Safety on Tap

Are you a leader who wants to grow yourself, and drastically improve health and safety along the way? You're in the right place! Welcome to the Safety on Tap Podcast! We bring you interesting and inspiring people with different ideas, perspectives and stories, straight to your phone or computer, for your listening pleasure, whenever it suits you. Nice! Now this isn't just for people who have a 'health and safety' job. There are so many more people involved in drastically improving health and safety - supervisors, HR professionals, business owners, health and safety reps, CEO's, health professionals, RTW coordinators…..the list goes on And those people listening very closely will quickly work out that whilst our focus might link with health and safety, Safety on Tap actually helps WAY beyond health and safety - personal effectiveness, business strategy, people leadership, innovation and creativity….keep your ears, and your mind, open!

Ep219: Aligned goals, broader approach - Organisational psychology, with Diya Dey 04/16/2024

Ep218: An answer for everything with Andrew Barrett 03/18/2024

Ep218: An answer for everything with Andrew Barrett Full show notes: 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 that I had answers for lots of the things we were talking about and working through in our coaching together. He was wrong, because I wasn't really giving him answers in the way that questions are usually asked, or problems are usually solved with solutions. What I was giving him was responses. Responses to his question, to his story, to his context. Responses aren't answers. Responses are what we do when it's our turn, in a dialogue two or more people engage in a turn-taking exchange. Dialogue is an ancient word, very central to modern human experience, which comes from two Greek words put together: dia- translates to through, and logos translated to meaning, dialogos, or dialogue, the movement of flow of meaning through the people involved. You can see turn taking all the time, which isn’t dialogue. It's more like tennis. One person serves, another receives and returns the ball. The object of tennis, and the object of a huge proportion of our interactions with other people, is to get to the end, to resolve the point, usually in favour of one person or the other. /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/30413493

Ep217: Some nuances to safety professional practice with Tim Lie 03/14/2024

Ep216 Resonance and understanding, with Andrew Barrett 03/04/2024

Ep216 Resonance and understanding, with Andrew Barrett Full show notes: 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 TV, then Channel 2 at 6pm for the ABC news, on Wednesdays the highlight of the TV week was a bit of police drama with Blue Heelers on Channel 7 at 8.30, and Friday night football on Channel 9 kicked off the sporting entertainment of the weekend. Bandwidth used to be a constraint. On the radiomagnetic spectrum, there are only a limited number of frequencies which TV or radio could use to broadcast their content to you. Even if you have a digital radio in your car or at home, you can still see the remnants of this bandwidth constraint, when a radio station includes a number in the name - Mix 106.5, 104.1 Today FM. The number is the actual frequency (measured in Mega Hz for FM stations), the actual number of times the wave goes up and down per second. That number meant it was easy for you to tune into the right station, to listen to what they had to offer, loud and clear. If you were one point off, one tweak of the dial, and not only did you have the wrong frequency, you had garbled, snowy, or no radio content to listen to. There is no doubt that the use of the radiomagnetic spectrum for communication, and its associated constraint of a limited number of frequencies, shaped our culture enormously. Until the constraint disappeared. With the internet we went from limited bandwidth to broadband - because we jumped off the radiomagnetic spectrum and entered a world of limitless channels to choose from, unlimited space for broadcast, and people who were more than happy to no longer be constrained to the 3 or 5 channels they used to have to choose from. /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/30213843

Ep215: The intersection of systems innovation, creative design & systems thinking, with Satyan Chari 01/08/2024

Ep214: Making 2024 Your Best Year Yet 12/15/2023

Ep213: Human Factors, Error, Blame & Systems Thinking, with A/Prof Gemma Read 12/08/2023

