Nippin Anand 0:00
Is there anything else you would like to say before you I do want to say

Mary Conquest 0:06
and I’m being a little vulnerable here. I’m a little embarrassed by my lapses in memory, and I want to explain that I’m I’m recovering from cancer. I’m taking treatment that really exacerbates brain fog, and a lot of my identity has been wrapped up in my intelligence. And when words escape me, it’s

Nippin Anand 0:30
it’s really tough

Mary Conquest 0:32
just being vulnerable and saying that yeah, and maybe helping people understand that if you’re talking to someone and they’re having trouble finding words. There could be more to it than a lack of interest or a lack of intelligence.

Nippin Anand 0:45
Thank you for sharing that that means a lot to me, and I’m sure many people will appreciate that you’re better now

Mary Conquest 0:51
I am. I am simply on medication to keep it from coming back, yeah, but that was a journey, too.

Nippin Anand 0:58
I’ll say a little prayer for you tonight. Thank you.

Nippin Anand 0:00
Well, welcome to embracing differences with me. Nippin Anand, and what should I say I have with me? Mary conquest, and some of you know her, she has done a lot of good work in the Risk and Safety space. I actually, coincidentally, just wanted to know her more, and I looked at the website, which is safety labs, and I saw the number of interviews Mary has done, and it’s close to about 100 interviews. So the first thing that came to mind is that I’m interviewing an interviewer today. It’s always and I have done many interviews in my life, so maybe it’s the meeting of two interviewers, or it’s interviewing an interviewer, but I’m sure there is a lot to learn from you, Mary. But even before we did that, Mary, maybe I would like to know you as a person. So we should start off by asking, like, what would you like to share about yourself?

Mary Conquest 1:06
Well, I’m just about entering the second half of of my life. I’m just about 50, and let’s see, I live on the west coast of Canada, beautiful place called Vancouver Island, a temperate rainforest. And I have, I’m married, I have a dog. I have two wonderful kids that were just launching into the world, into adulthood, so it’s a different phase for us. And yeah, I’ve always been fascinated with communication. Always like whether it’s different languages or how we communicate, what gets in the way of communication. My undergraduate degree was a double major in anthropology and writing, and I was interested in cultural anthropology, and particularly languages. So my initial path was, was understanding the how different languages create different worlds, and I understood that because I was raised in an English family, but I went through French immersion, so I started learning French at the age of five, and did most of my schooling up until I was 16, most of it was in French, and then I learned German and a little bit of Japanese that I can barely remember, but I understood that when you think in different languages, you are able to think different thoughts. And I just anyway, I thought that was fascinating. I thought it would be interesting to learn different cultures through their language and that sort of thing. But I actually stepped away from it, because at the end of my degree, I got the impression that the only way to go forward would be through academia, and I didn’t want I didn’t want that. I realize now that there were other paths, but I leaned more heavily on my writing, which is fine, which is also communication, yeah, but I’ve always been fascinated with culture, language and communication.

Nippin Anand 3:48
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you said something very powerful. You said that if you can think in different languages, you can produce different thoughts. Is there any particular experience or story that reinforces this way of thinking?

Mary Conquest 4:07
I’m trying to think of examples like there are some words in German that there are a lot of words in German that if you translate them into the English, they’re almost a full sentence because they stick concepts together. But I guess I can’t think of a specific word or concept, but I do remember translating like we traveled to Europe when I was younger with my parents, who were not bilingual, and I was the translator. And sometimes a translator stumbles because there’s you’re trying to think, there’s no word for that. So which combination of words is most accurate, right? Yeah, and I’m sorry I examples are escaping me right now, but

