Interviewing the Interviewer!

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed through a LINKED IN blog, Andy Farrall’s new book on an important aspect of health and safety, “Investigative Interviewing- A Practical Guide for Managers” .A signpost to that blog is at the end of this second one This second blog is my follow up interview with Andy about reaction to the book and a more detailed probe into his experiences of and thoughts about health and safety.

As you will see, I discovered through my Q & A’s:-

·        Why Andy gets irritated with people who just dismiss the subject as elf’n’safety”

·        Startling statistics from last year’s accidents in the UK -147 people killed in the workplace, and 69,208 injured

·        The official reason offered for why Captain Smith of the TITANIC, and a mariner with some 30 years’ experience, did not reduce speed even though he was approaching a known icefield at night!

·        The challenges Andy faced training over 800 Ministry of Defence Security Guards

·        His near-death experience on a narrow ledge inside a factory-rescued by a fireman!

·        Challenges presented to safety by Artificial Intelligence!

·        Advice he offers to any young person thinking of taking up health and safety as a career

·        Andy’s parting thoughts on Brexit and Covid 19

My questions are presented in italics

• Well Andy, congratulations on the new book. As I told you, I was struck by its nice balance of technical topics with some real insights into the human condition. Your book seems to be taking off through social media, but I imagine from a variety of other sources too? How is it doing?

Thank you for the kind words, William :0)

As you say, we’re attracting a lot of attention via LinkedIn and so on, but we’re also in early discussions with a number of organisations whose members/ clients we feel could benefit from the book – especially if it’s read in conjunction with the personal skills development package which will be released shortly.

The personal skills package incorporates a PowerPoint presentation with narration provided by me (in itself a little over 2 hours of audio), together with a course workbook containing personal exercises and questions, and further explanatory notes.

•  Reading the book, I detected numerous transferable skills that will be of use in other professions and just for life itself. If you were to list four or five of these transferable skills for wider use, what would they be?

An interesting question, William. I think key transferrable skills include:

a.      The mental discipline in analysing problems of all kinds that flows from following the “ABC” investigative protocol:

Accept nothing at face value.

Believe nothing without checking.

Check everything

Once you’ve clarified the facts in this way (sorted the wheat from the chaff, as it were) then you can set about solving the problem that actually exists, rather than the problem you may think exists

 b. Self-awareness: an acceptance that we’re human, and therefore we are susceptible to unconscious biases such as stereotyping and anchor bias, all of which can skew the way we view situations and make our decisions

c.  The ability to ask effective questions, i.e. by avoiding common mistakes such as posing multiple questions, leading questions, and so on. Asking effective questions means that you minimise the chances of confusion

 d. The ability to listen to what’s being said without giving anything away (i.e. to maintain a poker face). This is certainly a crucial skill in investigative interviewing – but it’s also rather useful when conducting business negotiations :0)

 e.  An understanding of how to analyse quantities of data generated from a variety of sources. Something as simple as a timeline analysis can often provide clarity in the midst of apparent confusion.

• For some people, the term “health and safety” seems at best a dry subject and to others a tick box exercise that makes them groan. Not only does your book refute these urban myths but it makes a link to many other subjects in the workplace and wider environment beyond. How did you first get into this work and how do you cope with these sometimes-negative perceptions?

I got into health & safety just by chance. While I was a tutor at the City 0f Bristol College, training security officers to take their national SIA licence exams, I was asked if I’d mind helping out with health & safety training. The College were happy to pay me while I took the required NEBOSH General Certificate course in their time, and so I agreed. The rest, as they say, is history.Because I know from personal experience just how fragile the human body is, and how tenuous our grip can be on life regardless of age (sadly, I’ve had to deal with a fatal road accident involving a child) I get rather irritated when people casually dismiss “elf’n’safety ” as being an irrelevance.

