The Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional Episode 13 Curiosity with Respect

Once again on the Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional we have connected with a fabulous guest from Aotearoa’s great west Island of Australia and we are talking FR&NKly with Rick Fox from Health and Safety consultancy FR&NK. Rick is a proud First Nations man from the Wiradjuri mob in Central West NSW. 

Rick shares his diverse background and experiences in various sectors including state government, local government, and energy distribution and discusses his journey into the safety profession, emphasizing his time as a mature apprentice in Sydney's energy distribution sector, where he developed a keen interest in health and safety. He talks about founding FR&NK highlighting the shared values and humor held between himself and his business partner that facilitated their partnership.

A significant part of the conversation focuses on Rick's work with First Nations councils in Queensland, helping them meet safety compliance in culturally appropriate ways. Rick explains the importance of understanding and respecting cultural norms when implementing safety measures in Aboriginal communities, such as the preference for non-confrontational communication styles and the importance of community well-being over individual achievement. He underscores the need for safety professionals to be culturally informed and respectful, adapting their approaches to fit the specific context and needs of the communities they work with.

The podcast also touches on the broader theme of cultural intelligence in safety practices, comparing approaches in Australia with those in New Zealand, particularly the integration of te ao Māori practices in health and safety. We agree on the value of curiosity and respect in engaging with different cultures and the importance of understanding context to create effective and respectful safety strategies.

Rick concludes with a preview of his upcoming appearance at the Safeguard Conference in New Zealand, where he will share insights from his work with First Nations organizations and participate in a myth-busting session on psychosocial hazards. For those of you heading to the conference on the 18th & 19th June, catch up with Rick and have a yarn. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/r-fox-/

https://frnkcapability.com/

https://safeguard.co.nz/events/safeguard-national-health-safety-conference-2024/#agenda

Transcript

Greg: 0:00

Hi, everyone welcome to another episode of the culturally intelligence safety professional a podcast aimed at providing a platform where by safety professionals can develop a pathway to enhance their cultural intelligence capability which will help them function more effectively when working in a multicultural situation. I'm Greg Dearsly your host and I have a range of guests lined up to talk to this year. We have people with experiences across leadership psychology, health and safety, education and of course cultural intelligence. All of our guests come from a wide range of different backgrounds across the diversity spectrum, including from different organizational context. In this podcast you'll hear stories aimed at helping you the listener enhance your cultural intelligence. You'll gain an understanding of how you can create trust when working in diverse environments and quite frankly, that's all the time no matter how homogenous the place you work, it might be, it's still full of diversity, people with different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs, all built on their figured world. So this week I once again reach across the ditch and catch up with a safety pro from Australia. Rick Fox is a capability coach and co founder of FR&NK which is a leading health and safety consulting business which specializes in developing individual and organizational safety capability. Rick's got a number of years of practical experience in guiding businesses to achieve positive health, safety, and cultural improvements. He's got an extensive background in work health and safety advice, systems, training facilitation and auditing. Rick is a First Nations man, his mob, is, Wiradjuri Central New South Wales, and he enjoys collaborating with and supporting clients and colleagues. He has a diverse employment background, including work in state government, local government, and the electrical distribution sector, as well as manufacturing, retail, and hospitality. Yammer, Rick, great to have you on the show.

Rick: 2:09

Yammer, Greg. Yammer, thank you so much, mate. That was wonderful. It's great to be with you.

Greg: 2:14

Looking forward to our conversation and as I say, it looks like you've got quite a diverse background over a number of years. So tell us a bit about your journey and how you and your business partner, Naomi, ended up with FR&NK.

