Embracing Differences

What happens when someone by-passes an alarm, turns the wrong valve on the manifold, ignores a barrier, or leaves a winch lever unattended.

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 rest of the world (including leading experts in the industry) criticised the captain for navigating the safe too close to the islands. even five years after the accident when I met the captain in his hometown he maintained that this was a normal practice in the cruise industry. It was a powerful insight into the culture of the cruise industry. In this episode, we will discuss why culture is so often misunderstood within the risk and safety industry using this story. 1) what are normal practices and why do we need to understand them? 2) where are we today with our understanding of ‘normal practices’? 3) how a high-risk manoeuvre became a normal practice in the cruise industry? 4) what safety sciences won’t tell us about normal practices? 5) how can we uncover ‘normal practices’ within our organisations? Each of these questions will be addressed through stories and experiences that we can all relate with. This is the second in a series of episodes based on my recent book, ‘Are We Learning from Accidents?’. A previous video in this episode was focused on why people don't speak up. The next few episodes will focus on: 1) collective sensemaking in a crisis, 2) the power of scapegoating (blame), 3) 3) how do human beings learn, unlearn, relearn and make decisions. You can read a sample of my book here: https://nippinanand.com/ Read more about our work here: https://novellus.solutions/ and check out our future workshops here: https://novellus.solutions/events/

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 interviewed the captain before he was sentenced to prison, and I was surprised by how the captain responded to my open-ended questions during the course of our interview and how it led me to a completely different view of the accident and learning than the one presented in the public domain. I have also recently written a book on this accident – Are We Learning from Accidents?

We will focus on the following questions: 1. Why was the Costa Concordia accident framed as a problem of ‘speaking up’ and the failure of ‘bridge resource management’? 2. What are the parallels between concepts such as ‘psychological safety’, ‘crew resource management’, ‘non-technical skills’ and ‘soft skills’? 3. Why do these concepts appeal so much to the risk and safety industry? 4. What are the alternative frameworks to think about ‘speaking up’? 5. And importantly, why we should never underestimate the power of framing?

This is the first in a series of videos based on my recent book, ‘Are We Learning from Accidents?’. In the next few weeks, I will post more videos on a range of topics including 1) normalisation of risk, 2) collective sensemaking in a crisis, 3) understanding safety culture, 4) the power of scapegoating (blame), 5) what is learning, and 6) how do human beings learn, unlearn, relearn and make decisions.

You can read a sample of my book and it is available for purchase at: https://nippinanand.com/

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 caring, mindfulness, or self-awareness? What about the importance of friendship and tapping into our unconscious? Surprisingly, these are the very concepts that are now at the forefront of risk management.

This podcast dives into the world of mindfulness and its profound impact on risk reduction. In healthcare, research demonstrates the positive effects of mindfulness on both patient care and practitioner well-being. It's sparked a conversation about embodiment – the crucial synergy between our unconscious and conscious minds—a synergy can only happen when both are aware of each other. Mindfulness  enriches our world when we learn to make the unconscious conscious.

We'll also be exploring the concept of "weak signals," a term coined by Karl Weick to describe the subtle anomalies in organizations that can hint at serious underlying issues. Mindfulness can enhance our ability to detect these weak signals, as well as improve our listening and empathy skills. After all, we can see and hear more when we're not consumed by our own thoughts.

And finally, we'll delve into the power of friendship and the importance of relationships. Gallup research has shown that having a friend at work is a key indicator of high performance. Connectedness is essential for well-being and performance. A true friend can help us bring our unconscious thoughts to light, leading to better decision-making and risk mitigation. This is key to organizations that struggle to bring the tacit, implicit to the surface so that problems can be addressed in a timely manner.

Join us as we explore these timely ideas for tackling risk in an uncertain world. On this podcast, we'll uncover how mindfulness, self-awareness, and human connection can revolutionize the way we approach risk management.

Our hope is that this conversation will help you stay present, stay connected, and stay safe.

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 completely different; we are designed exactly the same.

When we move to defend our belief’s, we often sacrifice the ability to move forward and seek the learning that is necessary to raise the discussion to higher understanding. Curiosity initiates logic, reason and intuition. Defense moves us to justify and rationalize a belief or an action in the past. Forward is the future we are trying to shape. Backward is the past we cannot change.

We own our belief’s. There is no reason to defend them.  Someone with different belief’s is not a threat to ours. Someone else cannot steal our belief. However, if we are curious and listen to others, we can then decide for ourselves if new information somehow may shape our change our current belief. We don’t have to like another’s perspective or their idea. We just have to listen.

As you listen to this podcast, see if you can hear how the different perspectives begin to align. We can release and discover potential in each other, or we can suppress it. We have that power.

The question is, are you willing to walk through the door?

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 humility in understanding and learning from surprises. From humility we moved into courage and why courage is so important to break free from dogma and become critical thinkers. We ended this session with the importance of metaphysics, meaning making and methodology. Our discussion ended with why we need to be more kind and humble to pursue science.

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.