#56 - Bryce Griffler - The Hidden Cost of Hiding: Authentic Leadership, Imposter Syndrome & Workplace Safety

And I asked every day, every day, up to twice a day, anything I can help you with today? By the second or third week, he's actually, yes, actually, yes, there is, there is something. Okay, let's do it. And it was something small and we took care of it. But that engagement, that follow-up, he really appreciated. But the best moment was about 6 or 7 weeks later, and Gary walked in off the floor into the administrative office area, and he walked up to my office and stood in the doorway and said, is there anything I can do to help you today? And that was like, this, this is how we begin to shift that culture, right? This is an operations person who's normally on the floor. glued to their monitors, looking at the red, amber, green metrics. And now he's taking that moment to flip the narrative, and he's coming to me, the operations manager, coming to the safety person saying, what can I do to help you today? That's— and that is absolutely how you start to shift a culture.

You are listening to the Safety Heroes Podcast, the podcast where we delve into the world of safety professionals and explore the critical role they play in ensuring every human goes home safely. Our guests are the unsung heroes and natural leaders of the safety space. If you're in the safety space or have no clue what happens in safety functions, this podcast is for you. Join us as we celebrate these heroes, hear their stories, and discover the human side of safety and make sure it's constantly evolving for the safety of our people. My name is Moussa. I'm the founder and CEO of Pixera and your host for these episodes. Because when it comes to safety, every hero deserves a voice. So, welcome to the Safety Heroes Podcast.

Hey, everyone. I'm super, super, super excited about the conversation today. I'm talking to Bryce Griffler. So, Bryce is the co-founder of Safety Is for Everyone. But my take here, you know, I've been doing this for some time, and I'm in this fortunate position of meeting so many safety professionals. I see Bryce as a gem that I was really grateful to meet and learn from. He embodies authenticity, the power of knowing yourself, and the power of acting from a true authentic place where you're operating from the heart and its impact on people around you. Having interacted with him, I learned so much. And before I, before I even jump in and get you to introduce yourself, Bryce, I found this piece that you wrote before, which is Bryce's Why, in a piece you posted called Bryce's Why: Core Motivations and Philosophy. And there's a quote there that really grabbed my attention and touched my heart. And what the quote says is, I am not just a simple cog in a machine. I am not employee number 789054. I am Bryce Griffler, an engineer by background who was raised Jewish and enjoys cruise vacations. I attended the University of Virginia, and I am gay. I have a brother and a sister, and my parents divorced when I was 13. You hired Bryce Griffler because all of his experiences, his upbringing, his background, and his culture culminated to make him the employee that you hired. Bryce's personal journey as a gay man and the HS professional deeply informs his mission. From a young age, he recognized that everyone is different, and this perspective became foundational to his approach to safety and inclusion. Bryce, my man, I'm so happy to have you here.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for having me and for, for reading that. Wow. And it has really stood the test of time. It remains accurate and can be uncomfortable to talk about, but it's true, right? Our culture, our background, our upbringing, our socioeconomic status, us, everything about us is what makes us who we are. Otherwise, um, you know, that, that's what we bring to work. We can say, leave your emotions at the door, leave your personal baggage at the door, but that's, that's not a thing, right? It comes with us whether we like it or not. Otherwise, we would just hire people based on their resumes. This is why we, we do interviews and we have discussions. So thank you so much for, for reading that, Musa. I'm glad that it resonated with you.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, to be honest with you, it's like, as I grow as a person, I always realize that the most important mission I have is to understand who I really am and to be an authentic person of myself, like an authentic version of myself. And I feel like when I started working, I naturally created this different persona. And now my objective is to, you know, you shouldn't be a different person at work and with your friends and in different parts of your life. It's how can you be your true self? the self that shines, that you feel is really true to who you are and how you like to operate in this world and bring that everywhere you go. So when I read that, it's just like extremely powerful and seeing that you've gone through this journey and you were able to just embody it and, and take it with you is just, you know, helps us all, you know, see the light and understand that this is something we should really pay attention to and learn from. So, so yeah, like. Well, fundamentally, starting from there, how, you know, how did you get here, man? Like, how did you get that, that moment of like, I need to, I need to build that confidence and I need to be brave and I'm going to take this path. And what are the, what are the obstacles that you faced along the way?

