Category Archives: EHS Management

Why Decision Rights Are Critical for EHS Success

Effective EHS leadership depends on more than accountability—it requires clearly defined decision rights. Explore how aligning authority, expertise, and operational responsibility strengthens risk management, improves business performance, and prevents costly governance failures. Includes a real-world case study and a downloadable EHS Decision Rights Assessment Tool. Continue reading →

Posted in Leadership, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Leading at Scale, EHS Management Systems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Earning Executive Influence: Six Lenses for EHS Innovation and Payback

What if your EHS team had to earn the business before it could earn the influence? EHS leaders frequently talk about wanting greater influence with executive management. We want to be involved earlier in business decisions, have operating leaders seek … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Accumen, Career Skills, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Innovation, Leadership, Leading at Scale, Sustainable Strategy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

If Everything Still Comes to You, You Haven’t Scaled Leadership

As leadership responsibility grows, working harder and staying involved in everything stops working. Drawing on experience scaling an organization from 15 to 300 people, this article explores how EHS leaders can multiply their impact through people, management systems, governance, delegation, digital tools, and AI—and build an organization capable of making thousands of good decisions every day. Continue reading →

Posted in Business Accumen, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Leadership, Leading at Scale, operational integrity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Inherited Risk Ecosystem: How Upstream Decisions Shape Human Error at the Point of Work

Serious injuries and fatalities are often shaped long before a worker reaches the point of exposure. The Inherited Risk Ecosystem provides a practical way to identify how upstream decisions, organizational conditions, and interacting risk factors combine to influence the real risk of work—and where leaders can intervene before an event occurs. Continue reading →

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Culture, Design for Safety, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Innovation, operational integrity, psychological-safety, risk management, Technical Skills | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leonardo’s Lesson: Harmony Begins With Observation

I have been reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo da Vinci, and it has caused me to think about leadership, observation, and the way human beings fit within the larger order of nature. Leonardo’s genius is obvious, but what interests me most is his method. He studied the world with uncommon curiosity. He observed water, light, motion, anatomy, plants, machines, and the human form with the discipline of both an artist and a scientist.

That is the inspiration for this article. Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man gives us more than an image of proportion. It offers a lens for thinking about harmony, structure, humanity, and the systems we live and work within. For leaders, especially in complex operating environments, there is a practical lesson here: observe deeply before acting, understand the pattern before changing the work, and make sure strategy survives contact with operational reality. Continue reading →

Posted in Career Skills, EHS Management, Leadership, Personal Growth, Professional Skills, Sustainability Leadership | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Game Changer in EHS Training: Blended Pathways That Build Capability in High-Risk Industrial Operations

EHS training, safety training, lockout tagout, LOTO training, hazardous energy control, industrial safety, blended learning, competency based training, safety leadership, verified capability Continue reading →

Posted in AI, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Twin, EHS Management, Innovation, Leading at Scale, Modernized Trianin, psychological-safety | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SIF Reduction: The Leading Edge of Operational Integrity

SIF prevention belongs within the broader discipline of Operational Integrity. Preventing life-altering events requires more than a safety program; it requires an operating system that connects leadership, frontline knowledge, reliable controls, meaningful data, and organizational learning. Continue reading →

Posted in AI, Artificial Intelligence, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, risk management, Serious Injury & Fatality (SIF) | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

EHS Data Analysis Heuristics: Turning Performance Data Into Better Decisions

By Chet Brandon EHS data is only useful when it helps leaders make better decisions and take timely action. Incident reports, corrective action records, hazard observations, audit findings, injury data, exposure information, and corrective action trends all contain signals. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Career Skills, EHS Management, EHS Skills 101, enterprise risk management, Ethics, Leadership | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Decision-Ready Information: The Modern Standard for Leadership in Complex Organizations

Organizations are drowning in information and starving for judgment.

My latest article on LeadingEHS.com explores the concept of decision-ready information and compares it to the classic management discipline of completed staff work.

The core idea is simple: leaders do not need more dashboards, alerts, reports, or raw data. They need information that has been interpreted, contextualized, risk-ranked, and shaped into clear options and recommendations.

This discipline matters across EHS, sustainability, operations, cybersecurity, process safety, and enterprise governance. Whether we are dealing with AIoT signals, process safety data, ESG disclosures, or operational risk indicators, the challenge is the same:

-What is happening
-Why does it matter
-What could happen next
-What should we do?

Decision-ready information converts complexity into accountable leadership action. Continue reading →

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Cyber-Physical Risk in the Age of AI: How Safety Professionals Help Directors Make Better Operational Technology Investment Decisions – Part 4

As the final article in this four-part series, Fay Feeney and I bring the conversation into the boardroom. Operational technology is no longer just an engineering concern—it is a governance test. As AI-enabled assets reshape industrial operations, directors are approving new risk profiles, resilience assumptions, and value-creation models. Continue reading →

Posted in AI, Artificial Intelligence, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Leadership, Machine Learning, Sustainability Leadership | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment