September 1, 2022 • 14 mins
Expanding our Vocabulary – the Second Story
Being curious and digging beyond our first impressions can yield a much richer second story.
Todd Conklin’s Pre-Accident Investigation book - https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Accident-Investigations-Todd-Conklin/dp/1409447820
Nippin Anand’s article on the Costa Concordia - https://novellus.solutions/insights/psychological-safety-at-work/
About Nippin Anand - https://nippinanand.com/about/
Nippin’s Company - https://novellus.solutions/
Beyond the Minimum episode on the Local Rationality Principle https://beyondtheminimum.podbean.com/e/new-vocabulary-the-local-rationality-principle/
Connect with Tanya Hewitt on LinkedIn
Buy her a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tanyah
Credits:
Adam Johns – voiceover
Beverley McKiver – composer and player of the music Tell Me About Love
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Johns (00:03):
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
Hi, everyone. I am not really a pop culture person, but I did hear a story earlier this year in the beginning of the summer of 2022. One of the pop stars, her name is Lizzo, recorded a song that she released for the summer. So this was at the beginning of the summer, and I heard that there was a bit of a backlash on Twitter that she became aware of, of people finding a lyric in her song offensive. A lot of people might have said, "You know what, I recorded this song. Come on, don't be so sensitive. A lot of people enjoy it, just suck it up. This is the way it was recorded. And we're just going to go with it." Lizzo, though, retracted the song, recorded it again, with a different lyric, instead of the lyric that people found offensive. That is really commendable. A lot of people would not have had the humility to retract something that they had put out there with such fanfare, have it attacked, and then realize you know what? They're right. I shouldn't have used that offensive lyric. So that is something to keep in mind that sometimes even though we have invested a lot into a situation, it might not be that we are in the right. It could be
(02:14):
that something that a lot of people find offensive is offensive. And maybe we should be the ones changing our position.
Adam Johns (02:28):
Today's episode is expanding our vocabulary.
Tanya Hewitt (02:34):
Hi, everyone, today's expanded vocabulary is going to be the second story. Now, upon hearing second story, one may think this is a quaint little episode about fairy tales. But actually, this is talking about the real world. In order to define the second story, it's best to define what a first story is. I suspect I was in about grade three, when I learned about the five W's and the one H the questions who, what, where, when, why and how that you need to answer in order to understand an issue or cover a story. So a lot of the news media live in the first story realm, it is the realm where assumptions go unquestioned, biases are not called out, and clear cause and effect associations are made. For example, car accidents are caused by bad drivers. Workplace accidents are caused by bad workers. So this type of narrative plays out constantly in society.
(03:52):
I'd like to tell you a story from Todd Conklin's second book, the Pre Accident Investigations from chapter one. I willput the link to his book in the show notes. The management summary: a worker drilled into the top of a five gallon liquid propane tank with a three quarter inch drill, causing a potentially fatal near miss of an explosion in a pressurized gas storage area. The management's action: to discipline the employee in question, send all shop personnel to additional training, rewrite shop procedures to include a section prohibiting drilling into a pressurized five gallon propane tank with hand tools. This, by the way, is a typical response that we see in the event of an accident these, this understanding is rather common out there and the actions that are taken are also quite common. So I'd like to give you the backstory to this. A company had a freon five gallon tank collection system. Basically it was a large cage where these tanks were stored. When this cage got full, someone was assigned to go through the tanks to sort, depressurize, flatten, put on a palette for metal recycling outside the facility. It's rather low risk work, and it's
(05:24):
not assigned to any one person. There were no procedures to follow. It was basically just a quick demonstration and offyou go in order to clear out the tank so that it can be filled up the cage sorry in order so that it can be filled up again.
However, the worker in question, depressurized an explosive propane tank, not an unexplosive freon tank. We often willjump to "What on earth was he thinking?" So we get to the second story, when we learn that propane tanks were used at the facility for barbecues, just like in a whole lot of backyards, but there was no provision to recycle them. In fact, in talking to the pressure shop foreman, he revealed that having a propane tank at that facility was basically inheriting an anchor for life, there was no way to get rid of them. Even if they were empty, there was just no provision for it; it wasn't thought of. However, there was a large cage with similar looking tanks on site, quoting from Todd Conklin "After all, in the mind of a worker" where, and here I'm adlibbing where you're probably told to make sure that you clean up your workspaces, that you put metals where they belong, and you don't leave things lying around. "After all, in the mind of a worker, a place to recycle a pressurized gas tank is a place to recycle a pressurized gas tank." So, propane tanks are made to be refilled. Freon tanks, on the other hand are made to be recycled. These are not
(07:11):
identical. But they are both five gallon and are not entirely dissimilar. Quoting again from the book,"If your job isto clean all the white painted tanks out of the storage area, and depressurize, flatten and recycle all of these tanks, you might find yourself in a position where in order to accomplish the boss's task, you must adapt to any and all tanks that appear in the empty freon storage area. More amazingly, the fact that this worker drilled a hole with a three quarter inch drill through the side of a propane tank is quite remarkable. It is hard to drill a hole in a pressure vessel like a five gallon propane tank, it takes time and discipline, it is not an easy task to accomplish. So suddenly, an event that was thought to have lots to do with a lack of experience, skill and intellect on the part of this worker. "How can that guy be so stupid? Geez, nobody drills a hole in a propane tank", was now a story about the procedure, ability and policy for the disposal of a five gallon propane tank at this company. It is easy to say that the worker made an error in judgment in trying to recycle the wrong kind of tank. And in fact, the worker did make an error in
(08:41):
judgment of the situation. But the problem was not the workers ability to know the difference between a propane tank anda freon tank. The problem is much more systemic and more compelling. The problem was a unique mixture of some pretty normal conditions at this facility, we can list many of them with little effort, a dual location of many small tanks in the same area. The inability to refill tanks at this facility, the inability to get rid of old and empty tanks, a new employee, the absence of 100% supervision, production pressures, performance management, HR and the list can go on and on and on." This is getting at the second story.
