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Explore every episode of the podcast Counter Errorism

Dive into the complete episode list for Counter Errorism. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.

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TitlePub. DateDuration
Counter-Errorism - Episode 27 - Danielle Ford10 août 202600:49:38

Get to know Danielle Ford:

linkedin.com/in/danielle-ford-cptd

Email: dford26105@msn.com

Danielle's publication: Rhythm and Revelation

In her conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Danielle Ford shares how organizations can bridge the gaps between training, procedures, and investigations. She challenges conventional safety responses and offers a highly practical roadmap for embedding continuous learning into normal operations.

Here are the key lessons we learn from her:

1. Stop Defaulting to Retraining

When an incident occurs, organizations frequently default to "we need to retrain the worker" because it is the fastest, easiest way to satisfy regulators, boards, or executives. Ford argues that retraining is rarely the correct answer. Instead, she advocates for using a task-focused approach, like the Systematic Approach to Training (SAT), to isolate the specific failure point. By partnering with the frontline workers who perform the task daily and asking, "Why didn't it work for you today?", organizations can design far more effective, lower-burden solutions—such as improved signage or targeted job aids—rather than forcing employees through redundant training programs.

2. Leverage AI to Safeguard Training Resources

To stop the constant cycle of immediate retraining requests, Ford’s organization has started using Microsoft Copilot to build an AI bot. The bot walks operational partners through a standard series of questions to help them determine if retraining is actually necessary. By immediately flagging alternative solutions (like updating a procedure or a job aid), the bot acts as an automated filter, saving the training department from spending hours upfront proving that retraining is not the right tool for the job.

3. Normalize Presence to Build Psychological Safety

To get workers to honestly share operational risks before an incident occurs, leaders must actively build trust. Ford explains that "managing by walking around" is one of the most effective ways to establish psychological safety. When a supervisor's presence in the workspace is normal and routine, employees stop viewing visits as "gotcha" moments. Instead, it opens the door for informal, casual dialogues where real risks and potential failures naturally bubble up and can be proactively solved.

4. Transition from a "Courtroom" to the "Normalization of Excellence"

Human nature naturally draws us to focus on the negative, but Ford emphasizes that you cannot build a learning culture if every mistake is treated like a courtroom trial. Leaders must redirect conversations toward the "normalization of excellence". This means having regular, supportive conversations with workers about what makes them high performers, how they execute work consistently, and how they successfully avoid the challenges their peers face.

5. Institutionalize Learning via Forums and Special Projects

To prevent hard-won operational insights from getting lost in the shuffle, Ford recommends using quarterly operational "forums" to share high-performance practices across shifts (such as sharing day-shift insights with the night crew). Her organization ensures these learnings are actually implemented by tasking an administrative "special projects" team to track the progress on a 30-60-90 day schedule. These tracked learnings populate a centralized dashboard, allowing the organization to revisit, update, and refine best practices as new nuances arise.

6. Practice Radically Transparent Leadership

When the frontline brings innovative ideas to a learning forum that management cannot implement due to budget, regulatory boundaries, or strategic roadmaps, the worst thing a leader can do is ignore them. Ford advises that leaders must be completely transparent about the organization's guardrails. When a leader honestly and candidly explains, "This is a great idea, but we cannot do it today because of these specific parameters," workers accept the feedback and feel valued because they were genuinely heard, preventing post-meeting resentment.

7. Lead with Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Post-Event

When a major incident occurs, a worker's immediate fear is often that their career is over. Ford highlights that leaders must use their emotional quotient (EQ) to support the worker's psyche and self-worth. Rather than immediately standing them down—which feels like a punishment to the worker and signals to the rest of the team that they should hide their mistakes—leaders should focus on helping the individual recover and ask what they need to show up and function safely.

🤖 It is fascinating to contrast Danielle’s practical use of an AI bot to filter training needs with Bob Latino's warnings (from Episode 23) about AI's severe blind spots in Root Cause Analysis.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 26 - Joe Hauglie20 juil. 202600:47:30

Get to know Joe Hauglie (pronounced "Hoag-Lee"):

linkedin.com/in/jhauglie

Email: joseph.hauglie@aps.com

An article about Joe: https://www.wellsaid.io/resources/blog/arizonas-largest-electric-utility-significantly-boosts-safety-training-engagement-with-wellsaid

Joe Hauglie emphasizes that human and organizational performance is fundamentally a profession built on shared knowledge. Rather than relying solely on our own experiences and making every mistake ourselves, we must proactively learn from the mistakes of others to recognize error traps before they lead to failure. For example, traditional power plant operators have decades of shared knowledge to rely on when a gauge fluctuates, whereas technicians in newer fields, like renewable energy, might only have a handwritten checklist from the previous shift to guide them.

To help frontline workers systematically identify and manage these error traps, Hauglie advocates for using tools like the "energy wheel" during pre-job briefs and two-minute drills. Instead of relying entirely on an individual's imagination to spot danger, the energy wheel prompts teams to systematically identify various forms of hazardous energy—such as chemical, electrical, or even unexpected sources like sound. Furthermore, it forces teams to re-evaluate their environment when returning from a break to see if changing variables, such as sudden rain, have altered their risk profile.

