#59 - Angelo Spingardi - Safety Has No Finish Line: 17 Years Running Safety at Saipem

We accept and we recognize that being human means that sooner or later, mistake will happen. We need to make sure as organization that that mistake doesn't end up being a catastrophic event. So we need to be able to recover. We need to be able to have system to intercept. In order to achieve that, you need to show vulnerability. As a leader, you need to be vulnerable. For example, if you start discussion, I mean, you don't need to give the impression that you are delivering Expectation only, but try to find agreements rather than expectation.

Angelo, thank you so much for coming by, man. I've been waiting to have this conversation for some time. I know when I think of you, I think of this amazing, compassionate leader. I interacted with you a few times, and I always feel like lucky to interact with people with your kind of mindset and skill set and energy because you always bring this calmness to the table. And I were you're finally here in London, and I thought. a great opportunity to have you by. So, thank you so much for joining.

Hello. Hi, Moussa. Thanks for having me, first of all. So, I think, yeah, it was a great opportunity. I think I love the idea to share my thoughts on the podcast. So, yeah, I think empathy is, when it comes to health and safety, I think empathy is all connected because at the end of the day, we are talking about a very important subject, actually the most important subject because we talk about personal life. So, and having empathy when you talk with people and transfer the calm and transfer what is really important is making a difference. So, it's a value that I really believe and that I really strive to transfer to all my team and to the entire organization.

Cool. I love that. I'm a huge believer too. A question I would ask you just to anchor this conversation, especially that you mentioned empathy, and it's something that I'm trying to talk about more and more because I feel like we need to bring it up more in the workplace. As a leader within a very large organization, you've been doing this for a very long time, what is the role of working with empathy, compassion, and really anchoring trust in the way you operate? How would you contextualize the role of that in the success of your role and the organization?

Well, I would start saying that I think trust is a very big word because at the end of the day, trust In an organization like ours, it takes a while to build trust in your team, with your peers, with your management as well. So to build trust is something that requires effort, it requires dedication, it requires really proper motivation. But above all, I think that the distinguishing factor is always to provide value in whatever you do, having passion for what you do and providing value for what you do and for the company that you work for. And for, at the end of the day, I'm working as HSE professional since I joined Saipem. So actually my role, I built my role in this field since the early stage. And to be honest, that was not even my intention because I joined Saipem as environmental engineer and I wanted really to design environmental stuff in order to improve all our activities and all our environmental footprint.

But that was almost like 17 years ago or so.

17 years ago. Yeah, it seems yesterday, to be honest. It seems yesterday, but so many things have been done and so many things have changed. And I talk about passion because safety became something that I was really passionate about, that I'm really passionate about because I believed and I started realizing and seeing safety not only on the technical side, but more on the empathy, trust, communication, all those soft skills. If you want to be a very good safety professional, you need to balance the technical with the soft skill. I think that's the key.

So 17 years, you've been with Saipem for a very long time. You've gone through this experience where it went from this technical skill to it's a human skill that has a lot to do with communication. Maybe take us back to through your career. Is there a memory or a story or something that drove that shift in you? Is there something memorable where it really helped you go through that aha shift?

Well, I would say that there are 2 different moments in my career. One was not really related to my job, but something that happened. I mean, a person that I that I know very well, that I knew very well, but unfortunately he had an accident at work and he lost his life. And I knew this person because during university and during university time, during summer, I used to work with them. I used to work with them. And so that's— once you realize that you could lose your life at work, And when I joined Saipem, as I said, I was mainly an environmental engineer, so I couldn't really see the safety aspect. But then I started really to hear what was going on in the organization, what was really the change that the organization was pushing in terms of safety culture, thanks to our long-lasting leadership in health and safety program. So, I think That sparked the idea that, okay, being an environmental engineer is good, but let's see what else can I really embrace to move forward. And I've always been very curious and very curious to also to see differences in our world, differences in our projects. So that's why I just spent the first year of my career in the office in our headquarters. Then I started my expatriation where I actually came back to Italy just 2 years ago, 3 years ago. So, I think I spent a great deal of time abroad working with different cultures, different contexts, different complexity. And that was the personal story, really opened my mind on the safety-related subjects. And then the working, the professional, let's say, side of it was the fact that, okay, I mean, if you want to be a safety professional, you really need to listen. You need to get people to trust you. You need to get people really to see you as additional, as a real support for the activities that we are doing. Our core business is to deliver projects. Okay? So, you need to be able to, you know, translate safety and to be— To

value?

