Safety on Tap

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 drastical...

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 c...

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 imp...

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 a...

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 particip...

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 download...

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 w...

In my first ever internal safety role, I was shocked to discover in my performance review that my results were tied to the injury statistics of the business units I was supporting.  In 2020, the way I enable people like you to implement learning teams, comes with a 100% money back guarantee.  The fine print is where we should be held accountable for change.  But you know what else happens in the f...

There are conversations I bring you on the podcast which have a specific focus, topic or slant.  There are others, which are simply conversations that I want to have, and I thought I would invite you in to listen.  I love exploring my own curiosity about people, their stories and experiences and insights.  This is one of those conversations, which is why this episode is called, Thinking Out Loud,...

I've shared with you before some of the most impactful lessons I've learned in my life, which have come from my parents. That's from episode 119, called The #1 Question. My dad's was, 'measure twice, cut once'. An old carpenters mantra, my dad, not being a carpenter, seemed to be a great teacher because he himself was a kind of novice with tools and physical stuff.  

Fellow nerds (or maybe just fellow spreadsheet aficionados), did you recognise what each of the keyboard shortcuts are in the title of this episode? Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+Alt+V+E? These seemingly innocuous actions might make the all the difference between wasted effort and effective work for you.

There is an elephant in my office.  Its been there for ages, thought its only in the past few years that I've actually seen it.  You have one, maybe more, where you work too.  It's time to talk about it. 

Regular listeners will know me for passionately spruiking and putting into practice a few key concepts.  Today you'll hear my conversation with Peter. Peter works in a pretty large organisation which have a very diverse risk profile, and some pretty high risk aspects. 

AmThere is lots of talk about AI. As in, artificial intelligence. Tech is all the rage, and we are interfacing more and more directly with artificial intelligence - just think about the predictive text on your phone. But a much older kind of AI hold huge promise for health and safety practice, if only more people knew about it. Appreciate Inquiry is the topic of discussion today, and I really enjo...

This is a short episode on a big P - a principle to help you improve.  It's a journey, a tension, between trying to know the world, and constructing the unknowable. It will make sense, stick with me.

My guest today is the inimitable and supremely articulate Traci Carse. Traci is the Occupational Psychologist at Fire and Rescue NSW, one of the world's largest urban fire and rescue services. Traci has significant experience in applying psychology in the workplace through the design and delivery of mental health, resilience & wellbeing assessments and interventions across a range of work settings...

One of the worst things to do whilst you are crossing the street in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, amongst the cars and mostly motorbikes and tuk-tuks screaming past in all directions, is to stop, to stand still. Crossing the street in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. That's the analogy I used to explain what happens immediately before disruption, in my opening keynote address to the New Zealand Safeguard C...

Today's guest is Kathryn McEwan an organisational psychologist, executive coach and mediator with more than 30 years consulting experience across all industry sectors. Her contribution to the profession has been recognised through the award of 'Fellow' by the Australian Psychological Society and the College of Organisational Psychologists. She has a special interest in workplace resilience and has...

This anchor concept is really important to understand and utilise when improving learning is your goal. Change isn't just about engines, it's about what holds us still or steady, for better and for worse. These anchors, in the forms of assumptions and beliefs, when recognised and challenged reveal deep learning that mere knowledge can't. We can change anchors too, swapping less helpful points of r...

Today's guest recently shared a photo of her lying in the middle of one of the busiest commercial airport runways in Australia. Whilst no planes were flying given Covid-19 disruption, it was an apt visual metaphor for the scope and scale of the operations at Brisbane Airport Corporation. Kersty Christensen is the Head of Health and Safety at Brisbane Airport Corporation and has led this transforma...

Redundancy is a word quite familiar to health and safety people, we use it in good times, and we fear it in bad times.  And I think we always have the wrong end of the stick, for all the wrong reasons.  Today I want to talk about the way we talk about redundancy, to reflect on the irony which is emerging about redundancy, and to suggest a more constructive way for us to talk about our place in the...

Today I'm chatting with Dr. Tristan Casey. He has an interest in teamwork, leadership, and organizational culture. Tristan teaches into the Graduate Certificate of Safety Leadership and Bachelor of Social Science at Griffith University. Recently, he completed his second doctorate, this time in safety leadership. Tristan is currently working on research around the management of safety amid COVID19,...