S13Ep6 Story Series: Laptop Gone in 3, 2, 1...

Our Stories Series continues with Performance Errors. Sometimes the mistakes cost us time and money but in this case, it could cost you much more.

Danny Smith: Host 
Shayne Arnaud: Guest

Chapters

• 0:08 Safe Start Story Series With Shane
• 11:50 Enhancing Responsibility and Self-Discovery

Transcript

00:08

Welcome back to SafeTalk with SafeStart. I'm Danny Smith, and today we continue our SafeStart story series, and today's guest is Shayne Arnaud, one of our consultants, who's been with us for wow, I guess since the beginning. Right, Shayne? First of all, welcome to the podcast. You've been around a long time. 

 Shayne Arnaud Guest
00:24

Thank you, welcome, Danny. 

Danny Smith Host

00:25

Yeah, that just means that we're getting old, right? I think that's what that amounts to. So some background from Shane for everyone. He has the distinction of being I guess you're really kind of the first SafeStart consultant out there in the field, right? 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

00:40

Yeah, Alec Dewdney , who's now retired, was there first and yeah, it was a small company, obviously. And so I think safety professionals were too busy to be entertaining the notion of going on with Larry, but needed some help. I was available at the time. So, Shayne, in case you can't tell from the pipes there. 

Danny Smith Host

00:57

As we say, he has a broadcasting background as well. So I did a little bit of time on radio, which I think he did much, much more time there than I did. You also have some time with talk radio and television as well. He's also had, in addition to the successful careers in broadcasting, he has been a teacher, also in the financial sector, worked with corporate bonds and leases in the hotel industry and kind of rounding things out on Ulrich. So you kind of covered a little bit of everything. Not only that, but he's also fluent in French, Spanish and, well, his English isn't half bad either. 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

01:41

So better than none. Sorry, I was just going to jump in here on two things. One slightest corrections. I don't know if I've ever painted myself as being fluent but far from it in any of the three languages. But yeah, I'm functional in French, and less Spanish these days. But you know, when you were just talking through the resume there before we get going, I used to. Maybe it was a little too glib and I've taken it out now but I used to put in after my name the letters L-L-H-C-H-J and I was with a leadership group once and they were all masters and PhDs and, and you know, chemical engineers, and so I thought I should not have this in here, because they have serious letters after their name and they may think that this is an affront. But the you know, when I showed the various things that I'd done that you just mentioned, some people would say what's the L-L-H-C-H-J ? And I said, well, that stands for looks like you can't hold a job. 

Danny Smith Host

02:32

I know some people like that that certainly need that acronym, but again, we've had some experience in a lot of different areas. So for those of us that are joining us for the first time today in our story series, let's talk a little bit about how this works. We're going to have Shayne share a story and then we'll pause the podcast for just a moment and encourage you to do the same, and after you've had a discussion with your group, Shayne and I will come back and give you a bit of our take on things like the states of the errors, critical error reduction techniques and perhaps how this could be worse as well. All right, Shayne, let's get rolling. 

03:11

If you don't mind just take the story and kind of share the story and then we'll come back and talk about it, okay? 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

03:15

Okay, thanks, Danny. So this is we're going back about nine months ago, and this is the lead actor in this story in terms of bad things happening to. It is my Mac Air. Now, I'm not a Mac snob, but I converted it over to that platform many years ago, so this is a story from home. 

03:35

I was working at the round table in the library that also functions as a dining room. My wife was sitting across from me. She had a big glass of water on the table and she had a funny item that came across on the internet Facebook. I don't know where it came from, but she laughed and I was busy trying to do something and she wanted to show it to me on the phone. So she moved, leading with the outstretched hand, all the while looking at the phone screen Contact Okay, now, not the movie Contact, but just her hand with the water glass, 16 imperial ounces, coming my way. It was just like this mini tidal wave on the table. Turns out, those spaces at the back of the laptop aren't just cooling vents, okay, they are a direct path to all that is sensitive and necessary on this model of laptop, namely the, the logic board or motherboard. So this is where a good shot of water gushed inside the laptop and as the water spilled across the table, anyway, it was just panic and pandemonium. Right Now we're talking within about a quarter or a half of a second. So I quickly and please, Danny, stop me or come back at me, if you will if none of this is really clear, it's clear in my mind, but what passes for a mind here is this, anyway, so I quickly whisked it away to safety, right, and instinctively I went and plugged it in elsewhere. Okay, now stop. 

