The Practice of Learning Teams

About The Practice of Learning Teams

HOP Into Action is a podcast of the broadcast that can be heard on Safety FM. The show is an ongoing discussion about building a better community of practice for people and organizations who want to improve safety, quality and operational excellence using HOP, Learning Teams, 4Ds and other learning framework. The host of the podcast, Brent Sutton, explores through conversation, diversity of thought and reflection the organizational challenges and learning opportunities that can be identified and improved on by using HOP and Learning Teams for Normal Everyday Work, Management of Change to create betterwork. For those of you in safety, it is about moving from preventative safety to productive safety and creating sustainable practice and improvement in operstions.

Publisher

Brent Sutton

Category

business · government

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

28 Aug 2020

Latest episode

11 Apr 2026

Latest episodes

32 of 185 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   11 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT

   From Flaws to Responses: Embracing the Adaptive Workforce

   Welcome to Season 7 and the 141st episode of the podcast show HOP Into Action. For too long, we have described worker actions with words such as "shortcut," "workaround," "non-compliance," or "deviation." Those words may sound neutral, but they often carry blame for the receiver. They quietly suggest that the problem lies with the person. But what if those actions are not signs of carelessness or poor attitude? What if they are responses to pressure, poor design, awkward systems, conflicting demands, and the everyday reality of getting the job done? In this episode, we explore a simple but powerful shift in language and thinking. Instead of asking, “Why did the worker adapt?” we ask, “What was the worker responding to?” That change matters. It moves us away from judging behavior and toward understanding conditions. It helps us see that people are often not creating the problem. They are managing the problem that the system has already given them. We will look at the different kinds of responses workers make every day, and we will also explore how the 4Ds (Dumb, Dangerous, Difficult, and Different) can help leaders and teams notice these responses without blame and with more curiosity. Because the truth is this: responses are evidence. They show us where work design is weak, where pressure is building, where the system depends on human flexibility, and where learning is possible. So let’s stop asking how to stop people from adapting, and start asking what the work environment is asking people to respond to.

2. 

   6 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT

   From Blame Words to Better Questions

   Host Todd Conklin explores how shifting from blame-filled words to curious questions fosters organizational learning and understanding.

3. 

   21 Feb 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Triad of Safety: Evolution - Revolution - Innovation

   Host Brent Sutton explores the Triad of Safety, which includes evolution, revolution, and innovation, to clarify how each drives different outcomes for organizations, preventing the use of outdated systems.

Inside a recent episode

From Flaws to Responses: Embracing the Adaptive Workforce

Published 11 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] One of the clearest and most vital explanations for why workers must adapt comes from the distinction between workers imagined and workers done. Workers imagined refers to how workers described, prescribed, planned or assumed by designers, procedure writers, managers and regulators. It is the official version of the job, the idealised procedure, the sanitised training module, the static risk assessment and the manager's expectation of how a task will unfold. Workers done by contrast refers to how works actually carried out under real conditions by the human beings executing it. Research and systems thinking and resilience engineering emphasises that these two versions of work are never fully identical. […]

Who has been a guest on The Practice of Learning Teams

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Jeff Lyth
• Ben Hutchinson
• Brent Robinson

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

3.7 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 46 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

62

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

77

Contact The Practice of Learning Teams

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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