Loss prevention

Listening is all

Joe Maguire, Technical Manager, Skuld Loss Prevention and Technical Management, explains how a journey of listening and open mindedness leads to adaptive resilience in the critical area of loss prevention

Where does one start a journey? In this case at the end, which is the sea farm ‘Jostein Albert’ at 385 metres long and 59.5 meters wide it has a capacity of 10,000 tonnes of salmon. The latest technologies and huge vessels which are more akin to a semi-submersible offshore unit than what would be considered a more conventional vessel or fish farm found in a fjord, are being deployed to farm these silver torpedoes. So how can we translate our knowledge of ships and their role in the world to a ship like structure which floats but has a very different role to play in an ever evolving and innovative maritime industry?

An alternative question could be: what has this got to do with a bulk carrier and a department called Loss Prevention at a P&I Club? A fair question to raise.

Defining loss prevention is important because a popular search engine will tell you there are some 434,000,000 possible definitions! Narrowing that field, therefore, is a salient point.

COLLABORATIVE WORKING

To throw my hat into the ring of an already saturated pool of definitions: Loss Prevention is listening without prejudgment. To be inquisitive and to understand without agreeing or disagreeing any given set of often dynamic and complex systems, which most often overlap into other complex and dynamic systems, working collaboratively to grow (operational) resilience.

The vast majority of the companies that I work with on a day to day basis are succeeding, growing and enjoying positive outcomes in the course of their business more often than they are not.

Understanding how and why this is the case often holds the key to both gaining a good relationship and building trust and then translating that into transparency and collaboration to increase resilience when or where a negative outcome occurs for a company.

It is self-evident that you need to know how a company succeeds before loss prevention can support any fine-tuning or

“Defining loss prevention is important because a popular search engine will tell you there are some 434,000,000 possible definitions! Narrowing that field, therefore, is a salient point.’’

Joe Maguire, Skuld

evolution of their operation to reduce the frequency and/or the impact of negative outcomes.

I am confident of my years of experience across the sector. But I also believe that you cannot be a specialist in everything or have extensive knowledge of every element of the broad and diverse maritime industry and the companies that operate within it. Collaborative working and shared expertise is a crucial part of the development of successful working relationships and successful business across the sector.

Every organisation has its own story to tell and that story describes that company’s unique journey from inception to the present day. A key element of loss prevention is a willingness to listen to and understand that story and the passion which lies behind the development of a business or organisation.

Acknowledgement that the person talking to you is the expert in their company and how they work is paramount, and we firmly believe that there is knowledge to be gained from every level of the organisation.

Put simply, I have found it is the person actually doing the task who is normally best placed to tell me how to do the task. Giving ownership to any process we engage with allows all members of the organisation to buy into our strategies and, by that, provides the most certain way of ensuring success.

This is the purest form of the definition of loss prevention: Becoming a valuable partner, an extension of the organisation who can be a reliable resource, by listening and then talking.

You have to acknowledge that in a typical loss prevention department there are a number of mariners with at least some relatable experience such as myself. But you don’t need to be a mariner to be curious about how something works and there are many different mariners all with different experiences, all contributing to the whole.

VALUABLE PARTNER

So, to the circumstance where a vessel or sector of the industry is so new that the configuration of the vessel, its complexity, its operation and even geographical location for that operation is new. How can loss prevention remain a valuable partner to improve resilience when what we encounter may exceed our relevant maritime experiences?

Hopefully the preceding paragraphs have gone some way to answering that, or at least give a perspective about one way of trying to do that. I am not planting my flag in the ground here saying this is the definitive answer to working in a rapidly changing industry; there are always other approaches, different perspectives, and desired outcomes.

This thinking has not, I hope, only helped support and benefit the organisations which I have worked with and will work with in the future, but it has also helped me grow as a professional and it has given me much satisfaction and enjoyment at the same time, somethig which really cannot be taken for granted.

Going back to the start seems appropriate at this point. Perhaps to consider from a different perspective, what has a bulk carrier and a department called Loss Prevention got to do with an offshore aquaculture behemoth?

The philosophical answer is everything and nothing. By using existing personal knowledge and experiences, listening and with a genuine desire and humility to understand complex and interrelating systems from as many perspectives as you can, by talking about how things go well and the problems faced, solutions more often than not present themselves. The ultimate expression of understanding and support from an insurer is becoming a partner of these cutting-edge enterprises and to collaborate by protecting ocean industries together.