You'll hear about BP's attempt to create a fairer process using eight new questions that focus more on system factors like management influence, procedural clarity, and organizational goal conflicts. They discuss how even this thoughtfully redesigned framework still resulted in predominantly individual-focused interventions, with 80% of actions targeting people rather than systems, despite classifying most incidents as system-induced errors. The episode provides critical insights for safety professionals questioning whether just culture processes add value or represent organizational clutter that should be eliminated entirely.

Discussion Points:

• (00:00) Introduction to just culture models and their problems
• (03:00) Historical context of Jim Reason's culpability framework and industry adoption
• (07:37) Introduction to the BP case study research paper and methodology
• (15:19) Existing BP just culture process and its implementation problems
• (21:27) Literature review findings on just culture model weaknesses
• (29:20) The eight question redesigned BP just culture framework
• (43:25) Evaluation of the new process and classification outcomes
• (53:25) Practical takeaways and system versus individual focus
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions for future show topics!

Quotes:

David Provan: "I think the problem with the just culture model is that we have a just culture model." 

Drew Rae: "If your system problem is, we are not leaning hard enough onto individuals to behave correctly, then you are not really doing system thinking." 

David Provan: "Even though we are saying that, you know, this is great because 79% of these cases have now been classified as system-induced errors, over 80% of the actions as a result of those system-induced errors are at the individual leve.l" 

Drew Rae: "Every single outcome from the process is some sort of statement about disciplining a person, even when it's not disciplining a person. That's still the focus." 

David Provan: "Any process that you put in place in your organization that doesn't have these quality management aspects is likely to be something that drifts away from its intended purpose." 

 

Resources:

Link to the Paper

The Safety of Work Podcast

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You’ll hear six key principles for effective behavioral substitution, drawing parallels between healthcare and safety contexts. They discuss how these principles can guide both the removal of ineffective practices and the implementation of new ones, emphasizing the importance of considering practical needs, existing skills, and organizational resources when making such changes. The episode provides valuable insights for safety professionals looking to improve their organization's safety practices through evidence-based substitution strategies.

Discussion Points:

• ((00:00) Introduction and episode overview on swapping as a decluttering strategy
• (00:59) Background discussion on behavioral science and de-implementation
• (02:27) Understanding decluttering and de-implementation in healthcare context
• (05:08) Example of de-implementation in clinical practice and patient care
• (06:55) Introduction to the paper and authors' background
• (16:32) First principle: Evidence and rationale for substitute behaviors
• (19:49) Second principle: Meeting both clinical and practical objectives
• (24:51) Third principle: Clear explanability of new practices
• (26:29) Fourth principle: Time considerations for substitute behaviors
• (28:30) Fifth principle: Alignment with existing skills
• (31:40) Sixth principle: Cost implications of substitute behaviors
• (34:39) Three practical takeaways and implementation strategies, the answer to this episode’s question
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions for future show topics!

Quotes:

"You can't swap out something that people believe works for something that they don't believe works." - Drew Rae

"A lot of the safety, if not all the safety work we do in organisations is about anxiety reduction, not necessarily about improving safety.” - David Provan

"Rather than thinking about decluttering as just what we can reduce or take away, it may be more useful to think about it as a process of gradually swapping out each thing that's not working well." - Drew Rae

"If you can't explain the substitute behavior with the same ease which you can explain the behavior that you want to be implemented, then people have to work a bit harder and they might go. Why are we making this all so complex?" - David Provan

“That's the point they're making here, is like maybe the patient doesn't need care, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge their need for care and their need to be taken seriously.” - Drew Rae

Resources:

The Big Six: key principles for effective use of Behavior substitution in interventions to de-implement low-value care

The Safety of Work Podcast

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The discussion challenges traditional views of supervision by emphasizing the importance of psychological safety and predictable relationships between supervisors and workers. Through analysis of interviews with both supervisors and supervisees, the research highlights how effective supervision requires balancing organizational needs with worker support while maintaining clear boundaries and expectations. The findings suggest that organizations should focus on developing explicit supervision models that promote both technical expertise and relationship skills.

