Talking Safety: A User's Guide to World Class Safety Conversation

Talking Safety summarises in a short user-friendly read the key element of safety leadership - the management and supervisor 'walk and talk'. Safety standards are set by a combination of three things: first, the basic systems: risk assessments, procedures, training, inductions and maintenance; second, the amount of objective learning about the inevitable weaknesses in these systems achieved from a ’Just Culture’ perspective; and third, the quality of ’transformational’ safety leadership which means coaching not telling, praising not criticising, leading by example and maximising front-line ownership and involvement. A good ’walk and talk’ is the only methodology that covers all of these issues and really should be embedded as ’part of the way we do things around here’. It is the centrepiece of any world class safety culture. Although covering all the key safety research findings by academics including Sidney Dekker, Andrew Hopkins and James Reason as well as latest influencing skills techniques from recent advances such as ’nudge’ theory it is written in an accessible style using everyday examples and case studies. You can use any of the five simple steps it outlines to make a difference day to day. Employ its advice fully and it will help you embed safety thinking, transform your safety culture and make safety part of ’the way we do things around here’.

Tim Marsh was one of the team leaders of the original UK research into behavioural safety in the early 1990s and is a Chartered Psychologists and a Chartered Fellows of IOSH. He has worked with more than 400 organisations around the world since including the European Space Agency and the BBC. He now specialises in safety leadership and organisational culture assessment and change. Tim runs open courses on Behavioural Safety and Safety Culture for IOSH, was awarded a President’s Commendation in 2008 by the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management and was selected to be their first ever ’Specialist Fellow’ in 2010. The author of several bestselling books Tim is a regular contributor to magazines including the Safety and Health Practitioner and Health and Safety at Work.