Safety On Tap

It's hard to focus on things that we can't see, that aren't visible to us.  It doesn't mean they aren't there, it's just that they aren't visible to us.  Having empathy for others, and appreciating that they have a perspective and experience which is 100% valid for them, can be a difficult thing to comprehend, let alone practice. 

What's the risk when we use an ISO standard approach to health and safety? That we miss the point entirely.  Decades of experience have revealed what happens when standards compliance and its activities become the goal, instead of the goals of actual health and actual safety the ISO standard was meant to enable.  Oh, and by the way, we're going to blow the idea of new views of safety out of the water too.  Today's partner in conversation Jeremy Scrivens sort of defies description, and definitely defies categorisation.  Jeremy helps leaders and organisations enable the future of work - which he labels being an Appreciative Futurist.  In the way I'm described as a reformed health and safety professional, Jeremy might be a reformed HR professional.  But soooo much more. 

"Tried it before, and it didn't work" These are the words that we have all said to dismiss something out of hand, to reject a very broad or general idea or approach or suggestion . We can choose our words better, which means everyone learns more and is more informed about our experience.

Brenton Harrison shared some thoughts publicly about the extremes of new views and traditional views of safety. Here's Brenton sharing his thoughts with you.

Does philosophy really have a place in work health and safety? Here’s what I discovered.   My earlier rejection of philosophy taught me how important philosophy actually is a conscious way of living and a competent approach to professional practice.   I might be wrong, but one thing philosophy does teach us, is that it’s worth getting curious about.  I certainly have become a better professional because of it.

My guest today is the ever-humble Jo Doyle.  Jo comes highly recommended to me, she has been on my potential guest list for years now.  With many years experience in strategic organisational change and executive coaching, Covid created the impetus for Jo to gravitate back to her sweet spot and passion of being in Service of Well-being. She creates space for others to self-reflect, grow in awareness, and tap into their innate capability for healing towards freedom.

Am I a cook or a chef? It turns out that has nothing to do with what I wear, or whether I have a certificate, it comes down to one simple thing.  And no, it's not a bad temper. 

Human performance is not just focussed on humans. It is about how we try to improve ourselves at work. It's not just about health and safety. My guest today Diane Chadwick-Jones is the former Director, Human Performance for BP. She had an extensive career in BP, working in Belgium, Brazil and Egypt in operations and safety roles. She was instrumental in the refresh of the BP Values.

Three times this week, I have come across this challenge in health and safety leaders.    Competent, intelligent, motivated health and safety leaders who want to make change.    Who hold back, are held back, from taking the next step, making the next intention a reality, for the same reason.    The words are different, but the cause is the same. 

Listen in to hear how one of the thickest Scottish accents you'll ever hear is also one of the most effective communicators.   Steve Harvey is a an operations-focused Health & Safety professional who is a proud pragmatist.  He is a master of work insights and operational learning, obsessed about understanding the gap between work as imagined and work as done, and he has even featured in a documentary called 'Doing Safety Differently'.  And he loves having a laugh! Here's Steve:

What does a iPad, a 2B pencil, WISYWIG, and a microphone have in common? And how is that helpful for you as a leader? This episode is made possible by our mission of enabling better learning that improves performance in your organisation.

Today I'm chatting with Jason van Schie, organisation psychologist, founder of FlourishDX and co-host of the Psych Health and Safety podcast.  I'm not pretending that there are any reins to hand over so to speak, but the reason why you've heard so many guests on my podcast speak to this broad topic is simple.  This podcast is for leaders who want to grow themselves, like you, in order to drastically improve health and safety along the way. Psych health and safety is a professional domain most of us need to develop, obviously recognising that we aren't pretending to be psychologists.  So it ticks the 'need for growth' box we have in our mission.  And, as for drastic improvements in health and safety, is there any doubt in your mind that psych health and safety needs drastic improvement? I'm glad Jason and the team are here with their podcast.  Here's Jason:

This is an awesome conversation.  Real stories and experiences from a frontline HSE professional who is still learning with more than a decade's worth of it under his belt.  We covered a lot, I learned a lot! None of this was planned, all Tim and I talked about before recording was just to share his story.  Stick around for the takeaways at the end because this minimally planned and wide ranging conversation percolated some amazingly clear insights for us all. 

Grenade throwers.   You know them.   (Real people, with metaphorical grenades)   The people in your organisation who have a tendency, even a reputation to disrupt.   They throw grenades because they object, challenge or undermine things publicly, in groups.   And they throw grenades at a distance from the real issues, often under-informed, not engaged in any meaningful dialogue or constructive improvement.  

The purpose of introducing anything new is NOT to have it perfect first time.  In fact, the results you get might not even be great, just average, nothing to write home about.     The ONE SINGLE UNIVERSAL purpose of introducing anything is to create the conditions so the right people say "yes, let's do that again".     That's how starting something once turns into real change.   

Mental health is important enough to need a strategic approach, not just tactics.  In this wide ranging conversation, David Burroughs and I explore his deep experience in mental health strategy.  David Burroughs is an experienced psychologist, with many years of consultancy and strategic leadership in the area of mental health and illness at work.  And he spent an hour with you and I talking all about it. 

I am setting a goal to enable people like you to plan and implement 1000 learning teams in organisations just like yours, and this is your invitation to be part of it.  Learning teams, as they are referred to in the context of health and safety, are both awesome and problematic.  They are awesome because those of us who plan, facilitate, teach/coach/enable learning teams or anyone who has participated in them know their value.   

This episode was difficult to create.  What can we take from a year like 2020? What hope do we have for 2021? It turns out that the question becomes the answer, and the silver lining appears. 

What does it mean if something is True But Useless at the same time? It happens more often than you think.  This one started because I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to reflect on the most popular episodes from the past year? That could be interesting, right?  The image on the thumbnail for this episode, which you can see if you visit safetyontap.com/ep165, is a graph of the podcast downloads. 

Here at Safety on Tap we're starting a new learning teams implementation case study group soon, and I'm looking for five people to join.  If you have been thinking about getting learning teams started in your company, then we will make that happen if you are ready to start.  It's called learning teams implementation, because that's what we do - not theory, no classroom - every week over 10 weeks we enable you to implement the necessary pieces to have a successful learning team.  And it's called a Case Study Group, because you do this with a group of people from a range of companies, all on the same journey, and instead of us using some irrelevant and far away case study examples, we simply enable you to become your own case study - guaranteed to implement learning teams.