My Blog Site - Impromptu Speaking

My Blog Site

whsblog.com OHS and Safety

My Blog Site whsblog.com

Anything of interest to the OHS Committee in NSW,

People at work, Safety, Travel and anything quirky or funny.

Impromptu Speaking

Or, what to say when you have no idea what to say

There are going to be many times when you will be sitting in a meeting and suddenly you find your name being used at the blunt end of a question.

What can you say that is coherent, incisive and meaningful. Perhaps a few "ok's" interspersed with an "ah" or an "um"? But is that the image you would like to project? The image of a bumbling, stumbling, idiot?

Help is at hand with a few structures that any impromptu response can be pegged to. Structures that will enable you to start talking while the brain has a chance to gather its thoughts together.

Sequential:

'Past: Present; Future' or 'Biggest to smallest'

If you start off with what happened in the past, lead up to what is currently the situation, and then on to what you see happening in the future, your brain would have had the time to come up with a plausible presentation to articulate your point of view

The presentation should not end at sometime in the future or in the past but should be wound back to reconfirm the point being made and the action you desire to be taken. The structure is to support the point of view and is not the point of view in itself.

Try this with an accident scenario. What was the production policy. What recent changes have been made that have lead up to the current situation and then the future, the 'where to from here'.

The 5 W's and an H.

The Who, What, When ,Where, Why and How

If you can answer the question based on these 6 categories, it will allow you time to gather your thoughts. Use these terms as a mental structure and not as a spoken structure. Keep the fact that you are using this structure to yourself and don't let the audience become aware that you are using this structure.

Cover all of the senses

Some people will comment during a conversation 'I see what you mean' when there is nothing to 'see'. Others will say 'I hear you' when this is stating the obvious. The third group like to feel the passion or emotion of the topic.
These senses are covered by the mnemonic SHE. (See, Hear and Emotion)

On the chest of the barmaid in Sale
Were tattooed the prices of ale. -
And on her behind,
For the sake of the blind,
Was the same information in Braille.

OHS and safety blog

Newsletter

I Speak My Mind

◦	Do you drop your dacks at work
◦	Whats for breakfast
◦	Go Home. Stop those long overtime hours
◦	Benifits of Booze
◦	Stop Laughing and start living
◦	Don’t become a victim of the ‘Streisand Effect’
◦	Tell the boss to turn-it-down
◦	Coffe, Cancer and Chaos
◦	Weddings should be banned
◦	The Laws of the Universe - or Murphy was an Optomist
◦	Is it time to tell the boss to get ..........

The Law - Act, Regulations, Codes of Practice

Case studies - WHS through the cases - Australia

◦	Jail plus $1m fine
◦	Category 1 offence
◦	$1.3m penalty for death of a worker
◦	$10m Undertaking
◦	Farting at work
◦	Playing cricket is work
◦	Chain of command
◦	Accident on way home was found to a connection to work
◦	Worker impaled by reinforcing bar
◦	Unfair Dismissal at end of fixed term contract
◦	Sexual assault in hospital
◦	First_cat_1_Offence_in_NSW
◦	Record NSW WHS Penalty
◦	Who is Engaged as a Worker?
◦	Record Victorian penalty
◦	When are you at work?
◦	Fall at work. $688,000 compensation
◦	Record penalty against businessman for underpayment
◦	Rise in manslaughter cases
◦	Ladder use - training not required
◦	Make sure that your defence team knows the right numbers
◦	Telling a ‘porky’ won’t bring home the bacon
◦	Employment agency not vicariously liable
◦	Tourist dies whilst on tour in Northern Territory
◦	The cost of failing
◦	Suspended gaol term
◦	Enforceable undertaking
◦	Lifting of boxes is part of normal office work
◦	Should you be terminated for swearing at the boss, or kissing a colleague
◦	Who is NOT an officer of a PCBU.
◦	Powers of WorkCover NSW to force a company to produce documents
◦	Ensuring safety
◦	Can unreasonable behaviour be insured
◦	Is it forseeable?
◦	Employee responsible for own safety.
◦	HSR loses unfair dismissal case
◦	Transport company, and the director, fined for false records
◦	Hume doors enforceable undertaking
◦	Theft_of_data
◦	What_is_reasonable
◦	When a frolic is not compensatable!
◦	117 Workers found guilty
◦	Fired for doing a chicken dance
◦	Sexual harassment worker wins after appeal
◦	Enforceable Undertaking in glass factory
◦	Injured worker caught playing competative basketball
◦	Claim 19 years after death
◦	Throwing Stones – Not the Right Answer
◦	Employer beats OHS charge
◦	Beware of hot water before you land in it.
◦	Is 'lippy' a cure for bullying?
◦	Does a principal contractor have a responsibility to train a sub-contractor
◦	What constitutes 'reasonable'
◦	Be Polite
◦	Big payout for sexual harassment
◦	Sex not work - High Court decides
◦	Court defends HSR's actions
◦	What is acceptable alternative work
◦	Worker crushed by machine safe system failed
◦	Is it work? The courts don't always agree
◦	How not to break an egg
◦	Is drinking coffee work?
◦	Lifting copy paper nets almost $240k
◦	Baida Chickens
◦	Machinery supplier fined over amputation
◦	Director is not 'too remote' from the company
◦	The Kirk Case
◦	Bunnings and the Potting Mix
◦	Hazardous Hairdresser and OHS
◦	Robbery at Franklins
◦	Fosters $1.25m penalty
◦	Self employed - Safety for the disobedient

