Circus of Safety Episode 1

Circus of Safety Episode 1 Transcript:

How are we this morning? Very good, thank you. Awesome! Hey, so hey, good to be back. And I know we, this has been something we’ve been meaning to do for quite some time and really excited to finally be able to make something happen.

And I guess the thing that we’ve been wanting to try for those that are maybe listening or watching, taking it in on the multiple channels that we’ll be sending this live to the world on. I guess there’s been the expansion, rapid expansion, I guess, of podcasts, right? Where people talk about stuff relating to whatever topic they kind of want to talk about.

We thought we’d take it a step further, didn’t we, guys? And not only did we want them to hear our beautiful voices, but see our phenomenal faces to create some of that that additional activity. There wasn’t necessarily the keenest on the visual aspect of it, but and screaming. So, so lots to talk about.

Today is probably a bit of our intro to, I don’t know what we’re calling this. I tend to refer to it as the circus of safety, the black hole of our lives. There’s a number of terms we’ve probably used for this, so we just wanted to introduce ourselves and get this show on the road, really, and make that commitment that we’re going to be doing this. So, yeah, a couple of things, guys. I, I want to introduce a concept to our little show that we’re going to develop.

Hopefully, you’re okay with it. and it’s about how do we decide what we want to talk about? Because the last thing we want to do, right, is just go on about a rambling mess of nothingness. Right? I mean, surely, whatever we want to talk about on these get-togethers, we want it to be insightful, we want it to be meaningful, we want it to be engaging, and we want people to walk away with it, right?

So, are you okay if I sort of introduce a concept that we could test out how we come up with topics? Absolutely fantastic. Well, I want to introduce to you what I, I know this is going to be a little bit awkward and maybe not very PC, but considering that the majority of what we’re going to be talking about is about safety-related aspects of things, but I want to introduce to you what I have efficiently come to know as the in my own little world, as the spinning wheel of death.

And there it is, Tim, the spinning wheel of death. Now, the way, what I was thinking about with the spinning wheel of death is, as you can see, I’ve got a list of sort of topics that I’ve already started building onto the spinning wheel, and I thought maybe we could have a quick chat this morning, oh, they’ve done it again.

There are these technical issues. I just, I’m not good, guys, so I’ve got to apologize. Fat fingers for the immediate cause, dig deeper, look for the root cause, and I think, oh, there we go. So maybe that’s another topic.

Are you suggesting, Andy, that we introduce our root cause analysis to the spinning wheel of death? Yeah, well, there we go. It’s not fair to blame the operator. Okay, well, there we go. I’ve got it back up and running, so I’ll just share it again, and we’ll add root cause analysis to the spinning wheel of death. I think some of the concepts that you came up with, and I think I’m gonna add safety 52, I think, or do we go?

No, you don’t, no, don’t do it. No, that’s it. Yeah, yeah, oh, that’s it. Okay, so there we go. That’s it. Yeah, there we go, safety, safety II. That’s pretty cool. Now, hey, here’s a quick run question. Not that I’m trying to pre-empt, yeah, not that I’m trying to pre-empt these conversations, but is safety two and the new view of safety, are they the same thing, do you think? Like, do they are they one topic or two topics?

I would treat them as one. You would treat them as one. Well, there we go. Well, let’s do that. And listen, if any one issue with that, listen, love, go on the show. Any other two things we can add to the spinning, release? Yeah, so my topic that I was hoping we could actually cover today was moving beyond compliance. Beyond compliance. Well, let’s put it on the wheel and why not have a bit of a chat about it at the end of today? Right? I think that could be a good way to start the show and the ramblings on any other topics. I mean, the great thing is we can keep adding topics as we go and as they come in. And if people reach out to us, we can add topics on anything else front and centre.

You’d like to add to the spinning wheel of death? Nothing, nothing for me at the moment. Another video? Yeah, Andy, you mentioned you had a client text you, asking if you had five minutes for a conversation, a quick question before we went live. Is that question shareable yet? Did we know? Can we put that on the spinning wheel of death, or is that another topic we’ll talk about today?

I haven’t called him back. Well, do you want me to call? Well, mate, listen, I just got to apologize to everyone that’s streaming in. It’s incredibly difficult to find not only is it difficult these days just to find help, but to find good help clearly is a bit more challenging.