Ep212: Three ways of getting things done, with Andrew Barrett 10/27/2023

Ep211: Disagree better, with Andrew Barrett 10/16/2023

Ep211: Disagree better, with Andrew Barrett Full show notes: 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 straight out I was inconsiderate of others. In year four I managed to earn the teachers label as polite, interested, capable, but lacking concentration and very easily distracted. For the first time it seems, Miss Newcombe made the connection between my apparent weaknesses and my strengths, recognising my participation in group work and class discussions as extremely good. And by year 6, poor Miss Rodgers who was one year out of teachers college didn't know what hit her. Hard working, creative, and capable she said I was, and then came the shit sandwich of feedback - great participation in discussions, but the enthusiasm leads to rather thoughtless actions, which can be disruptive, and this does hinder Andrew producing work I was capable of. The biggest problem with communication is the assumption that it has happened. And the #1 cause of conflict is when people fail to understand each other. If I said to you that we don't have enough disagreement in health and safety, what would you say to me? Does that conjure up all the times that you've had to go up against a worker, supervisor, or manager on a hazard or inadequate risk control? Or when you've gone head to head with an auditor, client, or inspector? How many times have you had to defend a safety requirement, 'because, it's a requirement'? Or the system says? Or infamously, it's a legal requirement (said with such conviction that it's become automatic, even though deep down we know that most things labelled as legal requirements are not)? Ok so we probably have enough disagreements. What if I tweaked my statement, and said to you that we don't have enough good quality disagreements in health and safety? What comes to mind? What does that mean? /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/28324502

Ep210: Health and safety probably is a wicked problem, with Craig Ashhurst 10/04/2023

Ep210: Health and safety probably is a wicked problem, with Craig Ashhurst Full show notes: 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! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners. I wouldn't be bringing you this conversation today unless I was confident you'd be nodding to most of those questions I just asked. The logical rational way to solve those problems might be to get a clearer definition of health and safety, to do more research on what works, to standardise, to invest better metrics to measure….the list of things people are putting huge time and resources into are significant. Well what if I suggested to you that a lot of it could be wasted effort? That maybe health and safety can't be adequately defined? That it is necessarily reinvented in each context? That we cannot ever know the answer or even the problem until we throw something against the wall? The questions I asked you come from the definition of wicked problems, which means that if you were nodding along, it's more likely that you will come to see and understand health and safety as a wicked problem. And if health and safety is a wicked problem, then trying to improve it using methods and mindsets, tools and techniques from other kinds of problems might be as useful as trying to mow your lawn with scissors, or to educate your kids using social media as the teacher. My guest today is Craig Ashurst. Craig's a real T shaped person, with breadth of experience including risk and health and safety, and now significant depth in the area of wicked problems. If health and safety might be a wicked problem, then it might pay for us to understand wicked problems if we want to be more effective in our work. Here's Craig: /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/28219973

Ep209: Meet them where they are at with Andrew Barrett 09/22/2023

EP208: Is your professional practice unethical? with Simon Cassin 09/18/2023

EP208: Is your professional practice unethical? with Simon Cassin Ep208: Is your professional practice unethical? Full show notes: 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 what we say and do. Plenty of people might know the words and activities of health and safety at a surface level, but what separates them from professionals like us is our greater grasp of the fundamental aspects of health and safety and all that entails. That's the second agreement - to be professional means a greater fundamental grasp of the nature of what we do and why. If you don't agree with these, stop listening, there isn't any point because this conversation will be nonsensical to you. If you do agree, then this might make sense, in which case it also might be helpful to you. You decide. Ok, you’re still here, let's proceed. Today's guest is Simon Cassin. Simon has real range - from serving his community as a fire fighter, to lived experience of harm at work, through ongoing study and practice in the arenas of philosophy and health and safety, and importantly how the two interact. Here's Simon: /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/28062132