Well, like you said, it is a journey and it still continues, right? So it's not like I've figured everything out. I think it goes back to my time as an engineer. I was obsessed and continue to be fascinated by how things work together rather than just individual parts. Right. And so worked as an engineer for a while and had the opportunity to serve on an advisory council to the CEO of a defense contractor. And there was a moment where I was giving a presentation to the CEO's leadership team And I had shared all the data because I love data. Data as an engineer, I shared all the data as to why, as a company, we need to be embracing people for people, right? And rather than what we expect people to be, people for themselves as individuals. And here's why, from a data standpoint, that's going to serve us well. And I had one leader who just looked at me and said, yeah, but like, why are you talking to us about This? And she just kept looking me up and down, and it was really uncomfortable. And I said, well, I just shared all the data. I just explained the studies that show here's why we ought to do this to gain competitive advantage. And she wouldn't let it go. She said, yeah, but why? She paused very dramatically. Why you? And then it clicked. I was like, oh. Oh, she, she She's getting at, you don't have the knowledge, the background, the context, and the understanding of what it means to be in an underserved community, um, to be, um, not privileged, all these things. And, and in that moment, I had this realization of, okay, there is so much work to do here. Uh, first of all, all the aspects of ourselves, right, that you read from that, all the background and our upbringing, our culture is what makes us who we are. And we all have privilege and we all have bias. And the extent to which it shows on us differs each and every day. And in that moment, I said, you know what? I'm, I'm going to keep doing this. I'm going to keep talking about it. I'm going to keep fostering these uncomfortable aha moment conversations. Uh, and I'm not going to let it go. And it was, it, it evolved to many uncomfortable conversations standing in front of rooms. But at the same time, even if it was one person who came up to me after a talk, after a presentation who said, Everything you said resonated with me, or now it makes sense, or I didn't realize how much more I can do as a leader. And those were the moments that I knew I wanted to keep learning and growing and being vulnerable, kind of speaking my truth. Because like you said, as, as professionals, we build these shells that we think we need to have to protect us. And then there comes a point where we start realizing we need to dismantle parts or all of this shell in order to continue growing and to continue, right? So you like, there's some sort of inflection point where we're like, oh, okay, this is, this is now going to inhibit my growth. Yeah. And you kind of look back, right? Hindsight is 20/20. You look back on all of it. Why, why have I left this shell on for so long? That was kind of the turning point, right? Is, is, um, as, as that young whippersnapper engineer, uh, and a senior leader looking at me saying, you, You shouldn't be talking about inclusion or exclusion in the workplace. And I think that just motivated me to talk about it more.

Wait, what game am I playing here? Like, I'm actually the best person to be talking about this.

Yeah. And I could have just as easily said, because I am a gay man and therefore I know what it's like to be a minority, that could have But I don't think that would've served anyone. Um, so yeah, rather than play the game, it was, no, we, we just talked about all the data. Let's talk about it some more.

Yeah. I love it. Yeah. It's, it's like taking that back and being like, yeah, I need to do a bit of work. And then it's a journey, I'm sure. Right? Like it's, it's like realizing that there's a, there's this blockage of you just being who you are is the first step. And it just keeps getting, you just, you just keep getting more and more realizations of what you are, who you really are. Cuz it's like self-discovery and than embodying this and making sure that you're not acting at all or creating these different personas day to day.

And I mean, in the world of environmental health and safety, we're constantly assessing risk, right? And making determinations as to what are the controls we need to put in place? What's our path forward? And so similarly, there's risk you're taking. There is interpersonal risk you are taking by being your authentic self. And each and every day we have to choose which parts of ourselves To expose, and we have to conduct a rapid risk assessment to determine if I bring this part of myself to work, to my community, to my friends, what are the risks that I'm taking, right? What, what could be the consequences of me exposing this part of myself? Um, so like I said, it's, it's uncomfortable, but it, it's a perfect parallel to EHS because we're literally assessing risk each and every day.

Yeah, absolutely. And Bryce, for the listeners, so you've worked, like, if you want to tell us, like, organizations you worked with and the kind of roles that you've taken on.

Yeah. So like I said, I started off in engineering. And, you know, I'll be honest, Moussa, I got a little frustrated because after a while in that role, I was no longer engineering. I was no longer innovating, creating, and developing. It was a lot, just a lot of paperwork, a lot of simulations that, that required variances. And so, I was looking to leave the organization at the time, and the organization had invested in my development. So, they wanted to find a way to keep me, and they put me into environmental health and safety. And I knew a little bit about safety. I did safety engineering, so I knew about risk, but like occupational health and safety was not something I knew about. And worse yet, they made me the lead auditor for the division. So, here you have this person who knows next to nothing about environmental health and safety, and he's going to travel the world telling our operations what they're doing well and what they need to improve on. Just really set me up for success here, right? But I took a lot of crash courses, right? Whether it was US regulatory law, whether it was ISO international standards, general approaches to risk based on our really unique operations around the world. So met a lot of people, explored a lot of different types of operations, but I never had my own operation. And so I still had that working against me where I was showing up at a manufacturing plant and engineering facility knocking on their door and telling them what they do well and what they need to improve on when I've never had to do it myself. And that wasn't lost on me, right? Aside from that, it was frequently reminded, reminded of me. So I did have that opportunity to lead my own operation and got to put my money where my mouth is. It actually was the operation that I was leading that I had worked at previously as an engineer designing the very vehicles, the very systems. Now I was manufacturing them. I was at the facility that was manufacturing them. So it was a neat full circle moment. Had the opportunity to work with a bargaining unit, a union facility, and a very— we'll say very traditional environment and a plant that had been there since the early '60s. So I learned a lot there. 24-hour operation. Uh, and I was working there when COVID hit as well. And so, uh, a neat journey, but we all went through a lot during, during the height of COVID

The company was, was it AWS?

The manufacturing company that manufactured all these, all these, uh, systems, flight control systems, that was, uh, BAE Systems. Yeah. So that, that was a heavy, heavy manufacturing environment. Um, during kind of the scaling down of COVID I moved over to a data center hyperscaler called AWS. And AWS, to this day, I have trouble just truly envisioning, understanding the breadth of that organization and the footprint. It is unconscionable just how large it is. And so a really neat place to work because I was building systems from the ground up that were going to impact operations around the world.