Stories from around the world

◦	UK Company pays 1 million pounds
◦	Hotel workers to wear panic buttons
◦	Royal Opera House made to face the music
◦	When can work be a smoko?
◦	penalty reduced on financial grounds
◦	Star Wars Film Producers Prosecuted
◦	Electromagnetic fields harmful to your health
◦	Warning to Welders
◦	A big payout for two four two letter words
◦	Green Tea can improve brain function
◦	Don't bully the boss
◦	When is a mother not a mother
◦	Obesity and work - the connection
◦	New Zealand to adopt Australian WHS law
◦	How I Broke My Collar Bone
◦	The church thatdoes not believe in prayer, and the whore house that does
◦	OHS Consultant fined for being unqualified
◦	Prison for OHS fraud
◦	What is sex discrimination worth?
◦	Don't get Cross about a Cross
◦	Fired for being too sexy
◦	Is lactation a condition of pregnancy
◦	Email From Home results in sacking
◦	Compo case while working from home
◦	Top ten US causes of workplace injury
◦	Drug testing and the story of a false 'you know what'
◦	Does your company have a love contract?
◦	Unknown worker retires
◦	The crazy world of Britain's OHS Regulations
◦	Buffered for Morale, or getting it all off

Stories from around Australia

◦	Who is looking after those that look after us.
◦	Drug vapours threaten life of police officer
◦	Urine testing banned
◦	Discriminatory Conduct
◦	Coles fined $170 000
◦	Unfair Dismissals
◦	Sex on a business trip
◦	Director acquitted and charged after appeal
◦	Telstra employee injured while working from home
◦	Jail sentence for OHS offence
◦	20 20 Hindsight
◦	OHS in a Brothel

Resources

◦	Pin Decision Tree
◦	Site Inspection Form

Communication

◦	Impromptu Speaking
◦	Retorts and Witticisms
◦	Washington Post Word competition
◦	Quotes1
◦	Quotes2
◦	Quote3

Legislation- codes of practice - fact sheets

◦	Legislation and Codes of Practice
◦	Fact Sheets and Statistics
◦	WHS Decision Tree

Accident Investigation and Reporting and Management Theories

◦	The concept of empowerment
◦	The Heinrich Law
◦	The five why technique
◦	Fishbone or 'Ishikawa technique'
◦	William_Edwards_Deming
◦	P_D_C_A
◦	Risk_Matrix

Just for fun

◦	SDS for hazardous material:- Man and Woman
◦	Murphy was an optomist
◦	OHS Humour
◦	Jokes you could tell in church
◦	When U Black, You Black
◦	Brain Teasers
◦	BrainTeaser 1
◦	BrainTeaser 2
◦	BrainTeaser 3
◦	BrainTeaser 4
◦	BrainTeaser 5
◦	BrainTeaser 6

Signs and Photographs

◦	Illusions
◦	Transport
◦	Stupid Signs
◦	Working at Height
◦	Not a good idea
◦	Electrical
◦	Wrong tool
◦	Overloaded
◦	Building sites and builders

Privacy

Site Map