When discussing hazard detection and prevention, Hauglie warns about the double-edged sword of modern technology and automation. Tools like blind-spot sensors in cars or artificial intelligence are increasingly taking over the responsibility of detecting hazards for us. While this can free up our attention, relying too heavily on automated systems inadvertently creates new human vulnerabilities. If a worker becomes accustomed to technology acting as their detection system, they may lose their baseline situational awareness and face a dangerous new error trap when that technology is absent, modified, or fails. Ultimately, Hauglie challenges leaders to consider where technology gives us a lift, and what type of hazard detection human workers still need to actively own.

Finally, Hauglie highlights the importance of integrating these safety and performance principles beyond traditional field operations and into everyday corporate environments. Whether it is catching administrative software settings that cause scheduling errors or running a pre-job brief for a corporate volunteer event, taking the time to pause, ask what could go wrong, and adjust systems based on recent missteps allows an organization to continuously learn and improve from normal work.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 25 - Aaron Potash06 juil. 202600:33:48

Get to know Aaron Potash:

Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronpotash/

Website: https://www.originaloaktowndivers.com/

Recent Article (video link at the bottom of the article): Windup in the Bay 2026

Email: aaronpotash@mac.com

In his conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Aaron Potash emphasizes the critical role of cultivating genuine empathy, curiosity, and vulnerability to build psychological safety and drive operational excellence.

Here are the key lessons we learn from his approach:

Cultivating Empathy Over Compliance

Potash explains that safety professionals must move away from a traditional compliance mindset—where they act as the "subject matter expert" dictating rules—and instead become genuinely intrigued by a worker's actual experience. By shifting to a stance of curiosity and asking, "what is that like for you?", leaders can build the trust necessary for workers to freely share their challenges.

Humble Inquiry and Positioning as a Learner

To disarm workers, especially highly trained experts, Potash utilizes humble inquiry, often starting conversations with phrases like, "Forgive me, may I ask about something?". By intentionally positioning himself "below" the worker and acting as a learner rather than a policing expert, he removes the threat of judgment and invites the worker to become the teacher.

Vulnerability and Creating Space to Fail

Drawing from his experience as a scuba diving instructor, Potash highlights the importance of leaders sharing their own mistakes, weaknesses, and errors with their students. This vulnerability proves that the leader is fallible and actively helps create a safe environment where people have the space to fail, make mistakes, and continuously strive to "be better than yesterday".

The "King for a Day" Approach

To quickly uncover hidden frontline challenges, Potash advocates for asking workers one simple question: "If you could be king for a day, what would you make better about this?". He shares an example of asking this question about a seemingly simple stick used for sounding the ground, which sparked an impromptu "mini learning team" conversation. This specific question gave the workers the space to reveal the tool's complex history, hidden functions, and future design modifications that leadership was completely unaware of.

The Illusion of the "Same Side"

Potash challenges the common safety cliché that everyone in a company is "on the same side". He points out that different departments often have competing KPIs that inadvertently interfere with the people actually getting the work done in the field. Ultimately, empathy is required to translate these conflicting organizational requirements into systems that actually support the frontline work.

Mentions in this episode:

Humble Inquiry, 3rd Edition: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (The Humble Leadership Series)

Other podcasts Aaron's on:

Safety Labs w Mary Conquest: Helping Workers Make Safer Decisions with Aaron Potash

Gareth Lock's How did it make sense?

Please check out the amazing people doing amazing things on these podcasts we listen to and love:

Counter-Errorism - Episode 24 - Martha Acosta22 juin 202600:42:36

Get to know Dr. Martha Acosta:

Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-acosta-ed-d-7293ba4/

Website: martica.com (Company)  marthaacosta.com (Personal)

Email: martha@martica.com

In her conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Martha Acosta shares profound insights on transforming how organizations learn, emphasizing that leaders must shift from trying to "fix the worker" to fostering a genuine "performance culture" that embraces continuous learning and experimentation.

Here are the key lessons we learn from her approach:

Moving from a Fixed to a Growth Mindset

Organizations historically operated under a "fixed mindset," using behavioral models to try to "fix" workers, operating under the illusion that a person or a system could reach a point of absolute perfection where mistakes are impossible. Acosta advocates for adopting a "growth mindset," which is the foundational belief that people and environments must be continuously developed.

Coaching Through Inquiry (The GROW Model)

Acosta believes the single most effective leadership practice for creating a learning organization is coaching. However, this does not mean acting like a high school volleyball coach who just tells people what they did wrong and barks orders. True coaching uses humble inquiry to help teams discover motivations and options. She frames this using the GROW model: Goals (Shared Purpose), Reality, Options, and Way forward.

Uniting Experts with a Shared Purpose (Goals)

When dealing with ad-hoc groups of highly specialized experts, individuals can easily become compartmentalized, deferring only to their specific knowledge silos. Furthermore, team members often have conflicting individual goals (like wanting overtime vs. avoiding it). A leader's job is to establish a clear "shared purpose" so everyone knows exactly why they are doing the work, which pulls the diverse expertise together.

