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Industry Events & Thought Leadership | 24/07/2025

Rethinking Safety: From Compliance to Operational Excellence

In today’s energy landscape, safe operations are no longer about slogans, posters, or programs; they are about performance. At Promethean, we believe that safety is not a department, a system, or a campaign; it is a fundamental value that underpins everything we do. It is the natural result of operational excellence — a byproduct of preparing and motivating people to make the right decisions at the right time.

Clint Boman, a leader at Promethean and former operations supervisor, puts it plainly:

“Core to these philosophies is that safe operations are about operational excellence and properly preparing and motivating right decisions in the workplace.”

This may sound simple, but it challenges some of the most commonly accepted truths in safety management today.

The Truth About Safety “Fables”

Across the industry, we've built entire ecosystems around programs designed to improve safety. Behavior-based safety initiatives, culture change campaigns, zero-incident goals — these have become part of the operating wallpaper. Yet despite all the programs, incidents still happen.

Clint Boman calls these programs what they are: fables — widely accepted but ultimately flawed beliefs that distract us from what really matters. Take, for example:

  • Fable: Good safety programs reduce incidents

 Reality: People's performance — not programs — prevents incidents

  • Fable: Everyone is responsible for their own safety

 Reality: Leadership must take responsibility for preparing and motivating their teams

  • Fable: A strong safety culture reduces incidents

 Reality: Culture doesn’t drive behavior — behavior creates culture

These fables persist because they are comfortable. They create the illusion of progress. But in the real world — on offshore platforms, in aging facilities, during offshore decommissioning, and in other high-risk environments — illusion is dangerous.

Safety Happens When Leaders Lead

In Clint’s early career, safety was viewed as an external layer, a checklist managed by a separate team. But through hard lessons and real consequences, he came to a pivotal realization: only leaders can create the conditions for safe behavior.

An unforgettable story from Clint’s offshore days reveals this truth. Faced with a costly infrastructure repair, one of his employees made a daring decision to get the job done without the required equipment — a decision that could have cost him his life. Why? To please the boss.

The employee had not been reckless. He had simply been motivated by the wrong expectations.

As Clint later reflected:

“I rewarded him for the outcome, not the process. I didn’t ask how the job got done — I only cared that it did.”

That moment reframed everything.

Safety Is a Leadership Accountability

At Promethean, we hold a different view. Safety is not a value you hang on the wall — it’s a leadership responsibility. Just as we wouldn't send our kids into the world and tell them they're “responsible for their own safety,” we shouldn't do that with our workforce either. Instead, we prepare, train, motivate, and guide them.

Every supervisor on every site must ask themselves: Have I done everything I can to ensure my people are ready to make the right decision, even under pressure?

If the answer is no, then it’s not a worker’s failure. It’s a management failure.

The Model Is Broken. It’s Time to Fix It.

The traditional model of safety management relies heavily on tools: behavior cards, bonus programs, culture surveys, and awareness campaigns. These tools can support a process, but they do not drive it. As Clint says, tools are like brands of power drills — useful only when the person using them is skilled, prepared, and motivated.

We’ve also been sold the myth of zero incidents — the idea that perfect compliance can eliminate all risk. But perfection isn’t human. Even the best-trained teams will make mistakes. Our focus must shift from fantasy to resilience — from paper-based compliance to performance-based accountability.

This is especially true in high-stakes projects, such as offshore decommissioning, where complexity, cost, and safety intersect on a daily basis. In these environments, resilience and leadership matter more than checklists.

Promethean’s Approach: Excellence That Drives Safety

At Promethean, we approach safety the same way we approach late-life operations and offshore decommissioning: with operational excellence, innovative thinking, and engaged leadership.

We believe:

  • Safety performance improves when leaders are present, engaged, and accountable
  • Incidents decrease when people are trained, trusted, and motivated
  • Culture is shaped not by intention, but by consistent behavior and reinforcement
  • Improvement happens when we stop chasing perfection and start building systems that support better decisions

Whether it’s routine maintenance or complex offshore decommissioning efforts, we focus on aligning leadership accountability with frontline decision-making.

This isn’t theory, it’s practice. It’s how we’ve consistently delivered high-performance outcomes with zero incidents across complex projects. It’s how we turn high-risk assets into success stories.

Let’s Redefine Safety, Together

The energy industry is at an inflection point. Regulatory pressure is increasing. Expectations for environmental and workforce protection are higher than ever. In this environment, the old playbook is no longer good enough.

We need to challenge the myths, retire the fables, and adopt a new model of safety leadership, one rooted in accountability, operational excellence, and high-quality decision-making at every level.

At Promethean, we’re not waiting for the next incident to prove us right. We’re leading the change now.

Let’s redefine what safety means — not as a program, but as a performance.