In This Issue
- Sue, the Environmentalist
- Say Something Good
- Points To Ponder
- A Little Humor
- Quote of the Week
Sue, the Environmentalist
I told you about Sue Satterfield in a previous newsletter but she has been on my mind recently when I was thinking about changing the environment. Many years ago, my first wife, Ruthie and I were with Sue Satterfield and her husband Richard and after doing a safety meeting for Georgia Power in Atlanta, we decided to spend a few days with our hosts touring the beautiful foothills of Northern Georgia.
We visited the Hiawassee fairgrounds and then in the evening we attended a Country Music Festival. We guessed there were some five thousand people in the auditorium which was packed. Luckily, we found four seats together in the rear of the giant hall. As we walked into the auditorium I was hit by the hot, stale air. A group was on-stage singing their hearts out and the audience response was really flat.
Sue sat down, sniffed a bit and said out loud for all to hear, “This air is foul.” And, of course, we all agreed. “I’ll take care of that!” She said confidently. Sue stood up and went to the rear of the hall where the fellow from the Lion’s Club, the program sponsor, sat at a table. “This air is foul in here.” She said to the man.
He explained that he was alone at the desk and there was simply nothing he could do about the situation. “We’ve got to open up some of those side doors,” Sue said, and again the man said there was nothing he could do.
“I’ll take care of that!” Sue said and she walked to the rear of the hall and over to the front where they had these big doors that slid up like a garage door. She walked over to a fellow standing there and she said to him, “This air is foul in here. We’ve got to get some fresh air in here, will you hep me?” Actually she said “Will you help me,” but Sue had her own charming way of saying things. The man agreed and together they managed to swing this big door up and open it. Then he walked with her around the back on up front on the other side of the hall and together they opened up a door on that side.
Now she had a great system of cross ventilation going. It was heavenly.
Five thousand people had been sitting there suffering with the lack of oxygen and whatever elements people had sucked out of an air supply in the two days and nights of band competitions that had preceded this event: those five thousand people now began to inhale deeply.
It was like magic. The musicians on-stage began to perform better. The crowd really got into the music now and their survival was no longer in jeopardy. They all started clapping and stomping their feet and that turned out to be one of the most wonderful Country Music shows that we had attended in a long, long time.
Can you imagine five thousand people were willing to just sit there and put up with really stale air and not one of them made an effort to do anything about it. It took a :real Southern woman” named Sue.
Oh how the world needs more people like her…just one woman with some know-how and determination made the world a better place for five thousand people and she saved the concert that night.
Say Something Good
Americans…want an instant shot of pride and patriotism? Listen to The Star Spangled Banner the way it should be sung. May God bless our troops and keep them from harm, and may God Bless America.
What makes a safety program great?
I’d say, “Fresh ideas and passion.” I had two phone calls recently that reminded me of the importance of ideas. One was an idea I came up with years ago in connection with having employees sign a personal commitment to safety and to agree to positively interact with other employees if they see an unsafe act or an unsafe situation. A client had called me and said, “Art, your program worked great, now what do you have for me new this year. I suggested that he do it again and so he got out the video, showed it again to every employee and got them to sign a new commitment. This approach brought everyone new online and renewed the commitment of those already in the program. Well, the phone call was from that same client sixteen years later and he is doing the same thing each year and it works so well that he will be distributing the same booklets again this year and they now have over 2,000 employees. The other call was from a fellow in the U.K. and he bought our 101 Kit for the ideas that he might modify for his own national culture. I told him I was sending him a hundred thousand dollars worth of ideas in this Kit and, actually it proved to be worth over a half a million dollars for another client. That is what they saved in not going with another safety firms approach and what’s more, that other firm wanted a hundred thousand dollars a year just for maintenance of their program. And yes, that firm using our program does it again and again and again. Signed personal commitments by everyone in your organization can produce instant results, provided you include the commitment to positively interact with others when you witness unsafe practices. We are talking about putting every employee, including your CEO, on your safety team. Of course, perhaps it is not really worth $595 plus shipping to change your safety commitment. Act now! and we will include my comprehensive 420 page book Winning the Safety Commitment as a bonus. It is crammed full of great ideas to make your meetings better and to improve your presentation skills too. The kit includes 3 DVD’s taped at my live presentations. 3 CD’s of songs and posters you can use to create your own power point motivational tools, 3 great safety booklets and more. THIS KIT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
Points To Ponder
Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Winston Churchill
A Little Humor
Many years ago when we first installed an answering machine in my office I discovered that most people were just like me, they hesitated to leave a message because they felt uncomfortable talking to a machine. I did a bit of experimenting and finally left the following message. “Hi there, this is Art Fettig’s chair. His answering machine is busy right now and Art is out giving speeches and writing books, but your call is really important to us. Sooo…when you here the beep start talking. Now…HERE’S THE BEEP!
People would call our office from all over the country just to hear that message and from then on most callers left a message. Use a little humor in all of your contacts with others and watch your results improve. NOW Here;s a bumper snicker. I need someone really bad…Are you really bad?
Quote of the Week
Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. John Homer Miller
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