Rick: 2:27

Absolutely. So you're right. I do have a bit of a background and when you lay it all out like that, it's oh geez, I have done all that. I like a bit of a try before you buy, so I throw myself into different industries and different sectors. And where I really found myself and found a career was with the state government in energy distribution. So I worked as an energy worker in Sydney for 10 years. I was a mature age apprentice inverted commas, mature. And so that's what really I guess showed me what health and safety was when you're dealing with 132, 000 volts and substations and things like that. You have to have your wits about you. And through that, I just organically ended up falling into, okay someone needs to do the risk assessment. All right Rick will have a crack. And I found out I really liked it and I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed challenging long held beliefs and conventions. And I jumped in my DeLorean, went back 30 years into local government sector. From the state government sector, and I love it there. It's the closest government to the people. You can actually, you can see the change that you're making within the organizations as well. And from there I bounced around a couple of councils in Sydney and then took the opportunity to move to beautiful Gold Coast. And that's where the journey into my own consultancy business started. And it was fantastic timing just as COVID started, I decided I wanted to go out on my own, so it was wonderful risk assessment fantastic stuff. And in South East Queensland, and safety in general, Greg, being such a small industry and a small sector, you tend to bump into people pretty regularly. And through introductions and various other means, I ended up working for a company that my now business partner, Naomi, worked for. And we immediately clicked and both had that sort of irreverent Western sense of humor. She's from a mining town, Mount Isa. I'm from the Western suburbs of Sydney. Aligned with the way that we thought about safety. And so we both left that organization eventually. We, we did a try before you buy. We both had our respective consultancy businesses and we worked out a deal If after 12 months, we still like each other and we're willing to talk to each other, we might as well formalize it. Yep. And that's where FR&NK came to be.

Greg: 4:55

Excellent, excellent great story. Now, actually, I'm going to go right off script here and talk about Frank. Not your FR&NK but my Frank. And so anybody that knows me know that I'm a bit of a Queen fan and it's not the Royal Queen. It's the Freddie Mercury Queen. And a number of years ago, they produced an album called News of the World. And it's got a picture of a robot on the front of it. And if you've been to any Queen concerts in the recent past with, the new Queen the robot makes an appearance through, the video coverage and a bit of technology. And the name of the robot, Frank. So there you go. You're following in the footsteps of Rock gods

Rick: 5:40

indeed. FR&NK is not to peek too far behind the curtain of our media and marketing genius but FR&NK has just rearranged letters that abbreviate our name. So it's Fox Rick and Naomi Kemp. But what we actually we really enjoy having, Frank conversations with our clients and just laying it out. You generally don't get any fluff with us, which is it's refreshing, I think, to a lot of clients.

Greg: 6:06

Great. You've got a bit of a background in that sort of local government space and you've done a lot of work in the Queensland area, I believe to help the health and safety capabilities of the indigenous and First Nations communities. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Rick: 6:23

Yeah, absolutely. So Queensland has 66 councils that are part of a mutual scheme. So they've all clumped together and for their insurance purposes and as a part of that they're required to be audited against a national audit tool and meet compliance for that. We were brought in to work with four First Nations councils so starting with Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council, which is near Kingaroy. Then you move north to you've got the Torres, you've got two Torres Strait two Torres Strait councils. Torres Strait Islands Regional Council, Torres Shire Council. And effectively, Working with those councils about meeting, meeting them where they're at and and not dropping a 176 page manual Warrabinda is the, is another council that I failed to mention. Warrabinda is west of Rockhampton. But it was meeting them where they're at and getting an understanding of How the council actually runs who's who in the zoo so to speak. And as I said to the CEO of Sherbrooke Aboriginal Shire Council, who comes from the East. You might be the CEO in this organization but you can be damn sure that there's an auntie pulling the strings behind the scenes that you don't even know about. And he might have laughed and recognised it and said, yeah, you're probably right. So it was effectively working with the safety assets in each of those councils and understanding where they're at, understanding where they needed to be and providing that sustainable path to get there. As I said, dropping a manual on them and saying have a great time. Enjoy that. It's never going to work. It's not going to work in a Western sort of culture, let alone a First Nations culture and adding to the complications of working with those types of organizations, particularly in the Torres Shire and Torres Strait Islands. It's just so remote, Greg. You're talking, hours and hours to get there, from Southeast Queensland, and when you get there, it's worth a view, don't get me wrong, but everything's incredibly expensive. Basic PPE and things like that are not necessarily readily available. So it's about being practical as well and not just waving your safety book around and saying, Hey, the law says you need to do this. It's about understanding, okay, what can we actually achieve? And who are my best advocates and allies to, to get that change through?

Greg: 8:52

So would it be fair to say that, that Western approaches to health and safety probably don't work too well? in that environment.