Not only to value, but to have it becoming something attractive, something interesting, something that really people pay attention because, not because the procedure says that, okay, that's the way to do it, but because it's the right way to do it. And I think there are a couple of moments. One that I recall is the importance that and also the level of credibility that you get in front of your peers is really to be focused and interested in what everybody else is doing, not only to focus on your piece.

So the curiosity would— genuinely curious about what others are doing and being more into them than trying to impose your opinions and ideas.

Absolutely. I mean, I started working, as I said, environmental engineer, but very soon I moved to HSE and also to the entire health and safety and environment sphere. But I would say that the distinguishing factor has always been to be curious on what was going on on the project, not specifically in health and safety or environment, but in terms of progress, in terms of technicalities, in terms of the critical, the challenges that we were facing with clients, with local authorities. So in order to step in with the HSE agenda and always try to really find the best moment in order to drive the health and safety or environmental agenda in that case. And that was very— I would say that was very successful because at the end of the day, we managed to tailor whatever were their requirements or— Mm-hmm. the right things to do in terms of health and safety, but not to impose them. It was not a top-down-driven imposition or whatever.

Which is a mindset many maybe safety professionals fall into, maybe just a misunderstanding or a bit of ignorance where they feel like they need to impose their processes. Absolutely. Where this approach is way more genuine and you're more like, you know, fundamentally the project needs to succeed and it comes from a place of Empathy first and foremost because people feel heard and understood and they see you as a supporter versus a blocker.

Exactly. That's exactly the point. So, I think if we really want to make the step change in the way health and safety professionals are perceived, are seen, or are listened, we really need to sit at the same level and to sit at the same table as the others. And not to feel— sometimes it's difficult because I realize that, Sometimes it's difficult because we got the impression that not everywhere and not always we are listened, but then it's a race that we cannot lose. And above all, I like to quote also my CEO. That is a very good metaphor that he uses. So safety is a race without finish line, something that we are running and we want to really to get to the finish line. So meaning, completing whatever we do with zero accident at all. But I mean, something that we really need to strive to get there. Yeah,

it's amazing. You must be very lucky and feel very lucky to have a CEO and leadership that understands what you are trying to do and seems like they have the same values and the same vision within your safety strategy.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think one of the major, let's say, turnaround that we did recently in the past 3 years A big thanks is to our top management, to our CEO that is driving safety with passion.

That's great.

And above all, with empathy. And so I think it's really making a difference. And for me, as being in charge of the HSEQ function, I think it's fundamental to have a support like that.

Yeah. In my position, I get to talk to so many professionals, and the amount of time you hear the stories of, as soon as things are going well, management starts looking at cutting costs because they're like, okay, safety is in a good place, why are we investing? And then another angle I heard, actually, last time I had a conversation with this very amazing lady called Kathy, and she's working on this value accounting concept within safety where— She's really spending a lot of time contextualizing the money and monetary value from different safety activities. And just the power of showing the team the level of care and empathy and compassion, and them sticking longer and being more connected to the business, has so much value that it's hard to contextualize. And it seems like so many safety professionals really struggle with this because leadership still sees it as a cost item and don't understand it enough, where there seems to be a lot of work that needs to happen to create the budgets and make sure that safety program's still going. From your perspective, being very senior in that role, how do you see it? Do you see that same issue? And what advice do you have for other professionals to be able to counter that?

This is a never-ending question mark. Wherever you go, I mean, many people still think that safety is against production, safety is against operation and productivity. So, if you do something unsafe, then it means that you lose time. Actually, we should, and this is a good reflection that I will also try to work on it, we should try to build as an industry proof that all projects that were successfully delivered, not only in terms of schedule or cost, but they were actually the one delivered successfully in terms of safety because at the end of the day, when I mean, safety is a consequence, right?

Yeah.

So if you do plan everything well, if you execute everything by procedure—

If people are empowered and are happy in the work they do.

Actually, they pay more attention. They are really— they take care of one another and therefore the likelihood to end up a project with proper results, so meaning that without accident, It's there.

Yeah.

I wouldn't say the opposite, meaning that when you start having a serious accident at work, then you start to get in question from your customer, it's normal, authorities. Then you start thinking and also imagining that you are doing something wrong, and perhaps that's the truth. So you change system of working, you try to to rush in order to implement a new initiative, new ideas, new stuff.