Discussion Points:

• (00:00) Introduction - what makes an effective supervisor?
• (02:29) Narrowing research focus, specific industry context
• (06:07) Introduction to the research paper and authors' backgrounds
• (09:46) The literature review's structure and key findings
• (22:12) Research methodology, interview approach, eight core themes, Theme 1: Safety and establishing predictable relationships
• (26:00) Theme 2-3: Emotional impact of work and learning/growth
• (35:45) Theme 4-5: Leadership behaviors and integrity/justice
• (42:12) Theme 6-7: Balancing supervision functions and organizational processes
• (51:14) Key takeaways and practical implications for organizations
• (55:00) The answer to our question: What are the attributes of an effective supervisor? The answer is, everything you expect, but with a new emphasis on the safety and predictability of that relationship.
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions for future show topics!

Quotes:

"There is a ton of safety research which says that frontline supervision - that direct relationship between a team leader and the people they're supervising - is really, really important for safety." - Drew Rae

"Supervision is a really important aspect of safety and safety management." - David Provan

"Power is inherent in these relationships... Supervisors don't have a lot of formal power, so the supervisor themselves often won't feel that they have power at all." - Drew Rae

"This is not an exploratory study. This is a properly conducted piece of high quality, qualitative research, and I think it does draw novel insights." - Drew Rae

Resources:

Safety as a Fifth Dimension in Supervision: Stories from the Frontline

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Drawing on insights from business leaders and contemporary educational theory, we propose that effective safety professionals require both technical expertise and sophisticated narrative capabilities. The findings suggest significant implications for safety education and professional development, challenging institutions to reconsider how they prepare safety practitioners for increasingly complex organizational environments. Rather than perpetuating false dichotomies between hard and soft skills, we argue for an educational approach that develops both technical and narrative capabilities in an integrated manner, particularly crucial for safety change management where success depends on both procedural competence and compelling storytelling.

 

Discussion Points:

• (00:00) Introduction - Should safety education focus on hard or soft skills?
• (01:04) Background - Safety Science Innovation Lab and higher education context
• (02:27) Hard vs Soft Skills - Discussing the limitations of this categorization
• (05:08) Storycraft Report - Overview and methodology of the Oxford study
• (15:00) Understanding Narrative - Definitions and importance in business
• (18:15) Three Core Business Purposes of Narrative: Communicating business values, persuasion and influence, driving and managing change
• (26:06) Five Essential Narrative Skills Framework: Narrative communication, empathy and perspective taking, critical analysis, creativity and imagination, digital skills
• (36:00) Who Needs Narrative Skills - Integration of STEM and humanities in education
• (40:35) Three Key Takeaways - Value of tertiary education, importance of narrative skills in safety, managing change
• The answer to our question: Should safety education focus on hard skills or soft skills? If you didn’t like the question, I think you will like the answer, which is: We should stop dividing the world into hard skills and soft skills, or into STEM and into humanities. Just teach everyone both.
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions!

Quotes:

“There are different skill categories, but they’re mostly about specific skills versus transferable skills.” - Drew

“One of the things that Griffith [University] was specifically set up for is based on the idea that education is important for social mobility.” - Drew

“A narrative in business is the communication of a business activity or idea…it’s the ability to tell your story or your direction.”- David

“if a business can convey some narrative or strategic vision about who they are and what they’re doing, they’re going to get much more useful work out of their employees.” - Drew

Resources:

Storycraft: the importance of narrative and narrative skills in business

The Safety of Work Podcast

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In this discussion, we dissect various models of safety culture, scrutinizing how organizations perceive, measure, and manage these concepts. From artifacts like management systems to individual attitudes and behaviors, we delve into the inconsistencies and challenges of these models. We also revisit historical perspectives, such as Dov Zohar's work, to understand their influence on contemporary safety paradigms. Our conversation critically examines the missteps of industries like nuclear and aviation, which have mandated the management of ambiguous concepts without solid scientific grounding. We advocate for a shift from vague cultural mandates to actionable strategies, offering insights into enhancing clarity and effectiveness in both regulatory practices and organizational improvements. This episode aims to inspire a reevaluation of safety culture, pushing for a more scientifically grounded and practical approach to safety science.