Nippin Anand 4:59
yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. I mean, I’ll help you with that, because I so, I so share your, your your view on this. And I come from, in some ways, the land of sun in India, and it’s life tends to be very inefficient. In some ways, we are not efficient people. We are never being efficient. I mean this word efficiency and how it is treated like God in the Western world, was a very alien concept to me. You know, we are not a doing society. We’re not a doing based society. You don’t always have to do something. So here’s one which comes to mind. I’m intrigued by that. Every time somebody is late for a meeting, they would say I was running late for this meeting, or I’m running for late for a meeting. I’m thinking, in my mind, where are you running, or why are you running? And in India, for example, would say, I seek your forgiveness. I mean, I seek your forgiveness for being late. And that’s, that’s, we leave it there. But this whole idea of running and meeting deadlines, and it’s a, it’s a very efficiency based narrative, and how, you know, language can reveal so much about worldviews and different kind of worlds that we create. I totally get that many, many many other things, Mary, we will talk as we go. But yeah, I resonate with you on that. Yes, do you want

Mary Conquest 6:30
to say something also? Well, you just language also reveals, sort of the the underlying assumptions, the culture that we have that we don’t even know we have. And you’re in a position because you have lived in two different cultures with like different so, like, I’ve lived in France and in Germany briefly, but they still sort of follow the kind of the Judeo Christian background, right? And so some of the assumptions, I mean, some things are certainly different than they are, say, in Canada, but some of the assumptions I grew up with were still there, whereas, as you just said, that the idea of efficiency is very different in in the culture you grew up in. So I think the greater the contrast, the easier it is to see.

Nippin Anand 7:28
That’s right, yeah, what a beautiful thing to say. Absolutely, yeah, because subtle things can get, you know, can get blurred so easy. And we are creators of meaning, so we will somehow fit things into our world. But I’m so intrigued by your experience in cultural anthropology. So how did you come to this, to this, to this place where you are today, in the world of safety and risk. How did you make this transition?

Mary Conquest 7:57
Mary, as many of us did, accidentally or or fortuitously. I mean, there’s many ways to say that, but let’s just say not intentionally. So I worked as a writer, and I worked in various I’ve worked as a writer and a graphic designer, and I took some time out in my career to raise my kids, I came back into writing, and I was hired as a blog writer for a company that makes safety knives, and worked for them for quite a while, and The writing turned into strategy. So I became a content strategist for them. Became really interested in the strategy of communication, not just I always say, I became a content strategist the day that I stopped saying, you know, this is what we’re going to write. And start saying, Why are we writing that? So anyway, I was content strategist for them. Our marketer thought that it would be a good idea to do a podcast with they were looking for a host, and I had had I mentioned that I had done public affairs talk radio, just just on the university radio, so not for long, certainly not professionally. And they said, well, let’s give it a whirl. And I’ve done it, and people seem to enjoy it. And of course, I’ve learned. I have now done, they’re not all published, but I have now done 100 interviews. And, yeah, I really enjoy it. It’s, it’s a form of anthropology, isn’t it?

Nippin Anand 9:53
Absolutely say, say more about that. I’m interested to hear. It’s a form of anthropology. Say, more. About that?

Mary Conquest 10:02
Well, to me, and this may not be everyone’s view, but I think cultural anthropology is very much, and I’m going to refer to your book here is like sort of unearthing the unconscious right understanding culture, and culture is often the things that we’re not aware that we believe, or the basis on which we have beliefs. And safety is fascinating because there’s a goal, or, yeah, I mean, there’s a goal. There’s a goal for people to go home safe. There are other goals. Sometimes it’s more than just going home safe, depending on the person you’re talking to. It’s also being productive, being happy, Organizational Psychology concepts and that kind of thing. And when I started I didn’t realize all of that it’s it’s over the time, over time that I’ve done it, I’ve realized that talking to every person is is unearthing their sort of worldview around safety and risk. Like, what is safety? No, I shouldn’t say no one agrees, but there’s not a lot of agreement necessarily on what is safety? Is it the presence of something? Is it the absence of something? Is it a useless concept? There are a lot of different views. And yeah, the more the more the more I talked about it, I wondered if I would run out of questions or ideas. But no, I mean, every person is different and has different experiences. I’ve talked to people from all over the world and different industries, and yeah, even if I asked the same I should have known this as having done writing. If you take five writers and put them in an experience, and they experience an event, and each of them goes away and writes about it, you will have five different stories. So if I had chosen to ask the exact same questions of every single person that I interviewed, I still would have 100 different stories.