04:56

A lot of people who know electricity or know spills or something, they say why did you do that? Well, you know, this is where some people would even dare to say what an idiot I was. Okay, we don't use that language, but anyway, this laptop was old and it had a diminished battery that only lasted 1.5 hours tops, and so I plugged it in 100% of the time. So as soon as water spilled into it and I ran away from the table, went to another place. That habit, if you will, is there right to plug the thing in right away. 

05:28

Anyway, this is a case where a good habit elicited a bad programmed response because, turns out, I should have maybe thought to have that special little screwdriver available somewhere in the house that I could find it Open the machine left it upside down to dry, et etcetera anything except what I did. So for about 15 seconds after I plugged it back in and hit the start button, the screen showed the computer was starting up, coming to life right, sort of like a photo finish in a horse race, but then like a badly beaten boxer, trying vainly to get up at six, seven, eight, nine, and it died. It died. 

Danny Smith Host

06:04

Wow, yeah, I guess, as Larry often says, sometimes the state-to-air pattern costs you time. Sometimes it costs you money, right? Sometimes it's not just an injury, it can be something beyond that. So certainly a performance-related error, I guess, is what we could classify this as. Probably could have been worse there. We'll talk about that in just a moment. 

06:26

But first, we want to give our listeners a moment to think about this. So if you would pause the recording for just a few moments and discuss among yourselves what you're looking for here are really the state to error patterns, and in this case, it's actually two people involved here. So think about the states and the errors, but also have a discussion about those critical error reduction techniques. And although Shayne didn't talk a lot about how it could be worse there, I'd like for you to think about how that could be worse, and we'll come back in just a moment to talk about that. 

Danny Smith Host

 Okay, Shayne, we're back, so let's talk about this first of all. In terms of the states and errors, what did you see there, both with yourself and with your wife?

 Shayne Arnaud Guest

07:08

Okay, and I got to lead with a mea culpa here. I'm sure you know this is coming, you know, from those of us who do SafeStart for a living. You'd say my goodness, how could you forget to mention how it could have been worse? Well, never an assumption to be made. I get all that, but in this case, as I did mention, it died. Okay, I was never able to get this computer started, so in my world, this was as bad as it could get. You know, I wasn't about to get electrocuted at the table or anything but anyway.

Danny Smith Host

07:36

So my data is tough though. Right, and that's a real issue. Right and did. Did you, were you able to record it? Cover everything, or did you lose a bit there? 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

07:44

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, know, for the most part. I dare say I surprised myself that most was recorded on a recent backup, but not everything. Uh, you know, I don't know too many people that are backing everything up every 15 minutes, unless they're a writer, you know, like a novelist or a musician or something anyway. So, uh, let me, yeah, let me address this from my take and you tell me how things differ. Uh, so my wife had some states and errors in play that led to this happening, right, so she was in a rush to show me this item because she found it so interesting. She was laughing. 

08:15

So a little bit of complacency in there, apart from the rushing leading to eyes and mind not on task, leading, of course, to the spilled water, the hand hitting the glass and, unfortunately, the laptop was in the line of fire. However, as I explained to her, this being the home, we don't adhere to the no drinks at the desk rule. That is in the strictest work environments, right? So heck, I even bring my own coffee or glass of water to the table and I do try to be aware of when I set it down and etc. etc. But, yeah, some complacency on my part as well. There was nothing stopping me from asking her to not have the glass of water there while I had my computer on, uh, or at least reminding her of the potential. 

08:53

I didn't either. Right, so the laptop. It did not owe me a thing. I got 10 years out of it. Most of what was on it was saved elsewhere, as I mentioned, but it was um, it was a usable machine despite its age. You know it owed I think I owed it a better ending than what it got. I love it yeah. 

