Jeff Odie Espenship
Former USAF Fighter Pilot, Culture Leadership Workplace Safety Systems. Jeff Show’s Groups How To Elevate Their Performance.
Jeff “Odie” Espenship motivates and encourages workers and organizations in the Target Leadership program he created. The former USAF fighter pilot and international airline pilot understands how to lead others to promote safety in high-risk and dangerous work environments.
He believes it’s the little things that cause the biggest safety problems. These include miscommunication and a lack of attention to detail.
Leadership is more about attitude than a title and embracing an attitude of pursuing perfection will influence safety behaviors and makes everyone a leader. This is how positive changes are made that save lives.
Jeff shows people through engaging, personal stories how little things shouldn’t be brushed off and how it could lead to tragedy. His keynotes leave people understanding the burden of responsibility and feeling inspired to do better.
Lead with Excellence
Maintaining a high level of performance means paying attention to the little things. Jeff “Odie” Espenship, founder of Target Leadership, personally knows the impact when leadership fails to execute safety fundamentals. By sharing his lessons learned as a United States Air Force fighter pilot, an air show performer, and an international airline pilot, his message in human behaviors has become one of the most sought after by companies worldwide. Odie gives an interactive, entertaining, yet powerful message on getting back to basics in life and leadership. It’s the little things that can take an organization from the cellar to stellar. Odie discusses setting high expectations, speaking up, listening to what is NOT being said, overcoming complacency (the silent killer), never assuming, and communicating to understanding, to achieve new heights in life and leadership.
Learning Objectives:
1. Recognize any potentially dangerous behaviors/ shortcuts in your organization that team members may have adopted as “the way it’s done” vs. the “way it should be done.”
2. Identify ways that people can be made to feel comfortable coming forward to speak openly and freely about what is really going on in order to overcome a “culture of blame.”
However, it is the “The Little Things” that cause failures in the cockpit and on the job!
The keynote is customized, multi-media “Edu-taining” presentations that will motivate and encourage your team to embrace the leadership, culture, safety initiatives that your company has in place for them! We use our stories and experience in order to relate our lessons learned directly to your team in the audience. We refer to each of them as “fighter pilots”. They are hard working, highly skilled, well trained, get-it-done people who know how to operate with precision. Many of them may work in high risk and often dangerous work industries such as Chemical, Construction, Petroleum, Utility, Nuclear, Manufacturing, or aviation. The operators, mechanics, technicians, welders, engineers, chemist, nurses, and doctors of these industries are just like a fighter pilots!
The keynote begins by reflecting inward. Jeff “Odie” Espenship gives a riveting account on losing his brother and a good friend in a tragic aviation accident. The leadership lessons learned clearly shows how our work behaviors influence those around us.
We will focus on awareness and leadership at all levels Setting Expectations and Monitoring Performance. Leadership creates and maintains the culture of the workplace, and the workers work within the norms of that culture. Leadership must set expectations high and then monitor the performance of those expectations. Expectations will simply come as a byproduct of operational excellence, and operational excellence will come as a byproduct of superb, value based leadership.
Espenship’s message inspires us to think and strive to improve our behavior and actions, by appreciating who you are as a leader. The concept of speed-rush-baseline will hit home with all levels of leadership.
“Jeff is the epitome of professional and impact. With a mandate to inspire over 250 people across the US, Canada and Ireland via video, Jeff did more than deliver—he conquered! Using humor, emotion, experience, easy-to-use tools and story telling, Jeff brought the importance of safety home, BIG TIME. He reached the hearts of everyone and his video is being used over and over with our teams to bring safety to the forefront in an accessible and powerful way—for the company, for our families, for our communities. Thank you Jeff.”
Bath Fitter loves you!
“Odie, You don’t know me, but my daughter works for XTO Energy – ExxonMobil and was deeply moved and impressed by you at their event in Ft. Worth recently. I just wanted to let you know.”
Mother of XTO Energy Employee
“We had 591 people attend Odie’s presentation at our refinery on January 19th and 20th. Everyone that I have spoken to agreed that Odie was the best speaker we have ever had .”
ConocoPhillips Ponca City Refinery
“I hired Odie to do a 30 presentation roadshow throughout the entire country for all ExxonMobil US Production. It has been a sincere pleasure working with him and his team! I am grateful for the impact of his message and I have consistently received great feedback from the audience members at all levels. Thanks again for your help in raising safety awareness at USP.”
ExxonMobil
“Your Operational Excellence presentation at our Chevron GATOR gathering was absolutely on the mark. When it comes to workplace behaviors, you did your homework on us! We had over 300 participants and the comments my boss and I received afterwards underscored how well your leadership-culture message hit with our entire group. By far one of the best keynotes we have ever heard! Target Leadership will be invited back.”
Chevron
“Odie, On behalf of all the “Fighter Pilots” at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, we would like to extend you a sincere and well deserved thank you for your Safety Presentations. You exceeded our expectations, from Senior Leadership to the Individual Contributors. We have received very positive feedback from our workers regarding the impact you had on them. We will be placing some of your posters around the plant to remind us of your presentation and messages regarding inward reflection, seeking to learn – not blame, and many others. It is clear that you have a deep personal conviction about Leadership and Safety..”
Pacific Gas & Electric Diablo Canyon Nuclear
“Odie gets the message across to his audience. He spoke to over 5,000 of our utility employees. His content and body language sinks so well that his message stays with his audience for long time.”
Pacific Gas & Electric
“Our company recently engaged “Odie” as a keynote speaker on safety, leadership, and culture. He came in the day before and spent time touring the mill to become familiar with our work environment and culture. His presentation was interesting, motivational, and funny. He worked hard to connect with our employees. The best thing I can say is that our employees really enjoyed him and got something from his message. We received extremely favorable feedback from employees in every department. I would strongly recommend Odie as a safety or leadership speaker.”
Nucor-Yamato Steel