Exploring the Context (Reality) via Humble Inquiry

Rather than managing safety solely by reacting to accidents after the fact, leaders should continuously observe the "reality" of normal work to catch systemic drift early. To truly understand this reality, leaders must utilize humble inquiry. Instead of acting like a policeman looking for procedural compliance, leaders should use disarming phrases like "help me understand," "walk me through this," or "paint me the picture," which invites workers to share their actual context without fear of giving the "wrong" answer.

Problem Solving vs. Solution Finding (Options)

A massive trap organizations fall into is "solution finding"—impatiently pulling past solutions out of their pockets to quickly apply to new problems. In volatile environments, assuming the current reality perfectly matches the past is dangerous. Real problem solving requires pausing to generate multiple different options and hypotheses before rushing to fix things. Acosta even suggests using AI as a tool to put on different "thinking hats" and generate diverse alternatives that humans often skip because it takes too much time.

The Way Forward Requires Planning for Failure

In highly innovative or hazardous environments, a true performance culture is a learning culture. When you commit to a "way forward" on something you haven't done before, it is essentially an experiment. Because the hypothesis might be wrong, leaders must actively plan for failure—ensuring hazards are mitigated so that the team can fail safely, learn from the experiment, and prevent unbearable outcomes.

Unlearning and Recognizing that Context Drives Behavior

When workers make mistakes, leaders must realize that management creates the context in which those decisions are made. Instead of blaming the worker, leaders must evaluate whether the context they provided—through lacking resources, confusing procedures, or poor communication—made the worker's actions make sense at the time. Furthermore, to adapt to new contexts and successfully improve, organizations have to be willing to do the hard work of "unlearning" their deeply ingrained habits.

Mentions in this episode:

SAFETY CAPACITY: Leadership Practices for Failing Safely by Martha L. Acosta Ed.D. (Author), Todd Conklin Ph.D. (Foreword) 

Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono (Author) 

 

Please check out the amazing people doing amazing things on these podcasts we listen to and love:

Counter-Errorism - Episode 23 - Robert (Bob) Latino15 juin 202600:15:18

Get to know Bob Latino:

Profile: linkedin.com/in/boblatino

Website: prelical.com

Email: 4proact@gmail.com

In his conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Bob Latino shares valuable insights into defect elimination, system reliability, and the evolving role of technology in incident investigations.

Here are the key lessons we learn from his approach:

Experiential Learning and "The Manufacturing Game"

Latino advocates for using experiential learning to teach defect elimination, specifically highlighting a simulation called the "Manufacturing Game" originally developed at DuPont. While leaders are often initially skeptical about paying their employees to "play a board game," the exercise effectively models the complex system dynamics of a real plant over a day and a half to two days. The simulation throws real-world variables at the players—such as safety violations, defective parts, and customer complaints—and proves that an organization will only survive if its operations, maintenance, and support services learn how to effectively communicate with one another. Because workers actually experience these lessons, the principles become highly memorable and impactful.

The Link Between Reliability and Process Safety

Latino highlights a strong, historically proven correlation between equipment reliability and process safety. He explains that when a plant achieves "steady state operation" through good preventive and predictive maintenance, it experiences far fewer unexpected upsets. Consequently, workers are much less likely to be forced into dangerous, energized areas to address sudden mechanical failures, which inherently keeps them safer.

The Limits of AI in Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

When looking at the future of incident investigations, Latino warns about the severe blind spots of Artificial Intelligence. While AI is excellent at analyzing the mechanical "physics of failure" (such as detailing the various ways a specific bearing might break), it completely lacks the critical real-world context of an event. AI cannot comprehend the nuances of complex human decision-making or flawed organizational systems—such as a worker making a mistake because they were forced to use an obsolete procedure that management failed to update after installing new technology. Latino advises that investigation teams should exhaust their own human knowledge and understanding of the context first before turning to AI, rather than using it merely as a shortcut to rush a report by the end of a shift.

Mentions in this episode:

The Manufacturing Game

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 22 - Nikki Knapp08 juin 202601:06:27

Get to know Nikki Knapp:

Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoleknapp/

Email: nikki.knapp@kquadrant.com

In her conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Nikki Knapp shares practical, creative approaches to teaching Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) and emphasizes the critical importance of human connection.

Here are the key lessons we learn from her approach:

Relationships as the Foundation of HOP

Knapp stresses that you cannot prevent, detect, or correct errors until people feel comfortable talking to you. If a safety professional lacks a relationship with workers, leaders, or engineers, they have zero influence and cannot advocate for meaningful change. To build this trust and psychological safety, she intentionally uses vulnerability—sharing her own mistakes and off-the-wall personal stories to disarm people and prove she is just as fallible as they are.

Integration vs. Implementation

Many leaders simply want a checklist or procedure to formally "implement" HOP as a standard safety program. However, Knapp points out that you cannot mandate or implement a relationship. Because every person and organization is unique, HOP principles must be organically integrated into everyday interactions and systems rather than blindly implemented out of a box.