I’ll send my number to you, Brad, and he can call you. Okay, great. Now, the way the spinning wheel of death works, team, is we’re dialling, and the first thing we’ll do is we’ll hit the wheel, and it spins around and around and around, and then lands on a topic, and then we get to see which topic we want to talk about.

So, that’s the whole concept of the spinning wheel of death. So hopefully we like it. Hopefully the people out there in the land that might be tuning in like it and becomes a bit of a feature of our little wee little show. I really like it. I’m a fan.

Yeah, we think we could get some merch made up now that we’re thinking next level here. I can see, dear, now with a big shirt on, nice and bright, walking around with a spinning wheel of death on. It’ll be awesome. I’m just going to figure out why it needs to be the spinning wheel of death. It’s pretty, it’s pretty long. Just big consequences for this one. Well, listen, I guess, you know, I don’t know. I just found it ironic. I mean, we could rename it. I’m not, I’m not, no, I think it came from that whole concept of the circus of safety, you know, that where they, the chain the person to the wheel and they’re throwing knives at them. That was, could be the spinning wheel of serious harm or something like that.

Off offline and we can have a rambling about that because one of the things that I, I’ve got to keep these segments, hey, we’re gonna make them regular. So, and that’s why we’re putting ourselves out there today because we had to start because we’ve been saying we’re going to do this for the last, close to 12 months now, I think from memory, so we have to make a start. The next theory was that we’ll look to, keep these segments short and sharp. So, sort of 30, 35 odd minutes, sort of max, I think if we put our time frame on it.

And listen, if we get really popular, maybe we can even have some special guests join us live in the studio, which is pretty cool. And that’s the greatness about this whole interweb thingy magic. We can hear people coming in from all over the world into the studio, which is which is pretty cool. So, so anything else anyone wants to add before maybe we dive into Dez’s topic of the day?

I just thought maybe instead of the circle, the wheel of that spinning wheel, how about the spinning wheel of underreporting? Or is that another whole topic on the wheel? Oh yeah, there we go. I’m gonna add that to the wheel.

But, anything else that you want to add before we get into Dez’s topic and what it’s all about? Nope, let’s get into it. Let’s spin that wheel.

Okay, Dez, take it away, mate. What’s going on? Why is this front and centre for you? This is the topic and let’s get into chatting about it. So, the topic is this idea that safety must move beyond compliance or words to that effect that we must do more than just comply with legislation. I hear it a lot in forums and safety events and things like that, the statement about moving beyond compliance. But I just wonder if we all had an honest conversation with ourselves, could we all say with absolute certainty that we’re 100% compliant with health and safety legislation standards in our organizations today?

And I mean that to a very high standard. Would all of our workers hold up under cross-examination? Would all of our evidence check out and be rock solid? And I think if it’s an honest conversation, the answer is probably going to be no. And if the answer is no, then where does this concept of moving beyond compliance come from when arguably no one’s complying? Well, some pretty, you know, when you first think about that statement, beyond compliance sounds great, right? But then when you start pointing out some of those

Obvious facts like, “Are you actually complying?” And I don’t know, I was just thinking, there’s as much as just talking through that. And you’re talking about the fact that if we, you know, how do we go beyond compliance if we can’t even actually put our hand at our hearts and say we are complying? It’s a little bit like trying to run before you can walk. I mean, we’ve all seen what happens to kids when they try to walk before they can crawl or run before they can walk.

Generally, they fall flat on their faces. So I don’t know about anyone else, but I must have something weird going on. Maybe too many coffees already this morning, but that was kind of running through my mind. What are your thoughts? I guess for me, it’s all about defining the terms. So going beyond compliance, well, if compliance is to eliminate all risks to health and safety so far as it’s reasonably practicable, that’s setting the bar pretty high. If you have any accidents, you’re probably not doing that.

Like, okay, yeah, I mean, you’re eliminating all risks to health and safety, but you’ve been reasonably practicable about it. What does beyond that actually mean? You’re stopping events that haven’t happened. I mean, it starts to go a bit minority, personally. Yeah, well, some great references coming out here, you know, babies falling on their face, running before you can walk, and Minority Report. Well, that’s an interesting… I mean, what you’ve kind of taken this off on a slightly different tangent, Andy.

