Dolphyn Newsletter – May 2017

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A Focus on Mental Health

A Change in Direction for Dolphyn’s Rob Sams – Working More Closely With Lifeline

Some of you may know of my association with Lifeline Hunter Central Coast (LLHCC) where I have been working as a volunteer Director since November 2012. From next month, I will be working more closely with LLHCC after agreeing to a secondment as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). I am looking forward to continuing to support Lifeline in this more hands on leadership role. It co-insides with my commencement as a volunteer Face-to-Face Counselor with Lifeline. It is a privilege to work in an organisation alongside so many other ‘helping’ people who follow such an important cause.

There are energising times ahead for Lifeline in Australia and it is with much pride that I continue my association with an organisation that exists for people and in community with them; especially at a time when they may need it the most. Lifeline is a ‘helping’ organisation, something that resonates well with our approach at Dolphyn. You’ll learn more about this as you read through this Newsletter.

What Does This Mean for Dolphyn?

The work of Dolphyn will continue as usual through members of our ‘Community in Practice’ including:

  • Hayden Collins from Risk Intelligence in Victoria
  • James Ellis from Framework Group in NSW
  • Gab Carlton from Resilyence in the ACT
  • Roy Fitzgerald from Meta Dymensions in WA

We will also continue with our new series of ‘Humainsing Workers Compensation’ Workshops (see below) that are being co-facilitated with James Ellis. Our next Workshop is being held at the iconic Wayside Chapel in Sydney’s Kings Cross. You can secure your place at this Workshop by clicking HERE.

On a personal level, I will continue to work with a few select long term clients including Harris Farm Markets, along with some exciting new work we are doing with the team at Bluescope Stee. l will also be continuing my role in supporting the Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk.

It’s bound to be a busy and exciting twelve months ahead. The ‘adventure’ continues, thanks for being a part of it.

Rob Sams

You can read the Full Newsletter HERE. 

 

Celebrating Social Sensemaking

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A Special Celebratory 30% Discount

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the Social Sensemaking script being sent to the editor, we are offering visitors to the Dolphyn website a 30% discount on your copy of Social Sensemaking.

 

Take Advantage of the 30% Discount - Order NOW

What is the Book About?

After a lifetime of working in Risk and Human Resources, the Contributors to this book take time out to reflect on these fields. They ponder why there is such a fixation on control and power; this ultimately restricts people’s thinking, autonomy and hence motivation and innovation. It seems that the seduction to want to reign in and control people, is difficult to resist in many organisations.

This book, and the idea itself of Social Sensemaking©, was born from a search for a more humanistic approach and methodology to supporting people to deal with risk. That is because in order to make sense of risk, we need to commune and converse with others; it is a social activity.

The book is written in the form of a ‘reflective journal’; it is not a text or a report on formal research. Instead, it is a collaboration of stories and experiences in how we make sense of decisions and judgments; particularly about risk. It questions the traditional controlling and dictating methods that can be too easily adopted by the Risk and HR fields, and offers ideas that are more ‘humanising’.

We invite you to join in the ‘learning adventure’ shared in the book.

 

Safety Cries Wolf!

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Why is Safety so easily sucked into the practice of creating fear? It must be challenging to constantly talk of ‘care’ while at the same time acting in a way that induces anxiety. How does Safety manage this contradiction? How does it cope with the tension? Does Safety understand what this is doing to people?

There are many challenging questions, they become even more challenging when Safety Cries Wolf!

We’ve all heard the children’s parables and cautionary tales that feature the fictional Big Bad Wolf. These are stories where the ‘Wolf’ seeks out either; a young girl in red, three sweet and innocent little pigs or seven young kids. In these stories the Wolf has just one simple goal; to in some way or another manipulate their victim, and then terrorize them. In some cases, this even involves eating their Grandmother!

Safety so often portrays itself as a ‘Big Bad Wolf’; targeting the helpless, the fragile and vulnerable, all in the name of ‘care’ of course. The Safety Wolf hunts for those; who are not expecting them, who seem not capable of understanding the complexities of the Wolf’s warped view of the world, and who are just trying to do their job. The Safety Wolf also has little ability to understand, nor does it have consideration for, how people live in ‘the real world’. For them, it’s Safety at all costs, strangely even if that means harming people along the way. It can be challenging to understand this absurdity in Safety.

The Big Bad Wolf of Safety pretends life isn’t grey and messy, they have eyes that can see only black and white. The ‘choice’ we have, is to be either the Safety Wolf’s enemy (e.g. ‘you don’t care about safety’ or ‘you choose against safety’), or be obedient to what the Safety Wolf expects. Anything in between these two clear options is simply too challenging for the Safety Wolf to understand. This would require an appreciation and acceptance of helplessness, vulnerability and of faith. The Safety Wolf has no time for, nor understanding of, such complexities, diversions and inefficiencies in life. They instead believe in process, rule and method; things that are considerably easier to ‘administer’, ‘enforce’ and ‘dictate’.

There is a problem though….

Click HERE to read the full article and learn more about the problem.