Posted By Ian Waldram
Not directly,but there's a trial CPD course on "Delivering performance through culture and leadership" which might help - and one of the trials is in Bolton (see member news for more details).

As one of the presenters, I should declare an interest, but can also say that a possible development (if attendees indicate the need) is a variation targeted at Directors, etc.

Posted By Bob Youel

Thanks for the input!

whilst I like the CPD course idea the area I am thinking of may easily lead to court cases so a competent person as against a CDP person is what I need

I worked with Dr's of Human Behaviour etc on Nuclear safety cases and similar areas for a long time and learnt a lot; the biggest lesson is that if there is a potential court case you should use the best available help that you can

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Ian W

My, my that was a naughty advert Ian. The moderators normally jump hard on self advertising. I have run foul of them too even on a branch event!!

Bob

Posted By Ian Waldram
Sorry Bob - but it is a new IOSH course, and I receive nothing for presenting! I thought it was too good a chance to miss, given that the other presenter is a PhD with strong academic links, which seemed to be what was sought.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan
Bob

Since you state that 'the area I am thinking of may easily lead to court cases', I wonder whether you are appropriately specifying the course in terms of 'behavioural safety'

As someone chartered in HR as well as OSH and psychology, I'm reasonably familiar with all the variants on behavioural safety. My assessment is that it is a relatively (please note this qualification) rigid variant of behavioural leadership.

The example of the course referred to by Ian and those publicised by Dr. Marsh illustrate the point I make when you compare them to the sixty years' action research that is finding expression in 'behavioural leadership'.

This isn't an ad hoc criticism: the principle at issue is that robust safe behaviour calls for behaviouralleadership far, far beyond the domain of safety during the phases of change due to the nature of first and second order changes.

If you get your training specification out of alignment with the necessary changes to your organisation beyond safety management, how will you cover the risk of accelerating the slide to 'court cases' (plural) that you refer to?

Posted By Kieran J Duignan
Dear Merv

In so far as there's a substantive difference between what we're advocating, I believe that it's due to your lack of attention to the impact of HR on processes of organisational change (for worse or better) and that I'm drawing attention to a much larger historical perspective. It's also not clear how what you are writing addresses the proximate court cases that Bob Youel raised.

'Behavioural safety' is a relatively recent application of the psychology of 'cognitive behaviourism', which itself emerged in the 1970s; as you know, Aubrey Daniels was a leading pacemaker in this technology. Its shortcoming is its failure to ensure that coaching is used AT ALL LEVELS to align individual behaviour AT ALL LEVELS with core targets.

What I'm referring to is the action research that guys like Lewin, Likert and Fleishman conducted in the late 1940s and which over time contributed to indepth cultural change in organsiations, that now integrates with coaching as the practical means of alignment between systems, behaviour at all levels and critical targets. You can read about this in the research published by Georgiades and Macdonell and by Burke, about the culture and behavioural indepth change in British Airways after privatisation during the 1980s.

These targets may include mitigation of losses in court, which is the key issue inherent in the question Bob raised. for unless day-to-day change in behaviour is evident at CEO and director level, the very loosely-specified knotty problem Bob refers to is unlikely to cut much ice with people under pressure or to persuade a court that whatever issues Bob obliquely refers to are being addressed appropriately through behavioural leadership.

Bien amicalement

Posted By Liz Bennett
Try Dr Martin Langham. He works with very high profile clients such as Highways Agency, Cabinet Office, Met Police, Olympics etc and provides life changing courses. He also works as expert witness and conducts high quality research. martin@userperspective.co.uk or martin@conspicuity.co.uk should get him or I have his contact numbers.
Liz Bennett

Posted By Frank Newman
Bob,

sorry, trying not to be personal but what was that ?

"Banking Educational culture set out by Friere many years ago. The art is now how to achieve full interdependence and a conscientization within ALL levels of employee from Director downwards"

You may be quite erudite but, with just my OU BA, I don't know what you are saying.

We recently pitched and won against three of the major BBS providers. When I asked the MD what our "competitive differentiation" (having looked at the posters on the wall of the management meeting room) was he replied by saying "it's so simple"

We don't do much of the psychology. A bit of ABC, a bit of positive/negative reinforcers. Mainly "how to do it", "why do it" and "let's do it"

Seems to work. But it takes a couple of years to get to the big "zero"

Beef burgers with barbecue sauce and chips tonight. maybe a little Bordeaux. (little means cheap. It doesn't mean "not a lot")

Merv

Posted By Kieran J Duignan
Merv

I believe you genuinely have the modesty and sense of irony to appreciate how Robert's references are cultural rather than 'erudite': Friere was a widely-respected radical champion of LITERACY in Brazil, as many who completed the OU Foundation year in Humanities learned as part of their cultural journey (!)

I share Bob's critique of the de facto institutionalisation of behavioural safety, with the result that relatively few OSH practitioners get their heads around it. This is partly because what even the best BBS authorities, including your good self, promote is in practice an unduly narrow model of psychology that lacks cultural awareness.

This is probably an inevitable stage of development, just as Friere's radicalism was, and cultural diversity is long overdue in OSH management. I suspect it is unlikely to be realised until OSH and HR practitioners learn to negotiate co-operatively and creatively as the norm rather than the exception.