Yeah. Sorry, I missed BA because that was kind of like, I thought it was prior to COVID. But yeah, I think when you joined AWS, it was still kind of also amidst of COVID And of course, it's like a very different reality now working with hyperscale data center-focused business.

Yeah, it was, it was, you know, I think at that point joining AWS around 2021, organizations had kind of figured out how to accommodate and work with COVID right? We kind of knew what the restrictions were. We knew about social distancing. Vaccines were starting to become a thing. We understood What what masks could and could not do to help protect us. So yeah, but definitely the the quickly learning and pivoting was was at BAE Systems just to keep that global. Specifically, my plant was was seen as a matter of critical national infrastructure. So really interesting when we got the governor's call that we had to shut down the plant. We had not shut down that plant in almost twenty years. This is, this is a large manufacturing plant. It's not one building. It's, it's, you know, 30, 40 buildings. There's no off switch. You can't just turn it off and walk away. And we hadn't successfully turned it off in 20-some years. So we were there late that night figuring out how do we turn this off? And so we did. We successfully turned it off just short of midnight on, on Thursday or Friday night. And by Sunday, we were identified as critical national infrastructure, and we turned it right back on.

Love it, man. That's awesome. And do you feel like through that journey, I mean, from there down to AWS, and now I know you're supporting Google, but do you feel like you're specializing in a particular part of safety, or are you still kind of involved in every part of it?

I think especially with my background in auditing back at BAE Systems and then continuing on, I think that my specialty is management systems, which is like a beautiful full circle moment to my systems engineering background, right? It's like, you think about that meme and the guy like pointing at the screen, kind of his wild looking face, like, that's me. And like, everything connects, everything connects. If you have an incident, like, what does your root cause analysis track and is it influencing your training? And do you have objectives that you need to adjust for next year? Right. And so I adore that. I love challenging organizations, whether it's my own internal organization or others, to say like, okay, You fixed the training, but like, did you update your policy to reflect that new update in the training? But also, how was that missed in the first place? Was it a competence issue? What are the competencies that are expected of our team and of the workers? And like, why are we not constantly auditing that part of it, which should be part of your internal audit? Like, to me, it is beautiful. So that's absolutely my specialty is the plan, do, check, act continuous improvement lifecycle. I could talk about it for— days and not get bored.

Yeah. It's like, as you talk about it, it makes me like, you literally sound like a tech product manager in the realm of safety. You know, you're someone who understands how it all connects and you're thinking of optimizations and making it a more cohesive journey, you know?

Yeah. And streamlining it. Oh man, if we can find ways to reduce SLAs, reduce the number of days to delivery. Yeah.

It's great. Automate all the paperwork. Like there's just so much work that can be done. I wanna take us back and, and reflect on diversity and inclusion and things there, but just on one last thing because of the space here, and I think it's just super exciting. What have you been learning about the world of data centers? And I don't know, 'cause it's such a, there's so much investment going there compared to any other industry today. Do you see that there are certain opportunities or areas that are exciting to look at from a safety mindset that can really contribute and add value to that space?

Relatively speaking, it is a very new industry. So, if we look at public organizations, we look at societies, we look at professional organizations, we have these groups dedicated to construction safety. We have groups dedicated to transportation safety, public utilities, to manufacturing environments, engineering consulting. We have groups dedicated to all of these spaces, and we have best practices. We have known best practices. So, we partner with this consultant, we partner with this supplier. And they probably have a solution for your use case, no matter what it is. They probably have aviation safety. We got that process safety management. No problem. We have a playbook, right? Let's go. We have this. We— let me reach onto my shelf, dust it off and like Ctrl+F and change the name. You're good to go. Data centers is moving at just a breakneck pace and nothing Absolutely nothing we've seen before. And so that's exciting from an operational standpoint. Growing exponentially is the coolest thing ever that they figured out how to do that. And there's, there's a number of ways that a number of factors that have enabled that. One of the biggest ones that, that has been shared with me is the, the term silo is typically used with a negative connotation, but in the tech world, it enables groups to move so quickly and build. And if, if there's a mistake, pivot and adjust and keep going. From an environmental health and safety standpoint, we can't reach out to the usual professional societies, the typical suppliers and organizations and consultants that we've reached out to and immediately get an answer. Hey, we have a solution for your use case. There's not a playbook on how to build at a data center hyperscaler that's industry standard best practice yet. So we're doing it. We're doing it now. We are a part of building those organizations, stepping in and creating professional societies that are coming up and saying, hey, we think this is industry best practice. We tried it. It works well. And we're inviting others to the table to talk about it. Like, have you tried? Oh, it worked well for you too. Okay. So maybe this is standard best practice, but consensus standard-wise, those, those don't exist yet. And so a lot of us are just innovating as we go. And it's so exciting to see when it Yeah, you're

seeing the potential. And what I, what I feel is exciting here is I feel like there's a lot of collaboration between the organizations because they all have the same issues and they all are probably using similar contractors to, to build and serve. So it's like an industry that's starting now and it's setting up all these things and they're setting them up with people who have learned from the mistakes of all these other industries. So it's like, yeah, it must be super fun to be in the midst of that. It's super fun from our side as well because we can see the opportunity from a, from a So like from a product business of things we can build and deliver.