Nippin Anand 12:24
One cannot avoid that, right? Yeah, yeah. And there’s a lot to draw from what you have already said. But you know, there are things like you said. You realize the importance of being a good communicator, and with by asking simple things like, you know, okay, we need to write a content. But why do we need to write that? But over this period of time, you know, extensive period of time spent in this space, what has been your biggest learnings? Mary, how would you because lot of people today talk about communication and being good at communication. What makes someone a good communicator? You think from your years of experience and practice listening,

Mary Conquest 13:13
it’s listening because we all have our own ideas, and we can express them in all kinds of different ways, but if we’re not listening, we’re not learning, and if we’re not listening, the person we’re trying to communicate with is not trusting us, they will sense that we’re not listening. And if they don’t trust us, they can’t listen to us. So I think listening is the most important thing. And again, I’ll mention your book, that since reading it, I’ve been thinking of that idea of listening to the whole person, like showing up for the whole person, and trying to bring that into my certainly into my interviews, and just in my daily life. Every so often I’ll be in a conversation and I’ll think to myself, are you here for the whole person, or are you planning what you’re going to make for dinner? So fascinating. Yeah, listening.

Nippin Anand 14:10
Oh yes, fascinating. Can I share something with you on this I had a very eureka moment just two days ago. There was a researcher who is working in in the area of fatigue. You know, in the maritime industry, we have a big problem with fatigue. And his starting point, he is an ex Seafarer, a ship captain, and in many ways very similar to my career path, he went on to do a PhD, and then is very successful now doing a lot of research on fatigue, and as we were discussing, I started off by asking him to say that, let’s do a podcast, not as a researcher or as an anthropologist, but two seafarers who are sitting in a bar and just having a conversation. And I think it was our first time he had never. Met me, and he didn’t know what that would mean, but every time I would ask him a question about working hours and fatigue, and he will go back to his research to prove the point and and I wondered, why not talk about some of your own stories? You know what led you to do what you do today? Because behind every research, there is a curiosity, and behind every curiosity, there’s a framing of certain questions. And where do those questions come from? I mean, look at all the risk and safety books. One of the things that they would keep away from is writing personal stories and being vulnerable. None of the researchers or safety scientists do that. And I wonder, why not? I think I know why not. But anyway, so, so I, so we, every time I spoke to him, he would drift back into academic language. And we finished off the podcast, and I asked him, I said, I said, you have so many experiences from your life, and I kept probing you and asked, wanting to know from you, why wouldn’t you talk about that? And he said he couldn’t get a clue. So at the end of the podcast, he said, you know why I did this area of research, or why I went into into seafaring in the first place? He said that because my father wanted me to be a seafarer. And he said, I never wanted to be a seafarer. My father showed me all the moon and the stars before coming to sea. He said all you got to do is just sit on the chair and watch at the sea outside. That’s all you got to do. And he said all those things were totally shattered on the day when I arrived on the ship, and suddenly he’s resonating with my story, because that’s exactly how it felt for me when I joined sea. So here we are two seafarers resonating in with our experiences when something happens to people, when they go on to do a research and they lose connection with themselves. And I’ve always wondered why. I don’t know why I’m sharing the story with you, but I just find it so interesting, so fascinating, that I think these kind of stories bring people together, and sometimes going so far away from that and trying to make it more academic and objective loses connection with people in some ways. What do you think?

