Embracing Differences

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 interesting, huh??   Our ‘progressive society’ is so busy ‘debunking’ myth and creating a divide between what is mythical and what is real. But what really is a myth and can science and our quest for truth ever replace myth? And when we ‘debunk’ a myth what do we replace it with? Is science not a myth?   Here's a podcast recorded in an Indian temple with my two friends Dr Rob Long and Matthew Thorne where we talk about myth, mythology and mythosphere and discuss a few popular myths of risk and safety.   I hope this podcast will make you think, give you an alternative view on myth not better or worse, just an alternative view) and why human beings can never do away with myth in this day and age or in the future.   If you are left confused or disturbed, that is not necessarily a bad thing. What could be detrimental for learning is the temptation to dismiss an alternative viewpoint and especially one that challenges our deepest beliefs (and myths).   Disagreements and differences are so very welcome – how else do we learn!  

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 when we say that methodology does not matter?   Can we ever abandon methodology?   What is the hidden message here?   What are the dangers of falling in the trap of a ‘methodology free’ world?   I hope this podcast will make you think and reflect on a simple question – what is your methodology when it comes to tackling risk?  And should that matter?   The podcast was done on a motorway whilst driving in Chennai, India. If you really want to enjoy the feeling of this podcast, I suggest watching it and not listening to the audio alone. The noise of the traffic and the feeling of being thrown around on bumpy roads makes it so much more fun. but of course, it is available both as an audio and video podcast. I hope you will enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed creating it for you. About Novellus: We are an internationally recognised team with a focus on risk management, safety culture and organisation learning using proven methods in Social Psychology of Risk.

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 listening as much as we enjoyed creating this episode and it will make you think and reflect.    Rob, Greg, Pedro and Nippin are conducting a series of workshops in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong in May 2024.   Event dates: https://novellus.solutions/events/   About Novellus: We are an internationally recognised team with a focus on risk management, safety culture and organisation learning using proven methods in Social Psychology of Risk.   

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 the psychosocial harm that results from safety practices (for instance investigations, audits, inspections). The discussion takes a broader view of the problem from a legal, organisational and regulatory perspective.   We hope that this discussion will trigger some questions and introspections in you and within your groups.

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 underlying beliefs and myths? And finally, what could be the alternative ways to think about safety that can lead us to a pathway of humanising risk and relating with people?   We hope that this discussion will make you think and question your assumptions about safety and shift your focus towards meaningfully tackling risks in an uncertain world.    

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 (unintended) consequences of thinking ‘outside the box’ in a high risk environment?   These are some of the questions Dr Rob Long and I tackle in this conversation.

It is often said that safety people require a predisposition of care and empathy towards the others. Rosa Carrillo’s well-researched book ‘OHS Voices from The Resistance’ brings a paradox to surface. What if care and empathy make (safety) people vulnerable and fragile in the face of growing aggression and brutalism in the workplaces?   The book is packed with stories of people working in the safety function struggle to maintain their identity and become seen as misfits in their organisations. While some find themselves out grouped from within their own organisations, others consider abandoning the safety industry as a whole. Rosa’s conversation with Nippin is deeply personal and reflective of her own struggles and ethnicity.    For those interested, Rosa’s offers her wisdom on how to tackle and live with some of these issues: https://carrilloconsultants.com/product/voices-from-the-resistance/  

Nippin Anand and Pedro Ferreira follow-up on their conversation in Croatia A conversation about what it takes to bring cultural sensitivity into organisations. Nippin and Pedro discuss several examples of how fostering conversations that are not power dominated and personal agendas are not so much at play, can bring about a much better understanding of different perspectives. The understanding and sharing of different perspectives then brings about much enhanced decision-making.  

How do you understand culture, cultural sensitivity and risk intelligence? How can being culturally sensitive make us risk intelligent? Nippin Anand and Pedro Ferreira offer some thoughts. And guess where they are – in the cultural capital of Europe i.e. Rijeka, Croatia

This podcast is dedicated to people who put on a performance (a show) every day when they come to work. performance means many things, although in the risk and safety world we have become excessively focused on work and the narrative goes something like this that in order for the worker to perform well, she needs the right support from the company. Support in the form of the right processes, right tools, right instructions, right directions and the right rules. And once you do that, not only safety but reliability, quality and efficiency will also improve. Since it is all about performance, the focus still remains on measurements and dashboards, AI and technique.   But there is another kind of performance, the kind of performance that we notice with people who are going through so much in their lives (family issues, marital problems, trauma, identity crisis, discrimination, victimisation, bullying, harassment, sexual abuse and so on) and yet they are expected to put on a show when they turn to work. that’s performance, just like Freddie Mercury making sure the show must go on.   Do we care to understand performance from this perspective? Is it even important given that this has ‘nothing’ to do with work? Steve Shorrock and I had a heartfelt conversation on this topic and we share our thoughts in this podcast.   We hope this podcast will make you think, reflect and approach yourcolleagues and friends with a different perspective about performance.