and safely, can you do that across eight or nine crews? Right. And as a superintendent, can you do that and foster that culture across 20 or 25 crews? So we take a real proactive approach with coaching, mentoring, and continuous improvement like that, feedback. If a leader's behaviors don't align with our safety culture, we don't just. You can't just try to correct it. We help them grow. I don't believe you're born a leader. I believe you can grow into being a great leader. Right. And that's what our obligation is to our. Our commitment is that to our people. So if we see. If we see someone that needs an opportunity for growth, we don't look at it as a criticism. We look at it as a great opportunity. Right? So if you work with your leaders to adopt, like, safety first mentality, first and foremost, 99% of them succeed, they grow. One of the things, one of the main pillars of our foreman leadership and our supervisor leadership training, Is people don't care how much you know. Do they know how much you care? Right. And if.

00:30:26 KC Yost
Great. Say that again. Say that again. Say that again.

00:30:29 Josh Sargent
I believe it's. I believe it could be related to a Dale Carnegie statement. But people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that is one of the, the main pillars when we're looking to promote someone at Miller Pipeline and Otis Minnesota Services for that fact. It's rare. It's really rare that that 1% of folks may choose not to adopt a safety first and foremost mindset and behavior. It's really rare if they know how much you care about them. Right. And they might care about productivity. They might care about great equipment maintenance. They might care about, you know, reducing your fuel idle time to save the company money. They might care about drill utilization and how productive we are with our drills. They might care about all that. But you can't care about that. And safety take a back seat to it. You know, you have to safely operate the drill. Safely operate, you know, the backhoe, whatever it is. And so I think we've seen success. I think at some point, you know, our industry does not have any room for leaders who actually choose not to care. And I've only seen that choice, KC, with maybe 1% of the population of leaders in our industry, once you show them you care and where they can go in this industry, sure, man. They're off to the races.

00:31:40 KC Yost
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I totally get it. Totally get it. Good insight. Good insight. So what steps do you think organizations should take to develop leadership behaviors that not only influence safety, but also drive overall organizational excellence?

00:32:04 Josh Sargent
Yeah, that's a good one. That's a loaded question. You come with your, with your guns loaded today. This is good. I would say if you put it on me like that. Organizations need to invest, invest in leadership development programs that align the safety culture they want with their business goals.

00:32:22 KC Yost
Right.

00:32:23 Josh Sargent
Too often do I see them have incredible business goals. But where is the safety element within that? You know, a quick example is if we have a monthly executive meeting with our leader, Mr. Dale Anderson, typically starts with a safety message. We'll spend two hours on safety. It's the forefront of everything we're talking about. Then we get the financials, then we get to claims or whatever it is, and we're looking at the P and L and we hear from our cfo. But safety is paramount and everything. Oftentimes, most of our leaders will start. We're not big fans of PowerPoint slide decks, KC. But most time, they'll start with a picture of their family with a note of why I work safe. And that's the first thing. So everyone in the room knows we're serious about this. Grandkids. It gives you a chance to brag about your grandchild or your spouse or your hunting dog or. But we got to make that connection to say, this is why hunting dog. This is why we work safe. And then it sets the tone for the rest of the meeting. Right? So invest in leadership development programs that align safety goals with your business goals. And then you got to create that shared vision. Safety is fundamental to success. We can't do it without being safe. We can't do it oftentimes. KC, I think about OSHA recordable trir. You might have a record of one, but that one could be a fatality. And that sounds so sad to say it that way. You know, that number is deceiving. It's not often an indicator of how strong your culture is. It's just a number. Right. And so you have to align that shared vision. And then I will tell you lastly on that, you got to foster a culture of accountability and feedback and expectations. And, you know, you have to hold people accountable. And if you're not willing to lead by example, that's probably not a good recipe. So I think. I think organizations have to continuously learn about safety, and they have to have leaders that will walk the walk and talk the talk, be visible, be present in front of their people. And hey, we're all human, but we're trying to get there together. You know, that's the thing. Any leader that is better than his people, I just don't have a lot for that leader. You know what I mean? You are in that trench with them, so you've got to figure it out. So if you integrate safety, leadership and your operational excellence together, everybody's going to benefit. The whole org benefits, not just in your safety performance. You can read all kinds of stats, KC, I'm sure you have, with all the experience you have, but that safer organizations are more profitable.

00:34:45 KC Yost
Exactly, exactly.

00:34:46 Josh Sargent
You know, we're in it to make money, but we're going to do it in the right way and do it in a safe way. So, yeah, I think you got to kind of have a. Gotta have it blended together to make it work.

00:34:54 KC Yost
Yeah. Yeah. Josh, what a great conversation. We've run out of time, so let me just open it up. Anything else you'd like to add before we sign off?

00:35:05 Josh Sargent
No, I just want to say thanks. First and foremost, KC and I want to say thanks to Caterpillar Safety Services. They helped us out. We're getting ready to redo a new benchmark here in a few months and kind of see another survey. We're going to do another survey and try to figure out if we move the needle. And then hopefully we'll be able to publish another one of those videos that said, hey, you know, Mr. Employee, you said, yes, Mr. Team Member. And this is what we're going to do about it. We're going to keep that cycle going. Yeah.

00:35:30 KC Yost
Oh, good, good, good. Well, get back with me. Let me know how the, the results turn out. I'd be anxious to know. Maybe we can get on air and talk about that one more time. All right.

00:35:41 Josh Sargent
I'd be glad to. Thanks, KC.

00:35:42 KC Yost
Super. Well, thanks again for taking the time to visit with us today. If anyone listening would like to learn more about Miller Pipeline, you can find them on the web@millerpipeline.com. Otis Minnesota services can be found at OtisMinnesota.com and of course, you can find out more about Cat safety services at cat.com. I think I got all those right, didn't I Josh?

00:36:11 Josh Sargent
Yes, sir. You're good.

00:36:12 KC Yost
Sound good? Okay, so thanks to all of you for tuning into this episode of the Energy Pipeline podcast sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. If you have any questions, comments or ideas for other podcast topics, feel free to email me, email me kc.yost@oggn.com I also want to thank everyone at the Oil and Gas Global Network for making this podcast possible. Find out more about other oggn podcasts at oggn.com This is KC Yost saying goodbye for now. Have a great week and keep that energy flowing through the pipeline.

00:36:47 Speaker 2
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