Embracing Differences

I was in Athens a few weeks ago and I visited a church there. Upon seeing a picture hanging on the wall, I told the priest, ‘We have a very similar image in Hindu temples.’ And you know what the priest said, ‘but this is real.’ So, my faith is mythical and yours is real! In science, we do the same. A quest for ‘root cause’ is real. ‘Swiss Cheese’ is real, a

We often hear during risk and safety discussions that methodology does not matter, methods don’t matter, philosophy doesn’t matter, what matters is results, what matters is that whatever we set to achieve – we can achieve. And so, results matter, process is not important. Is that so? What is a methodology? Why do we need one? Can we escape methodology and method? What

This is the second in a series of 2 episodes on psychosocial harm. The question we ask in this two-part series – how safety practices can do more harm than good? In the first episode, our focus was more on understanding the problem of psychosocial harm from a legal and organisational perspective. In this episode, we focus on some practical ways to address these issues. I hope you

Someone in your workplace has been bullied, discriminated or harassed. What do you do? Do you think people in your organisation are prepared to deal with these issues. This podcast focuses on psychosocial risks and we question if we are doing more harm than good in the name of safety practices. This is the first of a series of 2 podcasts where Greg Smith, Rob Long and Nippin

Do you think safety is about saving lives? In this podcast, Rob, Nippin and Pedro question the myth of ‘Safety saves lives’. What do we mean when we say we are in the business of ‘saving lives.’ Saving from whom, saved by whom and for whom? Where does this myth originate from? Whose purpose does it serve? What are the (unintended) implications of using this language when we

It’s the start of a new year and I thought it would be wonderful to start off on a positive note. The topic of this year’s first podcast is imagination. What is imagination? Why do we need people to be more imaginative, more creative in the risk and safety industry? And do we really need people to be imaginative in a compliance driven industry with strict rules to follow? Wha

It is often said that safety people require a predisposition of care and empathy towards the others. Rosa Carrillo’s well-researched book ‘OHS Voices from The Resistance’ brings a paradox to surface. What if care and empathy make (safety) people vulnerable and fragile in the face of growing aggression and brutalism in the workplaces? The book is packed with stories of peopl

Nippin Anand and Pedro Ferreira follow-up on their conversation in Croatia A conversation about what it takes to bring cultural sensitivity into organisations. Nippin and Pedro discuss several examples of how fostering conversations that are not power dominated and personal agendas are not so much at play, can bring about a much better understanding of different perspectives. The u

How do you understand culture, cultural sensitivity and risk intelligence? How can being culturally sensitive make us risk intelligent? Nippin Anand and Pedro Ferreira offer some thoughts. And guess where they are – in the cultural capital of Europe i.e. Rijeka, Croatia

This podcast is dedicated to people who put on a performance (a show) every day when they come to work. performance means many things, although in the risk and safety world we have become excessively focused on work and the narrative goes something like this that in order for the worker to perform well, she needs the right support from the company. Support in the form of the right