(09:29):
Another example is the Costa Concordia. The Costa Concordia was a cruise ship that crashed on January 13 2012. I'll putthe Wikipedia link in the show notes and the ship's captain Francesco Schettino was found guilty of manslaughter and abandoning the ship according to Wikipedia. Again, according to Wikipedia, there has been a plethora of cultural spin offs from this event, if you're not familiar with it, it might be good to maybe look at a couple of those. One of them is entitled corrupt crimes like there's a whole narrative out there on just how guilty this captain, this master mariner is. Nippin Anand is a master mariner or was a master mariner, and he has turned to academia, and now runs a consulting business. And he was one of the few people that I know of that was interested in the second story on the Costa Concordia. He interviewed the captain, who was in jail at the time, I believe. And he has constructed a course on the Costa Concordia, that he has been delivering for about five years now, giving attendees a different perspective of what happened, and how it happened than the first story ever allows. This is strongly related to the local rationality
(11:03):
principle that I had released on April 7 2022. If you haven't listened to that episode, I encourage you to do so becausethat gives you more of an understanding of where the second story comes from. I will put a lot of Nippin's material in the show notes as well.
(11:24):
Overall, the first story is only the beginning. It gives some hints about what you should be interested in. Lazyexplanations is what Nippin calls them, not being curious enough to get past simple explanation that conform to our biases. The second story is getting perspectives and understandings that can enrich your comprehension of a situation. The second story, we should always have this in the back of our minds, whenever we are presented with a situation and try to peel off the layers of the first story and come up with a deeper, richer narrative that enriches our understanding, and can get us to a much better place.
(12:22):
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener, having reallyappreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
Adam Johns (13:34):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it was diametrically opposed to us at any rate, we trust it made you think the more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
Hi, everyone. I am not really a pop culture person, but I did hear a story earlier this year in the beginning of the summer of 2022. One of the pop stars, her name is Lizzo, recorded a song that she released for the summer. So this was at the beginning of the summer, and I heard that there was a bit of a backlash on Twitter that she became aware of, of people finding a lyric in her song offensive. A lot of people might have said, "You know what, I recorded this song. Come on, don't be so sensitive. A lot of people enjoy it, just suck it up. This is the way it was recorded. And we're just going to go with it." Lizzo, though, retracted the song, recorded it again, with a different lyric, instead of the lyric that people found offensive. That is really commendable. A lot of people would not have had the humility to retract something that they had put out there with such fanfare, have it attacked, and then realize you know what? They're right. I shouldn't have used that offensive lyric. So that is something to keep in mind that sometimes even though we have invested a lot into a situation, it might not be that we are in the right. It could be
(02:14):
that something that a lot of people find offensive is offensive. And maybe we should be the ones changing our position.
Adam Johns (02:28):
Today's episode is expanding our vocabulary.
Tanya Hewitt (02:34):
Hi, everyone, today's expanded vocabulary is going to be the second story. Now, upon hearing second story, one may think this is a quaint little episode about fairy tales. But actually, this is talking about the real world. In order to define the second story, it's best to define what a first story is. I suspect I was in about grade three, when I learned about the five W's and the one H the questions who, what, where, when, why and how that you need to answer in order to understand an issue or cover a story. So a lot of the news media live in the first story realm, it is the realm where assumptions go unquestioned, biases are not called out, and clear cause and effect associations are made. For example, car accidents are caused by bad drivers. Workplace accidents are caused by bad workers. So this type of narrative plays out constantly in society.
