Terry McSween, PhD

terry mcsween

Terry McSween, PhD is President and CEO of Quality Safety Edge (QSE). In 1990, Terry founded QSE, a company that specializes in the application of behavioral technology to create employee-driven safety and quality improvement efforts.

Terry is the developer of Values-Based Safety™, which creates ownership for organizational change through local-level employee involvement in the safety design process.

Considered one of the world’s leading authorities in behavior-based safety, Terry has 30-plus years of experience consulting in educational, institutional, and business settings. He is the recipient of local and national awards for his work in behavioral safety and is actively involved with a number of business and professional organizations including the Board of Trustees for the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, the Association for Behavior Analysis, the American Society for Safety Engineers, and the Texas Association for Behavior Analysis.

A speaker at safety conferences worldwide, Terry also founded the annual Behavioral Safety Now Conference (BSN). He has published over 100 articles and authored the seminal book on behavior-based safety: The New Values-Based Safety: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Your Safety Culture 

He received his doctorate from Western Michigan University.

The role that management and supervision play in supporting behavioral safety should ultimately be tailored to the unique needs of each organization and its safety process. As with the other elements of behavioral safety, one size simply does not fit all. 

 Terry McSween

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Values-Based Safety with Terry McSween

In today’s podcast episode, Maddie Duke, MS, BCBA, speaks with Dr. Terry McSween, PhD about his book, The New Values-Based Safety. Listeners will learn about the essential components of behavior-based safety, how to go from clinical work to behavior-based safety work, how to collaborate in a behavior-based safety process, and the future of behavior-based safety. Purchase The New Values Based…
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Articles by this Author

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Five Critical Behaviors for Safety Leaders

Five Critical Behaviors for Safety Leaders

The phrase “leadership support” has become a cliché in discussing safety. We always hear about the importance of leadership support and “walking the talk.” The reason we hear so much about such support is because it is important. Yet it is too often poorly defined. Leadership support is often seen as just delivering a series of messages about the importance of safety.
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Building Accountability for Safety Leadership

Building Accountability for Safety Leadership

Safety is about Leadership: Placing employee behavior at the frontline in establishing a culture of company safety. For many years, leadership as it relates to safety has often been defined as support, which at times translates to just don’t impede the process.
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Behavior-Based Safety Process

Keys to a Successful Behavior-Based Safety Process

An old adage in quality improvement efforts was, “Do it right the first time.” That statement is particularly relevant when it comes to behavior-based safety. As a good friend of mine likes to say, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This statement is also relevant because behavior-based safety is much harder the second time around.
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