Using Games for Experiential Learning

To make dry subjects (like error precursors or radiation training) engaging, Knapp uses hands-on games to crack people's shells. Some of her practical exercises include:

  • Lego Exercises: Having teams attempt to build identical Lego cars with and without instructions to practically demonstrate the pressure of time, the necessity of clear communication, and the value of pre-job briefs. She also built a scale model of a nuclear reception center out of Legos so workers could finally visualize their exact role within the big picture.
  • Match Madness: Using a block-matching puzzle game to subtly teach groups about error precursors, peer-checking, and how to build resilient systems under time pressure.

Celebrating Success and "Normal Work"

Organizations are notoriously quick to dissect what went wrong, but they rarely take the time to celebrate "normal work"—the days when everything goes right and no one gets hurt. Knapp advocates for pausing to actually celebrate successes before picking apart minor failures. She also champions peer-to-peer recognition systems (like Bucket List or Kudos) where workers can publicly reward each other with points for good catches, safety improvements, and helpful behavior, which also gives leaders visibility into the good things happening on the floor.

Care Before Correction

When an incident does happen, leaders often default to their strategic brains, immediately asking how the event could have been prevented. Knapp actively coaches leaders to pause and ensure that the very first question asked in any post-event meeting is, "How are they doing?", ensuring that the human being and their family are cared for before any operational learning takes place.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 21 - Mitch Schwarz02 juin 202600:33:11

Get to know Mitch Schwarz:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-schwarz-139538165/

Email: https://www.safesetehs.com/contactus

Website: https://www.indeavor.com

In his conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Mitch Schwarz highlights a critical but often overlooked operational vulnerability: the "frontline scheduling capacity gap." He explains how perfectly planned work (the theoretical "black line") frequently falls apart right before a shift starts, placing a massive, unmanaged burden on frontline leaders.

Here are the key lessons we learn from his approach:

The Chaos of the "Golden Hour" Schwarz points out that the hour before a shift begins is a highly pressurized "golden hour" where everyday variability—like a sick child or a flat tire—can suddenly wreck a meticulously planned schedule. To fill these last-minute gaps, supervisors are often forced to juggle Excel spreadsheets, tribal knowledge, or even easily erased whiteboards to match worker qualifications with complex union and fatigue rules. This heavy administrative burden completely drains the supervisor's "adaptive capacity," pulling them away from actually coaching their teams on the front line.

Uncovering Upstream Root Causes When safety incidents occur, root cause analyses rarely trace the problem back far enough to this initial scheduling chaos. Investigators often miss the fact that a worker made a mistake because they were severely fatigued after being held over for five extra hours to cover a call-out, or because they were suddenly thrust into a crew they had never worked with before just to fill a gap.

Capacity as an Insurance Policy Schwarz brilliantly frames operational capacity—the crucial margin for error in a system—as an insurance policy. You don't need capacity until something goes wrong, but you absolutely cannot buy it after an accident has already happened. He stresses that an organization's capacity to fail safely is often built or entirely destroyed right at the point of staffing, before the work even begins.

Reducing Grievances Through Transparency By utilizing technology to automate the scheduling process, organizations can merge disparate rules and training matrices into one seamless system. Crucially, this gives frontline workers visibility into their schedules and overtime opportunities via an app. This transparency levels the playing field, prevents supervisors from only picking their "buddies" for overtime, and significantly reduces worker grievances and turnover.

A Practical Exercise for HOP Practitioners For organizations wanting to expose these hidden issues, Schwarz offers a simple, actionable takeaway: gather a learning team of your frontline supervisors and ask them one question: "What do we do with a last-minute call out right now?". He notes that this single question will immediately uncover massive amounts of operational pain and friction that rarely make it up to upper management.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 20 - Dave Provan26 mai 202600:37:35

Get to know Dr. David Provan:

Profile linkedin.com/in/david-provan-forgeworks      Email: david.provan@forgeworks.com

Website: https://www.forgeworks.com/                        Get his book: A Field Guide to Safety Professional Practice

Podcast Co-host: The Safety of Work                            Podcast Co-host: Punk Rock Safety

Dave Provan shares powerful insights on bridging the massive gap between management and the frontline, emphasizing that true safety is found in operations, not paperwork.

Here are the key lessons we learn from his approach:

Compressing the Organization & Genuine Curiosity

Provan emphasizes the critical need to "compress the organization" by ensuring leaders are deeply connected to the reality of frontline work. To do this effectively, leaders must set aside their assumptions and tap into genuine humility and curiosity. He suggests leaders consider an Undercover Boss analogy—asking themselves how surprised they would be if they actually had to work on their own frontline.

Face-to-Work vs. Face-to-Screen Time

A major barrier to this connection is how leaders spend their time. Provan breaks a supervisor's day into three categories: face-to-screen, face-to-face (meetings), and face-to-work. He points out the alarming reality that many supervisors spend up to 75% of their day "face-to-screen" and only 2% to 5% (roughly 8 to 10 minutes a day) physically at the work front observing the jobs they are responsible for. He strongly echoes the sentiment that a true "open door policy" means the manager's door is open because they are actively out of their office.