Yeah, I think, I think the other thing is it's changing so frequently that other industries, and we'll say the construction industry, how you do trenching has not evolved drastically in the last 10, 15, 20 years. Once we figured out the technology and how we manage it, it's Kind of what we do, and we've maybe made small iterations and changes on how we perform that activity, but generally that's what the developed world is using. Data centers, all of a sudden, like 6 months later, we have a new technology. Okay, let's build it with the new technology. Like, well, wait, that, that info, that, like, that, that impacts other things, that impacts our training program, that impacts how we write our, this other program. And like, How are we supporting that? Like, and I get that you constructed it, but what about operations and maintenance of it? And there's all these things. So that part enables people who are comfortable with change to really thrive, right? Like, just keep breaking things and keep moving. It's uncomfortable for a lot of people, but it is a really neat place to be.

Yeah, honestly, like, with reflecting on how slow things have been in most industries, it's very unique, you know, and that's where you typically want to be. That's where you're going to learn so much faster. It's how can you stop following the systems which were rightfully created in so many industries because of disasters that happened and we learned over time, but how can you take everything we learned and try to now move again from the ground up and learn from it? And of course, there are mistakes that are going to happen. Like, we're all going to reflect on big mistakes and big issues, which is natural, but I definitely agree with you. It's a really, really exciting place to be at now. Going back to the diversity and inclusion piece, particularly being in the world of safety where you're not only thinking about physical safety, you're also understanding the leadership side of it or the behavioral side of the equation, which is like, are people feeling psychologically safe? Are people able to speak out? Are people able to intervene when they need to? Are people like putting wrong, the wrong pressure on different people? Do we have like the right culture that enables people to be the best version of themselves so that they don't actually get hurt and that they deliver the job effectively? How do you feel like that diversity and inclusion space that you, you know, are nurturing, learned a lot from, have been developing intersects with what you have to bring? to, to the culture of the organization.

I think there's 2 things that stand out to me. The first one is, if you don't feel empowered or even just safe to be your full self, whatever that looks like, you're probably not going to speak up. Whatever that speaking up looks like, identifying a near miss or there's an issue. And to be honest, if you want to know where the next incident is going to take place at your operation, You have to look no further than the people who are doing the work, the people who are turning the wrenches, the people who are on the floor. And the worst thing that you can ever hear after an incident is one of those workers say, I knew that was going to happen. And we hear it very often. And so, one of the things we can do to enable those people to feel safe and empowered to raise their hand and say, just so you know, assembly line number 4, That last conveyor belt has an issue. We know about the issue. Worse yet, we've raised it to our supervisor twice before and nothing was done about it. How do we create that environment that they are safe to, to bring it up again and escalate it to their skip level? And where that ties into diversity inclusion is, if when that person shows up, we only want them to work on that assembly line and turn wrenches, And they are just employee number 489702, you can bet they're not going to raise their hand because they were hired just to do that one task, is to work the assembly line. But if instead we are embracing them as a person and we're asking them, hey, based on your past, your experience, your tenure, your skills, we value you. And we're going to, we're going to respond to, we're going to follow up on, and we're going to engage with you when you raise an issue. And you know what, maybe you raised it to your supervisor, maybe you raised it to your supervisor twice before and it wasn't acted on, but your leadership is committed. And so, you go one skip level and then it's acted on. Like, that's how we can make it so that people don't feel as though they are just there just to do the job, because they will absolutely let that incident happen because there's nothing for them to gain by continuing to push and escalate and say, there's a problem, there's a problem, there's a problem. So similarly, what that looks like is if you are, um, a single mother and you're working and being your authentic self, your care person, uh, who normally looks after your child is unavailable and you have to have that conversation, but you don't want to have the conversation with your boss. You're just asking for time off and you're not getting into why it is you need the time off because you feel you were just there and hired to do a job. And so you just talk about the job and you need time off from the job. It's going to be far more difficult to foster that, that mutual understanding as opposed to saying like, look, I'll be honest, I am a single mom. And my, my own mother who usually looks after my daughter is ill and unavailable to work. Like, what can we do about my schedule? What can we do to adjust it? And this is uncomfortable and also unprecedented. We are normally told, like, kind of a rule of thumb, indirectly told, don't, don't talk about this personal stuff at work. Right. And so starting to shift that paradigm of like, no, we should talk about these things that we understand where each other is coming from. We understand why Musa sees the world the way he does and why Bryce sees the world the way he does is, is that the culture, the background, the upbringing creates these kind of like these lenses in how we see the world. And you see the world one way, I see the world another way. And the frustrating part is that they're both correct. And so, how we reconcile those is just understanding each other's lenses. Like, why do you think that way? And that takes me to kind of the second piece as to where I see diversity, equity, and inclusion tying to safety is bringing people into the room for solutions. So, this is less so about the psychological safety aspect of it and feeling comfortable and safe to raise your hand and saying, I don't know what I'm doing, or I know where the next problem is, but rather fostering a building, a diverse team. That's going to deliberately look at things differently than how you will look at things. And so it is easy. It is easy and fast and seamless to put together a tiger team or a group of people that you've been working with for the last 15 years. Maybe they went to the same school that you went to. Maybe they have the same degree or background. Maybe they've been working at the same company that you have been working at, and we always use the same contractors and consultants. And that's fast and it's easy. What's hard is finding that person who was hired in just a year ago and came from a completely different industry. What's hard is asking that person who always has little quips and disagreements with you to participate on your tiger team. What's difficult is picking the people that you know are going to cause conflict, putting them together in a room and saying, we need to come up with the most innovative solution to solve this problem. So if it's a, a safety issue. Our, the light curtain simply doesn't work for this use case, but we need some sort of machine guarding and we cannot get anything off the shelf that fits this use case. You can get all the usual suspects in the room and you will probably come up with a quick solution, but it would be fast and easy. It will not be the best solution. If you deliberately, knowingly put together a team of folks who have vastly different approaches and opinions and experiences, It's going to be a little bit more challenging, but you will come up with a far superior solution. So that, I think that is the other critical, absolutely critical piece, because no matter what, diversity just exists and just is. But when you go out of your way to seek different aspects of different people and bring them into the room and look around and you're like, yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable. That's where, you know, some really good, healthy conflict and innovation is going to take place.

