Embracing Differences

Mary Conquest, the famous host of the podcast, Safety Labs, has interviewed over a hundred people (including myself). I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to engage with her and find out what she has learned through this journey. In this podcast, Mary reflects on her interviewing skills and what it makes to conduct good interviews. I’ very fortunate to be interviewing the interviewer in this podcast and if you listen until the end, you will also learn that she is a wonderful human being at heart. Thank you Mary, it’s nice to meet a fellow anthropologist. 

Enclosed space risks have been haunting many high-risk industries for decades. The maritime industry has not seen much change with deaths and injuries in enclosed spaces despite our best efforts to control the risks. What are we focusing on and what are we missing?An open conversation with two persons - both ex-seafarers and now working as insurers for a reputable insurance company. We get personal and so you can hear their stories and relate with them. 

One of the least understood responses in an investigation is when we hear someone say ‘I don’t know’. It is considered a sign of incompetence and ignorance. It is a source of shame and stigma for those being investigated.  Online session:https://novellus.solutions/mec-events/sporonline2026/Accident Investigation workshop https://novellus.solutions/mec-events/accident-investigation-program/Read my book:https://nippinanand.com/learning-from-accidents/It is the biproduct of living in a rational society. Years of research and practice has helped me realise that ‘I don’t know’ has little to do with competence or ignorance. If at all, it reflects our own ignorance and not the one being investigated. 

A talk that questions simplified stories we tell after accidents and why they may block real learning. It compares the Costa Concordia and US Airways 1549 to show how media and reports create myths of heroes and scapegoats. The speaker examines interviews, overlooked actions, luck and context. It urges skepticism toward neat, moralizing explanations.

This podcast is an open-ended conversation with Dr (Captain) Bikram S. Bhatia about how he became interested in researching seafarers hours of rest and work. From family expectations to workplace realities, it is Bikram's search for meaning and purpose. It is a lesson in understanding that our questions and our curiosity cannot be separated from our research. The formal and the informal; the subjective and the objective; the researcher and the research are always in a dance. I always imagined this conversation to be a cafe chat between two ex-mariners - informal and replete with stories of past ships. I could have titled this podcast many things:👉 A personal conversation with a social scientist 👉 The inside story of ‘objective research’👉 The myth of the scientific method (a great reading)👉 Stop saying I'm unbiased👉 The power of storytelling But I chose to call it ‘The Confessions of a Researcher’. From enclosed space fatalities to seafarers fatigue and mental health, the maritime industry tries to hard to claim authority and win trust through evidence-based research. And yet, it is often in our vulnerabilities and our stories that we bring people together and create opportunities for unlearning, learning and change. I found this conversation with Bikram deeply personal and relatable to my own life stories. I hope someone standing their midnight watch in the middle of the ocean will listen to this podcast and find meaning and hope in this story. Visit our website for more info: www.novellus.solutions

This podcast is about understanding the central role of language in understanding and influencing culture change. Both Dr Nippin Anand and James Pomeroy are uniquely positioned in this space and they offer some practical insights rooted in practice through their background, experiences, and research.

For a great part of my working life, I have been experiencing and researching enclosed space deaths and injuries. Here’s a humble attempt to bring some of these risks together in the most concise and accessible manner. This podcast is about framing the problem with our current approaches and offering some questions to think about how to address the enclosed space risks. 

Bureaucracy generated by excessive audits and inspections has reached a stage that it leads to high-consequence accidents at sea. Ships go aground and collide at sea not despite but BECAUSE of audits. Professor Michael Power at the London School of Economics calls it ‘Audit Explosion’ - the rising trend towards audits In this podcast, Kristine Storkensen and Nippin Anand discuss the 'Audit Explosion'. Together they explore:What makes the maritime industry susceptible to audit explosion?What is the (hidden) agenda behind audit explosion?How audit explosion undermines its own purpose (ie risk and safety at sea)?What can we learn from other industries and work sectors to address these issues?See a short video from Kristine Storkensen that beautifully captures the message.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4-MXnA_oQoListen to a previous podcast on this topic:https://open.spotify.com/episode/2owjmNqXmCbiw0UtUqhskl?si=WBZxl6uWTNqsXK6AajJvTw

In this podcast, Nippin tells the story of a seafarer who doesn’t want to go home after being on the ship for 6 months. Nippin asks him why? It’s such an exciting time for a seafarer to go home. Listen what this seafarer has to say. It is a beautiful example of why we should learn to shut up and listen. 

A short story about why the notion of just culture is deeply problematic, flawed and without a basis for either culture or justice.