Beehive Coaching and Leadership Development and b.SAFE safety culture

23/09/2024

We recently had a 'lessons learned' meeting with our largest client after a run of workshops across Europe.
One of the comments we loved most was that "This has been a love letter to our employees".
Now isn't that wonderful?
400 hundred people through workshops in the UK, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary - in native languages.
Very rewarding - and the hardest bit? Translation - just ask Sara...

11/06/2024

So utterly delighted with the feedback we are getting from this last year's work across Europe using re-enactment scenarios for safety education.
It has also been a real privilege to work with highly skilled facilitators in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and now Hungary.
And finally also to work with actors bringing the carefully written scripts of Sara Lodge to life.
Between the team we have visited almost 20 power plants, delivered the workshop to 300+ participants and the programme has been described by the client as "A love letter to the staff".
now all that is needed is an in-depth 'lessons learned' analysis. Oh, and a good celebratory meal out!!

03/05/2024

Sara's most recent blog post gives some background to what we have been doing a lot of recently - with excellent feedback from the vast majority of the workshops we have rolled out

‘Systems that value stories and storytelling are potentially more reliable …. people know more about the system, know more of the potential errors that might occur, and…are more confident that they can handle those errors that do occur’’ ‘Organisational Culture as a source of High Reliab...

22/04/2024

Having not posted for (literally) years now, we have decided to start using FB a little mor pro-actively.
Here's a bit of a catch up of things we have been doing over the last 2-3 years.

The biggest project we have been involved in has been with Uniper, a client we have been working with for 6 years now.

They approached us this time to run some behavioural leadership training with their plant staff in the UK, Germany, Sweden and The Netherlands (in native languages) using actors and scenario re-enactment.

The programme was recently described as 'a love letter to the plant workers' and has been received incredibly well.

It has been a really good learning experience for us. Recruiting actors and facilitators, then onboarding them and supporting the rollout in the various countries. Sara also wrote the script, designed a z-fold to give to the participants and used her own cartooning skills to bring life to the characters and models used for the programme.

More to follow

Call now to connect with business.

14/10/2021

I keep forgetting to update the page, but this morning I had some lovely feedback from a client...

"There has been a massive and significant reduction in quality issues and an improvement in right first time as a result of the training."

I was delighted to receive this feedback today after an evaluation of my first bit of face to face, post lockdown, training earlier in the year.

The feedback came via Nicola Merriman of NSAN after a series of half day workshops with NIS Ltd, in the nuclear supply chain.

She also told me that there were a couple of more cynical staff who had expressed enthusiasm about the training and who had changed as a result - that's always a bonus!

We had worked closely with Julie Maykels and April Bateman PCQI Bateman to design workshops based on Human Performance, but tailored more specifically to the needs of their business. And Andy Hepburn had helped with the design of a case study we used - so thanks go to him for his part

We love to engage people in the learning process and that was certainly a factor in developing the workshops.

A nice bit of news to start the day with

09/07/2021

Sara and I have been spending a lot of our free time reading about polar exploration this year. For me it started with Apsley Cherry-Garrard's famous tome 'The Worst Journey in the World" which is his reflections on Scott's ill fated 1910 expedition. Then on to Amundsen and Scott and now Shackleton.
Lots to reflect on re leadership, risk and ego. I have been somewhat surprised in reading the books as it has dashed my childhood images of Scott as this great man fighting against the odds, and the heroics of Shackleton in his astonishing endeavours in saving his entire crew on the Endurance trip.
It seems that both Scott and Shackleton refused to learn from the journeys of Nansen, Amundsen and other successful explorers. There was a certain British exceptionalism that said 'we are British, so we don't need to practise or even take the right kit - we will get through on British pluck'.
It's easy to reflect from the comfort of my own home and office, and to judge through the lense of 21st century leadership theories on leadership and on risk. But the evidence was there for both Scott and for Shackleton and they chose to ignore it.
Fascinating

19/01/2021

Sara received this email recently from a participant on one of our Brathay seminars - you never quite know when you have made a positive impact....