However, there’s no point in simply lecturing people like these – the solution I feel is to ask them to justify their view. That can be an interesting exercise :0)

A common “argument” is that health & safety is just common sense – and it is. But, if it’s that simple, how do they explain the latest (2019) Health & Safety Executive statistics[1] of 147 people killed in the workplace, and 69,208 injured – and all in one (unexceptional) year?Maybe common sense just isn’t so common after all – and so safety needs to be managed.

Another common “argument” is “we’ve done it this way for years – and nothing’s gone wrong”. The missing final word in that argument is “yet”!Just because you’ve been doing things a particular way without any problems does NOT mean it’s safe – maybe you’ve just been lucky, and, if so, one day your luck will run out.

•  I am a trainer in employment, equality, and data protection laws. I use a variety of methods including live media observatory sessions on breaking news, case studies, “you the jury” sessions and live practice through role plays. It works with most of my “dry subjects”. What do you do in the classroom or through remote learning to bring your subjects to life?

Quite often I try to put the (sometimes dry) facts and regulations into a human context, either by quoting personal examples, or by reference to other examples I’ve come across.

For example: in my previous answer I commented that “we’ve always done it that way” is a flawed excuse for ignoring health & safety. The justification I use to support my argument is, would you believe, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

A lot of things went wrong on that terrible night, but one puzzle is why Captain Smith, a mariner with some 30 years’ experience, did not reduce speed even though he was approaching a known icefield at night.The answer, as determined by the Board of Trade enquiry (which, incidentally, cleared Captain Smith of any charge of negligence over his speed), was that Captain Smith was following accepted “custom & practice” in maintaining his speed of some 22 knots.

It seems that for some 25 years that was what all captains had done – maintain as high a speed as possible when transiting ice packs – and nothing had ever gone wrong. Until, that is, their collective luck ran out late on 14th April 1912 when the Titanic hit the iceberg.

•  One of your listed assignments is about security training you delivered for over 800 (eight hundred!) officers from the Ministry of Defence Guard Service. What did that entail and what were the challenges?

At the College I was both a security course tutor and an NVQ assessor for a security (manned guarding) qualification. The College won a contract to provide security NVQ training to about 800 officers from the MoD Guard Service (MGS), and I acted as the coordinator/ lead NVQ assessor on that contract.

The MGS provides security for MoD establishments across the UK, and this contract involved staff spread across the whole of the South West. I had to coordinate the assessor team and deal with the logistics of providing 1-to1 support to the MGS officers who, of course, were all working on a variety of 24/7 shift rotas. 

As you can appreciate, making sure that everybody received effective support regardless of their location, and without blowing a hole in the assessors’ travel/ accommodation budget, was something of a challenge. But it was also a very interesting challenge :0)

• Looking at your profile on LINKED IN, I see that you started your career as a practical “hands on” emergency medical technician in the NHS. Was it witnessing what I imagine must have been some tragic and poignant scenes that helped move you into a new career focus on reporting techniques, safety audits, training and now authorship? 

Obviously, some of the experiences I had in the ambulance service have coloured my approach to my work in health & safety management (and I’ve already touched on one particular incident which will always stay with me).Working in the service also taught me how to keep a clear head in a crisis (especially when everybody is looking at you to come up with the solution!) and gave me my introduction to work as a tutor. I did a basic instructional techniques course, and enjoyed working with new entrants to the service, guiding them in their early days “on the road” 

• And speaking of authorship, the many reports you have written for clients on workplace injuries and near fatalities must have engendered a wide range of emotions from disbelief to what you were having to write about right through to sheer anger?

It’s certainly true that, when investigating an incident, you can have a feeling of disbelief as to how it could ever have happened, but you have to keep emotion out of the equation. You just take a deep breath and carry on! 

It’s not the investigator’s job to get angry or emotional, because that simply clouds your judgement. You have to remain dispassionate and report on the facts as you find them. Of course, when writing recommendations, you can certainly suggest how things could be improved to prevent a recurrence (that’s actually one of the reasons for having an investigation), but you have to remain professional in your comments at all times.

•  Have you ever had a workplace accident? What personal learning points came from that experience? 

