The Four Cs of Effective Process Safety Storytelling

In this podcast, Trish and Traci discuss the importance of storytelling in process safety. Trish shares two influential stories from her career and personal life. She outlines effective storytelling using the "four Cs": context, conflict, conclusion, and call to action. She emphasizes starting with a memorable moment to engage audiences, matching tone to content gravity, and personalizing stories.

Transcript

Welcome to Process Safety with Trish & Traci, the podcast that aims to share insights from past incidents to help avoid future events. Please subscribe to this free podcast on your favorite platform so you can continue learning with Trish and me in this series. I'm Traci Purdum, Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Processing. And joining me as always is Trish Kerin, Director of Lead Like Kerin. Hey Trish, what have you been working on? I know you've been pretty busy.

Trish: Hey, Traci. Yeah, I've been really busy. So I started my business at the start of February, and I am run off my feet, which is fabulous to see that so many people want to engage in process safety and leadership and storytelling. But yeah, it's tiring when you've got multiple demands from all sorts of different areas. But a lot of exciting stuff coming up, heading overseas again shortly. So start of March I'll be heading to Morocco. I've never been to Morocco, so I'm really excited about that. And then I'll be joining you in the US late March, early April for a few weeks. So I'm looking forward to getting back over the US.

Traci: Well good. And it's a good problem to have being that busy, so I'm glad for you.

Trish: Thank you.

Traci: Well, you mentioned talking about storytelling and today we're going to be talking about the importance of storytelling and process safety. In the past you've shared with us some standout stories that have stuck with you, and I wanted to know if you have a story that you find the most important? One for your career and one that really resonates with you.

Standout Safety Story

Trish: Yeah, so when I think back about the different stories that I've heard over the years, there's a few that really stick with me and one of them was a work-related one and one of them was a personal-related one, in fact.

The work-related one was I was working at a refinery, and I was very early in my career, and I did a lot of night shifts, and sometimes there wasn't a lot of activity that I needed to be doing. So it gave me a chance to just sit down with the shift supervisors and just have a chat and start to get to know them, but also start to understand the history of the place I was working and why things were done in certain ways. And I would sit there with some of the old hens or the gray hairs and they'd talk about how things were done in different ways. And one night I remember one of them said, "Oh, have you read the coroner's report?" Because there had been a fatality at that refinery in its history. There'd only been one fatality in its history, but there had been one in its history. I said, "Well, no, I haven't," but it really did pique my interest. And they gave me a few little bits of information about it and said, "Oh, it's in the filing cabinet over there."

And so then I took myself off, and I sat down, and I read that coroner's report to understand it was a pipeline-related incident, and to understand how that incident occurred and the tragedy of it and the loss of life that had occurred. And it was decades before I was there. It was a long time ago. That one sort of sits with me that we need to engage with people and hear their stories because sometimes they'll come out with something that you may not be expecting but you should listen to.

And the flip side, the personal story is one that when I was learning to scuba dive, there was, I guess, an infamous instructor around in the city I was learning in at the time that probably had a way of communicating that was perhaps not the best. He would start off his training courses as a way to try and really cement home the things that you shouldn't do. He would come out with statements like, "If you come up too fast, you'll cark it. If you descend too quickly, you'll cark it. If you do this, you'll cark it." Now cark it, that is an Australian term, it's one of our weird slang colloquialisms. Basically, it means you'll die or something has died. So if your car's broken down, you might say, "Oh, my car's carked it." So it is one of these weird things we say you'll cark it or it carked it or something to reference that it's just not functioning or it died in some way.

In terms of it was a very powerful way to put a message across of if you do this, you will die. But it wasn't really encouraging to people, it was just scary as opposed to if you explain why you can't come to the surface too fast rather than just say you'll cark it, you'll probably get a lot better engagement. If you explain how decompression illness works and why you can't come to the surface too fast and what you can do to prevent it, so we actually will then give you the answers and the strategies to prevent it, that is much better than just trying to scare people with you'll cark it. At times some of our other instructors, we'd joke about, "If you do that, you'll cark it." We never said that to the students though because it's not helpful and it's not getting the message across. Storytelling can be really powerful, but we need to tell the right stories, not tell the stories in the wrong way or tell stories that will drive behaviors that we're not after in the workplace.

