What do overdue fines, paying tax, stickers on dangerous machines and health and safety have in common? Let’s find out!

Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap. 

Since you’re listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way.  Welcome to you, you’re in the right place.  If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us, and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course, welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.

Rory Gallagher is the Asia Pacific Director of the Behavioural Insights Team, and a founding member of it’s parent organisation within the British Government.  This work as always fascinated me, ever since I read the book Nudge, based on Nobel Prize winning work by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. 

Have you ever thought, ‘well that person’s response or behaviour or inion surprised me, because it didn’t seem logical or rational?’.  That curiosity is at the heart of this idea that heaps of government policy, regulation and regulatory activity, system design and economic theory is based on flawed assumptions about humans and behaviour.  Sound familiar, health and safety?

This is a juicy episode, I hope you squeeze lots from it, here’s Rory Gallagher:

Mind BLOWN! How good was that conversation! How good was it go hear about the amazing change making work that Rory and the Behavioural Insights team have done?

Three takeaways were hard to stick to, but here’s my top three from that chat with Rory Gallagher: 

Takeaway #1: Design better policies and systems to get desired outcomes, Deep focus on humans, and testing or evaluating as a form of evidence based practice, user-centredness, understanding work as done, how language matters so much, taking leaders on the journey with you.  Is this sounding familiar? You’re right, it’s almost a summary of the back catalogue of this podcast.  Not that I designed the podcast based on behavioural economics or science, however, I am trying to give you multiple perspectives on similar things. Or put another way, like a GPS uses a few different reference points to locate your position, there is a WEALTH of research and evidence and opinion from outside the health and safety domain, which points to the opportunity and the need to change the way we work in health and safety. It’s not a new view, it’s not even new. But like I’ve said before, knowledge or ideas aren’t much good unless you put them into practice.

Takeaway #2: Nudge, and sludge.  If you want to understand behavioural change which doesn’t regulatory measures to force change, get the book Nudge.  Sludge, its antithesis, is a newer concept and well worth understanding.  Some of this will sound familiar, how bureaucracy not only doesn’t get us what we want, it can create perverse outcomes.  I mentioned the Safety Clutter research and my work with Dr. Dave Provan….you know what the two biggest problems with that are? First, that people don’t understand it enough, read enough, or get sufficient advice so they think they are decluttering when they are actually not.  The second biggest problem is people doing nothing about clutter.  Either way, it’s kind of ironic for professionals to act that way.  Get up to speed, get advice, and take action like a professional. 

Takeaway #3: Frameworks.  Rory shared two central frameworks that underpin their work.  The first was EAST, the model used to condense the complex literature into something digestible for the regular manager: it stands for making things Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely.  The second framework, TESTS, guides the way they run their projects: Target, Explore, Solution, Trial, Scale.  I like frameworks because they combine two things: a model or process, and an intentional way of communicating it.  You’ve heard plenty of frameworks from me before: the four learning team goals (sign up, show up, fill up, and follow-up).  The safety clutter research has the 3C’s of decluttering.  There’s coaching in three parts: your BETTER, your NOW, and the HOW.  Frameworks are useful parts of your work and communication, how well do you use frameworks? If you want some breadcrumbs to follow, google the words Genius Model. 

Thanks so much for listening.  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?

Before you go, keep listening for a few words about the work which makes this podcast free for you.  Seeya!

You’ve probably heard me talk about learning teams, and might be wondering what’s that all about. Learning teams are an increasingly popular practical activity to help your organisation to learn better, in order to improve performance.

It’s not an investigation, it’s not a risk assessment, and it’s not a committee meeting – but a learning team approach can help to learn from the past, to anticipate the future, and to engage effectively with people all over your organisation or supply chain.

There’s not one way to do learning teams but some critical principles which will enable you to facilitate better learning whatever your situation.

I’ve created a few short videos which explain What is a learning team? If you’re interested visit safetyontap.com/what