Ep207: On the Hook & The Cost of Free with Andrew Barrett 09/07/2023

Ep207: On the Hook & The Cost of Free with Andrew Barrett Ep207: On the Hook & the Cost of Free, with Andrew Barrett Full show notes: 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 normal for people to talk about responsibility saying things like 'ok Jill, you're on the hook for that action'. When discussing significant projects, or high workload, or risky things to have your name one, people might kindly ask 'do you want to be on the hook for that?' At the time I thought it was a strange phrase. It conjured up images of 'catching' slippery sea creatures and dragging them to their demise, or in darker moments the more dread filled meat hook so favoured by horror writers and medieval dungeon keepers. It tuns out the idiom 'on the hook' does come from fishing. A fish on the hook has been caught, it no other options, what happens next is decided. On the flip side, a fish not yet on the hook is free, and one which was on the hook but is no longer, has 'slipped' off the hook. This metaphor for gives us a long runway into a discussion about responsibility and accountability more generally, which I will explore in an episode soon, but for now we need to talk about putting ourselves on the hook, taking responsibility for the things we control. /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/27966117

Ep206: Change and Change Managers, with Gilbert Kruidenier 08/31/2023

Ep205: Platinum, Covid, and how ideas spread, with Andrew Barrett 08/24/2023

Ep205: Platinum, Covid, and how ideas spread, with Andrew Barrett Ep205: Platinum, Covid, and how ideas spread, with Andrew Barrett Full Show Notes: 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 flyer status, since if you can't fly you can't maintain it. Once travel was permitted again, I found myself dropped from the top tier frequent flyer colour down to the next one. I've always said that frequent flyer status is not exciting nor something to be coveted, all it indicates is that I spend too much time away from my family. Stick with me, for regular listeners you'll know that my story and metaphor ties into what we do as health and safety professionals, rather than an egotistical rant. There is something small, something human about stepping onto a plane, and someone looking at the colour at the bottom of the pass, looking you in the eye, and saying welcome back. They don't know me, they see data which tells them on this airline, we value loyalty and we welcome people by name. Until they didn't. It seems that stepping onto a plane, Gold status bumps me down the human respect pecking order, so there is no personal 'welcome back My Barrett' anymore. They changed their idea about what loyalty, status and customer service sounds like. One tiny change made me notice, and changed the way I feel. Infectious Ideas, Genes and Memes An idea which I was introduced to me early in my career, and which was reinforced a lot, an idea which I came to believe and would re-tell to others was that safety management systems were the solution to health and safety performance. That idea became so intertwined in my professional identity and practice that it shaped me, and blinded me, and twisted me. Another idea which was part of my early professional shaping is the story that 'part of our job is to protect the Board of Directors'. That one did a real doozy on me, creating confusion and anger and inconsistency and bad behaviour in the name of a story which I believed at the start because other people handed that idea down to me so became my story. Except when I decided that it wouldn't be my story, that I needed a new story to replace it. Needless to say that one needs an entire lying-on-the-couch podcast session, but ultimately boils down to very important but grammatically minor tweaks I made to the core idea in the story: instead of 'part of our job is to protect the Board of Directors', my new story was 'most of my job is supporting safe and healthy work, which becomes protection for the Board of Directors'. How did those ideas come to be? In part, they were spread, like a virus, from others to me, and they became infective. You may have heard the word genes, spelled g-e-n-e-s, in reference to the unique DNA coding which animals and plants inherit from their parents in the process of reproduction. Genes contain the information which lead to your height, your eye colour, and many parts of your physical and psychological make-up, including tendency for disease, creativity and intellect. In the biological world, something like Covid did not exactly exist until the day that it did. What happened that day was a combination of mutation of genes within cells, an increasingly hospitable environment for those cells, and then rapid copying or replication of those virus cells and their spread into hospitable environments, namely human beings. The cells which had evolved reproduced, the ones that didn't evolve didn't survive, and that is the basic equation for the explosive spread of that virus, including it's variants which were just human labels for distinct mutations of the original genetic makeup of the virus. The copying, mutation, and selection which ideas in our culture undergo is an analogy to biological genetic evolution through generations over time. In 1976 Richard Dawkins wrote a book titled the Selfish Gene, in which he expanded on the idea of 'memes' as described by numerous other authors, including Huxley as far back as the 1800's. A meme was originally meant to signify a cultural idea, a bit like a piece of DNA, which spreads, duplicates and mutates according to cultural pressures, like competition, and favourable or inhospitable environment. Survival, Spread, and Virality An example of this most of us can identify with is how ideas of hatred or violence spread. These ideas are not new in human history, but definitely evolve over time, which means that there continues to be environments of greater or lesser benefit to the ideas. We might think that a cultural environment like religion and religious believers is inhospitable to violence or hatred, yet we see institutional religion and believers as promotors and perpetrators of so much hatred and violence in the past. We might say that developed countries have cultures which are