'Hi Sara I attended Beehive a couple of years ago at Brathay Hall.... A lot of the conversations I have day to day & the approach I end up taking has been influenced by what I learned there. Thank you for helping me help others.' Thank you for this, Sean Byrne.

In the seminars we shared our trust-based safety culture model the D2iT, based on research with Bangor University, and showed how Brathay's unique learning environment is ideally suited to practical safety education. Beehive's partnership with Brathay is one of our proudest achievements. Hopefully we will be able to offer the 'Beehive@Brathay' safety culture seminars 'Change the Conversation Change the Culture' again at some point soon!

08/01/2021

I have to be open about this, I have been very neglectful of our page during the covid crisis.
We've been busy adapting our approach to the online space and have become moderately competent at using zoom and teams such that I'm even enjoying being in front of my computer screen more than previously. I do miss the face to face contact, but less so the travel and hotel rooms!!
Anyway I wanted to share this piece from Sara on linkedin the other day, which ties in with a lot of our work around safe working cultures with the current crisis.

I hope that everyone reading this is able to stay safe and well, and like me, are grateful to all those who have continued to work through one of the most memorable periods of our lives.

Stay safe

In 'How to Vaccinate the World' (BBC R4, Tuesday) the brilliantly named Larry Brilliant, an American epidemiologist, described Covid vaccine programmes...

20/07/2020

I am going to do this, the 'Ration Challenge'.
It came to my awareness this week and I thought I'd give it a go.
My rationale is that I am one of the lucky ones, born in the UK in the post war boom years, white AND male. My life has never been under threat, I have never had to think about where my next meal is coming from, I have had a welfare state to support me if things had gone badly. All by the fluke of birth, I had nothing whatsoever to do with that piece of luck.
As I have got older I have come to realise just how fortunate I have been when I see the plight of millions around the world. Millions without access to clean water. Millions who live their lives under the threat of militias who might turn up at any moment and kill them and their families and use r**e as a weapon of terror. Millions who, for no reason apart from the lottery of birth, have so much less than I have.
So how hard can it be for me to raise both awareness and (hopefully) some cash to help those most in need.
I know it will be hard (you should take a look at the croissants and pain au chocolat I have just made!!) for me to live on so little, but I have the luxury of bailing out at any time, and am safe in the knowledge that at the end of my week I will be able to go back to home made bread and an abundance of high quality local food to sustain me - they won't.

So I am unashamedly touting for money and support when it comes to the 13th-19th September of this year.

Here's a link to my fundraising page - thanks in advance

I'm taking the Ration Challenge, raising funds for refugees. Sponsor me by clicking the link. Thanks so much for your support!

10/07/2020

Also...

Sara recently gave a presentation to IOSH about the Bradley Curve Model of safety culture. Our D2iT Trust-based Safety Culture Model is the result of research into what's needed to move from Dependent to Interdependent on the Bradley Curve - hence 'D2i'. To find out more about the Bradley Curve and what's needed to move along it, watch her presentation at

10/07/2020

Just finished running our Fundamentals of Human Performance workshop via zoom for the first time. With a new client the workshop was very well received and we were pleased with the feedback from participants -
"I thought it was enjoyable and looking forward to the next session"
"I think there was a good balance of tutor presentation and group work which we got used to fairly quickly"
"I was fully engaged and enjoyed the session"

We pride ourselves on our experiential learning approach, so to transfer our usual style to a digital platform is quite a challenge, which so far we feel has gone pretty well.

03/07/2020

This short talk from Simon Sinek is an important reminder of why trust is so essential.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPDmNaEG8v4

But trust is an attitude, so very difficult to develop. Our series of webinars later this month and into next month gives some insights into the principles behind building trust. Come and join us...
https://tinyurl.com/yby8wjk5

https://avelino.run/quote/performance-vs-trust-identifying-toxic-people/ There is one simple question to ask if you want to build a high performing team. “Wh...