Whenever the quest for efficiency is made a priority, humans always pay the price in being dehumanised.
We see this is in any ideology that priorities ‘human performance’ over human ‘being’.
Sorry to say for all of those who love performance but, ‘being’ human is messy, inefficient, chaotic, uncertain and fallible. Human being is not efficient. If you want to learn to know someone and develop relationship, that takes time. Such a use of time is not efficient, some even call such inefficiency a ‘waste of time’ and, we all know that wasting time is ‘poor performance’.
We hear this kind of language in management ideology that loves to talk about ‘human systems and technological work interfaces’. Just read the tea leaves folks, this is just more Technique masked by spin about ‘differently’ and ‘new view’ but it’s plain olde Technique – traditional safety.
Just because someone calls something a ‘new view’ in safety, doesn’t mean it is. When the ideology is the same, the language is the same, philosophy the same and the orientation is the same, its just traditional safety. Such a view has little idea about effective questioning.
In Mondi their theme is: ‘leadership is time and a simple cup of coffee’.
- If you are concerned about the use of time and efficiency, you will never lead.
- If you view safety through the lens of performance, you will never ask better questions.
In the ideology of ‘human performance’ (which we see in HOP), the focus is on safety outcomes. Unfortunately, any focus on a primacy on ‘human performance’ is an ethical and moral commitment away from valuing persons.
In performance ideology, the value is placed on what humans do, not who humans are.
The language of ‘safety performance’ is about ‘safety outcomes’ not humanising persons. When your language is about performance, measurement, systems and controls, regardless of branding, you are in traditional safety territory.
The best way to learn about better questioning is not from ‘safety science’. The key to improving questioning is to critically question the appeal to authority fallacy (https://safetyrisk.net/is-safety-rational/). Just because a someone in safety writes a book on learning or questioning doesn’t mean they know what learning and questioning are. Afterall, Safety is so professional as declaring what is by what isn’t (https://safetyrisk.net/declaring-what-is-by-what-isnt-hop-as-traditional-safety/). Just because someone in safety declares something is a ‘truth’ doesn’t mean it is. Just because someone says their rhetoric is ‘wisdom’, doesn’t make it so.
If you want to learn about better questioning the last place to turn is Safety. Safety has no expertise in ethics, moral philosophy, personhood or social science, all essential to understanding the nature of questioning. This is why in Safety so often uses entrapment questioning considered ethical, when it is not. We see this so often in investigations. This is why Safety thinks binary questioning make sense. As long as the question is about ‘human performance’, is must be ‘better’.
‘Hey guys, come over here, we’re really doing something ‘different’, it’s a ‘new view’. ‘We’re not looking at human safety performance, we’re looking at human safety performance’. We’re not looking at causes of accidents, we’re looking at ‘pre-accidents’.
The emperor has no clothes on, but don’t tell him about it.
The key to understanding better questioning is to abandoned the ideology of ‘human performance’. Anyone loaded with the language of ‘human performance’ views the outcomes of human action as the lens for understanding human ‘being’. Such an orientation can never ask ‘better questions’.
The key to asking better questions is an orientation toward ethical personhood.
If anyone is out there in safety land spruiking stuff on ‘better questions’ but doesn’t mention the important of ethical orientation, it will have nothing to do with better questions.
The key to asking great questions is to be oriented morally towards the ‘other’ (person). I have given a few tips on this before:
- https://safetyrisk.net/questioning-skills-and-investigations/
- https://safetyrisk.net/conforming-and-questioning-in-safety/
- https://safetyrisk.net/questioning-for-resilience/
The key to learning effective questioning has nothing to do with Technique and ‘human performance’.
We explore effective questioning in all we do in SPoR using the iCue method. In iCue Engagement we focus on persons, and not the outcome of their performance. We listen as a foundation to understanding what they need and what it important to them, not what we think the safety outcome should be.
If you want to learn about better questions then one of the best places to start is learning the iCue Method (https://cllr.com.au/product/icue-engagement-module-28/).
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
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Rosa says
Hi Rob, could you explain more about why a human performance view leads to poor questions? Having watched the language in organizational development change over the years, I believe the trend of human performance was triggered by the desire to sound more relevant to business leaders. This is why we spend so much time gathering financial data as it relates to safety and other humanistic pursuits. It doesn’t do any good to tell management how much they’re going to save by reducing absenteeism, injuries or loss of personnel. The ultimate trigger for those decisions lie in the arena of power and politics. Thanks in advance, Rosa
Rob Long says
Rosa, thanks for your question.
The language of performance is the language of outcomes and takes the value of a person from their being to what they do. Whilst this is important, it is not the way to frame the way we approach others in relationship/community.
My initial focus on you should be on your being, not your performance, particularly in safety. This is why the discourse of HOP is just traditional safety once again. The methodology of performance and performance ideology also is anchored to measurement (qualitative and quantitative). I read in lots of HOP discourse this behaviourist agenda, but with different rhetoric.
The semiotics of performance (Elam) is a completely different thing and has no connection to business, HR or management but rather understands the symbols of human being as performace in a relational sense. It demonstrates the importance of knowing the other for who they are as a sign and what they say, than what they do.
It’s a fine line in linguistics but it sure matters.
If the primacy of your discourse is on performance and not relationships then you will have the wrong orientation to others. Worse if your focus is safety performance.
We never love others based on their performance, because we will all be let down and all not ‘perform’ with each other. Our focus is on being, living and Social meaning not rating performance. This is why a performance ideology can never ask ‘better questions’ indeed, in Conklin’s book there is nothing to help anyone ask ‘better questions’. You’ll never find out how to be oriented ethically and be disposed to others from this kind of discourse. But it has many fooled.
The key to asking questions is how I am disposed/oriented towards the other NOT their performance or the performance of the organisation in which they belong.
Read any of these HOP books and the focus is always on the power of the observer/advisor not the relinquishing of power to the other. Unless one considers an ethic of personhood (that HOP never speaks of) in understanding others, being and performance; your questions will always be about what you want to know not who you want to know. The same applies to HOPs approach to learning. Learing is not about what but who.