What Makes a Good Safety Story?

Traci: Thinking of that, what makes a good story regarding process safety?

Trish: There are a couple of points that are really critical in terms of making a good story. Typically, we see that people tend to say that there are three classic parts to a story. So there's the intro where we set everything up, there's the middle and there's the end. And there's always a conflict in a good story. And by conflict I mean that there's something that's of interest, something that needs to be resolved in some way. And if you think of any novel or any movie, they all follow that recipe. It's a standard map of how to tell a story, but in process safety, we need one more thing. Or I'd say in the workplace we need one more thing, and that's at the end of call to action. Because if we don't have a call to action, what's the point of the story other than just entertainment?

And in process safety, we're not here to entertain. Though, it helps if we can engage with people and get them interested. It's around making sure that every story I think not only has to have a context at the start of why you are telling the story, what is it about? What is the purpose? There is a conflict. We're trying to resolve something. The story needs a conclusion. And then lastly, you need a call to action. I sort of summarize my storytelling as you actually need to follow the four Cs, context, conflict, conclusion, call to action. And you have to work through all four of those and provide all four of them into a story to be able to get an outcome. Otherwise, it's a lovely fun and entertaining anecdote, but it doesn't get you anywhere until you have that call to action.

And for those of you that read my Stay Safe column, you'll notice at the end of every column there is a call to action. I either ask you a question or I ask you to do something. Every single article has a call to action in it, otherwise I've just entertained you. But what's been the point? And the other part that's really important about bringing a story together is how you start the story. Because for my entire life I was taught to do presentations in a certain way, and I'll tell you what that recipe is because I'm sure all of our listeners have recognized it. It's this old concept that I'll tell you what I'm going to tell you, I'll tell you, and then I'll tell you what I told you.

So I start with, here's my agenda or my contents or what we're going to talk about, I talk about it and then I do a summary at the end and tell you what I told you. Now that sounds logical, but it's actually boring. And because it's boring, you typically lose most people at the content slide and they've already switched off and you've lost them. Nobody's paying any attention. Now, one of the challenges here is if they've turned off at that point in time, do you actually think you're going to get them back when you have something interesting to say? No, their mind is somewhere else.

And so the other key part I talk about is you need to start a story with a memorable moment. And that memorable moment is the key anchor point. That memorable moment leaves people thinking, "What happened next? Why did she do that? What's going on? What's going to happen? What do I do now?" Your memorable moment should leave people on the edge of their seat, engaged, questioning what's going on because when you get them to that point, you've got them in the palm of your hand and you take them on the story journey with you.

So that memorable moment is really, really key. So some of you may have heard me talk about the introduction to the platypus philosophy where I talk about how I found myself standing in a puddle full of jet fuel. That's how that story starts. Because you're all wondering, how did I get in a puddle of jet fuel? What was I going to do about it? Was anybody hurt it? It raises all these questions for you, and that's really the key part about that memorable moment. And it can take time to figure out how to craft a good memorable moment. And they don't always need to be as dramatic as, "I was standing in a puddle of fuel." They don't have to be that dramatic, but they need to actually get the audience thinking why or what. And once you've got them thinking that they're paying attention to you, then you take them on the rest of the journey.

Appropriate Timing for Tragedy Tales

Traci: I had a professor in college, a journalism professor, and her story to us was how to get people into your story. You got to grab them by the collar and drag them into that story and make them want to read more. So essentially, it's exactly what you said, and that's what you strive for as a writer, and you as a storyteller is to get people interested. Let them know that they need to understand what you're talking about. And really getting into that.

My next question for you though is when should we start a story of process tragedies? When do you start that? Is it ever too soon? For example, details are not available yet or is it too emotional? When do you know when it's safe to start telling the story?