Mary Conquest 17:16
Mary, I think that there’s a deep connection with authority. And I think that people, in order to feel that their point of view is valid, it must be backed by science and a rigorous scientific process. And it has to do with probably a cultural view of authority and the importance of authority and speaking authoritatively. And knowing things in an quote, unquote objective way. Also, I don’t think that people, you can obviously being a man, you can probably say more about this than me, but I don’t think that men are typically encouraged to be particularly vulnerable in public spaces. You know that in private spaces with family members, they’re much more open, but I think, I think that’s part of it too. So have I answered the question

Nippin Anand 18:21
I think you have. I’m fascinated by by what you said, and it makes so much sense, Mary. And which brings me to, do you want to say more before I ask something else?

Mary Conquest 18:34
No, I don’t think so. I think you spoke about this sort of myth of objectivity and scientific knowledge. And again, I think that’s a cultural thing. I don’t think all cultures value authority in the same way.

Nippin Anand 18:53
Yeah, because if you are looking at the industry as a whole, it’s it. It belongs to people who believe or buy into this objectivity myth and others who totally don’t. I mean, you talk about people from the First Nations in Canada, they have a very different view of of truth and life and so on. Which brings me to a question that I would like to ask so you have interviewed so many people, I see the variety of people that you have interviewed through through these podcasts. Mary Anand, what have you realized as a result of these interviews? What have you learned over a period of time?

Mary Conquest 19:40
So it’s interesting, because I was and am so interested in content strategy, as I was doing these interviews in the first year or so, I realized very often I would be listening to someone’s answer and thinking to myself, well, that’s just like content strategy. Which sounds strange like it sounds like they there’s no overlap, but if you think about it, there’s communication, there’s persuasion. There’s trying to influence people’s attitudes and actions, trying to be clear, there’s just a lot of overlap. And what I’ve learned that is that I think in order for anyone to understand their own discipline or field, they really need to go outside it. Because I have learned things from, you know, astronomy, and of course, I can’t think of the example right now, but you know, like I listened to rather than read cosmos by Carl Sagan, and it just everything is connected. He does a wonderful job of weaving all those, you know, science, culture, religion, together. So I think basically that there is way more overlap than we think, that disciplines are not nearly as separate as we think they are. And of course, there’s there’s, there are things that are unique to each field and discipline, terminology and procedures and approaches, but I think that there’s way more interlap or overlap than we think.

Nippin Anand 21:42
Yeah, any particular story, any particular experience that comes to mind when you talk about the overlap

Mary Conquest 21:51
well, so there was a content strategy conference that went on. They no longer doing it. But in 2023 I think they had the last one, and they always had a call out for speakers and lightning talks. And I had been going every year and thinking, well, one day I’ll be brave enough to put in a proposal. And then they announced this was the last one. They were moving on and doing other things. And so I thought, well, it’s now or never. So I put in a proposal for a lightning talk, which is just a five minute talk. You’re not allowed any notes. And they wanted just unusual topics, like some of them are, were very related to content strategy. Some of them were not at all. Mine was what content strategy can learn from safety, from the world of safety, because it just seemed like, again, two things that shouldn’t overlap as much as they do. And so a lot of things that content strategists do, especially in enterprise organizations is really try and influence people, and influence decisions, executive decisions and that sort of thing. So looking at some of the work that Todd Conklin, Brent Sutton, Jeffrey Lith, and some others. I’m sorry. Names are escaping me. You know you can the idea of now this is interesting because you’ve since challenged this. You can blame things, you can blame people, or you can fix things, but you can’t do both. They’re mutually exclusive. Now I’m rethinking that since reading your book and and I’m not sure that I agree with you, to be honest, but I’m, I’m pondering it. It’s, it’s marinating in the back of my head. But that was one,

Mary Conquest 23:54
and what else it was several years ago, but I

Mary Conquest 24:08
there were a number of points that, oh, trusting psychological safety

Mary Conquest 24:16
that plays into it. I and I’m sorry I don’t remember all the others, but there was, there was a fair bit of overlap, and things that I said that were especially in like hop or kind of new view that sort of thing, that if you say them in the context of a content strategy conference, you don’t sound out of place at all. And the way I ended the talk was to say, Go study something outside your discipline. Don’t if you want to learn about content, strategy, go study like physics or or not. Even study just read about, learn about, yeah, yeah.

