Are You a One Percenter?

Are You a One Percenter?

Every so often I get a call or visit from a GM of a global or National organization and we chat about research and latest trends in safety. Today was one of those days with a GM of the largest logistics company in Australia.

We chatted about what the safety world says about itself through popular blogs, podcasts etc and observe and analyse trends, semiotics, discourse, language etc. This GM often tries to avoid exploring such things as he is very busy and finds what’s going on in safety depressing. None of the safety people in his organization are in any of safety associations because of the industry’s love of zero. So, he often picks my research as a quick way to keep up with what is going on, most often learning what to avoid.

As part of our conversation I asked if he had heard of the latest from the zero cult and so I showed him the ‘Spirit of Zero, in the blink of an eye’ video (https://safetyrisk.net/the-spirit-of-zero/ ). His jaw hit the ground like most safety people who have seen it.

Then I asked if he had heard of the ‘one percenters’ and he replied, ‘yes of course everyone knows about outlaw motorcycle gangs’. What? Then with a quick search I was introduced to the global movement of ‘one percenters’ and everything that came up was outlaw motor cycle gangs. So do a search for ‘one percenters’ and you will be overwhelmed. Here are just some of the semiotics.

Then once we explored the one percenters I showed him the latest trend from the zero cult (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-not-a-target-or-vision-its-a-language-discourse/) and again his jaw hit the ground.

The one percenters in outlaw motorcycle gangs has been about for 70 years, surely in due diligence Safety might do some research and make sure that in developing something they would eliminate confusion and associated by-products. Apparently not. If the zero cult is good at anything, it’s the ability to be dumb. When you are on a righteous roll, why do research? When the myopic world of safety creates a brand/movement, why is there any need for due diligence?

So here is the confusion, if you are in safety and maintain the discourse of being a ‘one percenter’, most likely people will think you are advocating outlaw motorcycle ideology. When you god is zero and your ideology is perfectionism, why would you think you could get something so wrong? Are you a one percenter?

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

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• Courting Infallibility in Safety - May 7, 2021

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.