Trish: I think a lot of that depends on how you tell the story. I've told some quite dramatic stories over my career and the tone and the way you speak needs to address the gravity of the situation. So whether it is in the immediate aftermath where there are some details, but not a lot. So you've got to be very careful of basing your stories on factual information, not supposition. We can't apply our own guesses and thoughts onto a factual story. As a journalist, you would understand that, you need verifiable sources, for example. So we've got to make sure that we don't make stuff up. Storytelling's not about making stuff up, it's about conveying information and facts. The stories need to make sure that we match with the level of detail that we've got so we're not making up information and supposition about an event.

And the other part is that you don't get up with a great big smile on your face and a happy voice and a whole lot of energy and excitement and talk about people dying. You can't do that. When you actually are starting to talk about some of these really, really serious things, you need to speak in a more somber way. And that doesn't mean that it's, but you actually need to reflect and to show the gravity of the situation you're talking about. And so that does necessitate things like slowing down, a slightly deeper tone, a more somber tone, those sorts of things.

And I mean you sometimes an incident's happened and the public spokesperson's up and they're in front of the camera and they've got a bright smile on their face because they've been told that they need to smile and speak through the smile. No, not if someone's died. You don't. You actually need to be doing the very opposite of that. If you've got something really exciting and happy to talk about, absolutely, you can't do that in a somber tone. And sometimes a story will have multiple parts to it and you go through those tones as you go through the story. It ebbs and flows as you go through. So I don't think there is a moment when it is too soon to say something, but it's about how much you can say and very much how you say it.

Traci: Does it have to be personal? Your story you mentioned you're standing in the puddle, that's a personal story to you. Or can you be effective telling a story that isn't your story?

Trish: You can. Stories don't have to be personal. Personal does make them a bit more powerful. But if it's not your story, you still need to tell it in a way that involves you or is about you. So it's how that story impacted you, for example. Because there's always so much more power in it being a personalized aspect, a personalized delivery of it. If we just disassociate from it, we're just narrating someone else's life and that's actually not that exciting and that interesting.

So if it is someone else's story, that's fine, and don't steal their story. Acknowledge it's their story, but try and bring a little bit of personal into it around the impact it had on you or if it changed the way you do something. Bring it back to you somehow because it does need to be personal, but you as the storyteller get to decide how personal it is. You get to decide how much of yourself you are laying bare in that story. Because to tell a very deeply personal story does make you vulnerable, without doubt.

The interesting part though is one of the fascinating things about humans is we have this concept of the theory of reciprocity. And so that is if I give you something, you kind of feel obliged to give me something back. These are subtle feelings that go on, but I give you something, you give it back. It's the idea of smiles are contagious, I smile at you, you smile back. The theory of reciprocity at a very simple level. So when I share something personal with you, you want to share something back with me. And that sharing can actually be really powerful in not only creating connections for people in relationships, but also in creating deep meaning in the story that's going on because all of a sudden now they're part of the story, the audience is part of the story, and that becomes a greater anchor in their mind for remembering and going on to take the lesson from that story.

Traci: Indeed. And when you said, "When I smile, you smile back," I ended up smiling. So even when I'm not looking at you, just the thought of it I wanted to reciprocate. You're right.

Trish: Absolutely.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Traci: But what happens if you're not a good storyteller?

Trish: Like most things in life, we are not perfect at them the first time we try. When we started to learn to walk as a toddler, we kept falling over, even though instinctively now we just know how to walk. But we practiced. We had to learn how to do it. We observed our parents, the adults around us walking. We started to pull ourselves up on the edge of tables and chairs and things like that to get upright like all the other humans around us were. And then we started to bumble our way through it. And we practiced and we practiced and we practiced till we got to the point that we could run. You can learn how to do these things. There are skills that you can learn to help craft the stories, to help learn how to present them both in a written form or in a presentation, a visual and oral verbal form. We can actually learn all of these skills. So it's actually about, okay, how do we come together and understand what we want to tell and start to craft and hone our stories?

And so that's one of the things that I've been doing a lot of work on in the last few months is, as I said, I have a structure of how I develop a story. And my stories actually, they all do follow a formula and I sat down and I looked at... intuitively, I was writing stories and creating stories that followed this formula and I sat down and analyzed it to figure out was it always the same formula? And reading back, for example, reading back on my Stay Safe columns, I discovered I had the same formula all the way through. I had been doing it intuitively.

