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The Question That Changes Every Safety Conversation, with Stew Murphy
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"I don't care if the people are safe. I care if the people care to be safe. And that might be a play on words, but they've gotta get it. When they get it, your job's done." - Stew Murphy, Director of EHS at Mactac NA
OK, everyone, this one’s for the leaders who know safety isn’t a scoreboard, it’s a mindset. In this episode of The Canary Report: Safety & Risk Management, I sit down with Stew Murphy to dig into what really drives a culture where people choose to work safely, not just follow the rulebook.
Stew shares why chasing zero misses the point, how to uncover the blind spots hiding in your investigations, and the simple “Would you let your daughter do it this way?” question that cuts through resistance instantly. We get real about scaling culture across multiple sites, rebuilding trust after acquisitions, and why listening, truly listening, might be the most powerful safety tool you already have.
Here are some of the topics that Stew and I explore:
- Why "I don't care if people are safe, I care if people care to be safe."
- How to build a "What If" mentality across 30 locations with zero headquarters overhead
- The "Daughter to Work Day" question that stops safety resistance cold
- How to replace "safety blindness" with systematic, fresh perspectives
- Why mixing in-person training, online modules, and external experts beats any single approach:
- The critical difference between "making safety" and "having safety."
Stew Murphy is the Director of EHS at Mactac North America, bringing 35 years of engineering and environmental health & safety expertise across Fortune 500 companies, global operations, and high-risk manufacturing environments. Known for his ability to transform safety culture from the ground up, Stu has consistently delivered sustainable results—including reducing recordable injury rates from 17 to 2 across European operations and maintaining a 15-year injury-free streak at one facility.
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