Learning lessons from rail safety storytelling: Telling safety like it is

Abstract

There is a growing belief that people tend to modify their safety-related behaviour after hearing compelling stories about accidents, incidents and safety occurrences. It is, therefore, possible that through the appropriate structuring of a narrative around post accident storytelling, a remarkable persuasive power exists to convey the personal relevance of safety-related information from a lesson learnt perspective.This research was interested in examining the use of storytelling as a method of sharing the lessons learned after a rail safety accident. The increasing recognition of the use of narrative in organisations continues to gain momentum as businesses seek alternative ways to optimise their safety and performance outcomes.While the actual content of the narrative is recognised as important, of particular interest is the understanding of the key elements of the structure of the narrative used by experienced rail safety professionals who possess the art of storytelling.Managers from a large commercial rail company who practice storytelling were interviewed and the structure of their storytelling methodology was examined. Results indicate that four main themes come into play and revealed that stories should encompass ‘sensemaking’, ‘trust’, ‘content’ and ‘person’ and when applied via an effective delivery method resulted in the subsequent uptake of a modification of workers' safety-related behaviour.This research provides a platform for understanding how to enhance both safety communication messages and more importantly shared safety learnings post-accident or other safety occurrences using storytelling.