Videos - Embracing Differences
A collection of videos that document and share some of the highlights of our own learning journey with others.
One of the least understood responses in an investigation is when we hear someone say ‘I don’t know’. It is considered a sign of incompetence and ignorance. It is a source of shame and stigma for those being investigated. It is the biproduct of living in a rational society. Years of research and practice has helped me realise that ‘I don’t know’ has little to do with competence or ignorance. If at all, it reflects our own ignorance and not the one being investigated.
How often do we meet people who speak their heart? This podcast is an open ended conversation with Dr (Captain) Bikram S. Bhatia about how he became interested in researching seafarers hours of rest and work. From family expectations to workplace realities, it is Bikram’s search for meaning and purpose. It is a lesson in understanding that our questions and our curiosity cannot be separated from our research. The formal and the informal; the subjective and the objective; the researcher and the research are always in a dance. I always imagined this conversation to be a cafe chat between two ex-mariners – informal and replete with stories of past ships.
Bureaucracy generated by excessive audits and inspections has reached a stage that it leads to high-consequence accidents at sea. Ships go aground and collide at sea not despite but BECAUSE of audits. Professor Michael Power at the London School of Economics calls it ‘Audit Explosion’ – the rising trend towards audits
Where do you look for the meaning of words? Dictionaries, I guess? Word meanings are not to be found in dictionaries; word meanings are found in metaphors. All language is metaphorical, and we don’t just speak metaphorically; we live by our metaphors. In this podcast, David and Nippin compare a handful of metaphors in Banking and Maritime. Through this comparison they realise that words don’t just create worlds, but they also create divides between worldviews. Too often, we miss a crucial point in organising – you cannot organise me and I will never become part of your organisation if we don’t share the same worldview. Such is the power of metaphors.
In this podcast, Rob, Matt and Nippin discuss the limitations of bounded rationality after being together in India and conducting a range of social experiments. What surprised them all was the power of sequential, rote learning that is embedded in the Asian Culture and how it challenges some of our fundamental idea about how humans unlearn, learn and make decisions.
After spending three days at a conference in Chennai, I sat down with a young student to understand what she took away from our time together. In this video, Shrinidhi Shankar, a research student at IIT Madras in India reflects on our time together at a safety conference. Shrinidhi offers many thoughtful reflections including the importance of building trust, listening, staying grounded, lifelong learning and humility. But what is the basis of this profound wisdom? Shrinidhi thinks it is her parenting values. What values are we passing to our children? Listen to her wise word, this is a profound lesson in learning, leadership and humility.
In this video, we discuss how to understand and improve the safety culture in our organizations. The methodology illustrated in this video is referred to MiProfile is based on Social Psychology of Risk meaning how do people make decisions in groups (large and small). The MiProfile survey is more than just a survey. As we explain in the video, the survey is also an exercise in experiencing how human beings make decisions under pressure and how our unconscious beliefs come to surface within a few minutes. The survey design examines sensemaking, implicit knowledge and cognitive dissonance in the group – how far will a group of people hold to their beliefs when they are put under pressure and how can we bring their beliefs to the surface.
This podcast explores mindfulness and its significant impact on risk reduction, highlighting its benefits in healthcare for both patient care and practitioner well-being. It delves into the synergy between the unconscious and conscious minds, emphasizing the value of making the unconscious conscious. We’ll also examine “weak signals,” subtle organizational anomalies that can reveal serious issues, and how mindfulness can enhance our ability to detect these signals, improve listening, and foster empathy. Finally, we’ll discuss the importance of friendship and relationships, showing how having a friend at work can boost performance and well-being by surfacing unconscious thoughts for better decision-making and risk mitigation. Our aim is to help you stay present, connected, and safe.
This podcast discussion represents two people from different parts of the globe with different backgrounds looking for common ground.As you listen you can initially hear different perspectives and perceptions. It felt that we began to synchronize at some point and eventually arrived at the same place. It should not be surprising. There are 8 billion of us on the planet. While we all may look completely different; we are designed exactly the same. When we move to defend our belief’s, we often sacrifice the ability to move forward and seek the learning that is necessary to raise the discussion to higher understanding. Curiosity initiates logic, reason and intuition. Defense moves us to justify and rationalize a belief or an action in the past. Forward is the future we are trying to shape. Backward is the past we cannot change.We own our belief’s. There is no reason to defend them. Someone with different belief’s is not a threat to ours. Someone else cannot steal our belief. However, if we are curious and listen to others, we can then decide for ourselves if new information somehow may shape our change our current belief. We don’t have to like another’s perspective or their idea. We just have to listen.As you listen to this podcast, see if you can hear how the different perspectives begin to align. We can release and discover potential in each other, or we can suppress it. We have that power.
The question is, are you willing to walk through the door?
This podcast started off with reflecting on the power of embracing fallibility. Dr John Flach, my guest, then brought his own experiences and how a renowned scientist helped him and supported him when he experienced a setback in life. We then spoke about kindness and briefly touched on the importance of social resilience. The discussion then moved from kindness to humility and the importance of humility in understanding and learning from surprises. From humility we moved into courage and why courage is so important to break free from dogma and become critical thinkers. We ended this session with the importance of metaphysics, meaning making and methodology. Our discussion ended with why we need to be more kind and humble to pursue science.
Gilval Menezes, Nippin Anand and Pedro Ferreira talk about their learning journey of SPoR and about what makes it difficult to bring SPoR into organisations.
Most of us have come to master techniques and methods. But as much as we may have learned through that journey, very few people have ever stepped away from the methodology on which they were initially trained (i.e. engineering, psychology, sociology…). The way in which they ask questions about the world, rarely shifts.
The difficult challenge comes from shifting you methodology. And learning about SPoR very often demands a painful and lengthy journey, throughout which you have to break the mould, shatter deeply rooted beliefs, and embrace the uncertainty of what may lie ahead. This is what it takes to learn a different methodology.
Motivation, purpose and a search for meaning: An interview with Greg Smith
This is the third in a series of three podcast with Greg Smith, the author of the book Paper Safe. In this podcast Greg and I discuss the notion of critical risks and critical risk management from a legal and strategic risk management perspective. We hope that this podcast will make you more mindful and critical about how to think about critical risks in your organisation.
Motivation, purpose and a search for meaning: An interview with Greg Smith
This is the second in a series of three podcast with Greg Smith, the author of the book Paper Safe. In this podcast Greg and I discuss his new book Proving Safety, why he chose the title and the subtitle, and how is the book different from his previous book Paper Safe.
Motivation, purpose and a search for meaning: An interview with Greg Smith
This is the first in a series of three in-person podcasts between Greg Smith and Dr Nippin Anand. Nippin started off interviewing Greg in his hometown Perth to find out what motivated him to choose a career path in health and safety law. Later in this series, the two will discuss Greg’s new book Proving Safety and their take on how organisations understand and address critical risks.