09:12

In a nutshell, SafeStart teaches us the what to do, what not to do on the human factors, brain, technical side right, but also helps us accept what part of the results should have been owned by ourselves, which backs up the notion of conflict avoidance is better than conflict resolution, but that's another topic. I'll leave that there unless you're interested later on. 

Danny Smith Host

09:33

Yeah, we can touch on that later. It's a great subject to get into. So you mentioned the rushing there. Maybe some complacency there. Perhaps your wife could have self-triggered on the rushing there. And you mentioned the rule of the no drinks on the table, that that helps counter the complacency and I guess that's almost a bit of that's almost having that as a bit of a habit. I know I actually, as we're recording this, I have a Diet Coke sitting about probably 18 inches from my hand here, so I'm kind of watching where I'm at with that at this point in time as well. So, yeah, absolutely I do try to keep a lid on it most of the time, but again, I guess that's a habit as well, right? So thinking again about how this could be worse, you mentioned that you lost a little bit of data there, but what else could have happened there? 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

10:22

Yeah, it's hard to say. I'm not an electrician or electrical engineer, I don't want to get too far into Ohm's law, but household current at 110 volts is more than enough to kill you. I actually looked this up. The lowest voltage on record, I think, was 42 volts, and people would remind me it's not just the volts, it's the amps et cetera. You know it's not fun. Many of us have been bitten by household current, right when some of us are lucky to be alive, yeah. But yeah, I guess, in terms of how it could have been worse. What if I had just written up, let's say, a rough draft of a paper that I was going to deliver to an audience in two days? And what if I lost every single bit of it? What if I lost all my files, all my PowerPoints, et cetera? 

Danny Smith Host

10:59

Right, Exactly, yeah, and that's, you know, for us as consultants. I often joke and say you know, our laptops are very much a large part of our lives. They're such a large part of our existence. Not that other people aren't by any means. I don't mean to minimize anybody else's machines, but for us certainly. We keep so much of what we do on a day-to-day basis there. I know I left mine on an airplane once. We don't have time to get into that story, but anyway, yeah, there's a lot there. So, thinking about that, you mentioned kind of how that could be worse. You talked a bit about the states and the years. We touched a little on the search as well, right? So I think really and truly there's some things here that we could work on with this, right? Yeah? 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

11:47

True, and again, just to you know, you did mention at the beginning there's two of us. So on her part, I would suggest that if you see something funny and the impulse is there, you know I want to reach across. Let's say, you and I are on a plane, and somebody is in the middle seat and I want to show you something and I think it's hilarious. I just have to show you this right away my ADHD in full bloom, here, right? And so that person has a glass of red wine sitting on their little, you know little tray that's out there on the on the 737. You got to be really, really good at self-triggering to be able to interrupt your flow of thinking. This is funny, wanting to hand this over to somebody, to just you know, we're talking about a quarter and eight to 100th of a second, as I mentioned. So there's self-triggering. We're talking about a quarter or an eighth, a hundredth of a second, as I mentioned. So there's self-triggering, um, and my part. I would also suggest that the self-triggering on my end and this we said we'd touch on this later, but I gotta, I gotta throw it in here, Danny, right away, go ahead. Um, because we talk about the fact that SafeStart can help work at home, on the road, even on vacation, but let's forget the geography for a second. What about the ways that SafeStart can help us right? And what I'm getting at here is just that, because I'm oh, here's one of those words inculcated, I think, is the word, I think because I'm steeped in SafeStart deep enough that, as soon as this happened, I know some people would have flown off the handle and started perhaps raising their voice, blaming their spouse for look what you've done. That impulse was not there. As soon as that happened, I realized ever so quickly that this is on me as well. You know, I should not have allowed the drink to be there, or I should have asked her to move it A little bit like when I lost, remember, the Razor phone from Motorola. 

