Ep199 All Your Finance Needs (not), with Andrew Barrett

safetyontap.com/ep199

LISTEN:

EVERYTHING except for…..the thing I need.

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.

This email popped up in my inbox, from a local Financial Planner.

I know her personally, we were part of a business group a few years ago.

Having gotten far more focussed and proactive with my overall financial goals and position in recent years, I asked this Financial Planner to come over and help us plan our finances.

We prepared a lot, laid it all out – mortgage situation, credit, assets, a business, a family trust, a farming partnership, superannuation (401k), insurances, cash position, investments…..it was all there.

I wanted the Financial Planner to help challenge and refine our Financial Plans.

I was confused when she kept suggesting that we really should buy more shares, and certainly move our insurance somewhere else. I just wanted a few hours of planning help I would gladly pay for.

She left saying she would send some info, and I actually didn’t hear from her.

It turns out the Financial Planner isn’t interested in helping people with their financial planning, but to push them towards products and services for which they get a commission.

Call me naive, I was still surprised. And I didn’t get what I wanted.

So I laughed when today’s email said ‘We’ve got solutions for all your finance needs’ – EXCEPT THE ACTUAL PLANNING PART OF FINANCIAL PLANNING.

…

When we work in #healthandsafety, do we make promises and offers which are incongruent with the needs of the people we are trying to help?

How biased are we when we only offer what we have in our bag of tricks, knowing that those options, by definition, are limited?

How often do we say ‘I can’t help you? Or ‘I don’t have what you need, but I’ll help you get it anyway’?

…

Don’t bullsh*t yourself or your people. Doesn’t matter whether your intent is good or not.

Because they simply laugh when they read an email like this, and delete it.

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, 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