Honestly, man, like when you— something that I always, always reflect on is these things that you bring up in the world of safety are— oh, I always feel like safety drives— is like a few steps ahead with what you have to think about in normal organizations all the time, particularly because safety are trying to save people's lives. So like it's more critical to move and innovate and understand that space. But yes, as you were talking about this and I was reflecting on it, The first thing that came to mind was like, oh wow, if we have to make this difficult decision, what if I bring various skills from the team to include them? And I, I start straight away started thinking, oh, the managers or like their leaders are trying to manage their project and their timeline, and they're going to feel like we're disrupting that. And they're going to be like, and like they're naturally, there's resistance that, that, that comes with. Trying to involve various people. How do you approach that? Like, how do you break through that? And how do you know who to involve and when? Like, what practical advice do you have to get better at? And fundamentally, what we're double-clicking on here is like one way to really help the person who just sees his job as a, you know, a salary job, or, you know, a mother that just feels like there's, there's, she's just meant to like not disrupt anything, do her job, get, get the money that she's meant to get. Yeah. That probably has so much value to add, but doesn't feel empowered to, or doesn't feel a reason to, or maybe even is worried to because she doesn't want to create any drama. Helping them get comfortable with the power of their ideas and their contribution is by involving them more in these things and really consciously giving them the space to. And yeah, like, that's it. I'm like, wow, I want to do that. You know, so where do I start? How do I get there?

So anytime we are putting together a team to solve a problem, there's a known problem. But what I see a lot of organizations fail at is clearly outlining or articulating the problem, right? Goes back to my engineering days, like, well, what's the actual problem you're trying to solve? Like, too many of us jump to the solution. What's the problem you're trying to solve? If we don't articulate and put boundaries around the problem and outline it with data, then it's going to be far more difficult to justify that buy-in. So when I go to that line supervisor who has clear metrics that they need to meet, and I'm like, hi, I'd like to take you or one of your delegates off the line in order to brainstorm and come up— it sounds very fluffy. But instead, if I approach that supervisor and I say, so the last 6 months, you had 19 hours of downtime related to this particular problem. 19 hours. I want to improve that. I want to help you. How can you help me do that? I'm putting together a bunch of people, a bunch of different minds in the room. Who would you like to volunteer and who is your subject matter expert in this area? And so when you lay it out in front of that supervisor and say, you had 19 hours of downtime, and I know that stinks for you because I know what your numbers need to be. I want to help you. I think that that's where we get that buy-in a little bit faster is understanding where they're coming from. If you instead come in and say, hey, we're looking to come up with a solution. They don't have much of a dog in that fight. If instead you say, I know you have a problem, as a matter of fact, here's the data to show that you have a problem and I'm here to help you solve it, then, then they're more likely to engage. And you're right, Musa, like getting those different people, not just getting them in the room, but then the piece you shared was showing them that they're valued. So as soon as they do finally speak up and they offer something, it's that like, it's almost the celebration that you give when you get a new puppy and you're potty training them and they go to the bathroom outside and you start like cheering and doing a dance and celebrate. Like, you have to absolutely celebrate and positively reinforce that engagement. Yes, more of that. That's exactly— thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for feeling comfortable sharing. Turning around, using their name. Here's what so-and-so said. Or going back to what Sharon said is this, right? Is that absolute positive reinforcement? Because if we are not overt and intentional about celebrating that, there's No reason for them to speak up again. So, again, it goes back to, I know what your problem is, and I've put boundaries and outlined the data around your problem. I want to help you solve your problem.

And do you see resistance from managers sometimes where they feel like, hey, Bryce, let's not disrupt the workforce. We can deal with this. We have the time. They need to execute. Do you see some resistance surface on that side?

