Episode 200: Storytelling

This episode explores storytelling as a powerful driver of safety, learning, and meaning at work. Drawing on academic research and real-world examples, the discussion explains how personal stories—especially near-misses and close calls—can overcome the “it won’t happen to me” mindset that undermines risk awareness.

Key themes include:

• The difference between storytelling for entertainment vs. storytelling for impact (poignancy)
• Why timing, setting, and psychological safety matter when sharing experiences
• How vulnerability and empathy make safety messages memorable and meaningful
• The leadership role in being present, listening, and inviting stories—without forcing them
• Why safety culture is built less through checklists and more through human connection

The episode ultimately reframes safety storytelling as a leadership skill: when done thoughtfully, stories don’t just inform—they change behavior, strengthen trust, and create lasting meaning.

Transcript

0:01

This week on the podcast, what we're talking about is storytelling. One of my favorite aspects of being human in the workplace is sharing our experiences, being able to learn from those experiences and more. This week on the podcast, you welcome to the leading and learning through safety podcast. Your host is Dr Mark French. Mark's passion is helping organizations motivate their teams. This podcast is focused on bringing out the best in leadership through creating strong values, learning opportunities, teamwork and safety, nothing is more important than protecting your people, safety creates an environment for empathy, innovation and empowerment. Together, we'll discover meaning and purpose through shaping our safety culture. Thanks for joining us this episode and now here is Dr Mark French. Hello and welcome to this episode of the leading and learning through safety podcast. I am so happy you joined me. Wow, we're already in February. Unbelievable how fast this year is already passing us by. I'm excited about this topic because storytelling in safety, storytelling in risk, is something I've always been very fascinated with, and it actually it was a big piece of my dissertation, looking at, how do we motivate? How do we create meaning when we're engaging people in safety learning, and a lot of the people I spoke with, a lot of the safety professionals, people who were doing safety, talked about those stories, talked about that sharing experience, talked about how to do it effectively. And again, there's not going to be any surprise here when I say there's no there's not one size fits all. There's not one way that you can tell a story or engage in a story or do a story and make it work for everyone. Every time, it's very specific, it's very fluid. It has to be the right moment, it has to be the right setting, it has to be the right messaging around it. And I want to dive a little deeper. And where did all this begin and not again, a surprise here I was reading through a journal. And again, this is the one of my favorites. This is the Journal of Applied Psychology from the American Psychological Association. And the article in the January edition was a really great article of stories from the danger zone, conversational storytelling in the meaning of work after a close brush with death. Now that's a powerful tie. It's a long title, but it's a very powerful title. When we look at what that means and what they did. It was a very interesting study of talking to those. Now they focus mainly on aviators, because there's more, I think, near miss data readily available in that and they were able to get access to people of that sort. And so they interviewed aviators who had had some near misses, ranging in different severities and ranging in frequency and just looking at the risk. They interviewed them and went through a process of understanding that storytelling process, and a lot of it focused on, when do you tell that story? Is it sitting around a bar with other aviators. Is it sharing it in a training message? Is it sharing it whenever? When did you feel like it was time to share that message? And so, how do we use storytelling as a method of increasing people's awareness of increasing safety and helping people to, I guess, see the real world impact. Because one of the greatest obstacles that we overcome in safety, and that we have to focus on overcoming, is the idea that it can't happen to me. And sure, when you think about the. I'll use something and I use this example before I use something as mundane as speeding. If you know that you can get away with speeding, you're and you feel comfortable to you're going to do it like I I get it. I want to get to point A to point B, as fast and as safe as I can. And you know, 55 seems a little slow sometimes, so go for it. Go fast, but you think that there's no consequences that I'll be able to control my stop. Nothing will jump in front of me. There's no cop that's going to find me and pull me over until it does happen, and it does, speeding is a major impact to severe crashes, that that lack of time to be able to react, and then the force of not being able to slow down fast enough to have that impact makes a big difference. And so, because it's never happened, and we get very comfortable with the risk, until we meet someone who was like, Yeah, I was I was doing a little fast, and this happened, and I didn't see it in time, and it was scary. And then we learned from that. And so in this article, they really look at two types of Converse, what they called conversational storytelling. And there's two ways that these stories come out. They come