Improving your EHS Signal-t0-Noise Ratio

Within the field of environmental, health and safety, I deal with a lot of different companies. Some very big and some extremely small. But often, the truly useful information is often drowned out with a bunch of useless information. In other words, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely poor. So how do you improve? How do you really make a difference? First off, always, always strive to make things simple and easy to understand. Having been in the field of EHS for over 28 years, I’m very familiar with the b.s. routine of writing a sixty-page document that is filled up with definitions and references just so you can impress your peers with your work of art. Trust me, it is much more challenging to write a ten-page document that is meaningful and useful. Try it sometime. Rather that see how long you can make a document, see how short you can make the document. That’s why Twitter is hard for most people. Most people can’t get their point across in 140 characters or less.

Next, decide who to listen to and who to ignore. For about six years I coached girl’s competitive basketball. These girls were some of the best in the country and very talented. When they first started, I had parents screaming at their child, “Dribble the ball,” “Shoot the ball,” etc. Ninety-five percent of them had no clue. As I told the girls on the team, “I'm your coach and when you are on the court, ignore them.” In the field of EHS, you need to find that one special person who you will trust. The person who will tell you the things that you don’t want to hear, but need to hear. Those kind of people are rare and generally only once in a lifetime, but seek them out.

Finally, don't become a conference groupie. Most of the conferences are out there to make money. Speaker quality covers a wide range of experiences. Smaller, niche conferences are generally vastly greater than the large mega conferences.

So there you go. Eliminate the noise and improve the signal of the useful information. Go out and make a difference.

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Yep, I’m Dean Calhoun. I’m the President/CEO of Affygility Solutions. We have really awesome EHS software and do a lot of work in the field of potent compound safety.