Rick: 9:00

Yeah, that'd probably sum it up fairly well. That's not to say that communities aren't willing to adopt, changes that, kind of makes sense. And they can see the impact and the benefit in those changes. But as I said, Greg, moving in and saying what the legislation says. It's never going to work and it's never going to get the meaningful, impactful change that, that we want as safety professionals when we work with an organization. So it's about being a, a bit informed about where you're about to go, who you're about to speak with and what levers can I pull and what levers can I just leave for the moment.

Greg: 9:42

So that's let's talk a little bit more about that. I guess part of cultural intelligence is exactly what you've talked about. And so what would be some of the cultural norms that from a First Nations perspective would be relevant, appropriate? understood by that group to implement in a, from a safety perspective. And obviously we talk, we have similar conversations here in New Zealand with the indigenous culture here and certainly trying to promote te ao Māori practices into how organisations do health and safety. Are there some sort of key First Nations Aboriginal sort of traits, values, norms that might fit into that health and safety structure?

Rick: 10:28

I look at the work that's been done on your side of the ditch, Greg with a great deal of envy and I'm genuinely jealous at the framework that has been developed and promoted by TRMA. It's something that I look at and when I was first shown through the document, I I got a little bit angry because I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. But to your point, there are similarities between First Nations culture and Maori culture and Pacifica culture in terms of, the collectivist nature and emphasizing that the well being of the community is greater than the well being or individual achievement of one person. So collaboration and consultation is incredibly important. And I think it's one of those things, even in a Western culture, I don't think it's done tremendously well. Consultation and collaboration. Understanding that lever for a First Nations community is about understanding the benefit to the group, to the mutual, to the community. That's a big deal.

Greg: 11:37

Yeah, look, I think you're right. Probably use I would talk about engagement. And of course, it's a word and it's a concept within the legislation that's inherent part of it. And it's probably the key component of the legislation from a relationship perspective, worker, PCBU. And I think organizations just get so stuck on, I've got to have a rep and I've got to have a committee or a toolbox meeting and full stop. And I just think some of these opportunities around engagement you talk about collaboration and consultation. There's just so many opportunities to show true engagement through other activities rather than just a toolbox meeting. Is that some of the work that you would be doing? Up in those, some of those communities.

Rick: 12:29

Yeah, absolutely. So instead of focusing on a toolbox talk or focusing on a committee meeting we'd have a yarn. So getting people in a circle no one stands out in the circle, everyone's equal. And that's really important. You can show your respect. to others by engaging with them respectfully. You can also identify if you've triggered something or if, okay I may need to explore that a little bit personally later down the track. But yeah, we talk about it in terms of let's have a yarn, let's really understand what you're doing. And there's some great stories from the North from the top end of Australia that I walked away gobsmacked, And just shaking my head, wow, I can't believe I just heard that. But that was just pushing myself to, engage with the people how they like to be engaged with and not coming in as the safety guy, it's coming in As a respectful, inquisitive Wiradjuri man in a different country to those I was speaking to, but understanding that the respect is the thing that, that was going to bind this whole engagement.

Greg: 13:38

And you say, you use the term yarn, and I know in Pacifica culture Talanoa is a word that's used to describe exactly what you're talking about. We've come to work. Let's just have a chat about anything, get to know each other and then go and, do the formal sort of work related things. And I think that goes a long way to creating trust within the group. And, And yeah, so I think that very similar approaches across those two cultures and then, of course, Māori's got got similar approaches in some of the ways that that things are done in that in that culture. Is there anything else specific to Aboriginal culture that That would be really good for health and safety people to know, and just as by way of example, it's a cultural norm, that you don't put anything to do with your head on the same table that you eat from. So if a, if a Pākehā supervisor comes into the lunchroom in a forestry block and puts his hardhat on the table, then that's a deal breaker type of scenario. And that's not hard to know that sort of stuff. Is there anything from an Aboriginal perspective that that might be useful for safety professionals to, to know about before they go in and start engaging with that culture?