I’ve never had a works accident, but I’ve come close – mainly when driving ambulances on emergency runs (that can get hairy!)One personal near miss – which I sometimes mention when I’m teaching – involved a case in which I found myself working on a narrow ledge inside a factory. I was crouching down trying to assess the injuries when I felt somebody grab the collar of my hi-viz jacket. 

It was a firefighter, who just grinned and told me to look over my shoulder – and it was only then that I realised I was right on the edge of this narrow ledge, inches away from a 60’ drop to concrete. I was so busy focussing on the casualty I’d failed to see the danger.

Lesson learned! 

• And on a lighter note what is the funniest thing that you have seen around health and safety OR the funniest thing you have seen written about it?

It may sound strange, but I can’t really think of any funny incidents or events I’ve come across involving health & safety. I’ve seen many things that perplex me and make me wonder “how on earth?” but they’ve not made me laugh – just made me wonder what goes on inside some people’s heads!

•  Who has been the greatest influence on your professional life?

 I honestly can’t think of any one person who has influenced my professional life more than anybody else. Certainly, there have been times when I’ve come across people whose skills and professionalism I have respected, and from whom I’ve learnt a lot, but I feel it wouldn’t be right for me to nominate any specific individual as being the one upon whom I’ve modelled my career. 

• And if a young person today were thinking about going into your area of health and safety work, what advice would you give them and why? 

My advice would be “give it a go” because it’s satisfying to know that – whether people actually realise it or not – you’ve done something which might just keep them alive. 

Health & safety is an intellectually challenging subject. It encompasses topics as varied as law; psychology; management theory; engineering techniques; etc, and it also has its practical challenges. Clients don’t want to know what the problems are – they want to hear the solutions. And it’s the job of the consultant to come up with those solutions. 

• I was amused to see that you describe yourself as “semi-retired”(!). But I see you on LINKED IN day in/day out. The book clearly was a massive work in preparation for a while and in your spare time you volunteer for a charity that helps people with learning difficulties – your wife serves there too! How do you relax? Is “semi-retired” a bit of a misnomer Andy?

Guilty as charged! 

I’m very lucky in that my work also acts as my hobby because it provides me with a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction. I’m afraid a “pipe and slippers” retirement simply does not appeal to me – if only because I know nothing about gardening! 

• Crystal balls on the table – Brexit and Covid19 for example – what are future trends in health and safety likely to look like? 

That’s a very deep question, William, and I’m not sure anybody really knows. 

As regards Brexit, I feel that in general the current legislation will remain broadly unchanged, but there may be technical changes in some specialist areas, e.g. the ways in which certain bulk chemicals are imported, labelled, transported and so on. 

Covid 19 has no doubt acted as a wake-up call to businesses, small and large, about the need to plan ahead so as to cope with disruption, but there are also practical implications about the return to work process. Will workers involved in manual tasks still be fit enough after the long break; will distancing be applied in the workplace; will there be an increase in lone working, and if so, will it be managed effectively; will there be sufficient cleaning and disinfectant materials available; will the existing risk assessments have been reviewed as appropriate; and so on? 

Looking further ahead I think that the increased use of artificial intelligence systems (AI) could inadvertently pose some interesting safety management challenges.Sadly, we’ve already seen through the Boeing 737 Max crashes in early 2019 that computerised systems designed to help can also have unfortunate side effects which can make them dangerous in certain situations. To recap: because of a faulty sensor the automated flight control system kept putting the aircraft into a dive which (because of a gap in their training) the pilots were unable to correct – so the aircraft flew itself into the ground. 

As AI systems proliferate (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing) and get more complex will safety somehow get lost in the mix? Will there be a reliance on the system “self-correcting”? Will the systems be so complex that the human operators will be unable to understand just how they work, and thus be unable to correct safety flaws if something goes wrong? 

Interesting times ahead for the safety profession!

ends

 Investigative Interviewing- A Practical Guide for Managers by Andrew J Farrall

E book – penarth.thinkific.com -129pp  

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/strange-seldom-travelled-land-here-all-you-need-journey-chadwick/

[1] https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh1819.pdf