Sidney Dekker’s Safety Differently principles cause a stir when they arrived, calling for a halting or pushing back on the bureaucratisation and compliance of work. The movement sees people not as a problem to control, but as a resource to harness.

But exactly how do organisations begin to implement such a groundbreaking methodology? In this week’s show, Colin discusses the practical applications of Safety Differently with Josh Bryant, the general manager of Mitchell Services.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Procedurals should be the first thing to be examined through the lens of Safety Difference. Following this, the language we use needs to change. People should not be seen as the problem, but the answer to any problem.
• Incident communication always changes in the wake of an accident. People fear reporting incidents due to the fact that procedures and practices alter irrevocably afterwards. This encourages reluctance.
• We must spend time with our teams in order to see what they go through, and to truly understand the frustrations they encounter daily. It is not enough to simply ask for feedback. We must investigate in a comprehensive way.
• Far too often, we only examine the aftermath of a negative issue. We should also investigate the reasons why things go well. As a business, we will benefit immeasurably by learning about positives, and sharing the insights across the organisation.

BEST MOMENTS

‘As a leadership team we thought “How do we Safety Difference the sh*t out of this?”'

‘Instead of people being the problem, people should be the solution’

‘People have some amazing ideas'

‘You need to take on board that your business isn’t perfect'

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Interesting Health & Safety Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/vn/podcast/the-interesting-health-safety-podcast/id1467771449  

Josh Bryant LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshbryant1/?originalSubdomain=au

ABOUT THE HOST

Colin Nottage

‘Making health and safety as important as everything else we do.’

This is the belief that Colin is passionate about and through his consultancy Influential Management Group (IMG) is able to spread into industry. Colin works at a strategic level with company owners and board members. He helps business leaders establish and achieve their health and safety ambitions.

He has developed a number of leading competency improvement programmes that are delivered across industry and his strengths are his ability to take a practical approach to problem-solving and being able to liaise at all levels within an organisation.

Colin also runs a company that vets contractors online and a network that develops and support H&S consultancies to become better businesses.

Colin chairs the Construction Dust Partnership, an industry collaboration directly involving many organisations, including the Health and Safety Executive.

He is a Post Graduate Tutor at Strathclyde University and a highly sought-after health and safety speaker and trainer. He has a Post Graduate Certificate in Safety and Risk management, an engineering degree and is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).