(03:52):
I'd like to tell you a story from Todd Conklin's second book, the Pre Accident Investigations from chapter one. I willput the link to his book in the show notes. The management summary: a worker drilled into the top of a five gallon liquid propane tank with a three quarter inch drill, causing a potentially fatal near miss of an explosion in a pressurized gas storage area. The management's action: to discipline the employee in question, send all shop personnel to additional training, rewrite shop procedures to include a section prohibiting drilling into a pressurized five gallon propane tank with hand tools. This, by the way, is a typical response that we see in the event of an accident these, this understanding is rather common out there and the actions that are taken are also quite common. So I'd like to give you the backstory to this. A company had a freon five gallon tank collection system. Basically it was a large cage where these tanks were stored. When this cage got full, someone was assigned to go through the tanks to sort, depressurize, flatten, put on a palette for metal recycling outside the facility. It's rather low risk work, and it's
(05:24):
not assigned to any one person. There were no procedures to follow. It was basically just a quick demonstration and offyou go in order to clear out the tank so that it can be filled up the cage sorry in order so that it can be filled up again.
However, the worker in question, depressurized an explosive propane tank, not an unexplosive freon tank. We often willjump to "What on earth was he thinking?" So we get to the second story, when we learn that propane tanks were used at the facility for barbecues, just like in a whole lot of backyards, but there was no provision to recycle them. In fact, in talking to the pressure shop foreman, he revealed that having a propane tank at that facility was basically inheriting an anchor for life, there was no way to get rid of them. Even if they were empty, there was just no provision for it; it wasn't thought of. However, there was a large cage with similar looking tanks on site, quoting from Todd Conklin "After all, in the mind of a worker" where, and here I'm adlibbing where you're probably told to make sure that you clean up your workspaces, that you put metals where they belong, and you don't leave things lying around. "After all, in the mind of a worker, a place to recycle a pressurized gas tank is a place to recycle a pressurized gas tank." So, propane tanks are made to be refilled. Freon tanks, on the other hand are made to be recycled. These are not
(07:11):
identical. But they are both five gallon and are not entirely dissimilar. Quoting again from the book,"If your job isto clean all the white painted tanks out of the storage area, and depressurize, flatten and recycle all of these tanks, you might find yourself in a position where in order to accomplish the boss's task, you must adapt to any and all tanks that appear in the empty freon storage area. More amazingly, the fact that this worker drilled a hole with a three quarter inch drill through the side of a propane tank is quite remarkable. It is hard to drill a hole in a pressure vessel like a five gallon propane tank, it takes time and discipline, it is not an easy task to accomplish. So suddenly, an event that was thought to have lots to do with a lack of experience, skill and intellect on the part of this worker. "How can that guy be so stupid? Geez, nobody drills a hole in a propane tank", was now a story about the procedure, ability and policy for the disposal of a five gallon propane tank at this company. It is easy to say that the worker made an error in judgment in trying to recycle the wrong kind of tank. And in fact, the worker did make an error in
(08:41):
judgment of the situation. But the problem was not the workers ability to know the difference between a propane tank anda freon tank. The problem is much more systemic and more compelling. The problem was a unique mixture of some pretty normal conditions at this facility, we can list many of them with little effort, a dual location of many small tanks in the same area. The inability to refill tanks at this facility, the inability to get rid of old and empty tanks, a new employee, the absence of 100% supervision, production pressures, performance management, HR and the list can go on and on and on." This is getting at the second story.
(09:29):
Another example is the Costa Concordia. The Costa Concordia was a cruise ship that crashed on January 13 2012. I'll putthe Wikipedia link in the show notes and the ship's captain Francesco Schettino was found guilty of manslaughter and abandoning the ship according to Wikipedia. Again, according to Wikipedia, there has been a plethora of cultural spin offs from this event, if you're not familiar with it, it might be good to maybe look at a couple of those. One of them is entitled corrupt crimes like there's a whole narrative out there on just how guilty this captain, this master mariner is. Nippin Anand is a master mariner or was a master mariner, and he has turned to academia, and now runs a consulting business. And he was one of the few people that I know of that was interested in the second story on the Costa Concordia. He interviewed the captain, who was in jail at the time, I believe. And he has constructed a course on the Costa Concordia, that he has been delivering for about five years now, giving attendees a different perspective of what happened, and how it happened than the first story ever allows. This is strongly related to the local rationality
(11:03):
principle that I had released on April 7 2022. If you haven't listened to that episode, I encourage you to do so becausethat gives you more of an understanding of where the second story comes from. I will put a lot of Nippin's material in the show notes as well.
(11:24):
Overall, the first story is only the beginning. It gives some hints about what you should be interested in. Lazyexplanations is what Nippin calls them, not being curious enough to get past simple explanation that conform to our biases. The second story is getting perspectives and understandings that can enrich your comprehension of a situation. The second story, we should always have this in the back of our minds, whenever we are presented with a situation and try to peel off the layers of the first story and come up with a deeper, richer narrative that enriches our understanding, and can get us to a much better place.
(12:22):
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener, having reallyappreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
Adam Johns (13:34):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it was diametrically opposed to us at any rate, we trust it made you think the more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
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