safetyontap.com/ep201

“Being in search of a beautiful question can lead to a new sense of purpose and direction.  A beautiful question is one that challenges assumptions, considers new possibilities, and serves as a catalyst for action and change.  Crafting and engaging with such beautiful questions is like an art.  Like other art forms, it takes practice, and requires learning from practice.  When practiced well, artful inquiry can lead to transformative learning and innovative change”. 

Southern, N. (2015) Framing Inquiry, in G. R. Bushe &. R. J Marshak (Eds) Dialogic Organizational Development (p. 271)

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.

Did you catch Episode 200? What an awesome experience to bring together so many Safety on Tap listeners in a live virtual event a few weeks ago, in dialogue, in reflection, with previous guests and listeners sharing their insights, and just a little celebration for an awesome learning community.  If you caught the recording which was posted as Episode 200, you may have noticed it was a little strange, the audio started mid-sentence and there was a little excitable but explicit language at the end – that was not the audio you were meant to hear! We accidentally uploaded the draft file, so you will have missed a big chunk of the beginning.  So firstly, sorry that error happened, and sorry if my excitable though colourful language offended anyone.   The correct file is now uploaded so go back and have a listen to the polished version!

Back to this episode.  Those beautiful words you hear in the introduction are from Nancy Southern, reflecting what it takes to frame effective inquiry, based on the insights from Warren Berger’s 2014 book A Beautiful Question

Inspired by that, this episode is a wonderful combination for me.  A past guest, who is curious, humble, and super interesting, combined with no structure to the podcast episode whatsoever apart from curious questions.  You’ll remember Ron Gantt from episode 146.  Ron and I wanted to catch up, and this is what we talked about.  For some of you, knowing the podcast topic and how the guest fits the topic is important for a podcast to be worth listening to.  Sometimes, as Southern and Berger hint at, not knowing and trying to ask better more beautiful questions is a wonderful and productive way to learn. 

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ron Gantt, even if none of us know where it’s heading until we get there. 

Here’s Ron:


No takeaways from me this week, trying to reduce such a rich conversation down to a few things doesn’t seem appropriate! So instead of relying on me, what if we used our combined super-human intelligence to find some big insights? I am certain that one or two things really jumped out at you during that episode, so how about you head over to safetyontap.com/ep201 and post a comment there to share your insight? When even a small handful of us share our individual insights, we again stumble upon some collective learning which can be surprising and very powerful.  But the only way to do that is if you share your insight! Head over to safetyontap.com/ep201 and post your comment there.  I can’t wait to see what is on your mind!

Thanks so much for listening.  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?

Before you go, keep listening for a few words about the work which makes this podcast free for you.  Seeya!

You’ve probably heard me talk about learning teams, and might be wondering what’s that all about. Learning teams are an increasingly popular practical activity to help your organisation to learn better, in order to improve performance.

It’s not an investigation, it’s not a risk assessment, and it’s not a committee meeting – but a learning team approach can help to learn from the past, anticipate the future, and engage effectively with people all over your organisation or supply chain.

There’s not one way to do learning teams but some critical principles which will enable you to facilitate better learning whatever your situation.

I’ve created a few short videos which explain What is a learning team? If you’re interested visit safetyontap.com/what

Here’s your FREE reflection worksheet from this episode.

TRANSCRIPT COMING SOON!

Feel free to share this with your team/colleagues!