Safety FM with Jay Allen
Sample Plate Part 2
November 9, 2021
Today on The Jay Allen Show, Jay takes you through the library of what we have to offer on Safety FM (the radio station & podcast network). Thank you for the incredible response to the first episode. Take a listen and let us know what you think.
Today on The Jay Allen Show, Jay takes you through the library of what we have to offer on Safety FM (the radio station & podcast network). Thank you for the incredible response to the first episode. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

The transcript is not perfect.


[00:00:00] :  this show is brought to you by safety FM. Well, hello and welcome to another round of the J ALLen show Anyways, how are you doing on this? Fantastic week. I have to tell you the element of surprise that you have delivered in regards of the episode of the sample plate. I have just been in total shock in regards of the response that I have received about it. I did not know that so many people were going to like it. So many people were going to enjoy, you know, getting a little bit of of the sample of what we do here on safety FM. You know, the radio station and the podcast network of the aspects of everything that we do in a form of communication that's related about safety. So, I guess with that being said, I sat back and said, well if everyone seemed to enjoy it so much, why don't we give you a few more samples of what we actually have to offer here? So sit back and relax and take a listen to this episode, a sample plate and we'll call it a part two of what we have going on right here in the radio station. And I think to start it all off, we're going to start off with our own in house Hop, nerd sam Goodman, take a listen now on this sample plate of the J Allen show showing you what we have on safety FM. Take a listen to the next. But today I wanted to talk briefly about one of our favorite subjects here and that is this notion of rules and we are so obsessed with rules in our organizations. I've been having this conversation, excuse me if I get a little bumpy here, I'm adjusting my microphone. Um, I have this conversation an absolute ton and you probably do too right, that something bad happens, something goes boom, right? We ultimately connect those dots back to someone either. Not knowing that a rule existed. Uh, knowing that rule existed and choosing to be neglectful choosing to not follow that willful choosing to be willful and violating that rule. Or a lot of times will just be like, you know, that rule wasn't clear enough for that rule didn't exist. We need another rule because if there was a rule, this would have never happened if we just took time to write down those magical words on a magical scrap of paper that then goes into our organizations, bible our rule book and then we measure folks against that rule for accountability reasons and when we find them not following that rule, we beat them and shame them and blame them and fire them and all that kind of sort of stuff. We pour justice down upon them. Uh, then I'll will be fine and it never is right. Am I wrong in saying that the rules really don't do what we, what we would like to believe that they could do, that's probably probably the best way to put that, I guess. You know, my mind automatically goes back to kind of a normal societal problems or just societal things that we try to conquer, right? And I think about speeding, right? And that's an example that you used a bunch, right? We have speed limits and you know, I don't know, let's, let's think that one through for just a second. If, if there's a speed limit that says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak american here MPH. If there's, if there's a road that's just straight, wide open, you know, arrows, let's, let's talk Arizona road. So some of my friends listening have probably been here Um wide open, 12 lanes on each side, not another car in sight. And then the speed limits has signed says 35 mph, how likely am I going to travel within that range? Um, I can tell you that I'm personally not a speeder, I'm just kind of kind of not, I know that I am, so I kind of do stuff like my cruise control and do kind of some other other things right to try to keep from getting a ticket. Arizona is kind of rough on that, by the way, don't speed when you come to Arizona back to rules, but um if it says 35 miles an hour and I'm in my mind, I'm going, what the hell? 35 miles an hour, I'm the only car on the road, it's a straight shot for as far as I can see from, from where I'm at, in Arizona, I can see in the California and there's not like a turn, there's not a stop sign, there's not another car. Why the hell do you expect me to do 35 miles an hour? Number one. Number two, I'm not going to do 35 miles an hour. I'm going to weigh out that risk in my own mind and I'm going to do what I think is best in this particular situation. And in my mind, 35 miles an hour is probably not gonna be that right. It's probably not gonna be that We'd like to think that if once we enumerate that once we put that down on paper, once we put up the sign that says, you know, what you have to wear 14 different types of gloves all at once because of safety and you just better do it. That that's, that's just what people are going to do. And it's not going to be how that works out. It's never going to work out like that, right? It's never going to work out like that back to our kind of societal things. You look no farther than the United States is war on drugs and not to, not to get too political here, But let's just say that it's not worked out. Drugs, drugs have one, the war on drugs, right by far, drugs have won the war on drugs. And so what you