A Puzzle, Ambiguity and Mysticism – Free Weick Workshops

Karl E. Weick introduced a number of concepts into thinking about the Social Psychology of Organising that have significance for Safety.

Some of Weick’s ideas are unknown to Safety because it selectively reads Weick to suit its own worldview/paradigm.

Weick uses the language of: ‘puzzle’, ‘ambiguity’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘fragmentation’, ‘cutting edge mysticism’ and ‘dialectical interpretation’ when he thinks about organising.

Just review Weick’s language and you will wonder what he is thinking. It is also clear evidence that safety doesn’t read Weick, it reads into Weick.

This language of Weick is evident in his thinking on ‘loose coupling’ and ‘enactment’. This will be discussed further in the free workshops in June.

When Weick disuses the nature of Loose Coupling he also uses the language of competing ‘voices’ in understanding its dialectical nature.

Although not referenced by Weick, his discourse shares much in common with Ricoeur, Kierkegaard, Lotman, Ellul, Jung and Buber. That is, there is no existence of tight couped systems in the human world or organising. Indeed, any effort to build tightly coupled or ‘fail safe’ systems in the real world is a recipe for catastrophe.

Dialectics is a key concept in the way SPoR advocates how we should tackle risk. SPoR often uses semiotics and grammatical tools to demonstrate the dialectical nature of tackling risk.

Unfortunately, Safety very often seeks an absolute form of safety and we see this evidenced discourse on Zero and seeking perfection (Amalberti, Taleb).

We also read in Safety its aspiration for a High Reliability Organisation (HRO). The idea of a HRO is not an idea from Weick but rather a concoction by Safety that doesn’t exist in Weick’s thinking. This is evidence of how Safety reads into Weick and constructs ideas from Weick that don’t exist.

Whilst it might be convenient to ‘cherry pick’ from Weick and make up some Safety idea, any thorough study of Weick will show that Safety mis-reads his work.

Free Workshops

If you would like to learn more about Karl E. Weick and his ideas about organising and risk, you can register for tree workshops here: admin@spor.com.au

The workshops will be held at 7am Canberra time on Tuesdays 9, 16, 23 and 30 June. Each workshop will run for 60-90 minutes.

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Prof. Robert Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Prof. Robert Long (see all)

• Weick’s Expectations of the Unexpected - May 13, 2026
• The Non-Revolution in Safety - May 12, 2026
• Suspending Your Agenda to Begin Learning in Risk - May 11, 2026
• The De-Ethicization of the Object in Safety - May 9, 2026
• Weick’s Organising as ‘Consensually Validated Grammar’ - May 9, 2026

PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.