Safety is a Verb, Not a Noun (Paperwork vs. Practice)

Many industries still mistakenly believe that safety is defined by the forms filled out and the procedures followed. Provan illustrates this with a story about a pool construction crew who worked with incredible communication, pauses, and problem-solving, but felt they weren't "doing safety" simply because they lacked formal paperwork. Provan reminds us that safety is about verbs, not nouns—it is about having the capability, tools, time, and support to actually do the work well.

Stop Wasting Time on Terminology

Organizations often waste massive amounts of "organizational airspace" debating trivial terminology—such as spending half a day arguing whether a program should be called "Stop Work," "Pause Work," or "Timeout for Safety". Provan argues that splitting hairs over language avoids the actual hard work. Instead, leaders should focus purely on the outcome: making it easy and culturally acceptable for workers to reach out for help without feeling like they are bothering a busy supervisor.

The Hypocrisy of Accountability

Provan highlights a stark double standard in how companies view accountability. When he proposed creating a set of "life-saving leadership rules" for management—where leaders could be formally sanctioned or fired for failing to support the frontline—the organization thought the idea was entirely ridiculous. Yet, they found the exact same punitive concept perfectly acceptable when applied to the workers.

Reframing the Question: "Better" instead of "Safer"

Finally, Provan shares a brilliant tactic for getting better feedback from the frontline. He advises against asking workers, "How can we make this job safer?" because workers often conflate "safer" with restrictive checklists, more training, or extra procedures. Instead, leaders should simply ask, "How could we make this work better?". This immediately prompts workers to discuss improvements in quality, speed, tools, and resources—all of which inherently fix safety hazards along the way.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 19 - Joe Estey18 mai 202600:19:35

Get to know Joe Estey, Sr:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-estey-9905515a/

Email: jestey@lucasinc.com      See an older, but still pertinent webinar with Joe: Fooled by Counting—Why the Scale is Not Your Friend

Website: www.CHOLearning.org (Joe serves on the Board of Directors, Community of Human and Organizational Learning)

Joe Estey provides several powerful strategies for reshaping organizational learning, reducing bureaucracy, and improving human performance.

Here are the key lessons we learn from his approach:

Learning from Everyday Successes

Estey stresses the importance of learning from normal, everyday activities rather than waiting to learn exclusively from mistakes. He notes that if an organization only attempts to learn from failures, they will simply get more opportunities to make them. Instead, leaders should proactively study teams that are successfully meeting their expectations and successfully managing everyday challenges.

Rethinking the "Vehicles" for Learning

Many companies invest heavily in formal "lessons learned" databases or required reading programs that workers never actually read; often, these systems exist simply to meet a bureaucratic deadline. Estey suggests that true operational learning happens through informal crew meetings and ongoing conversations, where workers naturally discuss what happened yesterday to prepare for today.

To institutionalize this knowledge for future or newly hired workers, he recommends:

  • Integrating tools into all training: Embedding human performance concepts into everyday classes (like forklift or flagger training) and heavily incorporating them from day one of onboarding.
  • "Today's post-job is tomorrow's pre-job": Creating dynamic, worker-owned forms where a crew takes a few minutes at the end of their task to fill out a brief document (such as noting where special tools are kept) to directly help the next crew who will perform that same job.

Combating "Safety Clutter" Through Subtraction

Drawing on the concept of the "Scarcity Brain," Estey explains that humans have an innate drive to constantly add things to solve problems. In the workplace, this results in a dangerous "cumulative effect" of endlessly adding new rules, corrective actions, and procedural steps (often referred to as "safety clutter").

Estey challenges teams to overcome this instinct by routinely asking, "What do we need to take away in order to help make this more productive and safe?". By treating subtraction as a form of addition, organizations can simplify overly complex processes—such as avoiding situations where a single lock-out/tag-out tag requires 14 different people to touch it.

The Systemic "Undo Button"

Finally, Estey highlights that in some situations, the best corrective action is to do absolutely nothing. Every job carries an expected baseline error rate, and when minor mistakes happen that do not lead to severe consequences, organizations shouldn't force formal investigations or reports. Instead, businesses need to build a systemic "undo button"—much like in a word processor—where workers can simply recognize a minor mistake, correct it, learn, and move on without treating it like a catastrophe.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 18 - Joanne Zaraliakos11 mai 202600:17:55

Get to know Joanne Zaraliakos:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanne-z-492b0530/

Email: joannezaras@yahoo.com

In her conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Joanne Zaraliakos shares highly practical, subtle strategies for implementing organizational change and making safety training memorable.

Here are the key lessons we learn from her approach:

"Sneaky" Change Management

Zaraliakos notes that people are generally nervous about change and often resist massive new safety initiatives or programs. To bypass this resistance, she employs a "sneaky" strategy: she looks at what the organization is already doing and makes slight tweaks so workers do not even realize a change is happening. Instead of launching a formal program, she simply sprinkles the desired concepts into existing routines, such as integrating a "stop and act" moment directly into a standard pre-start inspection. The ultimate reward of this subtle approach is hearing the workforce naturally mimic back the new safety language without ever realizing a new initiative was implemented.