increasingly inhospitable to hatred and violence, yet every single one of them has obsessive sporting sub-cultures based on the idea that my team is the best, which means I hate your team, and the way we prove it is to go to battle with balls, batts and white lines on mowed grass fields. Can you see how complicated it gets when we start seeing ideas and how they spread? It's no mistake that memes, as cultural ideas akin to biological genes, are often described as 'viral' - spreading and evolving rapidly. The way to spot traits is to look for things common across multiple generations. My wife and I have blue eyes so my kids will all have blue eyes. But sporting ability? That's harder to see, but it's there if you look. So let's think about the virality of ideas in health and safety. What are the things which you were introduced to as a young or new health and safety professional which you accepted as they were. Once of mine was about safety management systems. What about yours? That compliance is the goal? That everything needs a record? That people do make bad decisions? That complacency is a real, valid, and satisfactory explanation for an incident? That danger pay is an acceptable trade off for high risk working conditions? That Unions truly do want to protect worker safety? Or that Unions weaponise safety? That Regulators should be welcomed to the workplace? Or that Regulators should be quickly shown a fabrication of real work and shown the door? What about our role? That we are here to protect? Or care? That if we don't do safety no one else will? That even if we know the training is crappy, we convince people it's not that bad because we think it's the right thing to do? That you are a better safety person because of your real world experience? Or you are better because you studied? Or you are better because you had a personal safety or health scare? Or you are a better professional because you had a father or brother or daughter or friend die at work? Paying Attention to How Ideas Spread All these things are memes, not cute cat face memes or Chuck Another Shrimp on the Barbie memes, they are the idea threads which replicate, evolve and spread in our culture, the stuff we say and do and read and pay attention to and develop and expect at work and what work expects of us. The greatest irony of all about Dawkins concept of the meme, was that it was, in his words, 'hijacked by the internet'. Instead of an interesting theory for us to look at culture, it became the label for cheesy, cheap and shallow attention sucking snippets all within the square frame in your social media feed. This hijacking led to three very interesting things happening which we can learn from. First, memes started behaving less like genes when people became intent and deliberate about how they changed them. Instead of evolutionary selection (which explains why giraffes have long necks) or mutation (such as the cause of Down Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis), people actively muck around and change ideas. Think about how many memes you've seen based on The Matrix Movie, Game of Thrones, Donald Trump or anything with a cat in it. In safety we see how people are deliberately mutating original ideas. The concept of management commitment enshrined in safety management systems was twisted into a signed policy. The concept of risk management overemphasised the risk assessment step, at the expense of risk identification and risk control. Hollnagels original idea of Safety I inside Safety II got turned into Safety I versus Safety II. Most people don't even know where the ideas have come from let alone at what point in time someone changed or twisted the original idea. The second interesting observation coming from the internet's hijacking of memes, is that memes result in behaviours in which people are actively trying to make something viral. In biology this is kind of nonsense, even viruses aren't deliberately viral in the sense that it's not like someone or some people designed it to spread, it spread because the environment suited it and there was no downward pressure on its spread. And the internet is a far less hostile place for ideas to evolve and spread than in the natural environment. It took 1000 years for humans to figure out that the biggest juiciest seeds are worth saving and breeding to plant as next years crop, instead of wandering around the forest hoping to find enough to eat. 1000 years for the idea of agriculture to evolve. It has taken around 100 years for the idea that organisations should employ people specifically focussed on safety. It has taken only a few decades for the idea of safety management systems to become mainstream, and less than that for business leaders to think that Lost Time Injury is a good indicator of safety performance. The concept of work as imagined and work as done is over 70 years old, but the idea only spread within the last 20, and only two people on the entire planet are responsible for most of that virality. This second insight means that the ideas that spread are the ones that win. Not the best ideas, not even the original ideas. Ideas that spread, win. Are we infected, infectious, or both? The concept of ideas as cultural memes gives us an opportunity to do a little reflection on something which is all around us, but not something most of us pay much attention to. What kinds of ideas do you believe, spread, or shape without realising it? Do you take ideas as-is, or do you try to change them as you spread them? What kinds of ideas do you take as fact, and what ideas have you rejected or changed? We get frustrated when people in our organisations 'don't get it'. That might be because other ideas are far more viral than the ones you are trying to make extinct. This epsiode as been in half-draft for over two years ago (in fact, there are heaps just like that in half-draft). Thanks to Mick Bates for unknowingly giving me the nudge to finish this podcast when he shared some helpful reflections on how extremist ideas and beliefs come to be. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, what's the one thing you'll do to take positive, effective or rewarding action, to grow yourself, and drastically improve health and safety along the way? Seeya! /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/27837735