Nippin Anand 25:04
No, that’s a very, very good point. And you know, you being an anthropologist, know it so well that in anthropology, one of the most important thing is field work. And the field work is, it is a very is a litmus test, in many ways, for being a good anthropologist, because when you go so far away from your culture that your language becomes useless, in those instances, what do you do? And when I say so far, I don’t mean geographically, even, know, even metaphorically, if I was a Hindu and I’m going to the church, and that is as good as me going to some far off place and to meet people, let’s say the aboriginals, or the the First Nations people and and I think this is a great example of what do you do in those moments? And I think we have a deep rooted tendency to somehow fit all the reality into our own symbols, into our own belief systems. We don’t dare to step out of it. And I think people who step out of it and find that so difficult to stand on their feet because there is no ground underneath. Once language is pulled down, you know, away from your, from from your, it’s like, it’s like a carpet that is somebody has pulled out from your feet. And I think that’s a very, very interesting thing to think about, Mary. What do you do in those instances? Isn’t it?

Mary Conquest 26:41
When you say that, I’m thinking, you have to be comfortable with ambiguity and vulnerability. Yes, because if, if your cultural carpet is pulled out from under you, what do you have left? You are vulnerable, and you have to be confident and comfortable enough in that I was thinking of a story that I heard. And I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I do know that, like indigenous populations here, their cultures are very different. And there was a story of a teacher, European culture teacher. And this is, this is in the modern day. Went to a fairly remote school with First Nation students, and was getting angry at them because they weren’t looking at her in the face when she was talking to them, but later learned that that’s considered rude. It’s considered challenging and rude in the culture that they were in, and so she’s getting angry at them for showing respect, because she thinks they’re not showing respect. So I think some humility and curiosity might have been a good and I’m not, you know, I’m not criticizing her. We all do this. This is not I’m certainly not immune to making these mistakes, but or making assumptions that are incorrect, or filling in the gaps with the map that I grew up with, and forgetting that everyone else grew up with a different map.

Nippin Anand 28:24
Essentially, that’s right, and hence the need to travel as far as you can, to the point that your language becomes useless, because that’s in those moments you realize the real meaning of curiosity and humility. You know, it’s all very nice to use the word curiosity and humility. But what does that even mean? I think in some ways, anthropology teaches us that curiosity means to remain open to new experiences when that language becomes useless to us, and that’s hard, you know, because it’s a double edged sword. In many ways, it gives you protection. The language gives you that sense of certainty in an uncertain world. So why wouldn’t you latch to it? That’s your only Tool, and I’m asking you to take it away from you. And I think there’s a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy. I don’t know if you have seen it. Was a wonderful example of the Yeah, that the coke bottle and that being dropped in for to the Bushman from the top by the Americans and and the Bushmen didn’t know what to make of that Coke bottle, and they started to use it for many, many different things, whistling and washing clothes and and cracking the nuts and whatnot. So fascinating to see that, you know, one could never imagine a coke bottle being used for such things. And this is the power of anthropology, right?

Mary Conquest 29:41
I think also curiosity is not just seeking out, but also being curious about yourself. So if someone says something that is uncomfortable for you, instead of immediately trying to get rid of that discomfort, and they may very well. Have just been rude to you or said something that was not appropriate, but sometimes people say things, they express their point of view, if you’re maybe having an argument, and instead of jumping to self defense, I think being curious about okay I feel uncomfortable. Why do I feel uncomfortable? Have they called out some behavior that I thought was okay? And I’m just realizing that from their perspective, it wasn’t. So I think curiosity isn’t just about others, but it’s about yourself,

Nippin Anand 30:36
absolutely and that makes a very good interviewer. And going back to what you just said done? You’ve done 100 interviews already just within the safety space. Were there moments of discomfort? Were there moments where you felt that the world views have clashed or yours has collapsed? Were there any such things that came to you, to you during during these last few years, let’s say, because obviously you’re new, you know, as an anthropologist, walking into the world of risk and safety, what were your any any thoughts on that?

