A couple of hours ago I was in a staff meeting with a regional CEO of an international company. He revealed more financial data about the status of the company to his staff than I have ever seen before. His reason was because he was talking to \”adults\”. He acknowledged that his staff were intelligent and were as important to the success of the company as anyone other staff member.

Some would call that leadership but it was certainly innovative. The transparency (and honesty) verified his strategy of moving the company to focus more on customers and for all staff to share the values. It was a bit business-speak as these things often are (at least he didn\’t have 72 overhead slides) but he was beginning the cultural change.

Good CEOs are rare (and I think I remember the CEOs you are referring to.) If they are willing to support staff-generated initatives and be forthright when required, it\’s a good start.

I just finished reading your excellent interview with Andrew Hopkins from back in 2000, Kevin. There are some correlations between this topic of use of tech standards and what Hopkins has said about management commitment and focus. It applies to the 1995 initiative.

We all love to slag off the boss. And a good amount of time they warrant it. But it needs to be said that this idea of how to use tech standards in a smart way wouldn\’t have happened without 2 CEOs of the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Authority (as it was back then) showing the sort of guts rarely seen amongst government bosses. The first CEO gave the proposal the thumbs up and the second took up the banner and ran it through the torrent of heavy fire that rained down on it from all around Oz. And it also needs to be said that the key stakeholders in Vic did their bit too.

It was obvious that the employer and union side of the equation were prepared to give it a crack, to see if it was an idea that, although looking logical on paper, was going to deliver good practical results.

I\’m not saying all this to trumpet about Victoria. What really matters is that it\’s an example of what we keep hammering the punters about and too rarely see the OHS-World doing: thinking hard about innovation, encouraging big ideas and running hard and confidently with the best of them.