Dez, I thought was talking initially about compliance with legislation and standards and guidelines, and you kind of took it sort of slightly another tangent, which is about, you know, like, effectively meeting one of our principal obligations under the act, right, to reduce the risk as far as is reasonably practicable. So, what were you thinking, Dez?

Were you, how broad were you thinking around compliance? I mean, what does compliance mean to you? Well, do you know what you need to comply with, with respect to your organization? Are you complying with it? And how do you prove that you’re complying with it? That’s probably three elements of what I would consider to be rock-solid compliance but I think when people make the statements that we must move beyond compliance, rarely gets any objections, you know, when someone says that, everyone generally agrees, “Yes, we should move beyond compliance.”

But I don’t think anyone really knows what that means, because I think it opens the doors to a lot of nonsense, a lot of safety fads and ideas of, you know, move beyond compliance by doing this new fad idea, whatever that idea might be. And I think it’s all a distraction, because really, if we’re having that honest conversation, we’re not complying. And instead of being distracted by fads, we need to just go back to the Act and see what it is we’re actually supposed to be doing and just concentrate on that, because that will get you, like Andy said, most of the way there. It’s actually a pretty high bar, and not many people are meeting it.

Yeah, good summary there, and I think touching a little bit on where Andy kind of went, and I think what you’re saying as well is that first part of it, right? Like, as an organization, as an individual, what are you actually considering compliance to start with, right? And how many… I… I gotta be honest, hand on heart, I don’t know if I’ve actually defined anywhere in any of my career today what it is that I’m trying to comply with, right? So, we might have a health and safety plan or a strategy or whatever kind of buzzword we want to use of the day, and it might be all pretty and nice, but that’s not setting that target for compliance, is it? It’s not setting that standard. This is what we want to achieve in terms of compliance. Yeah, interesting. And I mean, what are your thoughts?

Do you think, though, in terms of if we’re talking about compliance, so let’s just maybe go down that tangent a little bit more, I’m thinking compliance, and I don’t know what if somebody turns around and says, “Well, you know what? I’ve got ISO 14001 or whatever, 14,000 or whatever, you know, like, I’ve got an ISO standard. I’ve got AS/NZS this standard or that standard.” I mean, would you be comfortable that?

Maybe that maybe people consider that compliance. And I mean, if you look at the number of companies out there promoting the fact that they’ve got these ISO standards or these whatever standards, maybe that’s where they’re getting it from. That they’ve gone, they’re going beyond compliance because they’ve met this benchmark of some description. Any thoughts on that, guys?”

Yes, so I mean, complying with the standard is, you know, there’s merit in that, no doubt. To me, that’s, I don’t know, from one point of view, that’s just another form of compliance. You haven’t really moved beyond anything. You’re just complying. But I would say, if you’re arguing that that is moving beyond compliance, and that same organization does something like has a blanket rule that everyone must wear safety glasses at all times or everyone must wear gloves at all times, then the blanket rules, such as that, is contrary to the Act.

All use of PPE and work processes need to be risk assessed. And if you’re implementing a blanket rule, by definition, you’re not risk assessing those things. And you might turn around and argue, “Well, we have risk assessed that.” And I would say, “Well, that’s one heck of a crystal ball you’ve got. You’ve forecasted every future situation where you need to wear a pair of gloves. You’ve forecasted every correct pair of gloves that you would need to wear. And it just becomes absurd.” And so if you’ve got a blanket rule, I would argue you’re not complying with the Act and the true intent of the Act. And therefore, any sort of standard that you might have been certified to is nice, but you haven’t moved beyond compliance because you haven’t yet complied well.

That… You’ve taken… I don’t think this is where these conversations are going to be really cool because you’ve kind of grabbed onto something that I’ve said and kind of taken on a slightly different tangent again and raised some incredibly valid points. I have been… This is not going to go well for anyone, really, boys, but I’ve been trying to multitask while these conversations have been going on. Old fat fingers Brenton over here.

I’ve been trying to add to the spinning wheel of death because I mean, you’ve raised a number of great points I’d love to dive off onto today, but then we may have nothing to talk about in a fortnight. But the other…

Yeah, so I guess the days where I was actually… I mean, and you’ve already developed a point, do people feel that, “Oh, well, you know, we’re doing everything we need to do. We’re going to go beyond compliance, so we’re going to go get this externally-assessed standard.” And there’s a plethora of them out there today.