Mary Conquest 31:11
Mary, well, first of all, I kind of relish the idea that I am. I tell all my guests before we interview that I’m not a safety professional, and I tell them that because to me, it’s actually quite Liberty liberating. I can ask the naive question. I have no skin in the game. I don’t need to look clever. I just need to be curious. But I tell them that also because I may ask the naive question, and they may think to themselves, well, doesn’t she know this already, like she’s been in the safety space. And so there’s that I would say that until I read your book, I didn’t think much about it, because it was never about me. In my mind, it was always trying to draw out the person’s what can I ask? What words can I use to draw out their perspective? But since I read your book, I do find myself stopping and asking, What have I learned from this? How have I changed from this after different interviews, and I’ll be honest, I don’t always have an answer right away, but I think it’s important just to flex the muscle of getting into the habit of asking the question. One thing that I’ve started asking other people is, what have you learned? And so I have, I take personal pride in people saying, Oh, that’s a good question. I always have one day I want to make a sizzle reel of all the people who said, Oh, that’s a good question. Some people just say it to stall a little bit so they can get their thoughts together, but sometimes I can tell they’re quite sincere, like, that’s a really good question. So, yeah, I’ve started asking people what they’ve learned, and it’s it’s interesting to hear their answers. Now, I’ve only done this for a few interviews now, but some people are vulnerable, will be vulnerable, and we’ll talk about that, and some people will not. And it’s the same with the question I ask. I’ve asked almost since the beginning, if you could go back to the beginning of your safety career, or your career, and give yourself one piece of advice. What would it be? Some people speak very personally, and some people basically just kind of phase into advice that they would give a young person who is starting in safety, which isn’t the same thing at all. I think the most honest answer, and I’ve heard it a few times, is it doesn’t matter what I would say, because I wasn’t ready to hear it. You know, I would, I would. The only reason I know these things is because I went through certain experiences, and if I hadn’t gone through them, I wouldn’t have learned them. And if someone had come from the future and told me, I probably would have dismissed them, because I was not humble, I was not curious.

Nippin Anand 34:31
Isn’t that so simple life teaches you in many ways, right? I mean, there’s no such thing like you telling me something, and I’ll take it on board and I will do exactly what you said. It doesn’t work that yes, well, I’m just so enjoying this conversation, but I’m conscious of the time Mary is one of the things that comes to mind is, as I was looking at all those interviews that you’ve done over the years, two things stood out to me. And one was that we have interviewed 97 people as of today, and I saw that you’ve done a great job in balancing the perspective of men and women. I mean, as much as you could try, because this industry is dominated by men and men. Let’s put it this way. There are many, many men in this industry and very few women, but you’ve done a great job. You know, about 65 of them I counted were men, and 32 of them were women, which is, you know, in this it’s, it’s an achievement. Was it a conscious thought to go in this direction?

Mary Conquest 35:35
So this is interesting, because it’s not just me. I have a team behind me and have a producer. And until recently, they they sort of found the guests. They would research people. They would look at LinkedIn who was who was talking, who had interesting perspectives. It is something I try to be conscious of in the way that I work, and so I imagine my producer knows that that’s how I feel. We’re good friends. We’re he’s my best friend that I’ve never met,

Nippin Anand 36:12
but you’ve never met.