Rick: 14:54

There are so many different nations within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. To give you a hard and fast, rule, Greg, would be would probably. Put myself in a compromising position for one camp or another. Yep. But I will say, here's some things to consider. Eye contact. Now, in, in some parts of the country, some some parts of some nations in in Australia, eye contact, it's a sign of respect and we understand each other. In other parts of the country, eye contact, it's or a lack of eye contact is actually preferred. Direct eye contact seems confronting, it seems very, aggressive. But so eye contact. So the simple way to get around that is to just ask, how would you like me to engage with you? What's your preferred method? And there's other little bits and pieces. In some parts of the country, in some parts of the islands up north it would be improper for a man to just, approach a approach a female and just say, start having a casual conversation. You would need an ally, or you'd need someone to, an advocate, or someone to facilitate that conversation. Whereas other parts of the island in the Torres Shire, that's not a problem. That's not an issue whatsoever. Whilst I can't give you any hard and fast I guess rules, what I can say is try and be a little bit informed. Try and understand where you're going. If you are going into to Warribindershire Council, as an example it's isolated country. When I say isolated it's an hour and a half to your next major town. But there's very little else around there. And so they're dry communities as well, largely, in Aboriginal Shire Councils. So understanding that a dry community driving, no alcohol, no drugs, anything like that you're not going to go in and start having a conversation about how you're looking forward to knocking off at five o'clock and going to the pub. It's understanding the little nuances and being respectful And particularly when, if you're in a position of employing First Nations people that, that starts very much from the interview process. How do, how would you like to be engaged? And the strong bond of kinship in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It may seem like they are aloof or uninterested or, they, their absenteeism may be a wee bit higher. But that is probably largely due to the fact that they're looking after other kin within their family and things like that. So there's all these little all these little things that you can, if you're really curious, you can find out about, you can have respectful conversations and and be mindful, I think. And look, that, we have clients that are almost 99. 9 percent Vietnamese in, in one of the factories here in Queensland. The same rules apply. I'm not a Vietnamese man. I need to know what the rules of engagement are.

Greg: 18:05

Yeah, look, so much in there, and I think I pick up on your point about, not really having a one size fits all answer, and absolutely that's true, I think, for all cultures, and we talk about different cultural clusters around the world, and it's not about stereotyping and saying That all Anglos do this, or all Māori are like this it's, it's a starting point. It's not trying to, as I say, it's not trying to say everybody in that group is like that. It does help if you, as you say, do some research. know a little bit about what you're going into, and it's a, again, it's a key component of becoming more culturally intelligent. It's, is that planning, that research into the environment that, you're going into and and understanding some of those nuances and some of those, just those little things that might be specific to that particular country, part of the country, state whatever it might be.

Rick: 19:02

No, absolutely. And also, I guess Greg that's it for safety professionals who do want to engage with First Nations communities in Australia. Another thing to keep in mind For the most part, a lot of the communities were thrown together. These councils were given sort of land or they were missions and so on and so forth. So to a large extent, some of these communities are actually re identifying who they are as people and as a culture. And it's a really interesting journey to watch them be a part of as well. And sitting back and trying to understand, okay, how can I be respectful how can I play my part in helping this community remain safe and have young people thriving in the community. It's an honour that we have. It's an honour that I really see as as pivotal to what we do at FR&NK and just having that little bit of curiosity, it goes a long way.

Greg: 20:03

It's word of the decade at the moment, isn't it? Curiosity and and I think it's really important and just trying to understand the perspective of the other person. You don't have to agree with it but at least if you understand somebody else's point of view and then you can, you can move forward with whatever the project might be that you're working on. And I think also to your some of those things that you talk about it said over here quite a bit that, that a lot of te ao Māori approaches to various things are totally appropriate for other cultures. And as you're talking, I'm listening to some of the things that you're saying and how it would be good to engage with Aboriginal culture and you go why wouldn't, it's your Vietnam story. Why wouldn't it just be the same for everybody? Because actually it's just about being a good human a lot of the time. It's not about Māori or Pacifica or Aboriginal or French or whatever it might be. I think there's a lot to be learnt from just, being a good person and treating other people. I think on of the days of that saying, what was the saying? do unto others as you'd have done unto you. Actually that's just totally wrong, isn't it? It's do unto others as they would like to be done unto, if that's the right way of putting it. Treat people how they want to be treated because it's probably different to how you want to be treated.