end up with, you know, societally we end up with a bunch of nonviolent drug offenders locked in cages because we had a rule that says, you can't have a certain substance on you, right? Or on you or in you or that you cannot willfully sell that substance to another person that wants to willfully by that substance. So we're going to punish you severely. Some States even got to the point of doing the whole three strikes life thing, you know? So as severe a punishment as you can get. And that never really stopped the problem that never fixed what we saw as a problem as you know, the drug issue here in the United States. But we like to think in our organizations that were magically different, right? We'd like to think that we're magically different. That if we can just write enough rules that if we can just oversight hard enough and punish hard enough around those rules, if we can make it so painful for violators, violators, violators, then finally, we're going to be able to rule and punish our way into better safety performance. But that never actually gets to the heart of the problem. And that's the issue here. Right? And I'm not saying that old fool's am I saying that rules are the heart of all evil as I'm kind of like rambling through this this thing on rules again, thought exploration. Just sharing with you What's popping in my head around rules at this particular moment. Wait, as I sit my rockstar, Pure zero. The problem for me is that it doesn't really get to the heart of the matter, right? We have something symptomatic. We have an event. We have some poor behavior that we see, and we try to manage that by telling people not to do it. Uh, Right. That's what a rule is. A. Rule. Is this writing down? We're just we're so serious about telling you not to do it, that we're gonna write it down and give it to you in a piece of paper. This is not to do something, but that doesn't get to the root of why people do stuff while they do things right, that it doesn't get to the heart of the matter, right? You got to understand why people are doing those things to begin with. It's making sense for them to do those things, right? People typically the vast majority of the time, the vast majority of people, let's just say saying reasonable people, all of us, the vast majority of the people that we work with work with work around, right? They do things that make sense of them in that particular moment at that particular time. Because if it didn't make sense, they wouldn't freaking do it, right. Rule aside rule or no rule. It's not like you just all of a sudden go. But, you know, this makes complete sense for me to do this, but there's a magic rule that says I better not, so I'm not gonna do, that's not that rarely happens, right? I cannot think of any situation most situations in your life. Just think to to your own life where you go. You know, uh that's that's the most logical thing to do, and that's probably what has definitely should do. But, you know, there's a rule that says that I shouldn't do that, so I'm not gonna do that because of that, that rule. No, that's not what we do, That's not what we do it. All right, that's never what we do. And so I always get back to this point and something I've been saying, like a ton lately, as I have these conversations, it's like, yeah, like the rules, okay. Whatever, whatever rules Yeah, there, but they don't solve our problems. Rules never solve our problems. It's this, it's you don't need more rules. You need more tools, right? You don't you don't need more rules. You don't need more freaking sign post to say this is what you better not do, or else this is what you better not do, or else you better not do that because we have a rule buried somewhere within 1000 pages of organizational crap that says that, you know, that you you have to wear one glove on Tuesdays, so you better only wear one glove on Tuesdays because, you know, 14 years ago, bob had something because he wore two gloves and now you have to wear one glove on Tuesdays. So there you go. That was Sam Goodman from the Hopfner, doing the stuff that only he can do right here on safety. FM. Anyway, so there you go, that was one. Let's see what else we can get you into, where you can take a listen to some of the samples of some of the things that we have going on inside of the network. I have to say, I am still amazed on so many people reaching out to say, so many kind things of taking a listen to this Now. Keep in mind though, if you want to experience this yourself, all you need to do is go to safety FM dot com and you can download our app right there, that is our 24 hour screaming radio station readily available to you. So there you go. You can take a listen, take a gander and going from there. Anyways, I'm gonna move you right across the pond as we talk about the next thing here, I am going to bring you the sounds of James Mcpherson and the rebranding safety podcast. So take a listen now, let me know what you think and enjoy it on this sample plate bar to version here of safety ff in the mix, I think it's in our nature, right? When you're a geek in one thing, generally there will be a number of different areas that you can go and geek out in as well. Right? Yeah, you're just you're just a geek in general, definitely. Yeah, sorry, I was gonna say just you mentioned like people taking up things and trying to trying to make the best out of a bad situation and I guess that's that's what it's been with safety, but ai as well. Right? So we kind of, we kind of started it up a year before the whole Covid situation. And then just throughout the whole pandemic period, we've been able to spend a little bit more time on it, just because, you know, we've had the