Safety On Tap

Are we doing enough? Is the fundamental question of H&S governance. And the answer, it seems at least in New Zealand, is largely not one given with confidence. And beyond NZ, the answer sometimes seems vague, unclear, or uncertain. Governance arguably is the lynchpin around which all health and safety performance relies - so there is something in this conversation for everyone. Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. New Zealand has had its fair share of problems with health and safety. Catalysed by the Pike River disaster, new legislation introduced in 2015 styled off the Australian harmonised model promised to strengthen many aspect

This is a conversation about a really important mission to improve health and safety. It's also about extreme difficulty, persistence, and how being professional might actually mean straying far outside your one specific professional domain. Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. Today my guest is Gareth Lock. Gareth doesn't easily fit in a box or under a single label, as you'll hear in a moment. Military, flying, human factors, HOP, and diving. I've wanted bring a conversation with Gareth to you for a while, for three reasons. First, the people I know and trust have said wonderful things about him. Second, he is generous - his writing

The piece you might be missing as you try to build new things and all your efforts for making change, might actually be deliberately blowing things up. Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. "Closing time, open all the doors and let you out into the world" The song Closing Time by Semisonic is one of those classic tunes of my transition into adulthood. "Closing time, one last call for alcohol So, finish your whiskey or beer Closing time, you don't have to go home But you can't stay here" After it was released in 1998 it was pretty common that this song was the very last song played in the bar or pub before the lights got turned back on and ever

Have you ever had an idea, or heard an idea, thinking it was brilliant, only to realise that the idea is not that new, and didn't come from where you thought it did? Welcome to the discipline of organisational psychology.    Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.    Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.   Industrial and organisational psychology, or IO psych as it is often called, is well over 100 years old.  It was labelled as the exploration of 'real life' psychology. It's official birth is suggested to be 1913, with the publication of the first text on the subject called Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, by Hugo Munsterberg.   How is it that such a field, with 100 years of hi

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep218 You seem to have answers for everything, he said to me.  He was 100% right and 100% wrong at the same time.  This is a podcast about how that can be, and how you can engage with better answers. Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.   Before you think that this episode will be a gratuitous brag about how good I think I am wrapped up in some parable of a story, stay with me for a few minutes.  When he said to me, 'you seem to have answers for everything', he WAS both right and wrong at the same time.                                                              He was right because to him, it did seem th

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep217 What does it sound like, to have permission to not focus on certain things in health and safety? What one concept are we missing from risk management that makes a massive difference? Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. My guest today is Tim Lie.  Is he a safety professional? I ask him that, so you'll have to wait and see what he says.  What I can tell you is that his roles have included group HSE responsibilities, lifecycle alignment, culture, and capability.  You don't often hear those things in people's job titles, do you? I met Tim a while back when I was invited along to a national health and sa

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep216 Radio, television, and the content we consume have changed enormously since I was a kid. This is a podcast about the physics, and the metaphor of this change and how we can change too, but only if we want to remain resonant.   Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.   Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. There used to be just a handful of TV stations, and a handful of radio stations. It was kind of easy as a kid, because the TV guide fit onto a single page in the newspaper, and the discussion about what to watch was easier because there were only a few options to choose from. Cartoons on Channel 7 on the afternoons we were allowed to watch

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep215 Are the ideas of science at odds with a humanist approach? Can we solve all the big problems with big data and analytics? Can you really succeed with tools and practices and not understand the philosophy behind them? Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. The healthcare industry is one of the biggest growing in many economies around the world as population growth continues, more people are living longer, and advances in medical care and pharmaceuticals are preventing more and more illness and death than ever before.  Dr Satyan Chari has been hard at work in this sector for many years, and I'

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep214 Two quick questions for you: first, did you get what you got in 2023 by design, or did your year kind of happen to you by accident? Second question, what's going to change for you in 2024? I have gifts for you inside, keep listening! Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. This episode will be released on the 18th of December, and many of you may have even stopped work for the year.  The past few weeks are a unique time in the yearly cycle, when the health and safety leaders I work with turn their minds to those two important questions I just asked:  - Did you get what you got in 2023 by design, or did

We are now realising that just focussing on preventing bad stuff is a pretty limited view of health and safety, and that many of our approaches are limited in the application and the quality of their outputs. So how would we broaden out focus to study and improve normal work? It turns out there are theories, models, and people who've doing this for 80 years.  Allow me to introduce Human Factors, Ergonomics, and Systems Thinking.  Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. My guest today is Associate Professor Gemma Read, from the Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems, at the University of the Sunshine Coast.  We talk about one of Gemm

