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In this episode of Safety FM with Jay Allen, we explore the illusion of progress that often hides beneath corporate slogans and safety rebrands. Jay dives into why many organizations confuse change with true transformation — trading new posters and buzzwords for the hard, humble work of learning, listening, and leading differently.
From AI and hybrid work to shifting definitions of safety itself, this episode challenges you to ask: Are we really moving forward, or just painting over the same cracked wall? Real progress isn’t found in dashboards or TRIRs — it’s in trust, humility, and the uncomfortable questions that remind us we’re still alive and still learning.
🎧 Press play and rethink what “moving forward” really means.
Safety FM with Jay Allen delivered 777 episodes from May 2018 through November 2025, featuring candid conversations with safety leaders, operational thinkers, and innovators reshaping how work gets done. The show explored Human & Organizational Performance (HOP), safety systems, culture, and the real dynamics behind everyday work.
Across seven and a half years, Jay Allen mixed interviews, insights, and signal-sharp commentary designed to cut through performative narratives and bring clarity back to the conversation.
The show has concluded its run, but all 777 episodes remain available here as a complete archive for listeners, students, and practitioners who want to revisit the ideas that transformed the safety space. If you are looking for Jay's current, ongoing broadcasts, be sure to check out the Rated R Safety Show.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a main story on the right of safety show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, some main story time, because that is what we do around here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about something that we all love to brag about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even companies love to say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're evolving.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're innovating.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes that progress is nothing more than a new codependent.
[SPEAKER_00]: on the same cracked wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know how this goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm not telling you that you don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know the story, a safety program that gets rebranded, the posters, the new graphics, the old slogans get retired, replaced with fresher versions, the ones that sound a little bit more human, and a little bit more empathetic, because that's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: The call is modern safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm sure you've heard this term already.
[SPEAKER_00]: The talk that talks about psychological safety because that seems to be some of the buzzwords.
[SPEAKER_00]: they bring in a speaker, maybe you know, someone who is well-known and for a few weeks people get excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: But deep down there's nothing really that's changed because progrators and about what we print is about what we practice when nobody's watching and this is where the difficult part comes about because some people get super excited about some of these things, but they don't realize that the change has to happen even after the magical speaker console are consulted as walked in.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I visit organizations, I'll ask, what has gotten better in the last year?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they'll list, you know, the new software, new dashboards, new acronyms, and then, you know, they'll ask, what, they'll ask the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the difference in how the people are treated?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, that's where the room kind of, you get the look.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the look that I'm talking about, or I'll get the silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when you get the progress is real, or it's just a, a mirage shimmering of a corporate desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that looks impressive is until you get close enough to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's built on hot air and PowerPoints, probably not going much of anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the problem that we run into is that we'd love to measure outcomes.
[SPEAKER_00]: T-R-R-I-R.
[SPEAKER_00]: incident frequencies, the usual suspects, but they don't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't tell people feel trusted or they feel any kind of trust inside of the organization or if they even think that they'll survive what's going on inside of the system.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real progress is it metrics and this is what I think of it when you've spent a lot of time talking about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in stories that never make it to the reports.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the stuff that we probably should focus a good chunk of time on.
[SPEAKER_00]: but we don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the moment where someone spoke up without fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where the leaders say, I don't know and mean it, opposed to let me get back to you on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to find out, I have to find out from the higher ups, you know, or they make them some random bullshit that wasn't there for the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is that most organizations can view change with transformation, change is cosmetic like switching from a flip phone to a smartphone, but still using it to make calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, transformation means you learn to use
[SPEAKER_00]: in a completely new way to navigate, to connect, to create.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's uncomfortable at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: It requires, you know, on learning what you know, and then kind of learning something new.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why so few places ever do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want the results of transformation without the pain of disruption, but it doesn't work that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't download integrity, and you can't automate empathy, or a KPI, or your way to trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where a lot of people have difficulties, especially when they try to change from one thing to something else,
[SPEAKER_00]: They expect those immediate results.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can tell you, I met a leader once that we are finally becoming a learning organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked, what have you learned that changed how you lead?
[SPEAKER_00]: He paused for a long moment of time and said, that's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: That pause told me everything, because those are the things that we need to discuss.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can't really tell me much about how things changed all the way from leadership down to the line level,
[SPEAKER_00]: then we have some question.
[SPEAKER_00]: So see the hardest thing here about progress is that it starts with humility.
[SPEAKER_00]: The admission that we haven't been doing things, good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to make things better.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the realization that safety isn't finished-alighted.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where things come about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it more along this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a moving target.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the one that shits every time the world does.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as the environment changes, everything else changes too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And right now, the world is shifting faster than our systems can handle.
[SPEAKER_00]: AI, automation, hybrid work.
[SPEAKER_00]: These things are re-writes of what's safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: even means.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're still measuring progress by yesterday's definitions, we're already behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that as an organization, because that's really how it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So progress is in a number.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the stories that you tell your self.
[SPEAKER_00]: about why you're doing what you're doing and whether it's still makes sense in the world you're in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the story, if the story that has, you know, changed questions lately, maybe it's time to change some of the questions because the danger of a mirage just isn't that it's fake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that it keeps you walking in the wrong direction thinking that you're almost there?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think we know that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, maybe this week, don't ask how far have we come?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ask are we still headed where we need to go?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if the answers makes you feel a little uncomfortable, I'm glad that it did, because I think that those things are always important to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, seriously, I'm not joking as I say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the signal that you're still alive, still learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just maybe, just maybe, finally moving forward to something that is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oops!
[SPEAKER_01]: What did she just say?
[SPEAKER_01]: We had safety event.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't always agree with the viewpoint of our hosting guests.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now back to real safety talk on Safety FM.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't go anywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to the home of real Safety Talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're listening to Safety FM.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be right back.