Some highlights from the paper:

• Safety culture as a concept is examined from scientific and pragmatic perspectives.
• The case is made for the removal of safety culture from the safety science lexicon.
• Much safety culture research is vulnerable to a fallacy of logic – we should not take a selection of parts to equal the whole.
• Robust research of the various individual ‘elements’ of safety culture, in methodologically appropriate ways, will enhance the field of safety science and better support improvements in practice.

Discussion Points:

• (00:00) Introduction: Rethinking Safety Culture - An overview of the conversation around safety culture and its evolving significance
• (07:04) Challenges in Defining Safety Culture - Exploring the difficulties in pinning down a clear and universal definition of safety culture
• (10:00) Safety Culture Research Models & Philosophies - different research models in safety culture, and the philosophy behind them, issues with lumping all safety-related terms together
• (17:00) Three Definitions of Safety Culture - Is it social, individual, or organizational? Each perspective offers a unique research approach
• (21:00) Perceptions of Safety Culture - The way we understand safety culture might differ greatly from someone else’s interpretation
• (22:00) Buckets of Safety Culture: Young vs. Mature Organizations
• (24:23) The Importance of Specificity Over Vagueness, difference between safety climate and safety culture
• (29:11) The One-Question Survey: Industry Perspectives and Practical Insights - Examining the one-question survey methodology, participant responses, and the insights gathered from industry perspectives.
• (36:00) Safety Performance vs. Safety Culture 
• Discussing the distinction between safety performance and the broader concept of safety culture.
• (39:52) Clarifying Definitions: Drew and David’s Papers
• (40:25) Meta Takeaway: Defining 'Culture' Specifically - ask yourself what you actually mean and define it specifically
• Conclusions and Takeaways
• The final question: Is it time to stop talking about safety culture? The answer: "Yep."
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions!

Quotes:

“The paper itself is very very stylish and self -aware and that's important not just for readability but for the state that this conversation is in...it's got all of these references that show that they're very aware of the landmines that people keep stepping on, in just even trying to write and untangle safety culture.” - Drew

“When someone uses the term ‘safety culture’, it's very common for them to be thinking about everything from commitment of people, compliance with procedures, level of resources, the balancing of goals, safety communication, leadership. All of these individual things just get lumped together into this term ‘safety culture.” - David

“The moment you start trying to turn it into practical actions, that's when everything starts to crumble - when there aren't good, agreed definitions.”- Drew

“You can't just wander into a company and say, ‘I want to study company culture.’ That's like a marine biologist going into the ocean and saying, ‘I want to look at things that live in the ocean’...Be precise, be narrow, be specific about what it is that you actually want to look at.” - Drew

Resources:

Seeking a scientific and pragmatic approach to safety culture in the North American construction industry

Ep.44 What do we mean when we talk about safety culture?

Dov Zohar’s Published Research

The Safety of Work Podcast

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From discussing mobile phone use while driving to the challenges of giving advice to older adults at risk of falls, this episode covers ChatGPT’s responses to a wide range of safety topics - identifying biases, inconsistencies, and areas where ChatGPT aligns or falls short of expert advice. The broader implications of relying on ChatGPT for safety advice are examined carefully, especially in workplace settings. While ChatGPT often mirrors general lay understanding, it can overlook critical organizational responsibilities, potentially leading to oversimplified or erroneous advice. This episode underscores the importance of using AI-generated content cautiously, particularly in crafting workplace policies or addressing complex safety topics. By engaging with multiple evidence-based sources and consulting experts, organizations can better navigate the limitations of AI tools.