Rick: 21:23

I think that's that's exactly right, Greg, and I'm not sure what the I'll agree with you because I know what you mean. Have a bit of a saying, which is, curiosity with respect. And having curiosity is one thing, but, having curiosity with respect, you mentioned, we, we won't always agree. With another way, or we won't agree with the way someone's doing something. The first time that I saw a ranger with a crocodile a saltwater crocodile and a ranger in a little dinghy trying to wrangle this crocodile, I'm like, Oh my God, what am I watching here? What's happening? And I you can stand back and digest it a little bit and then you ask a question. Hi. Is there another. A vessel, another boat that you could use for this. And actually the state government bought us a big boat because, they thought they were doing the right thing, but it turns out that the wall of the boat is too high and we're at greater risk of falling in if we use that boat. So we've gone back to our dinghy because it works. And you're like, okay, cool, you've got a process.

Greg: 22:29

And I think you find that a lot, don't you? You ask those couple of questions and all of a sudden some stuff becomes a little bit more clearer and I guess that's why there's been a little bit of a backlash over the last few years, hasn't there, about some of these videos and photos that get put on LinkedIn and people's, saying, what an idiot, why would you do this? When actually, We don't know the full story. We've got a very small image on a screen and you don't know what else is going on until you talk to whoever's involved.

Rick: 23:00

Context is key. And if you don't know the context, if you don't have an understanding of why someone is doing something, you don't know what's going on. Observe, ask questions. If your spidey senses are telling you, Oh my God, there's something really off about this. There's certainly a way to have that conversation. But it's a respectful conversation that you're having from a place of care and empathy for that other human, because inherently we do what we do, Greg. Because we want better for humans. We want better for the human race. We want to be safer tomorrow than we were today. And that's our goal. Doing that, asking those questions respectfully, that's how we do it.

Greg: 23:41

I hear you're going to visit the, come over the ditch In a couple of weeks, or a few weeks time, I think by the time this episode airs, it'll be a couple of weeks until you're coming over, and I believe that you're going to be front and center on the stage at the Safeguard Conference. And without getting me into trouble with the Honorable Peter Bateman is there anything you can tell us about what we might expect to hear from you at the Safeguard Conference?

Rick: 24:04

I'd expect more conversations and more narrative around saltwater crocodiles. No, not to give too much away. Yeah, Peter would would climb into it, into me as soon as I landed. But I'm going to be sharing a yarn about the work that we've been doing with those First Nations organizations. And I guess. Tying that into the wonderful work that is happening with Māori people and, the fantastic work that's already happening on your side of the ditch. And as I said before I'm like, criminally jealous of some of that beautiful work. And it's lit a fire under me to actually get some people together to start that process. And over in New Zealand, I expect to share a yarn. I, hopefully I hear some laughs because there's probably going to be some jokes in there at some stage. But I'm also going to be sharing the stage with some other esteemed people talking about I'll be facilitating a bit of a myth busting session into psychosocial hazards as well. That's not going to be we've only agreed to it if we can kind Derail the stayed and dare I say boringness of psychosocial. It seems to have been the topic of conference for the last two years. So we're going to derail that and we're going to do some myth busting which should be fun. It should be interesting hopefully challenging because there's a lot of great work out there in that space. But I think there's also a lot of. Confusion and misunderstanding and if we can approach it with a bit of humor and have some key takeaways, I think that's the right tip.

Greg: 25:35

You mentioned just for people that might be listening that would, might not know, you mentioned TRMA which is Te Ropu Maratau O Aotearoa, which is the Māori Health and Safety Association, and I was actually at their conference a couple of weeks ago now where they talked about their new I guess Worker Wellbeing Program Haumaru Tangata which you'll be hearing more about over, coming weeks and months. And yeah, it's really Cool to see work being done to indigenise health and safety and make it relevant for people that it's relevant to rather than trying to navigate stuff that maybe doesn't make sense.

Rick: 26:12

No, that's exactly right. There's such a passion for it as well. And really brief conversation with Vance Walker and, talking me through The wonderful work that's being done over there. I can't wait to get over there. I can't wait to connect with other safety professionals on that side of the ditch and our hope is we're certainly not coming over from Australia and thinking I'll come on, we'll show you how it's done. I'm coming over to share a yarn and I'm coming over to connect with as many people as possible as well. And the life of a safety professional can be a lonely one at times, you're not necessarily the most popular person in the room. When you get a collective group of safety professionals together it's always great to keep it up vibe and add a bit of humor.