Sure. So, we as EHS professionals, we are people people. We know that. We are salespeople. We have to embrace people's opinion, and we know engagement is tied directly to safety. And at the same time, we have to appreciate when we do get that resistance. We have to empathize. We have to understand where that supervisor is coming from. Like, we got this. We can solve this. And so maybe you are making a compromise for the time being, right? Maybe you are slightly pivoting. You're scaling back the number of hours you're asking them to commit to whatever that tiger team or that investment or that working group, that committee. Oh, good. Another committee, right? That's, that's absolutely how our, yeah, our supervisors, our managers, like, good grief. Like, let me build the widget, right? I spend more hours in meetings, right? And so that, that's, that's on us. That's on us to absolutely articulate the use case and the data. And it's on us to, to practice empathy and to take a beat and understand, okay, what is the pressure that they're up against? Um, what can I do to earn their trust? Um, one of my favorite examples, I was working at an Amazon warehouse and every day I walk out onto the floor and I walk to the The inbound and outbound managers, and I say, "Is there anything I can do to help you today? What can I do to help you today?" Every day, I got to say the first week, there's this guy Gary. He just looked at me and was like, "What? Like no." And and I asked every day, every day up to twice a day because I would do my walks twice a day. Anything I can help you with today? And by the second or third week, he was actually yes. Actually yes, there is. There is something. Okay, let's do it. And it was something small and we took care of it, right? But that engagement, that follow-up, he really appreciated. But the best moment was about 6 or 7 weeks later, and Gary walked in off the floor into the administrative office area, and he walked up to my office and stood in the doorway and said, is there anything I can do to help you today? And that was like, this, this is how we begin to shift that culture, right? This is an operations person who's normally on the floor, glued to their monitors, looking at the red, amber, green metrics. And now he's taking that moment to flip the narrative, and he's coming to me, the operations manager, coming to the safety person saying, what can I do to help you today? That's— and that is absolutely how you start to shift a culture.

Love it, man. Love it. I wanted to— I wanted to try to reflect on the concept of authenticity because it's a journey I've been on, and I feel like you're quite a bit further down that journey. Fundamentally, it's like when I'm wasting a lot of my energy trying to build these other layers and I'm wasting a lot of energy, you know, trying to be, you know, protecting myself or the ego or trying to like protect this image that I put together versus just being comfortable with myself and fully who I am. I'm obviously draining, putting a lot of energy, you know, mental energy that I could just put into being more present and into the things that I want to build. How does that feel like? How can you reflect on the power of authenticity? at the workplace? And if you have any reflections on its power within the realm of safety, it'll be great to hear that.

It is exhausting. It is so exhausting to build those— you described them as layers, layers of a shell of what you think others need to see, what others expect of you, what you need to do. And it is exhausting to maintain those. You have to constantly think about what those layers are and what you need to do to protect it. And sometimes we see that as resilience, but it's not always resilient because you are wearing yourself down. It's exhausting every single day. For me, it is very closely related to the concept of imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is, is this debilitating, paralyzing, just unconscionable, perpetual fear. That today is the day that somebody will find out and discover that you have no idea what you're doing, that you are a complete fraud and you've been lying to everyone. And it's different. It's different than— and I see your body language, Musa, right? Like, it's uncomfortable to talk about.

It's so uncomfortable, of course.

Right. And it's different than self-doubt. I want to be really clear. A lot of people say, oh, you know, I have I'm doubting myself. And doubting oneself is, is good and healthy because it increases our cortisol levels. It makes us want to work a little bit harder, learn a little bit more, and do a little bit better. Imposter syndrome is when it gets to the point that it's impacting your mental health and your productivity. And the most fascinating part about it is it disproportionately affects high performers. That is, the more people that are, that deliver, that are more productive and that perform really well in our organizations are more likely to suffer in silence from this debilitating, paralyzing anxiety that— and it's not like, oh, I'm not quite qualified. It's somebody is going to walk into my office this afternoon and say, excuse me, you are not qualified to be here. Get out. Or worse yet, in a public meeting, in a big meeting, somebody will say, why is that person here? Why are they participating? And so I, different people suffer from imposter syndrome at different points in their career, and I most certainly have. And the first time I did was my first time as a people manager. And I decided in that moment, I'm just going to be very open and honest about it. And I told on the first week, first week, I told My employees in casual conversation, not like in a big central meeting, casual conversation. I have no idea what I'm doing. They kind of brushed it off, but by maybe they're like, "We're

sure we're sure he's joking," or like they just like

ignore it, right? Because as far as they're concerned, he was hired. Somebody interviewed him. Somebody checked his resume. So like, okay, cool. He must be joking. But it was about three four months in. And I said to several of them again, bear with me, I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I have no clue what I'm doing. And that's when they realized I was being serious. They were like, what are you talking about? You absolutely— you're exactly where you're supposed to be. You know everything. You're the best manager we've ever had. And that is, incidentally, the worst thing you can say to somebody suffering from imposter syndrome, because what this person said was, I think I'm going to share with you that I'm a fraud. And what you responded with was, no, you're not a fraud. You're not. And so now I have to double down on hiding the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing, right? Because they truly— they're like, you said you don't know what you're doing, but I know you know what you're doing. You're like, oh my God. Oh my God. And in doing that, though, and being insistent And consistent about repeating it was also seen as a form of authenticity. And when your team and your peers see a leader who they view as a pretty strong performer be open and vulnerable and authentic, they feel safe to also be authentic. They feel safe to confide in you. Hey, there's this job that I want to go for, but I don't know if I'm actually qualified for it. And I even gave data points. I still have never operated a 5-gas meter in my life. Like, what? Yep, I, there are parts that I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm going to keep asking a lot of questions and I'm going to ask you to explain the answer to me like I am a 6-year-old. Right. But the more you yourself are vulnerable about that, it sends a clear signal to others that you don't have to start building that layered shell that Musa and Bryce are busy building and exhausting trying to you know, keep and sustain the shell. Like, oh, look at these leaders that are starting to just talk openly, uh, and honestly about their gaps. Um, and not from like a professional, um, you know, standpoint where you're putting on a show, but like a, no, I actually don't know what I'm doing in this arena or this arena.