Create more pressure, create more confusion.

Exactly. You create more pressure, more confusion, more entropy, and then suddenly another accident is happening. And then it's difficult. So back to your question, I think our role as HSE professionals is really the distinguishing element, the key elements for an HSE professional, let's say, for a big organization like like Saipem is really to transfer that calm and proper—

Human-centric.

Human-centric and preparation, planning. And budget-wise, to be honest, in all my career, I never had any discussion about budget on health and safety. I don't know whether I was lucky that I always had very good and committed leaders starting from Saipem, leaders to project directors or to the CEO. But I also think that once you bring them ideas and the benefit, you let them see what could be the value of doing something in that way, I'm sure you are halfway there.

I'm sure it's not only luck over 17 years, you know, like the communication skill Is a big part. I think the framing that I love hearing from you, when I reflect on it from a business standpoint, not from a safety professional standpoint, if I'm creating unnecessary pressure within the system because of urgent timelines and I'm not taking care of people, if I have a blame culture instead of a culture focused on systems, if I don't follow human performance principles even at a normal work process, projects will fail, systems will not be designed well, people are— in a stressed situation, so they're not in a very productive state of mind. So there's a framing, branding piece here where safety needs to be understood differently. It's like a human empowerment, human empathy, human-first approach. And when people are more empowered, taken care of, and feel safe and feel good, they're just way more productive. They're much better at what they do. They put their heart into the activity and not just— not just do it because they have to and leave early. So yeah, I love that. You must be really good at the branding piece without giving yourself that much credit. Yeah,

thanks for that. So I think in a way, I mean, I was effective, but obviously it's a team effort and definitely I can only be thankful to my team that is an amazing team that is working very hard every day to get to the next level of whatever we do. And well, you mentioned the human performance, and I think what I keep saying also to my peers, also the leader of Saipem organization, or whether it is a CEO of business line or project director, it's a very effective example because when there is an accident, whether it is somebody that got hurt really, really bad or And unfortunately, we had our fair share of situations like that in Saipem. The first reaction as a leader is normal to try to distance themselves from that accident.

Because it's such a big— you're talking about people's lives here.

Talking about people's lives. So maybe you are, you know, You are a project director that was not on site that day, that was not really looking after that construction vessel or that onshore worksite. So you say, okay, I wasn't there, so I'm not so sure what happened. Let's see the investigation, what will reveal, and so on and so forth. But then what I keep saying is, don't look at the exact moment. Don't look at the day of the accident. As a leader, you should look, you should make a step back a week before, a month before, or even a year before, and to see and to ask yourself, what decision did you take or what didn't you take that perhaps a chain of events led to set the context in which your people took decision that day. So this kind of discussion really resonates with them. And this is the key of engaging, how you engage leaders, how you engage really people and try to make them really realize that whatever they decide or don't decide has an impact afterwards.

Yeah. Like, just by you explaining it the way you explained it, it makes sense across everything I do as a leader as well, not just safety. So within safety, it just becomes much more important because it literally could impact someone dying. But it's like the first reaction if something goes bad with a customer, it's like, what did someone do wrong? Is the first natural reaction that comes. And then learning through learning this work, I'm trying to always distance myself, and it's such an enlightening experience where, oh my God, I've put this pressure here, or I tried to increase the number of customers each person needs to manage instead of making sure they have the systems. And it always shows how— gives you responsibility for knowing how you can be better. So it also opens up the learning, which otherwise we're losing such an important piece of learning here because we're focused on— an individual who probably never wanted to make that mistake. Obviously, everyone wants to do their best. So yeah, it's a very, very powerful concept. And from my perspective, something that's amazing when I think of having you here is from all the programs that we've seen for Human Performance Principles, the one that stands out the most is the SAIPIM program that you guys have. You've created amazing cinematic videos, you've created amazing learning experiences, your team is amazing. Interesting you brought them up. I mean, every person we met from your team honestly is extremely passionate. They're extremely knowledgeable. They really care. So maybe one more step back. When I talk to many other customers and safety professionals, they're at different stages of that journey, and it is an overwhelming thing to think about, right? You're like, am I going to solve this with one training module? How do I get management to buy in? What do I have to do? So maybe talk us through your journey? How did you bring this to the organization and how did you go from inception to such a strong, impactful program that you have today?