Greg: 26:56

Yeah, absolutely. Any last comments? Any last tips? I, to be honest, I don't know what the Aboriginal population in New Zealand is. I wouldn't have a clue. I suspect it's probably not huge. So I don't know if your average safety professional is going to run into too many Aboriginal people in workplaces here. I don't know. What would your thoughts be on that?

Rick: 27:19

I would suggest you're right. I don't think it would be huge at all. Based on the last census figures, there's probably a tick over a million people within Australia that identify as Aboriginal or First Nations people. I'd argue that there's probably very few, in relation to population in New Zealand. The only tips I can provide are probably to take the approach that you would when you're working with Maori and Pacifica people, which is come at them with a place, come at them with respect from a place of empathy and understanding. And as an Aboriginal person in another culture, We're very conscious of understanding how we can be respectful in that place as well. Mutual respect goes a long way, Greg.

Greg: 28:12

Actually, I just finally want to just come back to the comment you made right at the beginning about just asking, How you want to be, how can we best engage? And I think sometimes, I don't know, the majority, whatever the majority might be, sometimes get a little bit apprehensive about asking that question for fear of being accused of being racist or, whatever. And the more I talk to people about this, the more that people from other cultures say, no, that's exactly, that's not The right thing to do is to just ask that question. And so yeah, absolutely. A good good piece of advice here. Rick, Guwayu is that right?

Rick: 28:51

Yeah. Guwayu Greg. In Wiradjuri Guwayu means later. So effectively, we don't say, goodbye, we say later. So we believe we'll see you in this lifetime or in the next.

Greg: 29:02

Awesome. It's been great having you on the show and I look forward to catching up with you when you're here in June for the Safeguard Conference. And yeah, thanks so much for putting some time aside to have a chat with me today.

Rick: 29:13

Greg, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for having me and Guwayu. Thank you.

Greg: 29:21

I don't think I want to try and analyze this episode too much, I'll leave it to you to take the many valuable comments from Rick and consider how they might apply in your business and in fact your life. Curiosity with respect, what a wonderful way to think about how we should engage with people who are different from us. Collaboration and consultation is an important aspect of working across cultures and actually, if we think about those words and apply it to the requirements around worker engagement, These concepts really do deliver on that obligation. Typically in a Western construct, we might go to a toolbox meeting but as we discuss in this episode that might not work for everyone, so you have to know your audience. Maybe have a good yarn, or apply Talanoa or Karakia or waiata, which might connect more with your team. Rick talked about eye contact as a significant cultural value to understand with Aboriginal culture. And the same applies to some of the cultures we work with a New Zealand. To some a lack of eye contact can be seen as disrespectful. when generally, the opposite is true, and that it is a way of respecting hierarchy or leadership, as Rick says. Context is key. This episode is a taster for the upcoming safeguard conference. where Rick will be a keynote speaker, getting into detail about the work FR&NK has been doing to support indigenous communities. For those of you heading to the conference on the 18th and 19th of June and Auckland. Catch up with Rick and have a yarn. So we've come to the end of this episode. Thanks so much for listening I hope you found something valuable that you can take away that might enhance aspects of your own cultural intelligence. I'll add the transcript from this episode to the show notes and there'll be some other resources available as well. If you'd like to talk about cultural intelligence get in touch with me via LinkedIn, I'm posting content regularly so keep an eye on your feed and comment if you see something that resonates. If we aren't connected send me an invite. If you want to hear more about CQ, you can follow and subscribe to this podcast, I would really appreciate it if you did that, and keep an eye out for the next episode. Next week's guest is Dr. Catherine Wu who is a thought leader on global leadership and interculturalism. She's a passionate advocate for cultural diversity and is on a mission to inspire 10 million interculturalists to connect cultures and speak up for diversity. She is a lecturer at the Nanyang Business School in Singapore where she teaches in Asia's top Nanyang MBA program and the prestigious Nanyang Fellows MBA for senior public sector executives. For me, this was a bucket list interview, which we conducted kanohi ki te kanohi or face-to-face in Singapore. So once again, Grab a cuppa and immerse yourself in this episode. Thanks again for tuning in to the Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional. Ka Kitei