Intentional Safety: Building a Culture That Owns the Outcome with David Doggette

In safety leadership, most conversations circle around the same metrics: TRIRs, near-miss rates, and lost time incidents. But metrics don’t create safety. Mindset does.

That’s why my recent conversation with David Doggette, Director of Safety at LPX Group, hit home. David has spent years working across construction and heavy industry, guiding teams that operate in some of the most complex, high-risk environments. His perspective? Safety isn’t a box to check; it’s a value to live by.

In our discussion, David shared how intentional leadership, disciplined practice, and human judgment are redefining what safety excellence actually looks like in the field, not on paper.

“Safety Is No Accident,” It’s Intentional

When David interviewed for his current role, one of LPX Group’s core values stood out to him: “Safety is no accident.”

He asked the leadership team a simple but powerful question:

“Does that mean you’re chasing zeros, or does it mean you’re being intentional?”

The answer: “intentional,” and that became his guiding principle and north star.

We discussed how many organizations still fall into the trap of chasing zero incidents without addressing the culture underneath. The moment safety becomes a numbers game, it turns into performance theatre. Field teams start managing appearances instead of managing risk.

David’s approach flips that script. Instead of pushing fear-based compliance, he embeds safety ownership into the core of leadership at every level,  from foremen to superintendents. It’s about making safety personal, measurable, and directly tied to how leaders are evaluated and rewarded.

When field leaders see safety as their responsibility, not “the safety department’s,” everything changes. Accountability becomes shared, and the goal shifts from “avoiding incidents” to “doing the right thing every time.”

Emergency Procedures: Practice Until It’s Muscle Memory

David also made a point that every compliance and risk professional should engrave on their wall:

“Your team either executes or panics, and the difference is practice.”

Emergency action procedures are the universal baseline of safety. No matter the environment, a job site, manufacturing floor, or office, they’re the one element you can’t afford to get wrong.

But too many organizations treat them like paperwork written once, filed, and forgotten. David’s experience in both the military and construction safety taught him that the only way to make emergency response real is through repetition.

Quarterly drills, scenario mapping, timed responses, these aren’t “extra steps.”

They’re the foundation of readiness. Because when chaos hits, your people won’t rise to the occasion; they’ll fall to the level of their training.

That’s why he encourages safety leaders to turn emergency planning into a living, breathing process. Test your egress routes. Rehearse confined-space rescues. Run mock incident command drills until they’re instinctive.

It’s not glamorous, but it’s what separates teams that freeze from teams that act.

Predictive Safety: Where AI Meets Human Judgment

David also described how technology is transforming the safety profession, not by replacing people, but by making them more effective.

His team has been using AI-driven digital audits to analyze patterns across dozens of job sites in real time. Instead of waiting for incidents to happen, these tools identify leading indicators, the early warning signs of systemic risk.

Think of it as moving from hindsight to foresight. When a cloud-based system shows that five sites are all failing flagging inspections or lockout/tag-out verifications, leaders can step in before anyone gets hurt.

But David was clear about one thing: technology only works when it’s guided by human expertise.

“A drone can’t tell you why something’s wrong; it can only show you where to look.”

That’s the future of safety analytics: AI scales visibility, but human judgment gives it meaning.

By pairing drone footage and digital audits with the trained eye of experienced professionals, David’s team turns data into action. The result? Fewer surprises, fewer near-misses, and more confidence that their operations are under control.

The Real Cost of Doing It Wrong

David shared a simple truth that every operations leader should sit with:

“It costs a little money to stop and do it correctly. But it costs a lot more when you don’t.”

Safety and quality go hand in hand. Rushing, cutting corners, or ignoring procedures might seem faster until an incident halts production, triggers investigations, or worse, hurts someone.

David has seen it play out countless times: the job that was “too busy” to pause for a hazard check ends up costing days, even weeks, in recovery. When leaders treat safety as a constraint instead of an enabler, they end up paying twice in time, in money, and sometimes in lives.

The solution isn’t complex. It’s discipline. It’s taking the time to do things right the first time, because that’s what builds consistency, trust, and long-term operational excellence.

Mentorship and the Future of the Safety Profession

As our conversation drew to a close, David offered a piece of wisdom that stuck with me:

“We don’t have to know how to fix everything; we just need to find it and work with others on how to fix it.”

That’s leadership.

Too often, safety professionals feel the weight of solving every problem themselves. But the best safety cultures are collaborative. They empower people across roles,  from welders to supervisors, to become part of the solution.

David credits mentorship for shaping his approach. Having seasoned leaders who modelled humility, curiosity, and consistency taught him that influence comes not from authority, but from example.

Now, he pays it forward — coaching young safety professionals to stay curious, to ask questions, and to build relationships that make safety a shared journey, not a solo mission.

A Call to Leaders: Make Safety Intentional

Listening to David, one thing becomes clear: the most effective safety programs aren’t built on compliance. They’re built on culture.

Safety isn’t about chasing zeros or collecting audit scores. It’s about how leaders show up every day, how they communicate, how they respond, and how they make people feel about speaking up.

When field leaders take ownership, when emergency plans are drilled into instinct, when technology amplifies human insight, and when mentorship replaces blame, safety stops being a department. It becomes who you are as an organisation.

That’s what intentional safety means.

It’s not about perfection,  it’s about purpose.

🎧 Listen to the full episode with David Doggette, Director of Safety at LPX Group, on The Canary Report: Safety & Risk Management to hear how intentional leadership and digital innovation are redefining the future of safety.

Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/49nhL6V
Spotify: https://bit.ly/441boCx
YouTube: https://youtu.be/PNz6KxxcM2w