You know, the number of ISO standards out there available for a range of things: safety, environment, quality, risk, and all that kind of stuff. And then there’s the AS/NZS standard, and then there’s the SafePlus model that you’re not getting, you know, you go out and you can get assessed against. So people may feel that that’s going beyond compliance. I know it’d be interesting to get people’s thoughts.

Maybe they can leave comments in the post that’s going to be generated now or is generated or whatever. We’ll see how the technology works. But my other wonder, Dez, was do you feel that maybe… I wonder if people think that because they’ve got that standard, they’ve actually had compliance. So that’s what they’re trying to comply with, as opposed to the legislation per se.

So they’ve decided they’re going to go down the road of SafePlus or ISO or AS/NZS or whatever. They hit that standard, and what my wonder is, is that in their mind, going, “Well, now we’re complying, so anything I do above this or beyond this standard that I’ve achieved to get compliance is now beyond that compliance. It’s now beyond compliance.” That’s my wonder. They could frame it that way, but I would still argue that my first question to them is, if I walked up to any worker in your organization and quizzed them on any aspect of your health and safety management system or your certification or your standard that’s relevant to them, would they be able to answer truthfully and wholly with a great understanding of every aspect that’s relevant to them? Then, yeah, you’re moving beyond compliance. But I just seriously doubt that every organisation can.

Honestly, don’t disagree, but I guess what I’m trying to work through is, is it because of a lack of understanding around what compliance actually is?

So, you know, yeah, is that the issue? Is that why people are now trying to create this new thing that’s beyond compliance? Because in their mind, they’ve actually had compliance. Maybe it is because they don’t actually understand what compliance is.

Absolutely. Can I jump in here? I have some knowledge in this field. When I’m working with the diploma students, we often talk about the difference between the terms compliance and conformance. And I think they’re used interchangeably, like many things are, but actually, they mean different things. So, I’ve just been looking through my notes here.

So, we talk about compliance as the forced adherence to a law, regulation, rule, process, or practice. It’s something that you have to do. Where conformance, on the other hand, applies to strategies, plans that are more loosely defined or self-imposed. So, if you go quite clearly with that idea of compliance, then the only person that can really decide whether you’re compliant or not is the person that’s in charge of the law.

You can’t say you’re compliant with the health and safety legislation. Only a judge can say that, surely.”

Well, mate, you’re sending me down a rabbit hole here, Andy. Is that right or not? I mean, that’s always been my understanding of it. So when you say ‘beyond compliance,’ I mean, it doesn’t…

If compliance is the adherence to the law, how can you do more than adhere to the law? Like, you’re adhering to the laws. I don’t know. It gets a bit weird, doesn’t it? I think people are going to work this out pretty quickly in this little wee group that we’ve kind of created. And it’s definitely, by no means, let’s be clear on this, team.

It’s exclusive, isn’t it? We were the only three people that actually wanted to keep talking to each other. So there’s one thing. We started with ten, and we’re down to three. But people are going to very quickly work out who the academics on this group are, and who the clever people are, and who the idiot is.

And I’m going to put my hand up right now. Every group needs a clown, right? And our friends at the Safety Circus, it is the circus of safety, right? Mate, listen. So what you’re telling me is, if I’m taking this, and please, if I’m taking this way too literally, because that’s the kind of guy that I am, please, by all means, say that. But so what you’re saying is, I’ve got to go to court and I’ve got to be prosecuted, and the outcome of that potential prosecution will determine whether I even hit compliance or not. So don’t bother going out and getting an ISO standard.

Don’t bother going out and go to court and ask a judge to assist me. Is that kind of what we’re proposing here? That would be the end point. I mean, getting assessed against standards and things is useful in providing some assurance and information to the judge to make the decision, because that’s what the judge’s job is, to make the decision. So all of that stuff would look in your favour, as if you are achieving compliance. But fundamentally, yeah, I mean, we can use case law as well. That would give us an indication, to a degree, but even that, there’s… I’m delving into Dez’s field here, so I’ll hand over to Dez before I land me in the [bleep].”

Well, I think the short answer is yes, that the only way to be definitively sure that you’ve complied is to successfully survive a prosecution or a court case of some sort, where the judge has made the decision.