out in a way that's either for entertainment, like I'm telling the story because other people are wanting to hear about it. Now I'm giving an entertaining story, and I want people to hear my story and I want to share it. The other is for poignancy, basically to get a point across I want you to hear the importance of my message. So there's two reasons that we would share a story in this case. So their research found that you could categorize this and kind of some big buckets. I'm either here to help educate, I'm here to help entertain, and both of those have a lot of similar similarities that we have to look at and understand. Because I'm sure we know someone out there in the work that has had the near miss, that has had something happen where they could share that information, they could share that that message, if they feel comfortable. And part of it is we can use this, but we have to make sure they're comfortable with it. We can't just put someone on the spot. Some people, it takes more time to become comfortable in maybe delivering that message. For some they're happy doing it immediately. They want to share. They've got to share. It's something that they just need to get off of their chest and do so. In these cases, we have to be careful of who we're talking to and who we're asking. So I love one of the stories that stuck to me in my dissertation when I wrote it was, I was interviewing someone, and they said, when you really get down to how do you make my goal was, how do you make safety training meaningful? And the the safety person said, you know, you can go out on the plant floor and you can point at them and go, put on your safety glasses. Point on your safety glasses, put on your safety glasses. He goes, the moment you tell them a story and show them a picture of someone who lost an eye or an accident with an eye being gouged out, they're suddenly wearing all their safety glasses. It made it meaningful. It made it made it very, very powerful. And I remember working in automotive, and there was a gentleman who you could tell one eye was not functional, and he he was, I never had really asked, because it wasn't really my business to ask. But I was sitting in the supervisor office one day, and we were talking about, like, how, like, just PPE, is everything fitting? Is everything we just basically, we were just having a conversation to kind of avoid work, I'll be honest. But we were having a great conversation, and he brought up that as a kid, he had done something, and that's how he had lost his eye. And he said, I'm wearing my safety glasses everywhere. I've only got one eye left, and I got to protect it. And I asked at that point, would you mind sharing that sometime with your team, during your stand up, bring it up you if you don't mind, if you don't mind sharing. And he did, and it was a very powerful moment for his team that made it very real that it can happen quick. You're not going to be able to prevent it if it comes at you and you're not wearing the right item, bad things can happen. And suddenly it was like he was a really great team leader, too, very personable, very passionate, very engaged. And it made a message to them to see him being vulnerable, to be able to talk about that, to be able to share that message. And it made a meaningful impact to them, just like storytelling can. And that's really ultimately what. It is, is a very short version of storytelling. Let's dive a little deeper into how we can make this work for us on the second half of the leading and learning through safety podcast, tsda Consulting, learn you lead others. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator is an amazing tool. Problem is that it can be easily misinterpreted. Dr Mark French is MBTI certified and ready to help you discover your inner strengths. The MBTI assessment can help with team building, stress management, communication, conflict management and so much more, individual and group sessions are available to help you discover what makes you great. For more information, visit us on the web at TS da consulting.com you are listening to the leading and learning through safety podcast with Dr Mark French, and welcome back to the second half of the leading and learning through safety podcast. So we're talking about an article about storytelling and meaning when it's when it's actually a near death or significantly impacting event. And there's two types of these stories, and it's they either fulfilling their need to tell the story through being poignant, or they're doing it to entertain. And what's interesting is when they look at how it begins, how you begin these stories, it begins with using a little bit of humor, like you see it commonly happening where there's some humor involved in that humor can be used to diffuse the situation and make it a little bit less Wow, or it can be used to engage. And then there's the idea of, do you gloss over it, or do you embellish? And this is where I think we have trouble in the safety world, especially, is of these stories, because you can go to some places and you you talk to people and like, I never want that to happen. I had this happen to me. I convinced everyone that it should never happen to them. And I've had just the opposite in this is common in the workplace where there's that the red badge of honor, or a badge of honor to say that, you know, I got my first shock today. I burned myself for the first time, even to as bad as like, you know, you really haven't worked with that type of equipment till you've lost the tip of your finger. Wow. And these are all storytelling. These are all creating that moment. It can