In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French explores how leaders can turn good intentions into real behavioral change in the workplace. Drawing on research from the December 2025 issue of the Consulting Psychology Journal, the discussion focuses on practical, evidence-based strategies for helping people move beyond simply understanding safety practices to actually applying them consistently.

At the center of the conversation is the “Three E’s” model of behavioral change: Enlighten, Encourage, and Enable. Enlightening people is the first step—providing knowledge, awareness, and the rationale behind a policy or process. In safety, this often comes through training or communication about procedures and risks. However, information alone rarely leads to sustained behavior change.

The real impact occurs when leaders move into the next two stages. Encouraging involves setting clear goals, building confidence, and motivating individuals to take action. Leaders help people understand what success looks like and support them in developing the skills needed to reach it.

The final step, Enabling, focuses on making the desired behavior easier to perform. This includes providing tools, reinforcing progress, tracking outcomes, and creating opportunities for practice and social support.

Together, encouragement and enablement form a reinforcing cycle that helps behaviors stick and evolve into long-term cultural change. Dr. French emphasizes that real transformation takes time and consistency, but even small actions can build momentum toward safer, stronger workplaces.

Ultimately, the episode highlights a key leadership challenge: teaching is important—but driving action is what truly changes culture.

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French examines a tragic news story out of Michigan involving two young workers who lost their lives due to hydrogen sulfide exposure while performing well maintenance. What initially appears to be a confined space incident reveals something deeper: a failure of basic training, hazard recognition, and rescue preparedness.

The workers were using hydrochloric acid to descale a residential well located beneath a porch — a clear permit-required confined space. The chemical reaction likely produced hydrogen sulfide gas, a highly toxic and deadly substance. One worker entered the well and was overcome. A second worker, acting instinctively to save his colleague, entered without protective equipment and also succumbed. Three others were hospitalized.

Dr. French unpacks the layered safety breakdowns: lack of hazard communication training, absence of confined space protocols, no engineered rescue system, and a culture of comfort built on years without incident. The absence of injury, he reminds listeners, does not equal safety — it often equals luck.

This episode challenges leaders to look “between the lines” of tragic headlines and ask critical questions: What was present before? What assumptions were made? What systems were missing? True safety is deliberate, verified, and practiced — not assumed.

A powerful reminder that preparation, training, and leadership are what stand between routine work and irreversible loss.

In this episode of Leading & Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores new research from the February 2026 Journal of Applied Psychology examining how safety training contributes to workplace safety. The featured meta-analysis reviews numerous studies to evaluate the true impact of safety training on knowledge, skills, attitudes (KSA), and overall safety outcomes.

Dr. French reflects on one of the most persistent challenges in safety leadership: making regulatory training meaningful. Using hazard communication as a practical example, he discusses the difficulty of keeping repetitive, compliance-driven content engaging—especially for long-tenured employees who hear the same material year after year. Yet, he emphasizes that even “routine” safety topics remain critical, as near misses and preventable incidents continue to occur.

The research confirms what safety professionals hope to be true: safety training works. It positively influences safety knowledge, behaviors, attitudes, and ultimately workplace outcomes. Importantly, richer and more robust training efforts produce stronger results. Organizations that invest thoughtfully in safety learning—focusing on clear objectives and audience needs—see meaningful cultural and performance improvements.

However, the episode also highlights a sobering reality: some organizations still fail to provide adequate safety training, despite legal mandates and clear evidence of its effectiveness.

Dr. French concludes by reinforcing a central message—when organizations intentionally invest in knowledge, skills, and attitude development, they strengthen safety culture and business performance. Training is not just compliance; it is culture-building work.