Embracing Differences

Many organisations declare safety as one of the values in the vision and mission statements. Can safety be a value? When fallible humans conduct high risk operations, there is no certainty that people will not get injured. When people do get injured we have failed to live by our values. In this video, instead of making an argument, we will use a personal story to illustrate why safety cannot be a...

This podcast is based on the work of the American Anthropologist Ernest Becker's perennial thesis - 'the denial of death'. In this podcast, Professor Sheldon Solomon explains how death anxiety, which is unique to the human species, leads to a quest for meaning, self-esteem and cultural worldviews. Solomon explains why it is so important for us take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding cu...

In less than 12 hours, President Trump blamed that DEI was behind the Washington mid-air collision. How did Trump connect so many dots at the speed of light and establish what went wrong with such conviction? And why do so many buy into this DEI ideology as the cause of the accident? In this podcast, I suggest that the president is using fear of death to heighten public anxiety, create a divide an...

Myth busting i.e. viewing a myth as a false story, is a political ideology. It is not science. Myth busting creates differences and it spreads hatred in the society. In a culturally diverse society, understanding myth busting is our pathway to cultural intelligence and improving our relationships with others. In this podcast, I will explain what is a myth and why myth busting should concern the ri...

In October this year, I travelled to Canada for work and on the first night of arrival, while still jet lagged and sleepless, I was searching the internet to read about the culture of First Nations peoples of Canada. There I came across a series of 6 videos between the international expert in humanitarian law, Professor Kathleen Mahoney and the former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nation...

What happens when someone by-passes an alarm, turns the wrong valve on the manifold, ignores a barrier, or leaves a winch lever unattended. Where does your imagination take you? What questions come to your mind? Whatever model you follow, whatever methods you use, everything begins with our assumptions about how the human mind and what does it even mean to be a human being? Much of risk and safety...

In 2012 the passenger ship Costa Concordia sank off the coast of Italy, resulting in the death of 32 people. Amongst other things, the captain was criticised for his casual attitude towards formulating the ship’s voyage plan, sailing 0.5 miles too close to the coast, and ‘disregarding to properly consider the distance from the coast’. The captain was sentenced to 16 years in the prison. While the...

In January 2012, the Costa Concordia went aground and capsized off the coast of Italy. One of the most disturbing aspects of this accident was that a group of competent officers and an experienced captain on the bridge were not able to detect that the ship was heading straight into the rocks.   In this podcast, I will present the power of framing using the story of the Costa Concordia accident. I...

Welcome to Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Risk, the podcast where we explore the intersection of human experience and risk management. I'm your host, Nippin Anand, and I'm excited to have Rosa Antonia Carrillo to embark on this journey with us. If you ask operational leaders and organizations about risk management, you'll likely hear about control, hazards, and audits. But what about...

This podcast discussion represents two people from different parts of the globe with different backgrounds looking for common ground.   As you listen you can initially hear different perspectives and perceptions. It felt that we began to synchronize at some point and eventually arrived at the same place. It should not be surprising. There are 8 billion of us on the planet. While we all may look co...

This podcast started off with reflecting on the power of embracing fallibility. Dr John Flach, my guest, then brought his own experiences and how a renowned scientist helped him and supported him when he experienced a setback in life. We then spoke about kindness and briefly touched on the importance of social resilience. The discussion then moved from kindness to humility and the importance of hu...

This podcast questions the centrality of Behaviourism in our lives, and how in our quest for simplifying human behaviour into a particular trait, we can (unknowingly) do so much harm to the others. The podcast is based on a collection of stories from my personal lives. A lot of these stories are reflections from everyday life when we learn to live in awareness. I call them moments in Synchronicity...

We hear every now and then that methodology does not matter, it is a topic for academic discussions. What really matters is results, success and outcome. Is that true? I just returned from Canberra and wrote a paper on this topic. I hope this podcast will make you think and reflect on your own methodology in risk and safety and why we should talk about methodology.   

This is the third in a series of three podcast with Greg Smith, the author of the book Paper Safe. In this podcast Greg and I discuss the notion of critical risks and critical risk management from a legal and strategic risk management perspective. We hope that this podcast will make you more mindful and critical about how to think about critical risks in your organisation.

This is the second in a series of three podcast with Greg Smith, the author of the book Paper Safe. In this podcast Greg and I discuss his new book Proving Safety, why he chose the title and the subtitle, and how is the book different from his previous book Paper Safe.

Motivation, purpose and a search for meaning: An interview with Greg Smith   This is the first in a series of three in-person podcasts between Greg Smith and Dr Nippin Anand. Nippin started off interviewing Greg in his hometown Perth to find out what motivated him to choose a career path in health and safety law. Later in this series, the two will discuss Greg’s new book Proving Safety and their t...

This podcast is a discussion between Ron Gant and Nippin Anand about learning within the context of accident investigations. Ron and Nippin discuss the underlying beliefs, myths and the narratives of accident investigations and what it takes to learn from accidents. The podcast is based on Nippin’s recent book, ‘Are we learning from accidents?’.     Further details about the book can be found here...

In this podcast, Greg and Nippin discuss how can we learn from accidents. Greg asks Nippin a range of questions including who needs to learn, why we need to learn, and whether or not learning is even an issue of importance within organisations. You will discover some uncomfortable truths and deep-seated beliefs about how investigations are conducted and why we are so far away from learning from ac...

In this podcast, Nippin speaks with Ivan Pupulidy and Crista Vesel about their latest book, ‘Human and Organisational Potential.’ The two authors discuss the motivation to write the book and the practical benefits that it brings to the risk and safety world which, in recent years, has become increasingly conscious about understanding and improving the human condition at work.  You can order their...

I was in Athens a few weeks ago and I visited a church there. Upon seeing a picture hanging on the wall, I told the priest, ‘We have a very similar image in Hindu temples.’    And you know what the priest said, ‘but this is real.’ So, my faith is mythical and yours is real!    In science, we do the same.    A quest for ‘root cause’ is real. ‘Swiss Cheese’ is real, and witch hunt is mythical?   How...

We often hear during risk and safety discussions that methodology does not matter, methods don’t matter, philosophy doesn’t matter, what matters is results, what matters is that whatever we set to achieve – we can achieve. And so, results matter, process is not important. Is that so?   What is a methodology?   Why do we need one?   Can we escape methodology and method?   What are we really saying...

This is the second in a series of 2 episodes on psychosocial harm. The question we ask in this two-part series – how safety practices can do more harm than good? In the first episode, our focus was more on understanding the problem of psychosocial harm from a legal and organisational perspective. In this episode, we focus on some practical ways to address these issues. I hope you will enjoy listen...

Someone in your workplace has been bullied, discriminated or harassed. What do you do? Do you think people in your organisation are prepared to deal with these issues.    This podcast focuses on psychosocial risks and we question if we are doing more harm than good in the name of safety practices.    This is the first of a series of 2 podcasts where Greg Smith, Rob Long and Nippin Anand discuss th...

Do you think safety is about saving lives? In this podcast, Rob, Nippin and Pedro question the myth of ‘Safety saves lives’. What do we mean when we say we are in the business of ‘saving lives.’ Saving from whom, saved by whom and for whom? Where does this myth originate from? Whose purpose does it serve? What are the (unintended) implications of using this language when we are unaware of the unde...

It’s the start of a new year and I thought it would be wonderful to start off on a positive note. The topic of this year’s first podcast is imagination.   What is imagination? Why do we need people to be more imaginative, more creative in the risk and safety industry? And do we really need people to be imaginative in a compliance driven industry with strict rules to follow? What about the (uninten...