Episode Details

Contact Carol Cambridge:

Telephone: 623-242-8797

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan from the Manufacturers Network podcast. I am excited to introduce you to Carol Cambridge. Carol Cambridge is CEO of the Stay Safe Project, an international conference speaker, and a workplace violence expert highly profiled for her expertise. She has often sought by the media for comments when tragedies occur. Carol has been interviewed by ABC, NBC, USA Today, CBC, and as far away as News Channel Asia in Singapore. Her career began as a communications specialist in emergency services and disaster preparedness with a Canadian law enforcement agency.

Twenty-seven years later, Carol has taught over a quarter of a million people how to make intelligent, powerful, and life-saving decisions. When Carol is not speaking in training, she is at home in Glendale, Arizona, with the love of her life and three beautiful dogs. Carol, welcome to the show.

Carol Cambridge: Thanks so much for having me.

Lisa Ryan: Well, you have such a fascinating background and what you've been doing. So just share a bit of how you got started and how you ended up where you did.

Carol Cambridge: Well, I came to the States several years ago. I was either overqualified or underqualified for absolutely everything. Not wanting to start working back into shiftwork, I realized a hole in corporate America, specifically manufacturing, the construction industry, and the electrical industry. I thought I have a wealth of information that can help people.

And I think the biggest thing over the years that I've learned is that we don't necessarily have good critical thinking when it comes to emergencies and crises and dealing with people who are angry and disgruntled employees. I was able to translate what I had spent much of my career at that point, learning and translate that into a way that people were interested in. And it was beneficial to people.

Lisa Ryan: It's unfortunate that with all the workplace violence and everything that we see that makes the news that this has become such a big part of your career. But when put in those types of environments, those types of situations, it's really good, especially in manufacturing and everywhere that people know exactly what to do.

Carol Cambridge: That's right. And what happens and when I see a lot is that people think that they know what they're going to do in a crisis until that crisis happens.

When their emotions are involved, they see people they work with or love that are involved in a horrific situation. We go right to that flight, and flight freeze brain. I see many people who think they know; they will swear up and down that they know exactly what to do. But when I do some of the experience training that I do, we find that people are shocked by their own responses, and they just don't react the way they assumed they would have.

Lisa Ryan: So take us through the experience. When it comes to proving to people how they actually react instead of how they think they'll react. How do you bring that to life?

Carol Cambridge: Well, there are a couple of different ways. In the workplace violence piece, I will throw it to the people when I'm doing training. I will say you are now part of this risk assessment team. I give them a little bit in the scenario. Then I'll say when you asked me the right questions in the right order, so to speak, and there's not exact rightness, but often what happens is they will think about protecting. For instance, the one employee instead of, oh, we have an entire plant full of employees.

And you have to think about both of those. And most of us don't have that ability. We go to one specific area, so I'll ask them. They start asking me questions. I'll supply them with a little bit more i