Ep204: 99% = 0%, with Andrew Barrett 06/01/2023

Ep204: 99% = 0%, with Andrew Barrett 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 uncontrolled interaction of people and plant, usually large plant or machinery in mining and civil construction works. Picture large dump trucks or truck and trailer, bulldozers and excavators. So what's the actual control, the things which is effective for minimising the risk of people and plant interaction? It turns out, it’s quite a number of things. The basic ingredients are: People with radios The initial message The response 'I've got it Baz', I can hear you thinking. Why are you talking about a really self-evident control for a common risk on lots of kinds of sites, on a podcast designed for deeper professional development? Well to explain, we need to make a quick diversion and talk about the bung hole. Bung Holes A bung is a kind of cork, which you put into the holes in a boat to stop it sinking. Why do boats have holes? Most boats, most except really big ones which permanently stay in the water, have holes in them because the boat needs to drain when it comes out of the water. Boats take on water, so they need a drain hole. A bung hole. If you've ever been boating, you'll know about the bung hole. Because one single piece of cork or plastic is the thing that will, without a shadow of a doubt, make the difference between you floating, or sinking the boat. If someone forgets to put the bung back in the bung hole, you're sunk. Even if you did secure every single bung hole, but forgot one. You will sink. That's when 99% is as good as 0%. So we are sitting outside with this construction crew after their morning pre-start meeting. We were talking with the people who do the work in order to discuss with the senior governance committee about whether the safety vision was evident out on site. And yes, that is data, and the process was data gathering for reporting purposes - not everything is a number, but I digress. We had done a couple of things to do our best to get the psychological safety sufficient for the group to discuss work as done. I asked 'what's something you know, that's really important to you, that you wish other people knew?' One of the excavator operators jumps in without missing a beat. "No one acknowledges me radio calls, I just wish when I jump on the radio to a spotter or another operator, that I get an acknowledgement'. 'What do you mean?' I asked. I could have guessed, but in these situations, my only goal is to encourage the person to talk more, using their own words, without my assumptions or interpretations. If you want to stimulate good dialogue, a question like 'what do you mean' is what's called an encourager. 'I got no idea whether anyone has heard me call, who is around, and what is happening on the ground'. Remember what it sounds like? This poscomms control? Initial message. Respond. Initial message. No response. 99% is as good as 0%. No response, no poscomms, incomplete visibility, incomplete information. Uncertain delay, or just as likely proceeding blind. Uncontrolled risk. Drift towards failure. Approximately 70 seconds later, the group had talked about what good actually sounds like, and there was greater clarity of what people expected. Not only that, the group had started to self-organise around one person's expert knowledge of work as done. They took that perspective as important, and understood what needed to happen and why. The broader team who aren't involved directly in plant movement also became witness to this work as done, the potential for immediate adaptation, and what to pay attention to in the hours thereafter. How confident are we that what we think is working, is working? How comfortable are we with our current uncertainty? The idea of 99% = 0% is not the same as saying that everything is useless. There are positive changes that are evident, in the way that risks are understood, controls are defined, planning ensures there are enough spotters, that everyone has a radio, and the radio's are charged, inductions set clear expectations, plant operators are actually on their radio's and the calls are clear and understandable. The 99% = 0% Rule simply means that a lot of effort means diddly squat without all the right ingredients. These are the ingredients that come together to make the critical control cake. But even cakes need a minimum of critical parts - some dry stuff like flour, some sweet stuff like sugar, some wet stuff like milk or eggs, and something to help it rise like yeast or bicarb. And yet a big list of those things were in place on the site for that poscomms control measure to work. Except the plant operators don't hear anything back. The trap, the real temptation is when the 99% fools everyone into thinking that it's close enough to 100%. It makes mathematical sense if you round it up. It doesn't work that way. Near enough is good enough. The last bung missing in the boat. The yeast missing from the cake. The acknowledgement missing after the radio call. All too often in our game, the 99% is as good as 0%. And it's useful to know when. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, what's the one thing you'll do to take positive, effective or rewarding action, to grow yourself, and drastically improve health and safety along the way? Seeya! /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/27010632