Mary Conquest 36:15
No, we’ve worked together since 2016 17 and he lives in Spain, and we’ve we’ve never met, but, yeah, we’ve shared books and thoughts and ideas. So I think he knows how I feel about it. I don’t think that he necessarily feels any differently. So I don’t know that he’s doing it because of me. I do know that we try and get diverse, diverse points of view. You probably noticed that our guest list is pretty white. I Yeah, and we do what we can to get different ideas and different perspectives. And what we’ve started doing is asking people, who do you think like asking guests, who do you think we should reach out to to interview next, and we’re finding a lot of interesting people that we wouldn’t have found otherwise. So to

Nippin Anand 37:26
be fair, you asked me that same question. I remember now, yes, you see you did. And the other question, which is very related to this, and which is very personal to me, and I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why, which is that there are, there are shipping companies around the world. Shipping is probably one of the oldest traditions or businesses we have, you know, that the world has seen now. I call it geographies of knowledge and geometries of power in shipping. So what we have is a very classic example Mary, which is this that almost all shipping companies have a concentration when it comes to basing their headquarters and offices In places like London, Oslo, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo. And a few other places. We call them clusters of shipping and and when you go on to look at, where does the predominantly, where does the labor come from? The people who actually work on the ships, they come from, mostly from South Asia, predominantly from South Asia, and spread across Philippines, India, many other parts of the world. So we have, like, a map, you know, it’s a geography, it’s it’s laid out, it’s spread out. But then you have clusters of offices that operate from certain parts, which is geometries of power. And we have a problem in some ways, that you have a concentrated power, concentrated in cities, and people spread out through geography. So there is obviously it translates into all sorts of clashes of worldviews. So people from India and Philippines, for example, they come from one faith, and faith is not something people can leave behind when they get to work. They always carry their faith with them. You know, you go on board a ship, for example, if you have a Hindu person, you would always find a picture of a god or a goddess next to emergency plans, not always, but a lot of times. So, you know, there is, there is this belief that God will take care of us. We don’t see that in many parts of the world. So there’s a clash of worldviews, particularly when it comes to safety and risk. All of us want to be saved, and all of us have this existential need that we look upon our own gods and we fall back on our own faiths. But nobody talks about it. Nobody discusses this at all. And then I look. At the world of risk and safety, predominantly. And this is also characteristics, a characteristic of your podcast, and it’s every everywhere, books that we write, authorships that a lot of it is dominated by Western authorship. Not a lot, actually, everything, everything. So do you and then, you know, people work in risk and safety. They come from all over them. Essentially, it’s about protecting the frontline worker, you know, keeping them safe, keeping them happy, giving them productive. But the demographics do not somehow align with each other. When you look at it as a from a global perspective. You know, you have the rich north, and you have the poor south, and somehow the two have to work together to get the global supply chains running. So how do we now make sure that we have we start to introduce some of those ideas, some of those thoughts in risk and safety, that there are people who come from other parts of the world who don’t share this view. Have you thought about that at all from your How do you what do you think?

Mary Conquest 41:05
Well, there’s a big move to understanding the frontline worker by speaking to the frontline worker, which I think is step one. I think you’re talking about like step five, which is where we need to get for, you know, and, no, I don’t know all the steps in between, but I think the very first step, which unfortunately we’re still in, is just acknowledging the expertise of the frontline worker, and it’s coming. But I don’t think it’s necessarily, Well, nothing’s universal, but I don’t think it’s the predominant way of thinking, yet in safety, I think that that’s where it’s going. I will say that it seems like Australia is far ahead from many other areas in terms of this kind of thinking and moving towards, yeah, understanding the work. And in order to understand the work, you have to understand the worker. So right now, we’re at the level of asking them, show me how you do what you do. Show me what’s difficult. Show me what rules don’t make sense. Show me the challenges you deal with. We’re not below the surface yet where it’s like show it would be difficult to ask someone this, but essentially, show me the underlying beliefs in which you through, which you operate.