be the exact same thing. I received a shock. And that story can go two different ways. It can go that, oh yeah, I'm tough, I'm awesome. I handled it. That's what you do in this work, and that's how let me tell you about the story about the first time I did that and it woke me up and made me alive. And then there's the other one that said, yeah, it happened once to me. I'll never let that happen again. So help me, and I want you to never let that happen to you, because it can be so dangerous and it can hurt you so bad. So how do we use that story, and how do we use it effectively? If we're asking someone to share it, are we able to get to the points without making it too long. And here's where I have an issue. And I know here I am talking on a podcast and talking and rambling and going, but I when it comes to answering people's questions in my natural state, I am a very quick answer person. I want to get to the point. I want to give it to you exactly it is. I want to give you the simplest answer available. So sometimes when I'm telling a story, I'm like, I bet I'm boring people, and I just skip gloss and go, but maybe they're missing something important. Maybe I should have told more. And then there's times where, yeah, we embellish it. There's a lot. There's stories that, you know, it just gets better every time I tell it. How do we help mitigate and bring that to the middle and use it effectively with that emotion and making it meaningful? And here's the key, empathy and emotion bring it to meaningfulness. We're able to hear someone with that is doing the same thing that they're doing that item, and we're empathizing, because it could happen to us, and we hear it, and there's an emotion in it. There's a piece of emotion that is tying us to that event, and we see it, and we can feel it, and we're involved in it with that person as they're telling that story. And it creates a deep meaning that can change the way we impact safety. So let's look at a practical term. What does this really mean? Thing in the safety world, it means one we've got to be having conversations with our team. And I can't over emphasize that enough that it's the everyday interactions that matter the most. And this is for leadership. This isn't a safety thing. This is that every day, getting out, seeing your team and just being around them without having to, I mean, correct the things that need to be Don't, don't let things slide, but just being present in hearing those stories and getting to know them, to where they open up and share so that you can engage and go, Wow, that's a powerful story. Would you mind telling it again to someone else? Would you mind leading a safety talk or just knowing your people like they've had experiences in their life. They're having experiences outside of work every day. In some people are much better than others about being able to make that divide between work and home, and some want it very, very clean, and we have to respect that some people want to keep home, at home, work at work, neither shall they ever meet. I'm here to do a job. I'm here to go home. That's it. And then there's more, more likely there's a blend there somewhere. There's a little bit of home that always comes to work, and there's a little bit of work that always goes home and every day it can do a little different. But if we're present, if we're out there as leaders, engaging, we learn about what is meaningful and what is motivational to our team, you you can't hear the story if you're not there, you can't learn about your team if you're not there. And these are our important moments. These are very, very important moments in how we go about creating and engaging our teams every single day. And I think couple of weeks ago, or a couple podcasts ago, we talked about the gemba, going out and being at the place, go to the place, go out there and do those things, and their conclusion. And I want to read this because I think it's a very powerful it's a practical implication that they perceive as part of their work, and what they're saying is, how many managers and colleagues are unsure of how to regard an employee who has returned from a close brush with death in the course of their work, is the employee damaged goods who needs to be handled with kid gloves? Should they be treated as if they were before, and what they're looking at is that we have to engage with that person. And that struck me as very powerful as we have to after someone has even a minor near miss. For some people can be a major event to them. We have to be ready to engage to understand. How do we help? Do you need some time, or are you ready to jump right back in the only way that we're able to do that is if we're present and more engaging, and we use that to help motivate and create meaning for others. Thanks for joining me on this episode of the leading and learning through safety podcast. I've really enjoyed this. This is storytelling and meaningfulness and safety is more powerful than I ever imagined when I first started. It was all about checklist. Now I understand it's about people, and we'll continue to talk about that until next time we chat, stay safe. You. I thank you for listening to the leading and learning through safety podcast. More content is available online at www dot tsda consulting.com all the opinions expressed on the podcast are solely attributed to the individual and not affiliated with any business entity. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes. It is not a substitute for proper policy, appropriate training or legal advice. You is this has been. On the leading and learning through safety podcast.