evenings and the weekends, I'm not doing, doing other things. Uh because there's something that we enjoy. Uh, so me and my partners and co founders, we've, we've been able to accelerate, I think, I don't think that we would be where we are today with that if it hadn't been for the pandemic, I can relate to that, me and my business partner, we launched project million, mid Covid mid lockdown. We'd actually not met each other face to face. Um before we had, I think we had like three customers and we'd still not met, we were joint directors of the company and so on. Of what we'd launched, we got people paying the bills and we were just like, you know what, we've never actually met, how crazy is that? But Covid gave us this opportunity. We were talking before, Covid, but we didn't launch a business. Obviously we launched halfway through. Um But we've never met. And then, but what Covid gave us the opportunity is just time, like you say, you know, in the evenings we're just sitting here. So I was just all right, I do need to spend time with my family. But other than that, let's sort out some times where we can make this work and you know, sometimes you just, all three of us are just sitting around going, I'm going to do so I'm just like, man, I'm just gonna go and do some work on project delirium and you know, it's gone nuts and it's just, I'm personally, again, you know, it doesn't devalue the kind of the horrible things that have happened to people and the amount of lives we've lost. But for me personally, in so many ways, Covid has actually been a saving grace. Like with my baby girl as well. Like she was born, you know, mid pandemic. I've had an extended paternity leave because I'm working from home. So I'm with her every single day, which most men unfortunately or the the other partner that's not that's going back to work that's having the paternity leave kind of section and then you get two weeks, you know, so if you're that if you're that kind of Co parent kind of Co partner that's not the one staying at home, you get two weeks. Covid has given me an opportunity to spend every single day with. It's like in between zone cause I can just jump in and have a quick cuddle and then come back to work. Yeah you're never gonna get, you never get that opportunity otherwise you would never have got the opportunity. So I'm, you know, I've been personally affected by Covid a very close friend that the reason we're doing this call now and didn't do a month ago was because we went through a bereavement and a very close friend of mine here in Dubai unfortunately I'm doing. Um And but but having said that if you take some of that, there is obviously a huge amount of sadness across the world and it's still continuing um If you bring it back to a personal level, there's lots of stories like this right where they've got people have rediscovered the time with their family or rediscovered a hobby. Um uh taken up gardening or like like taking up other things and and also um there's also the other flip side of like the mental health aspect. All right. There's people are saying that their mental health has deteriorated because of it. But I'm also hearing the opposite as well as people have now become a lot less stressed because of work and that. So I think that there's there's there's good and bad in everything and you've got to try and make the best of every situation they get handed right. and that's what you can do. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely make, right, let's get into this then. So you are doing a I and safety, I'm gonna kick us off with a, with a very strong statement that I think we, we kicked us off in our last chat with. But this, this, how do I put this? I, I love technology. Like I love it. I see it. I'm not, I'm not am I? I'm a tech geek. Like I love how I love seeing what technology can do. Like I just, I'm just so amazed sometimes when I see something and I'm just like, now that's cool now that's really cool. You know, and I love, you know, a great example of technology fixing a problem. A great example of technology and Covid is right now, you know, you're going to sit in a pub and they're doing ordering in the UK at least ordering your drinks and stuff over the phone personally. I'm a social person, but like I could do with not being social all the time. So sometimes I'm just like, I don't want to get up and go to the bar and do that. Sometimes I do. But I would like the option to just sit on my phone and go on this, this, this and this. Thank you very much. Bring it up. So for me, I'm like, yes. And then, you know, some of the technology like, like I say doing photography and stuff, I'm just like, wow, that's amazing. The stuff it can do is phenomenal. Yeah, but in safety it makes me a little bit nervous and it's not the tech. That's the problem. It might be, in my opinion. That's not the tech that makes me is how we use it. So I'm seeing a lot of like stuff coming up and I've had loads of people message me and what I'm seeing a lot of precaution and, and I think we spoke about this before is tech being used to just do the same old crappy safety that we've done for so long. Like, well we've got these Ai cameras or whatever in and that's going to highlight when the workers not wearing PPE PPE and that puts it in their record and then we talk about it in a meeting so we just punish the worker point. And now it's just like, I'm just like, man, this just sounds like some kind of some kind of like Blade, the Blade Runner kind of scenario. Do you know what I mean? We're just going to have all these cameras just watch him workers and then it's like sounds like slave labor and it's just horrible. So I'm really excited about