First of all, I'd say that we were coming from a long history of designing and adopting, designing, developing, and adopting cultural change program. Now, I mentioned before the Leadership in Health and Safety program that was developed and was introduced in Saipem in 2007. So, And I think that was somehow a turning point where we actually understood the power of unconventional communication, safety leadership, and work towards leadership in order to drive changes in the organization. So, having that good track record, and we had very big shoulders, if you know what I mean, and so we had experience. When the time was back in 2024, actually, when the situation was very coincidental because I was attending the Safety Collaboration Forum in Houston that was organized by the major oil and gas operators. And the subject that was for that forum was human performance principle. So I started really to get passionate about human performance principle. I said, okay, then we started cross-checking and benchmarking with other industry, with aviation. So we invited and we had also a couple of exchanges with experts from the aviation. So how they implemented human performance principle in civil aviation authority, for example. Air traffic controller. So to understand how can you really perform activities that requires high reliability because you cannot fail. And if you fail, you need to fail safe. And I will come to that point. So knowing the theory from human performance principle that sometimes can be seen and can be read a bit very abstract. You know what I mean? They're not very tangible in practical terms. So I went back to my team, obviously, like we always do, we brainstorm a bit and we said, okay, let's try to always use the storytelling.

I love that. It's like the power of making it a story, making it emotional, making it real.

So we said, let's try to use storytelling In order to convey the human performance principle within our organization, let's make it Saipem way. So, I mean, let's take an example. And actually, we decided to take one high potential near miss that occurred a few weeks before. And then we said, okay, these are the principles, error is normal, blame fixes nothing. Let's try to dig a bit into it. So, given this scenario that happened, why did the person take such a decision to enter a pipe, for example? That was the case. And so, we came out with this idea to produce a movie that was somehow rehearsing the—

Going back in time to—

Going back in time of the accident during an investigation process. So, we were simulating the investigation. We were Simulating the investigation, asking questions, and going through principle by principle without even spelling them out. So meaning that once— after that, we use this movie as a tool when we deliver our workshop in our worksite with worksite supervisor, so frontline leaders, for example, top management, in order to brainstorm concepts, but also to role-play. Blame fixes nothing. It's a fundamental principle. How do you, I mean, ensure—

Understand it in a real context.

Understand it practically, because there are different ways of blame. Body language is a blame. If I talk to you and then I don't look at you, I'm blaming you somehow.

You're judging as well.

I'm judging. So we are in a process that, I mean, this program that goes under the name Failsafe, because we We accept and we recognize that being human means that sooner or later mistake will happen. If a mistake can happen, we need to make sure as organization that that mistake doesn't end up being a catastrophic event. So we need to be able to recover. We need to be able to have system to intercept the mistake translating into— A real accident or even worse.

You want them to be empowered enough to understand that it's okay to fail and to be creative and learning from it versus hiding and cowering from that mistake.

Yeah, I think this is key, but I would say, and I would add also another element, that in order to achieve that, you need to show vulnerability, to be vulnerable.

As a leader?

As a leader, you need to be vulnerable. You need to show that.

And how would you do that? What's an example?

Admitting that you don't know it all. I mean, for example, if you start a discussion, I mean, you don't need to really give the impression that you are delivering expectation only, but you are actually engaged with the team. You are actually finding— try to find agreements rather than expectation. It's a different way you translate and you different way you convey messages. And being vulnerable also means show that, I mean, you made a mistake, that I made a mistake. So for example, so being open and transparent with your team creates that culture where they feel actually okay to say, listen, I screwed up. Let's not make a big deal out of it. Let's try to learn. And then maximize the sharing in order to make sure that your failure doesn't end up to be somebody else's failure with potential even more serious consequences.

Yeah, it's so interesting as you're talking how many people in the workplace really struggle with admitting making a mistake. I try to keep following that practice, for example. I'm learning this still, of course. I'm trying to get better and better where if I make a mistake, I would try to go in front of the team and say, look, I screwed up here. And then when I'm noticing how many people hold their grounds when they make a mistake, when I'm noticing they make a mistake, I'm like, are they going to bring it up? And how weak it is as a position for that person, because people understand what they did, and it makes them feel like they have an unrealistic wall, so they're just pushing people away. So it's interesting how big of a problem it is. And I'm sure in the construction world, world and on the ground, it's even bigger of a problem because many people really still have an ego that they try to protect, especially in a corporate environment, because I think that if I'm making a mistake, maybe I'm not good enough and maybe my job is going to be affected.

