Ep116 The-non podcast, with Andrew Barrett

Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.

Since you’re listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way. Welcome to you, you’re in the right place. If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.

I’m guessing you’re listening to this podcast because you like to learn by listening, and it fits in with your busy schedule. You are a listener.

I also know that listening to a podcast, especially some of my episodes, presents a time challenge. My intent is to offer value, which takes time to do. Rushing is a 21st century challenge, so everyone is under pressure to get more, do more, deliver more in less time and with less money.

I’m unapologetic that some of my interviews go for an hour or more, because that’s what it takes to have real dialogue, to allow my and my guest to listen actively, and to allow things to emerge that we don’t plan or expect.

I had the pleasure of hosting a live debate in front of 800-odd people at the NZ Safeguard Conference a few weeks ago (as well as opening as the Day 1 international Keynote Speaker and a post-conference workshop – more on those later).

I stressed with the audience that a structured debate creates an artificial, binary kind of thinking – right or wrong, yes or no, agree or disagree. I explained that the debate teams and I (as the moderator) had agreed that this is but one way to start, and stimulate discussion; discussion which ultimately must be more nuanced, slower, and complex.

So getting started with speed and structure, but then slowing down and getting more open, was the aim of the learning experience. And man the feedback was positive! The biggest takeaway for me which I dropped on the audience at the end of the session, was:

it is far less important to know who wins (or is right or wrong), than coming to understand what we’ve all learned through the process

This combination of a few situations, challenges, and insights leads me to this episode, and what’s to come for you in the coming days and maybe weeks.

I promised that I would share some of my reflections from the Safeguard conference (and the SIA National Conference the week prior), which I thought I would do on the podcast.

That’s proving difficult for my creative mind, as it’s feeling like I’m trying to shoe-horn one objective into another medium (kind of like how a pure structured debate doesn’t allow for dialogue, so we needed to massage it).

There’s also that challenge of time. People happily pay hundreds of dollars to sit in a room and listen to 8 or more hour long sessions, some one person, some a conversation, or even a workshop (I will tell you more about that later, I promise). But this long-form audio content is a challenge for many people, even long time Safety on Tap listeners.

So I’m adapting to this context, and opportunity. Instead of talking about my insights and reflections from these conferences, as I am generally more naturally inclined to do, I thought I would write.

Writing comes less easily to me, so it’s a skill I need to develop. It seems like a good way to experiment with some shorter-form content, which has the benefit of also serving those time-poor people with a preference for reading over listening.

So you’ll see less podcast episodes coming out in the next little while. The podcast won’t stop, don’t worry. I’m hoping you still get good value from what I have to offer, just in a slightly different way. That’s the ultimate test in our ability to serve the same people on the same mission, but adapt the way we do this in a changing context. There’s an innovation lesson in that (again, more on that later).

I plan to write to Safety on Tap email subscribers every day. Which means for me to stay in touch with you, you need to be on my email list. I use an email list because it offers all the right protections for privacy and spam, that I expect, and that you deserve. So if you do not get emails from me already, and want to get a daily dose of Safety on Tap in your inbox, pop your name down at safetyontap.com/episodes

You’ll get a few emails right away which catch you up on things like the episode reflections and downloads which I make available exclusively to email subscribers. If you like the daily emails you get, then let’s stay connected. If you don’t, then you can unsubscribe at any time.

I hope writing to you every day for the next little while isn’t seen as spammy, it’s motivated by giving you bite-sized reflections, which will probably have threads and themes which emerge over time. It might be for a week or more, I’m not sure.

And I hope you will help me by way of your feedback – it’s much easier on an email than with a podcast – just hit reply to the email and send me a few words with your thoughts on the day’s email. The more quality feedback I get, the better value you will get 🙂

You’ll probably have realized already that there are a few subtle implicit, and a few explicit insights from this short episode. I hope they are helpful. Expect more.

Thanks so much for listening, and I hope for reading. Until next time, what’s the one thing you’ll do to take positive, effective or rewarding action, to grow yourself, and drastically improve health and safety along the way? Seeya!