That decision, I think even your own solicitor would not definitively say that you’re fully compliant. They might say, ‘Well, we’ve probably got an 80% chance of getting across the line with this case.’ There’s always going to be that contingency built into their opinion, so, well, it’s a subjective call, actually. In the absence of a judge, it’s a pretty subjective call to make. Well, that’s a pretty… when you know… when we start, and that… and I think that’s where what inspired us to start having these conversations, right?

Because there’s… I mean, there’s been a number of times where the three of us have gone on a call or met at a cafe, and we’ve rambled off about these things. And, I guess that’s when you start looking at these different concepts and, you know, that spinning wheel of death is going to help us capture these concepts and bring them to life and let us pull them apart. When you start doing that, well, maybe the intention of the statement, ‘Let’s go beyond compliance,’ is probably there.

And so, that’s, I guess, that’s probably something else we could wrap up with as we finish up this conversation around this topic. I mean, is it so much about the statement itself? And we talk about this with the law too, don’t we? We talk about, ‘The law says this,’ right? But what is the intent of the law? I guess that’s often the way we try to look at them. And I’m just going to put it out there to you guys. I mean, is it so much about the statement ‘beyond compliance,’ or is it more about the intent that the statement is trying to generate? Which, possibly… I mean, I didn’t create the statement, right? It’s not a term that I generally use on a regular basis.

But is the intent of that statement to try to get people to think broader? Because people can become quite narrow-focused, and people can become quite rigid. Is it maybe more about the intent of that term ‘beyond compliance,’ as opposed to the literal meaning ‘beyond compliance’? I suggest it possibly could be. But that leads to a further question: Does the means justify the end? Because effectively, by spotting this and talking about this, you’re providing disinformation, which, at some point, is harmful. It’s not neutral. You know, it’s not neutral at all.

This is spreading misinformation and misunderstanding of terms that are important in safety. And, you know, I’ve already got it on the wheel of death, but, you know, we could say the same about many aspects of safety, where the means is deemed to be worthy of the end. But often, when we get to the end, we realize we’ve created a complete mess. And, you know, the risk-has-a-debate is… I would say it’s the epitome of that in safety and understanding around those two terms. I think people have used them, and indeed the risk matrix, which I saw on there as well, is…

People have used these things with the best intentions, but actually, there have been some unintended consequences due to them. Yes, yep, no, not… Good, good point. What do you think? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I would support whatever the term itself was about 10.

It’s the term itself that I think, in almost every case, every honest case, would be incorrect. The intent might be, you know, a virtue, but it gives rise to the outcome of that being a distraction. I think it opens the floodgates to all of these other ideas that you need to be doing, you know, all those different safety fads that come out, and it’s the next best thing, and it’s, you know, one week we’re talking about this, next week we’re talking about that, and it just adds confusion, it adds distraction when really what we should be focusing on is, are we doing work safely, and does the person doing that work understand how to do that job safely?

Yeah, no, and really, when you boil it all down, they’re probably the only two things that really matter. So that’s a good point, you know, I shall just try to really multitask with the stuff coming out of this conversation, and the wheel of death is growing, growing immensely. And I think that’s where you’ve nailed it, right, around that whole, what is it that we’re trying to achieve, and keeping it basic and keeping it focused on those two important parts is so important.

So, no, great. I mean, you’re the one that kind of threw this topic out on the table. Have you found this helpful? I mean, are there any more? Is there anything else you want to explore with this topic? What are your thoughts? Is this kind of helped kind of quell a burning rage or anything inside you? I don’t… I don’t know, man. I’m really just wanting to make sure that, well, when we leave each other on a Friday morning that you’re feeling okay about this, you know, and we haven’t racked you up anymore.

If ‘burning rage’ is very poetic for a Friday morning, and I think, I think there’s some degree of satisfaction with the discussion. I just wanted to throw it out there because it’s just so rarely met with any resistance, that statement of moving beyond compliance. And I think there are some problems with it. And, you know, when you hear about some organization that’s moving beyond compliance, and you know, what are they up to?