Or I have these, I have these deep issues that I'm working on and here's like where I'm struggling with them. You know, like, uh, as you're, as you're going through the story, it sounds so counterintuitive because Like it's the first logical path for everyone is that, no, you need to, you need to seem like you know what you're doing because you're the leader. And if the leader doesn't, people might feel scattered and scared and, uh, they need someone to like follow and connect with. And, and then the way you explain it is like, actually everyone that you work with is actually really good at what they do and it makes them feel like. I should expect this person to be human and just to do his best. And I'm not gonna have false— if anything, by you acting, you'll create a reality where they can like judge you a little bit and be like, wait a second, I don't think he's good enough. But as you being like an authentic person, like he's actually just trying everything he can and his, his abilities are to communicate clearly, ask questions, and, and organize us and support us as a team. It's actually, it's so counterintuitive. And, and as you say it and I reflected on it, it just is a much more powerful place to be, just having to go through that wall and, and, and, and really be vulnerable, uh, instead of, instead of hiding.

Yeah, it's, and it's far less exhausting too. Not to mention, your team members are probably not idiots. And so if you are acting and building these layers and being inauthentic, they will see it after a while. And then at some point you're left to answer to that, right? When they call, when or if they do call you out on it. I would rather call myself out ahead of time, identify my gaps and say, here's what I'm doing to resolve them. Uh, you're, you're right. Kind of the understanding and the, the thought is that we as leaders are supposed to be the people that everyone else follows, but in— Good. Okay. So maybe they'll follow suit in being open and honest about their Gaps, their vulnerabilities, their worst fears, right? I'd like them to follow me in that. My job, certainly as a leader, is to listen to you, understand, ask follow-up questions, and then remove barriers to your success, not necessarily to say, do this, do that, right? So there's, there's a lot there. I will share where it— I'd love to share a story if I could, Moussa, where it's most resonates with me is, you know, I had worked for several years as a people manager and then COVID hit. And so certainly I was, I was open and honest about some of my gaps, but I was also, as you mentioned, like people look to me. He is the EHS manager for a very high-risk operation. So we look to him to keep us safe. And I prided myself in that. And even though I had never operated a 5-gas meter, I think I Knew a thing or two about keeping people safe. And then COVID hit, and I worked tirelessly to keep them safe, constantly watching the news, reading CDC report updates. I was spending, when COVID first hit, a quarter million dollars a month for one manufacturing plant. I had a contract nursing staff of 42 people. We had 24-hour screening operations. I was given an open checkbook, right? Whatever you need to do to keep us up and running. And I'm so proud looking back. Everything looked so intentional and professional. We didn't have handwritten signs. Everything was very clear and rolled out very quickly, right? I pivoted my staff to rolling these things out very quickly. You're frustrated about wearing a mask because you don't like how it fits. I've provided 5 different variations of masks strategically placed in 16 locations around the plant. We changed, you know, from, from how we were checking temperatures to like mass-scale thermometers. We were so efficient, Moussa, going back to my engineering, we were so efficient. We, we put a time clock, multiple time clocks out in the parking lot to make sure that people could clock in before they went through the screening process, because the screening process to get your temperature checked Could take a while, and we, we wanted to make sure people were getting paid for that time. But we were so efficient with our process that it took longer to clock in than it did to just go through the screening. So we ended up removing the time clocks. Like, I am so proud of everything that we built and all of the automation. Every time somebody tested positive for COVID-19, immediately it was my voice that went out to 10,182 touchpoints of phones, Text messages, emails, my voice sharing, we had another positive case of COVID-19 in our workforce. Here's where they worked. Here's when they were last on site. Here's what we're doing to address the issue. And, and so my, my why, my reason was keeping these people safe, and I felt I was doing a darn good job of it. And June is celebrated as LGBTQ Pride Month in the United States. And, you know, I spent a lot of time as the EHS manager with the emergency response team. And so we're in this emergency response command center. Musa, I hadn't been in my office for 6 months at this point. Like, we're just living in this emergency command center. And the site lead said, hey, it's Pride Month. I hear the employee resource group is sending us a pride flag to fly out front. Cool. So on June 1st, they flew this pride flag, and I, I wish I could share this picture with you. It was hysterical because we had this giant American flag and this giant prisoner of war MIA flag, and then this dwarf little rainbow flag flying out front. And I remember pulling up in the parking lot and looking at it because I had worked as an engineer at this plant, like, 9, 8 years prior. And I remember looking at it and being like, I never thought I'd see the day where we in this very small town union manufacturing environment would fly an LGBTQ+ pride flag. Like, that is pretty cool. And so I walked in, it's like 4:30, 5 in the morning because COVID times, I was working wild hours just to make sure I was supporting our operation. I walked in the emergency command center. The site lead said, That's unacceptable. I said, what are you talking about? He said, I need a flag that is the same or larger in size as the other flags. That looks silly. And I was like, I mean, it's fine. It's a little silly, but like, he's like, no, I need you to get me the right size flag. I was like, okay. I said, dude, Dennis, his name is Dennis. Dennis, you can't get anything nowadays. Like logistics during COVID was awful. Everything just— you couldn't get anything, right? And I, I did a lot of like planning ahead of time, so we stocked up toilet paper, on soap, on stanchions, on barriers. So we were good with that. But like, you want me to order— I said, you know, Pride Month is going to end in a couple weeks. He goes, I need you to overnight it. I said, overnight it? With the logistics right now, that's more than the cost of the flag itself. He said, I don't care. And he walks over and he hands me his credit card.