So I sat down and mapped out this formula of what it is. That's where I came up with the four Cs and the memorable moment and those sorts of things. And I also talk about the story orbit of the journey the story takes as it progresses through. And I have developed a workshop activity where I can take people through and help you learn the fundamental skills of storytelling using a formula that works and teach you how to deliver and how to practice. Because you're going to have to practice. Nobody's going to be perfect at this straight up, and I'm not perfect at it, but I've got a lot of practice in it and I'm continuing to practice and develop all the time. I do have a storytelling workshop activity.

Because of the nature of the type of activities at the moment, they're only in-person activities, but I do have that offering available. And in fact, I've got a couple of programs coming up in Houston in the first week of April. I've got a half day, which is your introduction, learning about storytelling, and I've got a full day masterclass where we actually go into a lot more detail of understanding how to present, how to craft and how to deliver the story more effectively and more in a way that people can understand. So understanding accessibility requirements as well. And so I do have those two programs coming up in Houston in-person if anybody wants to come along with them. I've also got one planned in Melbourne in early May as well, Melbourne, Australia. We can learn the steps and we can practice those steps and I can certainly help people learn and practice those steps to really hone their storytelling abilities.

Bad Storytelling Techniques

Traci: Are there examples of how not to tell a story?

Trish: I think the first one is, I've given you the example earlier on in the position-

Traci: The cark it guy.

Trish: The cark it guy, yeah, yeah. This got to be context and there's got to be meaning for people. And so just telling someone not to do something because it'll kill them, not helpful. It needs to be the reason of why, how so that people can actually do something with that information.

Again, the standard, tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them and tell them what you told them. I don't think that's a great way to tell a story. Sadly though, that is the way that most presentation activities occur. As you go through university, you see university presentations, they're all very much the standard slide deck. I don't think it's a positive way to tell a story because I think people just lose interest very, very quickly before we get to anything that's remotely useful.

But I think the other thing to be aware of is being very careful that, again, we're not talking about an incident that resulted in fatalities in a gratuitous way or in a way that makes light of the human suffering that occurs in process safety incidents. And I think that's really important. So we can create a memorable moment that's going to get people hooked and interested, grab them by the collar and bring them into the article by all means. But there is a sensitivity that needs to be there because if we're talking about something that has killed people, I think we need to be very respectful to the victims and their families and their friends in that. So we need to make sure that we're not disrespecting people's lives. And so that's a fine line when it comes to process safety. Because if I'm storytelling about something else, it can be a lot more lighthearted. But if I'm storytelling about something that could be a fatality risk, I think we need to be a bit more respectful and nuanced about how we do that.

Traci: You talking about this, it reminds... a lot of things remind me of songs, and I always go off on a little tangent, but the song, Dirty Laundry by Don Henley, and that is exactly it. And I was in journalism school when that story came out and we were being taught those same things you were talking about. You have to have a somber moment when you're talking about somber news. And so it's important and it's respectful, very much respectful, so I appreciate you bringing that up. Is there anything you would like to add to this topic?

Trish: Storytelling is so powerful and I would just encourage people to be open to trying it and starting to practice and starting to improve in it because we need to get better at communicating important information. We know why incidents occur, so why do they still occur? It's because we are missing something in our communication associated with it. Whether that is as an engineer communicating to the leaders that need to make the financial decision for an investment to improve the situation so the incident doesn't reoccur, or whether it's about communicating something to the worker out in the field, doing the actual work and activity, communication is a key critical part of it. Storytelling is millennia old and proven to work, absolutely proven to work. I think we need to be brave and start to embrace some new ways of communication because if we keep doing the same thing, we're going to keep getting the same results.

Traci: Very inspiring, very much so. Let's all learn to walk so we can run and do better storytelling. Unfortunate events happen all over the world, and we will be here to discuss and learn from them. Subscribe to this free podcast so you can stay on top of best practices. You can also visit us at ChemicalProcessing.com for more tools and resources aimed at helping you run efficient and safe facilities. On behalf of Trish, I'm Traci, and this is Process Safety with Trish & Traci. Thanks.

Trish: Stay safe.