13:30

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had a couple of pictures of your very own American, you know, head of state, secretary of state Henry Kissinger was on a flight that I was on from Frankfurt to Germany, and I snapped a couple of pictures of him while he was napping and I really wanted to keep this. So I brought the phone home Well, it's so small. I left it in my pants pocket. My wife washed those. The phone died and you know she said you're going to kill me. You know I wrecked your phone, and I said no, I'm mad at myself. I mean, you're doing the wash. The least I can do is check my pockets. So I'm not trying to get preachy here, but one of the cool things within this course is it teaches. It taught me a greater level of responsibility within myself than I'd ever imagined. 

Danny Smith Hos

14:10

Sure, yeah, and it does help us in so, so many ways. Yeah, it kind of goes back to, you know, as you've often said and I remember you talking about a conversation you had with Larry from back way, way back, probably what 97, 98, somewhere back in there, way, way back, probably what 97, 98, somewhere back in there is. You know why don't we pitch this not only as something that helps with safety, but in all areas? Right, and we are somewhat expanding that vision a bit now, I think. So I think you're just spot on with that because these human factors are so prevalent in our lives. We're all human, right, and so using these to make improvements in areas beyond safety is huge yeah, no, this is true. 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

14:58

You know, in terms of where are we pitching this as a as a human factors course? Why that came about, Danny, is. I'd read about Gordon DuPont and his dirty dozen right? So he was initially Australian, came to Canada, worked for Transport Canada, Air Canada, who was a anyway, I won't get into that, but Air Canada. Way back in the day, they knew of SafeStart. 

15:17

There was a manager that I met on a flight to Vancouver. He looked at the card you know we were having, we were sharing, we were mealtime, and we were both eating at the time and people get a little more polite and observant of those around you. And so, I said hi, hello, what's your name? And he said what are you looking at? And I showed it to him, and he was really intrigued and he said well, we do a variation on this anyway. 

15:37

So, this brought me back to the point of you know, mentioning that to Larry, the founder of SafeStart. His answer was quite wise. He said if you offer up something to the masses, you know that promises or purports to fix all sorts of issues and problems right like a silver bullet. He says they're going to run the other way, especially when, when the pitch for the idea is made by a course or a company that's too new to have been proven in the field as of yet and that was 1998, we were new. So, a quarter of a century later. My, you know, I'm thinking you know the proof's in the pudding, right? 

Danny Smith Host

16:10

Sure, yeah. I mean, we're seeing, and we hear all the time from clients, you know, about applying the technology, as Kevin Cobb likes to call it, the four-by-four-by-four technology. You know four states, four errors, four critical error reduction techniques. We're hearing people all the time talking about improvements, and not only safety but also quality, production, decision-making, leadership in your case, with your wife, you self-triggering on not reacting to the water, getting in the laptop, interpersonal communication, right? So there's so many things that this can help us with on and off the job. So, both of you and Larry were spot on right? 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

16:50

Yeah, well, I'd like to say I was right, but he was definitely more wise on that. I mean because, yeah, there's a bigger picture you have to adhere to, to be aware of, and I think part of he didn't even say it, but what I realize now is there has to be dare I use the word process yet again, it's so overused these days but there has to be, within the process, a part that, in terms of self-discovery, that has to be there. You know you can't be spoon-fed all this stuff because it gets to. You know people don't like that. The self-help part of the bookstore is way too big as it is. But I think, yeah, within SafeStart, once you start using it to avoid hazards and safety, all of a sudden it gleans and you realize, hey, I can use this when communicating with my kids and I can use this to make fewer errors when I'm doing things where quality is the name of the game, absolutely. 

Danny Smith Host

17:43

And that's a great note for us to wrap this up today. Shayne, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for sharing your story and walking us through that. 

Shayne Arnaud Guest

Thank you, Danny. 

Danny Smith Host

So just a final thought before we wrap up. Don't worry if you came up with some different states or errors or critical error reduction techniques than we did, or maybe even thought about a different way that this could have been worse. I mean, that's a part of the SafeStart process and the reason we use storytelling in this is because we want people to think about those things in their own terms. The point of the SafeStart stories is really just getting people thinking about things, recognizing those states' errors and critical error reduction techniques and raising their awareness in real-time, just trusting the process and working on the process. Until next time, I'm Danny Smith for SafeTalk with SafeStart. Have a great day.