“Hey, let’s be careful out there.”

These words were delivered by fictional Sergeant Phil Esterhaus to his force at the end of each briefing every morning. Those of you who watched the hit TV series Hill Street Blues know that the streets his force patrolled within the unnamed city were filled with an assortment of crime and gang activity and always deadly.

All too often we may find ourselves delivering Sergeant Esterhaus’s advice to our own teams. This may be a bad idea.

Why? Because when we’re talking about safety, our messages need to be specific.

Did Sergeant Esterhaus actually tell his force how to be careful or did he just assume they knew? If he explained to his force that there have been a lot of reports of gang activity on the North side and said, “Make sure you don’t patrol that area by yourself…and hey, be careful out there,” could that have saved a life or two? Very likely.

And remember, people tend to interpret words and phrases differently. To me “being careful” may mean to stop or slow down at the yellow light of an intersection, whereas to someone else “being careful” could mean to speed up and race through the intersection, “being careful” to check for traffic in all directions first. See the difference?

It is incredibly important to be clear and concise with our instructions to others and to never assume others know how to do what we say, even if the message is just “be careful.”

Just want to give out a great thanks to Kent Dartez and Cliff Brittain for sharing this with me so that I could share it with the fine folks here at SafetyXChange. Thank You SafetyXChange!

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