 

Discussion Points:

• Drew and David discuss their own recent experience with generative AI
• The multiple 15 authors are all experts, discussing the methods used
• Examining the nine different question scenarios
• ‘Mobile phone use while driving’ results
• Crowd/crush safety advice
• Advice for preventing falls in older adults
• Analyzing ChatGPT response formats
• Exercising outdoors near traffic with asthma
• Questioning ChatGPT about how to engage a distressed person who may commit suicide
• Safety working ‘under high pressure’ and job demands, burnout prevention
• Lack of nuance in ChatGPT
• The safety of sharing personal data on fitness apps, how can it be shared safely?
• Is it safe to operate heavy machinery when fatigued? Testing several ways to ask this question - sleepy, tired, fatigued
• Conclusions and takeaways
• The answer to our episode’s question: “AI is not currently a suitable source for writing safety guidelines or advice”
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions!

Quotes:

“This is one of the first papers that I've seen that actually gives us sort of fair test of ChatGPT for a realistic safety application.” - Drew

“I quite like the idea that they chose questions which may be something that a lay person or even a generalist safety practitioner might ask ChatGPT, and then they had an expert in that area to analyze the quality of the answer that was given.” - David

“I really liked the way that this paper published the transcripts of all of those interactions 

with ChatGPT. So exactly what question the expert asked it, and exactly the transcript of what ChatGPT provided.”- David

“In case anyone is wondering about the evidence based advice, if you think there is a nearby terrorist attack, chat GPT's answer is consistent with the latest empirical evidence, which is run. There they go on to say that the rest of the items are essentially the standard advice that police and emergency services give.” - Drew

“[ChatGPT] seems to prioritize based on how frequently something appears rather than some sort of logical ordering or consideration of what would make sense.” - Drew

“As a supplement to an expert, it's a good way of maybe finding things that you might not have considered. But as a sole source of advice or a sole source of hazard identification or a sole position on safety, it's not where it needs to be…” - David

Resources:

The Article - The Risks Of Using ChatGPT to Obtain Common Safety-Related Information and Advice

DisasterCast Episode 54: Stadium Disasters

The Safety of Work Podcast

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We challenge the notion that high injury rates are punished by market forces, as we dig into this article that posits the opposite: that safety should be a performance driver. Our analysis dives deep into the credibility and methodologies of the article, emphasizing the critical role of peer review and the broader body of knowledge.

We'll also scrutinize the use of data as rhetoric versus evidence, focusing on the transparency and rigor of research methods when interviewing executives about safety practices. Is safety merely seen as a compliance issue or a strategic investment? We dissect the methodologies, including participant selection and question framing, to uncover potential biases. Finally, we critique a proposed five-step process aimed at transforming safety into a competitive advantage. From aligning on the meaning of safety to incentivizing employees, we expose significant gaps in academic rigor and alignment with established safety literature. 

This conversation serves as a powerful critique of superficial analyses by those outside the safety science domain, offering listeners critical insights into the complexity of safety management and its potential alignment with organizational goals. 
 

Discussion Points:

• Re-examining the role of safety as a value driver for business
• Comparing contrasting research findings and cautioning about evaluating research
• Data as rhetoric in safety
• Transparency and methodology are crucial in research, especially when interviewing executives about workplace safety
• Executives' perspectives on safety are questioned, research methods are critiqued
• Clarifying claims and performance in business 
• The five-step process for competitive advantage 
• A study on the effectiveness of safety training methods 
• Safety management is complex and requires evidence-based strategies, not superficial analysis or reliance on compliance training
• Strategic value of workplace safety
• Safety's impact on business success is uncertain, but exploring its alignment with organizational goals is important
• Takeaways 
• The answer to our episode’s question: “the short answer is we still don't know!” 
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions!