Nippin Anand 42:39
Wonderful, no, that’s fine. I’m not even expecting an answer. I was just curious to know from you, because you’re an anthropologist. You said cultural anthropologist, and this question has been on the back of my mind for for some time now, and there’s very few people who I think will understand the seriousness of the problem. So I just wanted to share with you, but I’m conscious of the time. But I wanted to end by asking you, and you asked me this question, any, any favorite authorships, any favorite readings, any favorite books, anything about improving your interviewing skills, about being a better person or safety person, if you like. What have you learned over the years? Is there something you would like to share?

Mary Conquest 43:25
Mary, you know, I actually looked up ways to improve interviewing and have when I started and didn’t find a lot of information, so I fell back on asking open questions and listening, which I just knew was the way to do it. As far as I mean, I read a lot of historical fiction. I’m very interested in history and the interactions of things like right now I’m reading a book called the fabric of civilization, and it’s about how textile technology is literally the fabric of civilization. It’s one of our earliest technologies, just making thread rope and it’s pushed forward all kinds of other technologies, including computing, mathematics, like basic arithmetic, arithmetic, yeah, so I’m straying from your question. I think I really enjoyed the I haven’t read the Tomes like the Sydney Decker or the Todd Conklin books, but Bob Edwards and Andrea Baker wrote a book that I found interesting. I also really like. Christian Hunt’s book. I think he might have two. Now, I’m not sure, but he wrote about compliance. He and he’ll, he’ll post on LinkedIn about compliance in the wild, like examples of compliance actions or behaviors or signage, and some of them are quite funny. So anyway, anyway, I have read most of the books that I have interviewed about, and I I’m not trying to suck up, but your book is excellent in in deconstructing that sort of authority, authoritative, or the issue that that we have with authority and different perspectives, I also would recommend I had it on My desk for a long time, something called the triumph of narrative. Narrative, because stories have become extremely important. It’s something that comes out in how we talk to, how we listen, how we understand, how we investigate. And that’s Robert Fulford. It was released in the 90s, and it’s actually a publication on a series of lectures. The CBC in Canada does a series of lectures called the Massey lectures every year, and they get someone different, and they talk on a different topic. And that was his the triumph of narrative. And it’s just about time for me to reread it, but I recommend people think about narrative and its role in how we understand each other.

Nippin Anand 46:53
Can’t agree more. I’m so glad that we took the time to have this conversation. Is there anything else you would like to say before you go?

Mary Conquest 47:08
I do want to say and I’m being a little vulnerable here. I’m a little embarrassed by my lapses in memory, and I want to explain that I’m recovering. From cancer. I’m taking treatment that really exacerbates brain fog, and a lot of my identity has been wrapped up in my intelligence. And when words escape me, it’s, it’s really tough. So just being being vulnerable in saying that, yeah, and maybe helping people understand that if you’re talking to someone and they’re having trouble finding words, there could be more to it than a lack of interest or a lack of intelligence.

Nippin Anand 47:57
Thank you for sharing that that means a lot to me, and I’m sure many people will appreciate that you’re better now.

Mary Conquest 48:05
I am. I am simply on medication to keep it from coming back. Yeah, but that was a journey too.

Nippin Anand 48:14
I’ll say a little prayer for you tonight. Thank you. Great. Mary Ann, finally, if somebody wants to get in touch with you, where should they find you?

Mary Conquest 48:27
They should look for me on LinkedIn. As far as I know, there are only two Mary conquests in the world of social media, and one of them is a much younger woman of African descent, and she lives in the UK, so it’s easy to to know I’m the one in Canada.

Nippin Anand 48:48
Thank you, and I will leave that your contact details as part of the podcast. I’m sure people would like to love to talk to you. You are a brilliant speaker despite all that you’re going through. I will stop this conversation here, but once again, thanks so much Mary for joining. It was really enjoyable.

Mary Conquest 49:07
Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s the first time I’ve been a guest.

Mary’s linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-conquest/