In a world where safety campaigns often default to policies, procedures, and compliance checklists, we’re missing a fundamental truth about human behaviour: we’re wired for stories, not statistics.
In our latest episode of “The Art of Safety Leadership,” we spoke with two exceptional guests who approach this challenge from different angles: award-winning journalist Jehan Casinader, who has spent his career telling powerful stories, and Daniel McGuigan, Global Fleet Safety Director at PepsiCo, who applies storytelling principles to create safer outcomes for a fleet of 82,000 vehicles worldwide.
Their conversation revealed how storytelling can transform safety culture in ways that traditional approaches simply cannot achieve.
Read on for the highlights and key advice:
Beyond the Buzzword: What Is Storytelling?
As Jehan points out, “storytelling has become a buzzword and I think it now means so many different things to different people that the word itself has become almost meaningless.” But at its core, storytelling is about influence, and it contains four essential elements:
- Characters: Real people with motivations and experiences
- Journeys: How characters move from point A to point B
- Conflict: The obstacles and challenges faced along the way
- Jeopardy: What’s at stake if things go wrong
For safety professionals, that last element—jeopardy—carries profound significance. “When we get it wrong and we don’t protect our people,” Jehan explains, “we don’t have the right processes and we don’t empower people to speak up, we lose lives. People can actually die at work.”
This reality makes safety one of the most compelling contexts for storytelling in any business environment.
Narrative Change Before Behavioural Change
One of the most powerful insights shared in this conversation challenges the traditional sequence of safety initiatives: “The number one mistake that I see is that we try to achieve behavioral change before we’ve achieved narrative change,” Jehan observes.
Too often, we focus immediately on changing behaviours through policies and training without first changing the stories people tell themselves about safety. Daniel provides a practical example from PepsiCo:
“We had one gentleman in the US who was involved in a forklift truck incident where he ended up breaking his back and is paralyzed. And he was brave enough with his wife to sit in front of the camera in his wheelchair and tell his colleagues what he had done, which resulted in his own injury… When others see it, it is a really powerful message.”
This approach turns an abstract safety rule into a human story with tangible consequences, making the jeopardy real and immediate.
Making It Real: The Power of Relevance
For safety messages to resonate, they must feel relevant to the audience. As Daniel explains, “It has to be real for the people you’re trying to ask to do something. They have to understand the why.”
This means more than just relaying incidents or statistics—it requires connecting safety to what people value in their specific context. For example, Daniel describes how PepsiCo’s “Test Drive Testimonials” program collects stories from drivers about how following safety protocols helped them avoid collisions. These stories from peers resonate far more than theoretical instructions from management.
“One of your colleagues in a completely different part of the world potentially has the same experience as them. And it means something to them,” Daniel explains.
The Leadership Challenge: Vulnerability as Permission
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of using storytelling for safety culture is the vulnerability it requires from leaders. Jehan references Brené Brown’s famous quote: “Vulnerability is the first thing I want to see in you and the last thing I want you to see in me.”
Many leaders are reluctant to share personal stories or admit uncertainty. Yet this vulnerability is precisely what creates the psychological safety needed for cultural change.
“What we mean by vulnerability in a business context is really showing up as a human,” Jehan clarifies. “The more that our leaders are able to do that, then the more benefits there will be because you’re demonstrating the culture that you’re trying to create for your people.”
Daniel adds a powerful example from PepsiCo’s safety approach: “One of our key messages at the moment for our teams is to have the courage to care… Have the courage to care for your fellow workers, your teams, your people, your bosses.”
The Middle Management Challenge
An interesting dynamic discussed in the conversation is the challenge of reaching middle management—often identified as the layer where cultural change efforts stall. The guests suggest several approaches:
- Ownership: “Who is actually owning safety within your business?” Daniel asks. “Our view is that we are the AHS team. We are the people who are responsible for compliance, but the owners of safety are everybody, from the CEO to the frontline worker.”
- Practical Application: Rather than abstract concepts, show middle managers exactly how safety protocols work in practice and the benefits they bring.
- Early Adopters: Identify and support champions at the middle management level who can influence their peers.
Beyond the Accident: Telling Positive Stories
One of the most overlooked aspects of safety storytelling is the celebration of successes. As Daniel notes, “It’s very easy to talk to the negatives when it comes to safety because you have had an event, you’ve had an accident… But if you can actually celebrate the successes of people through reducing those number of events and actually share that message within your teams and the broader global team, that does have an impact on people.”
Jehan builds on this point with a powerful example from Transport for London, where one rail worker has intervened to prevent 29 suicides since 2015. “Imagine one person who’s a rail worker, probably not on a huge salary, certainly not in a leadership position or anything fancy, but in the course of his day-to-day work has prevented 29 people from ending their lives.”
These positive stories demonstrate the impact of safety measures in ways that statistics cannot.
Practical Tips for Safety Professionals
For safety professionals looking to harness storytelling in their organisations, our guests offered several practical takeaways:
- Partner with internal communications: “Your internal communications team are your best friends, or they should be,” advises Jehan. “Build proactive relationships with them. Ask them to explain where are the different touch points within the business.”
- Be honest: “You have to be honest with yourself. You have to be honest with your business,” says Daniel, emphasising the foundational importance of trust.
- Develop your influence skills: “If you aren’t able to influence people’s thoughts, their feelings, their behaviour, then you’re going to struggle to achieve whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve in your role,” Jehan explains.
- Understand the business culture: “Safety culture is the way we do things,” says Daniel. “You need to go in and you need to set a business culture. The way we want to do things is this, that’s what we want to get to.”
- Don’t give up: Cultural change takes time. As Daniel puts it, “If it was easy, everyone would have already done it.”
The Way Forward
The traditional paradigm of safety management—focused primarily on regulatory compliance and technical solutions—has plateaued in its effectiveness globally. What’s needed is an approach that connects with people on a human level, that speaks to their values, attitudes, and beliefs.
Storytelling offers this bridge, connecting technical requirements to human experience in ways that drive genuine cultural change.
As safety professionals, we have an opportunity to move beyond checklists and statistics to create narratives that inspire, educate, and transform. The stories we choose to tell—and how we tell them—may ultimately determine whether our safety efforts succeed or fail.
Want to hear more?
To hear the full conversation with Jehan Casinader and Daniel McGuigan, including more detailed examples and practical advice on implementing storytelling in your safety approach, watch or listen to the complete episode of “The Art of Safety Leadership” on the links below
