Health & Safety
Conversations
Health & Safety
Conversations
These types of health and safety conversations provide learning and insights for you and the recipient. They create shared knowledge, build respect, and grow influence. They are actively seeking to raise awareness and find solutions.
You are doing four things when having these conversations
- Questioning – to understand their perspective
- Listening – what are they saying? And what aren’t they saying?
- Reflecting – back what you have heard and what you have not heard
- Supporting and encouraging so that the person feels heard and involved.
The questions you ask are the most powerful tool in these conversations
- What do you think is working well?
- What is your greatest challenge?
- What is stopping us from being safe?
- What do you think is the right thing to do?
Ask HOW questions approx. 20% of the time. ‘How’ questions discover solutions, for example:
- How could you change what is happening?
- How do you see this working?
- How should we do this?
Ask WHERE, WHEN, and WHO questions approx. 10% of the time. These questions are about taking action/responsibility, for example:
- Where would you go for more information, support, and resources?
- When will you do this?
- Who do you need help from?
Avoid WHY questions, if possible, as ‘why’ can make people feel they must explain/justify their behaviour, making them defensive. They then stay stuck in
the challenge
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A Helpful Coaching Conversation Model
Step One
Establish Focus
We either notice the need to talk or get invited to talk about safety. At this stage, you are establishing the ‘focus’ of the situation. You ask lots of ‘what’ questions to get to the heart of the matter, being curious and encouraging.
Step two
Discover Solutions
At this stage we have established what the situation is and that we are interested in supporting them. Now the focus turns to exploring possible solutions. Again, we are using mostly “What” questions at this stage.
Step Three
Plan Action
Once solutions emerge, then it’s our role to help them plan the next steps. This part is all about the actions they will take. Questions at this stage start with “Who, What, Where, How”. The practical bits.
Step Four
Remove Barriers
It’s important to identify any potential barriers that may arise and solutions to those barriers. Otherwise, the plan may fail. For example:
- What might stop this from working?
- Who could be a barrier to this succeeding?
- What help do you need?
Step Five
Recap
At the end of the conversation, reflect on where you think the conversation went and what actions they have committed to acknowledge them. If needed, hold them to account for achieving them.
- Here is what I think we have discussed
- When do you want to meet again to review this?
Free Health & Safety Review
Review includes an overview of your current systems and suggestions for improvement.