You're absolutely right, especially when you say in the construction industry, we are still seeing the macho man attitude. You see what I mean? So people that are not afraid of anything. So this is something That we really need to

work on,

to strive to improve because at the end of the day, but the good point is that we are starting to talk about it. Psychological safety, vulnerability, curiosity, and all those concepts that if they are really exploded and they are discussed, they are really dig down, then you can get a lot out of it.

Amazing. I know you started talking about the journey of how you got to— I love the story because I didn't know it— how you got to building Failsafe. I think for the listeners, Failsafe is such a powerful product that for us as a company, we watched it maybe 2 years ago, and it created a massive shift within our organization as well. We had 50, 55 people on the call. We played it, thanks to you guys. Davide gave us access to David and Darren gave us access to the video. I played it at the end of an all-hands meeting. Most of the team was a bit distracted, but as soon as the first 2 minutes took place, and you have such a powerful incident, an emotional driver, everyone's attention was on that video. And at the end of the video, it created so much energy in the team, and it created so many ideas, and it really delivers the message in such a powerful way in 20 minutes or or so. So yeah, I'm sure you're proud, but building something like that and giving that to people goes a long way. I know we have just 5 minutes, but I just want to ask one thing before I wrap up, because as a leader, doing something like this is really powerful, and I have to give you huge appreciation because I learned from it, so it made me a better person. My organization learned from it, so these ideas go a long way. And really, thank you for putting the love and energy behind something like this because it does make a difference. And before I go to the last question, now that the video is created and you have such a large organization, such a large group of contractors, how would you define a program that is good for delivering human performance principles as a topic? So, if you try to summarize that for people who care about this topic, because I think you have so much experience and your program so successful. So beyond having a video, what else do you try to do across the organization to drive that culture and that change?

For sure, the video is a tool. The video is a tool that we use to create the emotional connection because you that have seen it, you got the punch in the stomach since the beginning, and that's really what gets you connected to the story. But then the video, as I said, is a tool that is used in a 1-day workshop with leaders at all levels in the organization, also site leaders, frontline leaders, to brainstorm and to discuss what potentially can be improved in their working site. And the power of that discussion is amazing because you get— To listen from the people that are living day after day the working site and they know what can be improved. They know what are the weak points. They know where is the next incident or where is likely to be. And so those are the powerful discussions that you really need to take and to work upon in order to improve. Also, the workshop itself is a tool. It's part of an entire program because then we have training. We have training with today's technology that is helping now with augmented reality, virtual reality. And thanks also to you, the collaboration that we have is amazing, the way we are translating these things together. But then you don't need to give up. You don't need to think that even though you achieve very good performance, because perhaps, I mean, you are satisfied of your performance, You don't need to think that everything is sorted. Everything is—

There's no finish line.

Safety, there is no finish line. Yeah. I think we need to keep on going and keep on working. Cool.

Amazing. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Angelo. And honestly, the one last question that I want to finish with is more about you. Something I reflect on sometimes is the job of top safety leaders is actually a very difficult job. And because, as you said, you have to be always empathetic, you have to be on the front line with people, but you also hold a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. And so many people operate in the organization. So how do you feel personally? How are you doing? And when you think about what advice you have for leaders like you to keep you motivated and keep you grounded, what comes to mind to share?

Well... That's the last question, but it's a really difficult one. I mean, if you— I'm lucky. I'm saying that I'm lucky because I grew up as a GC professional. So I have this passion within me that, I don't know, maybe is helping me day after day not to be frustrated or not to get laid back when something doesn't get in my way. I always try to use the approach to work the person or the leader by different angles.

Mm-hmm.

It happens many times that you are proposing something, but you don't get really the full excitement that I have perhaps. So I need to change strategy, to change angle, how to convey the idea, how to— and if you are really motivated and if you really believe in what you are doing, and you start seeing the results, then I think, I mean, at the end of the day, you will be recognized and you are appreciated by all the value that you're bringing, all the value that you're bringing. So, I mean, passion is key. So you need to be passionate about your job. For sure, if you feel your role as a 9-to-5 effort, then it's

It's going to burn you out.

Yeah, it's not going to help you.

Yeah, love it. Thank you so much for being here, man. Always great to see you. I really, really appreciate you being here, and I'm going to try to set up something else. Hopefully we'll get to sit with you, Davide, and others as well, because I think there are quite a few things we can go into, but I really, really enjoyed this.

Thank you for having me, Moussa. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.