From Safety Theory to Everyday Practice

As part of a broader effort to modernize safety communication, a global oil and gas major was looking for new ways to engage leaders and teams on safety—ways that moved beyond traditional, directive messaging.

The organization already had strong safety programs, experienced leaders, and access to world-class thinking. What was missing wasn’t expertise or commitment. It was a way to help people engage with safety concepts in a manner that felt relevant, thoughtful, and applicable to the realities of day-to-day work.

This case study highlights one focused example of how that broader safety communication strategy came to life.

Through our embedded work with the company’s senior safety leadership, Crop Circle identified a specific opportunity: while safety thinking has continued to evolve, the way those ideas are often communicated has not.

We also recognized a second, equally important factor—how people absorb content today. Leaders and frontline teams increasingly engage with information that feels conversational, accessible, and easy to consume, more akin to the short-form content they encounter on social media than to long-form corporate videos.

Crop Circle conceived and introduced a new idea to the organization: a conversation-led video series that would bring contemporary safety thinking to life by exploring how it holds up in real-world operational contexts.

Rather than creating another safety campaign, the goal was to help leaders think differently—and give them content they would actually want to watch, revisit, and discuss.

Crop Circle originated and designed an 11-episode short-form video series featuring the company’s senior safety leader in conversation with Dr. Todd Conklin, a globally recognized safety expert and co-author of the book Do Safety Differently.

This was not a tactical training program, and it was never intended to be instructional. Instead, the series focused on thoughtful, unscripted conversations that explored core safety concepts—such as capacity, learning from everyday work, and maintaining a chronic sense of unease—and examined how those ideas resonate inside a complex, high-risk organization.

The intent was not to debate theory or prescribe solutions, but to:

• Explore safety concepts openly
• Reflect on where they align—or clash—with operational realities
• Give leaders language and perspective they could interpret and apply in their own environments

Each episode was intentionally designed to be concise and modular, allowing the content to be easily shared, revisited, and reused across the organization.

The reception across the company was overwhelmingly positive.  What began as a content concept quickly evolved into a practical engagement tool for leaders at all levels of the organization. 

As the series gained momentum, we expanded the program to include:

• Facilitated discussion decks with reflection questions
• Materials designed for toolbox talks, offshore deck meetings, and office-based teams
• Leader-ready resources that supported dialogue rather than one-way messaging

Leaders and teams began using the videos organically—as safety moments, conversation starters, and prompts for reflection. The content was adopted across operational and non-operational environments, supporting discussions in offshore settings, office meetings, and leadership forums.

Crop Circle continued to lead its evolution. Building on the strong response, we are now partnering with the organization to design and deliver a live, all-company safety seminar grounded in the themes explored throughout the 11-episode series.

This upcoming event will bring leaders from across the business together in a facilitated panel discussion focused on key safety concepts from the videos—creating space for shared reflection, dialogue, and learning. The session will be broadcast company-wide, extending the reach of the work and reinforcing its role in shaping how safety is discussed at scale, ending with agreement on a few commitments the company will do differently going forward.

Rather than remaining a standalone content initiative, the series has become a foundation for broader engagement—continuing to grow as leaders find new ways to use and apply the thinking in real-world contexts.

This work succeeded because it respected both the audience and the complexity of safety.

Instead of simplifying safety thinking into directives, the series trusted leaders to engage with ideas, wrestle with them, and interpret what they mean in practice. By pairing respected safety theory with lived operational perspective—and delivering it in a format aligned with how people consume content today—Crop Circle helped create something leaders found credible, relevant, and worth returning to.

Most importantly, this initiative reinforced a central belief of the broader safety communication strategy: lasting change doesn’t come from telling people what to do—it comes from helping them think differently about the work they do every day.