Yesterday I had the pleasure of ‘attending’ the SafetyCulture Summit 2020. This was a virtual event for leaders and innovators in operations, safety, risk, and quality. It had an impressive line-up of speakers, each of them with unique perspectives and all of them masters of adaptation.
This is something that has become even more important this year. We have all had to adjust our ways of working due to the unprecedented challenges that COVID-19 continues to present. In the words of David Brown, the event MC “Adversity breeds innovation and your path to growth lies in the actions you take today”.
The first speaker who stood out to me was Erin Brockovich, Consumer Advocate & Environmental Activist. She continues to work hard to expose injustice and lend her voice to those who cannot. Erin talked about how, when working in teams “there is never an I, but always a we”, something we at MRC like to endorse. Other values she talked about, and that I would also like to think we share were: truth, honour, integrity and resilience. But the best of all was what she described as “stick-to-it-iveness”!
The next was Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, the Pilot who became known for what has been called the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’. He is now a safety expert, speaker, and author, and talked about his life’s dedication to the pursuit of safety. This has a particular interest for me, due to the parallels in safety between aviation and healthcare. They are well known to be both complex industries and share many similarities: the cockpit and the operating theatre, the captain and the surgeon. He said how he felt ‘never events’ should be known as “unthinkable not unavoidable”. A subtle, but powerful difference.
I would like to thank all the speakers and of course the organisers for a very thought-provoking afternoon/evening (it was a Global event running across four different time zones).
And, finally another snippet from Captain “Sully” that can be applied to many different situations “Blame is the enemy of safety. It misses the opportunity to learn”.
Sally