tech at the same time, a little bit nervous that we've used it in the wrong way, like how do you, what do you want? Do you agree? And two, if you do, how do you kind of keep that in mind as you're working and developing in this space. I completely agree with you and it's not just in construction, this is an issue, right isn't uh the utilization of tech cuts both ways in everything. Look at social media for example, right? There is one aspect of it is it helps you keep connected with people around the world and then there's so many positive aspects of it. But then you've got things like election rigging and and reasonably yeah, reinforcing stereotypes and things like that, right, reinforcing negative messages and things like that. So it's and and to to the crux of it is, it's all around people and procedures and you touched on it in terms of safety where okay, you've got this fantastic tech and you're talking about vision learning right? It's a subset of artificial intelligence where you can take photographs or video streams and the computer can automatically start analyzing it and start supporting problems and things like that. And one of the biggest touted ones that in the infinite wisdom these these tech guys have come up with is that, yeah, look, our our system can sport when people are doing stuff wrong and then you can go and then administer them and people that's because these guys are tech guys who've come up with a technological solution and are looking for a problem to apply it to know the other way around where okay we're looking at, how do you solve uh, safety, right? And safety is about people, it's about people wanting to do the right thing is about people not wanting to harm others and and kill people and it's about people sharing experiences. For me, safety is all about sharing lessons learned, right? You can't, you're never going to be able to get away from things going wrong, right? Just human nature circumstances, the world stuff stuff is going to unfortunately is going to happen. What you can do though is minimize the risk of it happening by eliminating some of it completely or by making sure that when it's when stuff does happen, you learn about or when you do good things, you teach other people what those good things are and I think so the that's the sort of angle that we're approaching safety for aI with is we're trying to want democratized safety, right? We're trying to make safety, everybody's responsibility, not just people with safety in their title. That's something that's really, really important to me. So, do you feel a little bit rebranded now through safety, you know what I'm saying there? That was James experience in there going around about. There you go. Anyway, so let's continue talking about what is going on inside of our station here at safety FM Keep in mind you are still listening to the jane allen show we're just giving you sample plate number two, but this way you can take a listen to what we have going on inside of the station. Now we will sit back and take a listen to the safety bro, himself from the safety bro podcast. This is Blaine J. Hoffman. Now I have to tell you this guy has been doing his thing for some years now, putting it in, putting it out there as you're able to take a listen to what he has going on. Now, let's let's say it this way. This guy definitely has a voice for radio. There is no doubt in my mind as you take a listen, sit back for a moment and take a listen to what Blaine has to say on his show. The safety rope podcast. Take a little small sample of what he has going on the mix, not getting good um three dimensional motion of their hips. Maybe it's postural on top, there's so many um different things that are top down bottom up, who knows? But yeah, usually with aches and pains and grumpy's uh that actual spot is not the source of the problem. And you said it earlier. Well, you know, before we started talking about this topic, but you said that it's not so much. I mean, barring an automobile accident, some catastrophic, you know, event, it's but these, these grumpy muscles and joints is usually over ties cumulative, right? It's something that you've been doing for a while. Yes and here's where I'll put in my own example of my hip again because um it was like 2000 and 17. Um so easily four years ago where I first got some grumpy hip, it was kind of psychotic ish, you know, feeling, I'm like, what is going on? And so me, with all my tools, I'm like, let's try this and that. And I really made it super functional. I think I probably could have swept some stuff under the rug, right? I think the body is really good at doing that. You think that you fixed it, but actually you've compensated around it and you don't really know that and that's what I've just come to a come to jesus with of, I just, it's so hard to see on yourself. Um I'm so much better at seeing it on someone else, so, but the time over time, uh it finally kind of had its way with me and said, well, it was like driving a car out of alignment for four years. It it really didn't do me well. So if that conversation of early reporting and and you're really getting your ego out of it and I think in blue collar industries for sure it's that conversation of your not being a hypochondriac, you know, this doesn't make you a weak person, this makes you aware and what can you do about it and please try all sorts of things. I've tried the kitchen sink in the last year um to really be conservative about it And how can we have that conversation more? Well, that's a great message. That hole. You call psychological safety, you can call ego, They all apply. But whatever the reasons for apprehension, right? Or maybe explaining away. Uh