From "Gotcha" Observations to Conversations

She actively moves away from traditional "safety observations," which she refers to as negative "gotcha moments". Instead, she transforms these interactions into "safety conversations." By approaching workers with open, caring questions—like simply asking, "How's your day going?"—she opens up a dialogue rather than immediately confronting them about a missing pair of safety glasses.

Experiential Learning and Making Training "Sticky"

Rather than rolling out a brand new, dry training program, Zaraliakos advocates for slipping experiential learning into existing events, such as turning a standard chemical safety (WHMIS/SDS) review during Safety Week into a fun, hands-on experience. She emphasizes that for training to be truly "sticky" (meaning it is actually retained by the worker), you must make the participants feel something. Because human memories are deeply tied to emotions, creating a feeling during a training exercise ensures the lesson will actually stick.

Please check out the amazing people doing amazing things on these podcasts we listen to and love:

Counter-Errorism - Episode 17 - Stephanie Moore29 avr. 202600:28:03

Get to know Stephanie Moore:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniemoore763/

Email: stephaniemoore763@yahoo.com

In her conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Stephanie Moore shares several practical strategies for improving organizational learning, emphasizing that performance improvement requires abandoning "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Instead, practitioners must tailor their approaches to the unique nuances and cultures of each specific group.

Here are the key insights and lessons from her approach:

Disarming Frustration and Building Trust Moore notes that frontline workers often deeply resent individuals coming down from the "glass palace" to fix their problems. To build immediate trust, she actively disarms their frustrations by shifting the conversation entirely away from corporate metrics, goals, or performance indicators. Instead, she focuses strictly on how to get them home safely. This genuine, human-centric concern bypasses defensive barriers, allowing passionate and frustrated workers to finally open up about the actual operational issues they face.

Humility and "Planting the Seed" Rather than acting as the ultimate authority, Moore approaches the frontline with profound humility, recognizing that while she may know the safety theory, the workers are the true experts of their own environment. She advocates for patiently "planting the seed" of new ideas, acknowledging that people rarely adopt changes immediately. By giving workers the space to let concepts marinate without forcing an agenda, they can organically discover how these performance tools fit into their daily work.

Translating Between Academia, Leadership, and the Frontline A major part of Moore's success lies in her ability to act as a vital translator across the different layers of an organization:

  • For the Frontline: Complex academic concepts often go over workers' heads because they are already mentally taxed by a demanding operational environment. To fix this, she translates theory into highly relatable, tangible exercises. For example, she teaches the academic concept of a "cognitive walkthrough" by having workers describe how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She notes that hands-on guidance and participation in workgroups is far more effective than pulling distracted workers away for web-based computer training.
  • For Leadership: Conversely, she must translate the frontline's operational struggles into the language that executives actually speak—money and efficiency. She bridges the communication gap by showing leaders how investing in these safety and performance improvements ultimately saves resources that can be effectively utilized elsewhere.

Empowerment Over Blind Compliance Finally, Moore operates on the foundational belief that people are inherently good and do not want to make mistakes. Rather than forcing workers to follow rules simply because of compliance or because "academia said so," organizations must empower employees by explaining the why behind their policies. Even if a worker thinks a policy is foolish initially, understanding its actual purpose allows them to apply critical thinking and make safer choices on the fly, rather than resorting to dangerous shortcuts because a rule didn't make sense to them.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 16 - Steve Smith19 avr. 202601:19:21

Get to know Steve:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/experiential

Email: steve@outdoorrisk.com

Books:

Safety Science for Outdoor & Experiential Education

Beneficial Risks

Website: https://www.outdoorrisk.com/

In his appearance on the Counter Errorism podcast, Steve Smith shared practical strategies for improving organizational learning, focusing heavily on how we view, report, and learn from risks. Here is a short synopsis of his key lessons:

  • Defining "Normal": To effectively identify and learn from incidents and near misses, organizations must first clearly define what "normal" looks like. What is considered a normal occurrence for an experienced team might be a serious near miss for a novice group.
  • Removing Barriers to Reporting: Smith successfully increased near-miss reporting tenfold by reframing them as "Threshold Zero" events to remove the fear of punishment. He also learned that reporting systems must be as simple and barrier-free as possible, asking just the basics (who, what happened, what did we learn) rather than forcing workers through cumbersome databases.
  • Categorizing Event Data: He advocates for tracking four specific categories of events: Incidents, Near Misses, Safety Success Stories (times when interventions or systems worked perfectly), and Learning from Everyday Work (system improvements drawn from repeated daily challenges).
  • Asking "Were we lucky or were we good?": Instead of waiting for a tragedy to trigger an investigation, teams should proactively debrief successful tasks by asking if they succeeded due to skill or mere luck. This helps uncover hidden hazards that might be lurking within everyday successes.
  • Risk Optimization over Risk Avoidance: Finally, Smith points out that our goal shouldn't always be the complete avoidance of risk. By shifting the focus to "risk optimization," organizations can embrace beneficial risks that help workers grow, adapt, and build capacity.