Was often when you scratch the surface, they’re facing a prosecution, then they have a pretty poor history of health and safety, and you’re just wondering why you’re distracting yourself with this stuff. Why don’t you just work safely and make sure your workers understand that? And really, if you’re preoccupied with making sure you’re working safely, you shouldn’t have time for all this other stuff that’s wholly consuming for any organization, surely.

All right, good, good point. And, again, you know, it’s really quite intimidating hanging out with you guys. You’re incredibly intelligent, and I’m incredibly simple. And some simple terms that come to mind as I’m hearing you talk are things like ‘stick to your knitting,’ ‘let’s keep it basic.’ And these are a number of arguments that, well, not arguments, but probably conversations that I’ve had with people around. You know, safety should be simple; it shouldn’t be complicated. And I guess the worry is that we start throwing out all these buzzwords or these new terms or these new fads, regardless of what their intention is, which, if we’re honest with each other, the intention behind a lot of the stuff is probably really good, right?

But is it just creating confusion? And I think that using one buzzword to solve another buzz term is just creating confusion. Or is it creating safety clutter? These terms and whatnot, while well-intended, are by themselves creating safety clutter, and I don’t know if that’s something we can leave out there for the audience to ponder. No doubt we’re going to have hundreds, if not thousands, of people dialling into this at some point. I won’t share the analytics with anyone until I know that they’ve had a benchmark.

Hey, guys, listen, again, this is… Oh, wow, there we go. I mean, I’ve been trying to manage the spinning wheel of death and haven’t been able to watch the live feed, so, thanks for the update there, Des. But, no, boys, this has been great, and I’m really looking forward to this. I’m hoping people will message us.

I’m hoping people kind of get out there. And I’m really glad we took that leap of faith right off that virtual cliff into the world of nothingness. We’ve probably exposed ourselves in more ways than one on more than one occasion, but we’ve exposed ourselves to everything that is good. You don’t remember that night, mate, but yeah, I’m stoked. I’m excited. And if there’s anybody out there who’s got a topic or a question.

Then, by all means, we’re more than happy to add it to the spinning wheel of death. Listen, if you want your question to go live and it’s a burning must-have, by all means, don’t give it to him because he does nothing with it. Maybe someone like Peers or myself will actually ask the question and get it out there and give it something to talk about. And in some way, that’s a good question.

Dez, just before we wrap this up really quickly, if people are submitting real questions about real safety things that they’ve got real concerns with, and we start providing incredibly valuable advice, right? If we’re not doing that, should we put a disclaimer or something here to say that our advice is not, I don’t know, dodgy? Shouldn’t be, and should be looked at with a grain of salt? I mean, what do we need to do there to cover ourselves legally?

Brenton, I need to point out that what I’m about to say does not constitute legal advice and it’s meant for general purposes and not for specific circumstances. But yeah, you’ve done this before, haven’t you? Wow, okay. So, I guess we’re just going to be a bit mindful about how we respond to those questions.

And again, as Des has poetically pointed out, which I can’t repeat for the life of me, maybe I’ll get it scrolling across the bottom of our screen. Okay, I can do stuff like that. It’s pretty cool. So, we can maybe introduce what’s referred to as a ticker, and we can keep that reminding people that this is for general consumption and not to be used in a legal context. Now, apart from that, anybody got anything exciting for the weekend?

Yeah, so, so I’ve got to keep talking. Yeah, sorry, sorry. I’ve got it, I’ve got it. I’m highly motivated at the moment. Some piece of work has come across that you’ve presented to me that I just can’t let go of, so I want to get into that over the weekend. Now, that’s a good point, and this was actually a good opportunity for us to share.

WorkSafe New Zealand, a big shout out to you people who are looking for some feedback on two pieces of guidance documents that they’re producing. Listen, don’t sit there in the background whining and moaning and complaining about organizations not doing their job or whatever. If you want to get involved, there are loads of opportunities, and WorkSafe is providing those opportunities.

Now, I believe there’s some consultation out for two documents, one called ‘Managing Risks at Events’ and another called ‘Providing a Health Service for an Event.’ So jump onto their website, reach out to us, and we can share the links. Have your say and actively contribute to whatever we call this thing out there that we do for a living. But no, great words, boys. Have a great weekend, and we’ll let everyone know when we’re going to be back and have a bit more of a hoo-ha as we lead into it. Fantastic. Thanks, Brenton, for sorting this out. It’s been great.”