Ep079: Neuroscience of psych safety and a personal learning journey, with Amanda Jones PhD

Today I’m joined by Dr Amanda Jones, and yes, I do manage to sing a line from the annoying Aqua song Dr Jones during this interview. Amanda is a neuroscience and biological safety expert, who brings together her academic and research expertise with her work as a health and safety professional.

This episode is brought to you by Safety on Tap Connected, the worlds first growth accelerator for health and safety professionals. Don’t know what that means? That’s ok, because it’s kind of a new approach to professional development, an evolution of the old into a new, more effective way of propelling your career forward. One of the ways that happens is through coaching from me, your professional coach. Coaches are used extensively by executives to improve their performance, and yet coaching is severely underutilised by health and safety leaders, which is why I created Safety on Tap Connected, to bring it to you at a price that’s very affordable. Professional coaching is like the sports kind of coaching in many ways – we set out sights on achieving something, which I call BETTER – this could be improving a micro-skill or winning the grand final, it’s going to be different for each person which is why personalised coaching is so valuable. Then we work out where you are NOW, the starting point, the skills and capabilities and attitudes and challenges and aspirations you have right now. When we know where we are NOW, and we know what BETTER looks like, as a coach I’ll help you work out HOW to get there, a clear plan of action to move from NOW to BETTER, along with any stumbles or roadblocks along the way. Just in the past week I’ve been coaching someone through a difficult decision about resourcing on a project they are leading, another person on preparing for a job interview (and helping them with a practical hypothetical they were asked to respond to as part of the process), and yet another person with balancing their energy and attitude about the things they can control, the things that can reasonably influence, and knowing when something is neither of those. Safetyontap.com/connected is where you should go if you want to find out more information to accelerate your professional growth. That’s safetyontap.com/connected

Amanda will be speaking at the 2018 Safetyscape convention, part of the new events offering from the Safety Institute of Australia on from the 22nd to 24th of May in Melbourne. The inaugural #SAFETYSCAPE Convention will enable an array of organisations to assemble as the largest gathering of Health & Safety Industry professionals across a program of events, workshops, forums and the Safety Institute of Australia’s own two day National Health & Safety Conference: In Practice along with the Workplace Health & Safety Show. But don’t forget, as I’ve been saying for a while – most of your learning and in turn performance will come from social and experiential learning – so whilst the knowledge you will gain will be great, it’s even better to meet new peers and strengthen relationships with your network, share stories and reflections from your own experience. I’ll be there, I’m speaking about non-safety practices to improve your effectiveness, as well as alongside a group of YSPers sharing our professional journeys. But I really want to have a cuppa with you.

Visit safetyscape.com.au to find out more and get your ticket, I hope to see you there.

Here we go:

Did you know that in addition to the bucketloads of past episodes here at safetyontap.com, audio and video, you can also get my handwritten reflections from each interview, PLUS a reflection template for your own use to boost the learning and in turn performance you get from listening? Not to mention you can get the full transcript from each episode if you are more of a reader kind of person, or want to use that for your study, or even sharing with your team or other people in your organisation. The easiest way to get these for this episode, and all episodes is to pop your details down there and I’ll email these to you so you never miss another one!

I interviewed Health Evangelist Sally McMahon in last episode, number 78, and after we recorded that, we also recorded Sally interviewing me for her Fit for Work Podcast. That interview has been released. I encourage you to take a listen, not just to me but Sally’s podcast overall. You will in my interview hear some pretty open and vulnerable things during that chat, some of which I’ve never shared before. Head over to fitforworkaustralia.com.au or search for it on your favourite podcasting app.

Here’s my three takeaways from that chat with Amanda Jones:

1: Learn from experts who curate the complex stuff for you. Today’s chat with Amanda obviously only scratched the surface on the topic of the neuroscience of psychological safety. That’s ok, because sometimes we need to accept that complex things take time to understand. But instead of feeling daunted or afraid of that, embrace it and hack your learning by finding an expert like Amanda who can curate the complex information out there, into something more digestible and actionable for you. This is when the formal knowledge kind of learning works really really well.

2: Stress is contagious. If that’s the only practical takeaway from this chat you get, it’s a good one. Too much stress is bad for an individual, so caring for those people is important. But doing that isn’t just a nice thing to do, or isolated, it affects everyone around them. Understanding the causes of high-stress and helping people prevent and manage that, is undoubtedly part of our role.

3: Are you ready to commit to something that terrifies you? Fear is a good sign that you are on the right track to growth, when it is aligned with a clear vision of what BETTER looks like for you. Amanda is pushing through her fear and impostor thinking to grow her presentation skills, which is her BETTER vision. I am in awe of her for doing that. What scares you, and will you do something to grow and improve your effectiveness?

Until next time, what’s the one thing you’ll do to take positive, effective or rewarding action, to grow yourself, and drastically improve health and safety along the way. Seeya!