Stage presence

As children, stories introduce us to the world beyond the family and culturally, we use both history and mythology to comprehend the past and look to the future.

Put simply, stories are the best way we have of transmitting ideas. Forget powerpoint slideshows, cross-referenced databases or company audits – if you want to get to grips with an issue, fiction does it best. When a story is dramatised for stage, the effect can be even stronger.

Just ask BAA Capital Projects. In searching for ways to express behavioural safety, it took the brave step of hiring a firm to dramatise a serious – and traumatic – accident from its past (p16). The result was a play in which the audience was given the chance to interact. Brave, because confronting your own mistakes is never easy and brave, because it agreed to mix up spectators so that operatives and directors would be seated together. That way, everyone could see how their colleagues dealt with tricky situations. As one health and safety official who attended said: ‘Any company would benefit from this kind of forward thinking.’

BAA’s trip to the theatre isn’t an industry one-off. At the CIOB annual dinner last month, we learned that in South Africa, engineering firm Murray & Roberts has used ‘industrial theatre’ to tackle issues of health and safety. Many of its site workers have HIV but declaring your status is illegal – so workers are often exposed to risks their companies could not know about. Dramatising HIV issues for stage has had a ‘big impact’, says chairman Brian Bruce.

Health and safety culture is maturing. Investing in something as complex, but rewarding, as industrial theatre shows a real commitment to improving standards. But there are other topics that could be put on stage. As we report, Wates is tackling diversity in this manner and EC Harris is considering how leadership might provide the basis for drama.

But that’s another story.