@Jon's advice question
On a personal level, be bolder. I’m naturally introverted and it took me a long time to learn how to assert myself in meetings etc. Not sure that’s very strategy-related, though. On a professional level, be prepared to challenge convention. As safety people we all challenge the ‘I’ve always done it this way and never got hurt’ answer. But I think we need to turn that type of challenge on ourselves more.

One last question coming up before we let Craig go ...

@Jon re frequency rates
I have replaced it with a simple graph of incidents occurring broken down by potential harm. Those which were high potential get a detailed review in the monthly report. It’s a rolling graph so we can see if they’re increasing or not without putting a number to it, because I’m interested in direction of travel not absolute numbers. I’m also tracking effectiveness for critical risk controls. I changed our reporting template with a Board paper explaining the rationale and there was no pushback. I’m also looking now at ways to get better information coming through from the field and reporting on that – see the sensemaker tool from Cognitive Edge as an example.

What's your favourite thing about working in a safety related role?

I enjoy the ambiguity and grey areas. There is no right answer, despite the way many people have approached safety as a compliance issue. I guess this is a nice way to close the strategy discussion as well. There is no right strategy. Some are more successful than others, but often you won't know until later. It's messy, it's uncertain, it's complex. A lot of people struggle with that because they like certainty but I would be very bored, very fast in a certain world. Safety captures that complex stuff really well and that keeps me challenged.

Thanks everybody - great questions.

Craig - many thanks for making yourself available for this first live chat session. And for the quality of your answers. I hope your typing fingers aren't too sore. Please shout yourself a coffee break - you deserve it!

And thanks to everyone for chipping in questions. There were around 30 forum members online during this session, which is good to see.

I'll try to organise another one for next Friday - to be announced!