Ep203: Stop talking about health and safety, with Rob Kirkwood 03/30/2023

Ep202 When You're Gone, with Andrew Barrett 03/10/2023

Ep201 Ron Gantt 06/16/2022

Ep200: Live Listener Event 06/08/2022

Ep200: Live Listener Event Hey it's Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap! On the 13th of May 2022 I had the extraordinary experience of spending a few hours in a virtual event with Safety on Tap listeners from around the world to celebrate 200 episodes of the Safety on Tap podcast. This is a podcast, but its more than that, it's a community, and I wanted to celebrate with you. We spent weeks getting your feedback on favourite episodes, most impactful lessons, questions for guests coming back and combing through years of feedback and emails you've been kind enough to send me. This is the recording of that live event, if you couldn't make it I'm sorry to have missed you, but hope you feel just as much a part of this community. We had a few technical issues with the recording in the first few minutes, so I'll catch everyone up on how it all unfolded. We recorded the event in my home studio, which is in Kaurna country in South Australia. We had guests joining us from all over the world, and we paid our respects to the traditional custodians of those lands and to elders past, present and emerging. I was chuffed to have previous guest and friend of the show Amanda Clements join as my co-host for the event. The event was in FIVE main parts: First up I shared a few reflections on the beginning of Safety on Tap Next, we created some time and space for the live audience members to connect with each other. I'll tell you more about that in a few minutes. Next, we lined up some rapid interviews with previous podcast guests based on your favourites and your questions. After that, despite my protests, Amanda insisted that she would turn the mic around and interview me with questions sent in by you, and Finally, we put a handful of real life everyday listeners just like you in the spotlight, to hear their lessons, reflections and insights from 200 episodes of Safety on Tap. There's only so much we could do in two hours, and we had so many past guests in the audience that if we spoke to all of them we'd have been there all day! Plus many more who sent their well wishes but couldn't make it. So, massive shout out to Tim Allred, Cam Stevens, Sue Bahn, Patrick Hudson, Todd Conklin, John Green, David Borys, Sal McMahon, Kersty Christensen, Andy White, Cam Warren, Clive Lloyd, Mark Stipic and my one and only, past guest and Dad, Brian Barrett. We co-designed the event for and with you, the listener, combining the three big goals of a Chief Connector like me: to connect you with new ideas, to connect you with each other, and to connect you with your better future self. Learning, and taking action to improve. This was not a webinar so the chat was free and open, and we had the audience talking to each other in the chat and asking questions of previous guests - no permission required, just simple and open learning through dialogue and reflection, it was amazing. If you were there, I hope this helps reinforce your learning. If you weren't, I'm sorry you couldn’t be with us, I hope this is the next best thing. /episode/index/show/safetyontap/id/23362217