I had three very joyful days in Krakow at the European Union Agency for Railways safety days conference. First day, I facilitated a workshop focusing on how to listen and map conversations using the iCue method, the second day I presented a plenary session encouraging the regulators to bring humanistic ethics into the culture of risk and safety and the third day we went to the old town of Krakow on a semiotic walk.
On the first day during the workshop, a young girl impressed me with her listening skills. Sitting in a group of 6 people from across Europe, she picked up one person saying ‘obviously’ while telling a story. And that one word gave her the most intelligent cue. ‘What is obvious to you is not obvious to me’, she said. It was so encouraging to hear that and the energy in the room changed from there.
The next day I gave a plenary talk. In an audience of over 200 people, the same girl challenged me when I offered a critique of psychological safety. The details are not important. What is important is that of all the audiences she took the chance to speak out. Speaking up involves a huge risk and each time you are confronted by the question, ‘why don’t people come and speak up to me?’, I would invite you to take a good, hard look into the mirror.
The last day we went on a semiotic walk to the town. I started with a 10 minutes briefing about what was expected from each person and how the walk enhances our observation and perception. I then left a group of about 50 people to wonder around, and we got together again for a debrief to find out what each one had discovered. my new friend, Fabrice Carpinelli, who was capturing both the briefing and debriefing exercise on a camera made a very powerful observation. We could see in the pictures that people were so much closer to each other after our semiotic walk.
Through their gestures, they told us that seeing things differently is not wrong but a necessary ingredient to build trust.
We use a lot of words to emphasise the importance of trust in workplaces. It took a 60 mins walk for people to feel it.