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep212 Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  If we want to improve our performance in ANY area of our life, work or otherwise, there are ONLY three ways to do it, three kinds of how before we decide what to do.  For most of us, the decisions we make every day, many times a day, about which of the three ways to take, is invisible.  Until now. Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. Most people who go to the gym exercise more than people who exercise on their own because of the very fact that they are at a gym, and there are people around them are working out. And research suggests that you tend to exercise at the level of those people around you,

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep211 I don't agree.  And here's why.  We should hear this a lot more in health and safety practice.  The need to say these words, and the way it sounds when we say it, is more important to our effectiveness than you can imagine.  Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. In year one, my school report said that I participated with vigour in everything, creative and imaginative, but easily distracted.  In year two I was described as enthusiastic, with much to contribute, but restless and tended to distract other students.  In year three, Mrs Noonan lauded my vivid imagination, pleasing progress, but said straigh

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep209 I have some questions for you.  As you hear these, just nod your head or shake it if you agree or disagree.  Does it ever feel like you can't give a good clear definition of what health and safety is? That the work is never ending? That it's tricky to definitively describe what we are trying to do? That it's difficult to predict what will happen? That we can't make firm promises about our systems or controls or interventions? That what works in one context doesn't seem to in others so we are always creating things anew? That interpretation and multiple perspectives in health and safety are both frustrating but seemingly inevitable? Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve!

Full show notes: www.safetyontap.com/ep209 We are in the business of change.  But we aren't always great at it.  This is a podcast about babies and blindness, carrots and elephants, and the necessary tension between where we want to go, and where we are right now.  I don't think we will ever be able to rest on our laurels, even if we become the most influential and effective safety professionals in history.  Even if all the hazards are identified, all the controls are known and in place, I think two things will always be true.  The first truth is that the only thing that stays the same is change - change in operations, change in people, change in resourcing, change in the work environment or industry context.  The second truth, or maybe I should say what I believe to be true, comes from the High Reliability Organising research.  Even when everything seems great, our ongoing job is to create and maintain a sense of unease about things, which keeps us tuned into and anticipating change and what needs to change.

Ep208: Is your professional practice unethical? Full show notes: safetyontap.com/ep208   Is your professional practice unethical?   Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.    Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.   Let's begin with an agreement, I'd like to agree somethings with you before you keep listening.  The first is that the work of health and safety is a fundamentally ethical thing, we do what we do because we believe it is what is right.  So the first thing I'd like to agree on is that we can't talk about health and safety without talking about ethics.  The second, is that we either can't, or shouldn't, call ourselves professionals if we don't understand the fundamentals of

Today, you can access the entire collection of information used to create university-level health and safety programs, for free.  Today, you could sign-up for an MBA, and in a year from now have an MBA, for free.  If you haven't done either of these things, and you probably haven't, there's a reason.  For the people who have taken that first step, almost all of them drop out and walk away.  This is a story about the rationality of never starting and of giving up, and how we can create the conditions for you and those around us to actually get better.    Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.    Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.   I worked in an organization in which it was norma

Change! It's the only thing that stays the same in health and safety.  Today's guest is a professional change manager, though the label doesn't entirely capture what he does and how he does it.    Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.    Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.   Gilbert Kruidenier is my guest today.  He has worked all over the world in operations, process improvement, and change, which seems to be where he adds the most value, because that’s why his phone keeps ringing.  In some ways, for many of you, he is also a window into the future, designing his work around projects rather than permanent roles.  He is a university lecturer on change, a leader in the Change Mana

I noticed when they started saying 'Welcome back Mr Barrett' when I boarded the plane.  But I really took notice, when they stopped saying it.  This is a podcast about ideas, and stories, and our opportunity to pay more attention to how they affect our work as health and safety professionals.    Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.    Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.     Before Covid I travelled a fair bit, and despite proving time and time again how effective virtual coaching and facilitation can be during Covid, once travel restrictions were eased I found myself being asked to come here and go there more than I would like.  Covid saw two automatic extensions of my frequent

Sometimes, 99% is as good as 0%.  And it's really quite useful to know when that's the case.  Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.  Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. This episode is brought to you by real people, doing real high risk work.  But even more than that, this episode is brought to you because well timed, well structured curious questions asked of the people who do that work, reveal insights that we can all learn a whole lot from.  "210 to 318, am I okay to come past on your left side?" What you just heard is often called poscomms.  Poscomms is short for Positive Communication.  Poscomms serves as an important control measure to prevent the unwanted or u

Why on earth would you remove the words health and safety, in order to improve health and safety?   Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.    Since you're listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you're in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.   My guest today is Rob Kirkwood.  Rob is a health and safety professional with some pretty cool work experiences including as an alpine guide, industrial abseiler, a fisheries ranger and spent a few years working in Antarctica.    But what I think is most cool about Rob's work, is that he's figuring out how to improve health and safety by removing those words from his company's vocabulary.  How's that make sense, I hear you wonder? Well, Rob will fill you in, but it starts with his realisation that there