Oh, wow.

Okay. Like, he was not having this conversation anymore. And so I ordered it and it was going to come the day after the following day. And so in the meantime, the next day, we're walking out to the parking lot with the site lead. We're going to get something from his minivan. And we walk by, there's 2 employees and they're commenting on that flag. And they said, I cannot believe that the company would fly the fag flag. And, you know, I heard it, you know, move on. But we get to the site lead's car and Dennis just loses it. He's like, how, how do you put up with that? The very people you come and you're working from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. and then you have an hour-and-a-half commute each way, you are working tirelessly to protect them. We were ordering UV sterilizers from nail salons just to disinfect equipment. How can you tolerate that? I said, look, I'm here to keep them safe, and I'm gonna keep doing that. He said, but, like, how do they not understand? I'm not, I'm not going to change their minds tomorrow about how they feel about that. You know, I appreciate your support. So that afternoon, we get a grievance. So in the United States, that's the formal process for a union to express their disagreement or conflict with their main employer. And the grievance was about the pride flag. So mind you, it's this tiny little pride flag that's flying out front still. And you have your union workers where people are out of work at this point around the world, but you have these workers who are continuing to work. We're keeping them safe. They still have a job, and they're taking the time out of their day to get with their union leadership and saying this is unacceptable that the employer is flying a pride flag. And they the leadership team wasn't going to tell me, and I walked in. I saw them discussing and asked them about it, and they said. Don't, don't worry about it. I said, well, why wouldn't I not worry about it? Like, absolutely, let's talk about it. And they said, Bryce, this is the one time of year where we need you to not have to be burdened by this. Let us fight this fight for you. Let us take care of it. We are a team and this is the one time of year it is not your responsibility to fight this. Okay, so I was really curious to see what their overall response was. The flag arrived that night. The larger LGBTQ pride flag arrived that night. So I rolled up. I got there maybe 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning, a little later, maybe 6 o'clock in the morning, and there was this giant pride flag flying out front, this huge pride flag, and I walked into the command center and there were several of the leaders already there that early. And they said, we want to show you something. Okay. And they were super excited to pull out their iPad and show me a video of the site operations lead, the site director, the labor relations manager, the security manager, and the HR manager collectively raising the pride flag together. Wow. And they said, this is going out into communications this morning to the whole operation, re-acknowledging and re-celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month. They said, this is the one time of year you do not have to fight this fight. And we were proud to do it. Well, it was, oh

my

God, it was Unlike, and that is actually amazing.

I mean, it's a reminder of how there are some amazing, amazing people, man. Amazing. Yeah.

And it reminded me, okay, they value me as a person. It is my voice that goes out to 10,182 touchpoints, you know, in my, uh, you know, today we learned of another case of COVID-19 in our workforce. A very professional Over and over, just that eerie reminder. And I'm working tirelessly and they recognize and appreciate me as a person for doing that. And it empowered me to keep going all day, every day, and to continue to be my authentic self rather than choose to start building up those shells.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, man. Thank you so much for sharing that story. Like, it goes bumps throughout. It's so powerful. And it's a reminder that like just be your authentic self and trust that that's the right thing to do, you know. And I think what I'm taking away from this is spend the time to really understand who I am and understand what I truly am deep down and really embody it day in and day out. Don't ever create any layer. And I think the biggest teachers will be the times I feel like I reacted or I got Angry or I got defensive, they're the times I need to like sit back, reflect, and think like, what is happening here and what am I hiding? You know, I think these are the messages, messengers that I'll reflect on. But Bryce, I want to, I want to stop it here, my friend. This was so powerful. I think the story is amazing to end with. I want to like chat with you about a few things, but I'll take this offline and we can like schedule something. If there's anything you want to share with listeners as we wrap up, please go ahead.

I guess all I will say is I can share these stories. We can talk about the best things to do, but it is going to consistently be uncomfortable. And if we're not getting uncomfortable, we're not doing the real work. So it will be uncomfortable. It will be awkward. Uh, and we're going to have to, like Musa said, we're going to have to reflect on some misses. We're not all expected to be perfect, but we're expected to look back and reflect and adjust and acknowledge. Um, and so be uncomfortable, get comfortable with getting uncomfortable.

Love it. Thank you so much, Bryce.

Thanks, Musa, for having me. Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to the Safety Heroes Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click follow. Until next time, stay safe.