Quotes:

“The trouble is, then we don't know whether what they're referring to is published research that might be somewhere else that we can look for for the details, or work that they did specifically for this article, or other work that they've done that was just never published.” - Drew

“We've got to be really careful…this is using data as rhetoric, not using data as data.” - Drew

“I wouldn't be surprised that most people see safety as both a cost and as an outcome.”- Drew

“So you've got two-thirds of these companies that don't even have any safety metric, like not even an injury metric or anything that they monitor.” - David

“So we kind of assume business performance means financial performance, but that in itself is never clarified.” - David

Resources:

The Article: Safety Should Be a Performance Driver

Episode 121: Is Safety Good for Business?

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From the perceived control in everyday activities like driving, to the dread associated with nuclear accidents, we discuss how emotional responses can sometimes skew our rational assessments of risk. Finally, we explore the ethical and practical challenges of balancing emotional and analytical approaches in risk communication, especially in high-stakes scenarios like terrorism and public safety. The conversation touches on real-world examples, such as the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the controversial discussions around gun ownership. We emphasize the importance of framing and narrative in conveying risk information effectively, ensuring that it resonates with and is clearly understood by diverse audiences. 
 

Discussion Points:

• Understanding risk perception, Paul Slovic's work and how it has shaped safety practices and decisions in everyday life
• “Affect heuristic” in decision making, influenced by emotions and past experiences, leading to inconsistencies in risk perception.
• Feeling in-control vs. “scary concepts”, risks are perceived differently due to emotions, control, and misunderstandings of probabilities, as seen in driving 
• Risks are assessed differently based on probabilities, outcomes, framing, and context, influencing decision-making
• Other studies, looking at how people see risk, assessing your personal fear or risk from causes of death from cancer to stroke to car accidents to shark attacks vs. your own bathroom
• Balance between emotional and analytical risk evaluation
• Math and statistical examples of how risk is presented and perceived
• Post 9/11 terrorist fears vs. statistics 
• Ethical considerations in communication, and challenges in conveying risk information
• Takeaways 
• The answer to our episode’s question: “the short answer is both” 
• Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions!

Quotes:

“Risk is analysis where we bring logic, reason, and science or data or facts, and bring it to bear on hazard management.” - David

“There may not be a perfect representation of any risk.” - Drew

“If that's the important bit, then blow it up to the entire slide and get rid of the diagram and just show us the important bit.”- Drew

“It's probably a bit unfair on humans to say that using feeling and emotion isn't a rational thing to do.” - David

“The authors are almost saying here that for some types of risks and situations, risk as a feeling is great.” - David

Resources:

The Paper: Risk as Analysis and Risk as Feelings: Some thoughts about Affect, Reason, Risk and Rationality

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The discussion provides an in-depth examination of the principles of multimedia, modality, and redundancy, all of which are crucial for optimizing learning and information retention. The episode also offers a wealth of practical strategies for interactive design and meticulous preparation, aimed at enhancing audience engagement and comprehension. These strategies include the use of visual aids, storytelling techniques, and audience participation elements to create a more dynamic and immersive experience. By adopting these methods, presenters can not only convey their message more effectively but also make the learning process more enjoyable and impactful for their audience.

The Paper’s Abstract

Active training techniques are effective because they engage learners in tasks that promote deep thought, discussion, problem-solving, social interaction, and hands-on learning. Passive training is less effective because learners are relegated to merely listening and watching as an instructor does all of the mental, social, and physical work. Bullet-point lectures may be poorly suited for meaningful training because they usually adopt a model of passive learning and they tend to combine spoken words and displayed text in ways that may actually decrease comprehension. PowerPoint can serve as a tool to promote active learning if we eliminate lengthy bullet lists and use instructional images to guide group discussions, problem-solving activities, and hands-on experiences.