Note an error in conversation: James says "Yosemite" but meant "Mount Diablo" in California

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 15 - David Woods06 avr. 202601:24:55

Get to know David Woods:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwoods3/

email: woods.2@osu.edu

books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/David-D.-Woods/author/B001ITTKTY?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1774154901&sr=8-1&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 14 - Bob Edwards30 mars 202600:19:19

Get to know Bob:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-edwards-48577492/

Website: www.youtube.com/@bobedwards4253

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 13 - Becky Ray21 mars 202600:13:43

Get to know Becky Ray:

Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-ray-culturekick/

Website: https://www.culturekick.co.uk/         https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-ray-culturekick/

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human by Karolin Helbig & Minette Norman

The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success by Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 12 - Sam Goodman31 oct. 202501:19:49

Get to know Sam:

Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-goodman-03a95391/

Website: https://www.thehopnerd.com/meetsam or https://www.thehopnerd.com/podcast

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 11 - William Scarberry16 mai 202500:57:57

Get to know Bill:

Profile linkedin.com/in/william-scarberry-160a2256

Website: https://www.gevernova.com/ or nuclear.gepower.com/

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 10 - Georgina Poole21 avr. 202500:33:08

Are you interested in some ideas on getting workers comfortable enough to share their experiences without fear of judgement? In this episode we chat about easing people into Psychological Safety and the importance of FOOD in these situations. You have to create the time for curiosity.

Georgina's cool stuff:

Profile linkedin.com/in/georginapoole

Website georginapoole.com.au (Personal)

Email georginapoole@outlook.com

Podcast LEADING SAFELY with Georgina Poole

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 9 - Ron Gantt14 avr. 202500:39:03

"So, did we fix it?" Ron, Ken, and James chat about trust and how that effects decision making. Sharp end decisions WILL be made, as leadership, do you want to be part of those decisions and if so, how much?

"Flips the script away from human frailty to human expertise"

"People are routinely overcoming challenges, difficulties, pressures, dilemmas; they're dealing with that all of the time, and they do it so well, they hide it - that's Dave Woods' Law of Fluency."

"Eventually, expertise is going to break down under certain pressures..."

"...the pressures or dilemmas are going to overwhelm that expertise, so how can we support people to leverage that expertise in a more effective way in those situations?"

So, how come you don't know Ron Gantt, yet?

Education:

Ph.D. Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University

M.Eng Safety Engineering & Management, University of Alabama at Birmingham

contact him: rongantt@hotmail.com

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 8 - Charles Tetteh28 oct. 202400:35:25

Part 1: Making people feel heard makes them feel empowered. 

Charles relishes the opportunity to remind us all of the importance of helping people feel heard and seen. Meeting Charles through LinkedIn has been a wonderful experience, and thought it would be wonderful to give you an insight into one of our conversations.  Charles and I have spoken a few times and we talk about our motivation for change and we think the "Root Cause" is a Dissatisfaction Attitude.  Beauty, family, immigration,  fear, culture, humility, and what makes us curious - it will get deep. When you meet Charles, you will learn, it's okay to get personal and let go of judgment.

As a leadership tool - I want to spend a day with you and be curious - I will let go of judgment and bias and be an open book with a focus on building our relationship and I will meet you where you are (physically and emotionally). 

At the 10 minute mark, the book Charles discusses is "Random Noise" by Georgina Poole and Sidney Dekker.

Part 2: Leadership Response Matters

Power and influence are mostly controlled by the leadership team, so after an event how we move forward will greatly depend on the leadership team. There is a unique opportunity following an incident where a leader can improve the relationship and level of trust - not just for those involved, but for anyone who finds out. 

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 7 - Gareth Lock29 sept. 202400:28:40

All about Gareth Lock. PLEASE check him out on LinkedIn here

Regarding the tool that Gareth recommends in this episode, you can get a copy of the DEBrIEF guide from: https://www.humaninthesystem.co.uk/hits-debrief-oi-2024

IMPORTANT NOTE: Gareth is certainly well established in the Diving niche, but he is ALSO opening up his content and efforts into ANY organization wanting training or other consultative services.  He's an amazing instructor and content creator, and is someone you just know is bound for even more success. 

New addition to the CE podcast: Transitions between a few places

New problem: Used a new tool for recording called "Otter" and it seriously affected the audio quality in places - We had to make 145 separate edit points to get it at the level where it is now. We hope it's difficult for listeners to tell. Lesson learned: We will NOT be using Otter in the future.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 6 - Stephen Harvey19 août 202400:30:19

Fun fact - you may not know  Steve recently took up boxing as a positive and fun way to exercise and every inch of him was hurting when he sat down with us to record. Steve is another CHOLearning.org buddy Ken and I met this year and didn't nearly get to spend enough time with him, and this won't be the only time we chat with him with the microphone recording. He has a wonderful sense of humor and a genuine humility when it comes to talking about how nervous he was before getting on stage (at CHOL) and adding a whole segment on HOP and why humor is important. If you're an American (like me), that loves awesome accents and dialects, you're in for a treat!