and I tell people this old story, this is back when I first started early in my career, when I left the fire department, got into um working with some uh construction company and there was a foreman who said if your back isn't hurt, you didn't work hard enough today. That was his benchmark for how hard you worked was, how sore you were. And yeah, no pain, no gain. Right? So, I mean, and there's some uh and that's where we gotta be careful, right? I mean, when I exercise, I'm I'm sore, there's good sore and there's bad sore. So there's good pain, bad pain. You know, I don't always like to throw it into pain, but it's a conversation to have. Like, is there such thing? That's the sensation that you're experiencing? And there's good sensations. There's bad sensation. Isn't that a song? No, that's good vibrations. That's how was that Mark? Was Marky Mark or something like, oh my gosh, let's date ourselves a little bit more. Uh two. I'm way past that. Everybody knows I'm an old fart. So, but you're right, it's being able to say that in that self talk? That negative self talk of, oh, people are gonna think you're just a big baby or nobody's gonna listen to you or it's not that big of a deal. Your body is trying to tell you something and you listen to the quiet voice before it starts screaming right? Exactly. And it's, it's one that, you know, I've definitely learned over the past year. So there you go. That was Blaine J. Hoffman, you know, not taking the fear of dating himself. That is definitely out there. Anyway, so let's continue talking a little bit more as you're enjoying this sample plate are two of here, what we have going on on safety FM. So the next one will come from uh, well from new Zealand and Australia and a little blended right there. So don't worry about that. But this is the practice of learning teams podcast, sit back and take a listen to Brett Sutton, Brent Robinson and Glennis McCarthy and find out what they're up to in this little little sample. Take a listen now a tale of organizational amnesia, we have to ask a question, do organizations have a memory or is the memory based on the workers memories that belong to that organization when workers leave or move on. Do these memories and organizational stories dissipate, we quite often talk about organizational knowledge and organizational learning, but what do these things really mean? Does it really happen and how can we improve and help organizations remember to illustrate the story, I'll share an example with your organizational amnesia. The organization had an industrial accident that led to the tragic death of one of the workers. The accident was a set of circumstances that could have been foreseen what the people in the plant didn't know. Is that a similar accident with nearly the same set of circumstances? It happened eight years earlier at another one of the organizations locations in a different region. In fact, it was the third time that it happened. This was only revealed when the work team heard about the accident via a global stand down and shared the story with the team that had the latest accident. The question had to be asked, How could an incident with similar characteristics happened three times within the same organization and the organization doesn't remember. Is it because it's such a tragic incident where a worker has lost their life that the organization doesn't want to remember? Or is it because it happened at two different locations? That the people in one location remember because of the discomfort and the pain of the tragic, life changing events that resided in their collective memories and they will share this with new workers at that location. However, that story and the intensity of the tragedy isn't shared or can't be shared across the whole organization by telling these stories and sharing it across the organization. It becomes part of the history of the organization. These tragic stories need to be remembered. It's not to celebrate them. It is to ensure that we learn from them and remember to look for weak signals that lead to the event as humans have done for thousands of years, storytelling is a vital part of capturing knowledge and making sure that it enters the tribe or organizations memory in this current era. Learning storytelling, helping organizations remember has become both simpler and more complex at the same time. The reason it's simpler is that we have numerous ubiquitous technologies that lives capture stories. These include social media, podcasting, video capture, SharePoint websites, etcetera. Well that's gonna about summing up for this particular episode of the J Allen show sampler, Plate number two. I really do hope that you enjoyed it. I mean I have to say, I mean I'm just in shock on how many people enjoyed the first episode. So I guess I'm still in shock halfway through the second episode on what exactly we have going on Anyways, let me know exactly what you think. Hopefully you're enjoying, you know, this time of year already as we're coming to the end of 2021. Thank you for your time Taking a listen. Don't worry, we'll be back with another episode of the J Allen show before too long right here on safety FM And on your favorite podcast er we'll speak soon. Once more of the J allen, go to safety FM dot com. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the host and its guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within this podcast are only examples. It should not be utilized in the real world as the only solution available as they are based only on very limited and dated open source information, assumptions made within this analysis are not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast, J. Allen a.