 

Discussion Points:

• Background on the author Mitch Ricketts and the paper
• Active vs. passive learning
• Constructive and interactive learning
• Balancing text and images using multimedia, modality, and redundancy principles
• Use of questions on slides to prompt discussion and interaction
• Importance of managing cognitive load for audience engagement
• Clear, concise content and the value of signaling in presentations
• The significance of preparation and creating separate presentations for different needs
• Strategies for creating effective slides focused on visuals over text
• Moving away from bullet points to use impactful images and labels
• Takeaways - What you SHOULD do on your slides
• The answer to our episode’s question is, the short answer here is the title of the paper- "No more bullet points."

Quotes:

“This is what you might call an applied literature review. It's someone taking the literature and interpreting that literature for a particular purpose.” - Drew

“There's a lot of research that says that a lot of high school and university teachers rely on fairly outdated and disproven theories about these different modes of learning.” - Drew

“If that's the important bit, then blow it up to the entire slide and get rid of the diagram and just show us the important bit.”- Drew

“if you're a learner and you see a giant pair of goggles on a PowerPoint slide with just the word “goggles”, then all you're going to be doing now is just listening to what the presenter is saying. And hopefully they're saying something about goggles.” - David

“Slides aren't there to look interesting and slides aren't there to carry the weight of the content. Think of them as visual support.” - Drew

Resources:

The Paper: No More Bullet Points

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We examine whether a safe work environment truly enhances productivity and engagement or if it stifles business efficiency. Historical incidents like the Union Carbide disaster and BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout are analyzed to question if neglecting safety can still lead to profitability. Finally, we break down the misconception that good safety practices automatically translate to business profitability. We highlight the tangible benefits such as enhanced publicity, stronger client relationships, and improved employee satisfaction, and stress the importance of complex discussions about the actual costs vs. benefits of safety practices.

The Paper’s Abstract

This research addresses the fundamental question of whether providing a 15 safe workplace improves or hinders organizational survival, because there are conflicting predictions on the relationship between worker safety and organizational performance. The results, based on a unique longitudinal database covering over 100,000 organizations across 25 years in the U.S. state of Oregon, indicate that in general organizations that provide a safe workplace have significantly lower odds and 20 length of survival. Additionally, the organizations that would in general have better survival odds, benefit most from not providing a safe workplace. This suggests that relying on the market does not engender workplace safety.

Discussion Points:

• Is safety “good for business”? Examining the relationship between safety and business viability
• Bhopal and the costs, Occidental - you can still make money without safety
• The backgrounds and qualifications of the paper’s authors
• Workplace safety can both benefit and hinder organizational survival due to productivity prioritization and potential risks
• Workplace safety and business performance are complexly related, with a study showing a decrease in survival odds and length due to safety prioritization
• Safety compliance at the lowest minimal cost may hinder productivity and divert attention from safety, leading to increased risks
• Safety is not inherently good for business; instead, it can bring tangible benefits like publicity, client relationships, and employee satisfaction
• Strict regulations and upfront investments in safety are necessary for fostering a safer work environment and ensuring business success
• Takeaways - Stop claiming safety is “good for business”
• The answer to our episode’s question is, “So the short answer is on average, no. At least according to this study, businesses are more likely to survive in the short term and long term if they're hurting more people more seriously.”

Quotes:

“The sorts of things that you do to improve safety are the sorts of things that I thought should also improve productivity and reliability in the long run.” - David

“Which is science, right? That's what it's about. We think we're right until we get a new piece of information and realize that maybe we weren't as right as we thought we were.” - David

“Even though there is a reasonably high volume of research out there, it's really hard to look very directly at the question.”- Drew

“So we know from this data that it's not true that providing a safe workplace makes you more competitive.” - Drew

Resources:

The Paper: The Tension Between Worker Safety and Organization Survival

The Safety of Work Podcast

The Safety of Work on LinkedIn

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