It's fun to be the "weird safety guy"!

New KPI suggestion: How many Christmas parties do you get invited to?

From Ken: Has anybody asked if the workers even know what they did was a violation? This could be a different starting point.

Recipe for an awesome chat:

  1. Take one Scotsman and train him in HOP for ten years.
  2. Plant him in Australia assisting High Reliability Operations.
  3. Give him stand up comedy lessons.
  4. Invite him for a talk about anything!

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 5 - Brian Hughes15 août 202401:20:26

How can we speed up causal analysis when rapid turnaround is imperative?

  1. Consider your immediate access to evidence and make sure preservation of it is important to everyone involved.
  2. Have cause and effect job aids (scenario recipe cards) and logic diagram templates ready for different types of (somewhat common) issues. (The story of the fault)

For example,  a model for a story of "a damage event" or "a spill occurred" or "machine outage"

Details for a starting point to understand the fault path, recovery time, expertise, validation etc.

After Brian discusses the methodology, we continue to chat about causal analysis, including a little about developing effective Corrective Actions,  the problem statement, Extent of Cause and Extent of Condition, and a cool tool called CARB (Corrective Action Review Board).

Heads up that this is our longest episode so far, but I didn't want you to miss all of the extra RCA info we chatted about in case you're in that space and were curious to hear it. 

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 4 - Ken Madson and James Newman11 août 202400:43:57

Please email us to set up an interview, ask follow-up questions, or to provide feedback: James@HumanPerformanceTools.com

We hope you like the podcast and welcome any advice you have for us as we launch this journey.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 3 - Jon Schmidt01 juil. 202400:14:26

Jon, Ken and James speak candidly about the latest wave of awesomeness to hit a lot of places for the first time: Learning Teams

Using respectful inquiry by examining normal work. They can be used to improve anything: Jon uses an example of "pulling overhang".

Post incident review of normal work being done. Investigate differently. Not easy to do this, because of the culturally steeped traditional ways of performing incidents reviews. Learning Teams are the best way to learn from each other with people who share the same goal.

Great learning team starters:

  • "Where do you feel the next accident will happen and where will it be?"
  • "What went right"
  • "How did we recover..."
  • "How do the procedures and policies support our workers?"
  • "Where have we normalized risk?"

Hidden engagement benefit: People generally like to be asked questions about the things that they do, especially when you ask "How are you successful?"

Some other places use a "Pre-event" Learning Team style. You can get a better product or efficiency of a process. Constant learning at the right levels.

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 2 - Ben Goodheart26 juin 202400:17:44

Structured learning (aka Story learning - asking questions) is an amazing way to share with others different perspectives from the same event or point of time.

Simplified and not overly-complicated example of story learning:

  1. Get everyone who had anything to do with the "event" in the same room.
  2. Ask: Hey lead person that seems to have made a mistake of some kind. Can you walk us through the story from beginning to end, if you don't mind sharing?
  3. Sit back and be amazed.

An element of irony is in the background of this episode - Ken IS here (there is at least one random cough) with Ben and James and he is showing James how to STFU when Ben is dropping some serious wisdom. 

Ben Goodheart (Punk Rock Safety Podcast co-host, and Founder/Primary Consultant of Magpie Human Systems) shares a true GPS story of a pilot managing a challenge and how structured learning opened eyes to what actually happened.

[Because it came up, in case you are very curious and want to follow up on the "Stoics" and "Marcus Aurelius" click here (and you're kind of a nerd if you do this)... as a matter of fact, you're probably a nerd if you're actually reading this right now... however, no worries, nerds rule the world my friend!!!]

In the end of this episode, Ben reminds us that operationalizing curiosity is about learning how to ask questions better and certainty is the enemy of...

Ken and James have a couple dozen people they would like to thank, starting with their families and the CHOL Superstars they frequently meet with to challenge, support, and improve ourselves. These following people are the amazing CHOL Superstar crew that regularly show us love, support, and help out when needed. We HIGHLY recommend their talents, and you can consider yourself lucky to know any of them! Please find them on LinkedIn and connect with these game-changers:

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Counter-Errorism - Episode 1 - Tony Muschara24 juin 202400:10:22

Ken Madson and James Newman have been wanting to collaborate on a podcast for quite some time and what is here and what will follow are the results of that desire! They hope you like it. They certainly don't have it all figured out, yet, but  figured they would jump in before another month goes by, so here goes. 

The number one goal of this podcast is to be a beacon on the horizon and direct H&OP Practitioners to implement things that have worked. Does that seem too simple? We shall see!

This episode we grabbed some of Tony Muschara's precious time and he gave us some nuggets to consider around one of his favorite topics and ours, Critical Steps. If you manage them properly, it sure seems like a lot of other issues will take care of themselves, as well. 

Ken and James have a couple dozen people they would like to thank, starting with their families and the CHOL Superstars they frequently meet with to challenge, support, and improve ourselves. 

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