Safety on Tap

Many of us would have heard a saying like "health and safety professionals have a little hand a big S". If this is true for you as it is for me, then you might have also found the H has felt smaller than ever as the world is gripped by the Covid-19 public health crisis. Similar but different, the public health perspective reveals some interesting insights beyond what an OHS perspective brings, to make us more effective. You've heard today's guest, Steffan on the podcast before, in episode 104. Steffan was the first guinea pig who did a live coaching call with me, so you got a voyeuristic insight into Steffan's challenge, and how we worked through to a better future. This is an awesome example of really powerful learning not just for him but for you the listener. Steffan is back today to offer his insights based on his professional expertise in public health. He was seeing how the little H was leaving many of us scratching our heads in this current mayhem, and very generously offered to share an insight into how his public health background has helped him provide the best possible support and advice to his organisation.

I went out three weeks into the real craziness of the coronavirus. I have collected hundreds and hundreds of data points from people like you giving me an insight into what you are facing right now. And the opportunities that adversity brings two things are emerging, which are the focus of today's conversation with Dr. David Provan, the tension between feeling safe versus being safe. And the need for us to intentionally build resilience into the way we work in our organizations, which it turns out seems not to be new challenges. They're just made much more apparent in tough times.

I am planning to still bring you regular podcasts. But we can't ignore what's going on in these coronavirus times. To distinguish these podcasts from the regular ones, I thought I would number them C1, C2, but then I realised, coronavirus is not defining who I am and my response right now. What is defining me, is togetherness. So this is episode is not C1, its T1, T for Togetherness. The first of these hopefully short series of podcasts focused on how together we can tackle and adapt through coronavirus times.

Today's guest brings so much learning to you today. A safety concierge, a career with laser-focused intent, not fitting into a box, and understanding where the real value lies in customer interaction. You're in for a treat. Cameron is a career health and safety professional, with health and safety experience across many sectors with roles from the frontline into senior leadership in high-risk industries. It is his work outside of safety which really cranks up my curiosity. He is currently a Solutions Engineer at RealWear, which their website says is the world's best hands-free wearable rugged Android tablet for industrial workers. But you won't hear a lot about RealWear or their products in this episode, and that will make sense to you at the end. Cameron is teaching us not just in what he says, but what he doesn't say.

I usually try to make episodes that are as timeless as possible, in as much as you might listen the day it comes out, or a year or two later. Today's episode is both very timely today, because it is the 17th of March 2020, amidst the exponential growth of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, or SARS-COV-2, NCOV, or any other name people give it. But even if you are listening to this in a years time when I hope things are drastically better, keep going, because whilst what you are about to hear is sharply relevant today, it will still be in the future too, because this is about the future we seek to create.

Many of you will know Professor Erik Hollnagel. Erik said he doesn't like long introductions, so I'll do it in the intro here before the actual interview. Erik is Senior Professor of Patient Safety at the University of Jönköping, Sweden. You may have heard of Erik from his prolific writing, with well knows books including Safety I and Safety II, the Past and Future of Safety Management, and Resilience Engineering, Concepts and Precepts. He is here not because I am a believer, but as Erik so simply tell us, because it makes sense.

In this episode we're continuing our recent theme of looking at the future. Previous guest and friend of the show Kobi Simmat, CEO at Best Practice, shares a couple of big business trends he is seeing, which are relevant to all of us, we dig into some of the key business skills which might help you become the next CEO, and hear about an awesome live event he is putting on with a phenomenal line up of speakers to help businesses create their own better future.

It's great to bring you another listener question. These kinds of podcasts are designed to help you bridge the gap between hearing and knowing something, and putting it into practice in real life. I can tell you all the stories under the sun, but there is something special, and simply enlightening about a specific person with a specific goal and you hearing it in the first-person.