• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Safety Risk .net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • PSYCH. OF SAFETY & RISK
    • What is Psychological Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Robert Long
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no HIERARCHY of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • Slogans
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
    • When Slogans Don’t Work
    • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
    • BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2022
    • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Safety Acronyms
    • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
    • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
    • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
    • Safety Slogans List
    • Road Safety Slogans 2022
    • How to write your own safety slogans
    • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
    • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
    • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
    • Safety Slogans for Work
  • Safety Culture
    • Safety Culture Silences
  • Psychological Safety
You are here: Home / Risk Aversion / Binary Discipline and The Easy Road of Consequence

Binary Discipline and The Easy Road of Consequence

March 24, 2013 by Dr Rob Long 3 Comments

Binary Discipline and The Easy Road of Consequence

Latest by Dr Rob Long – I highly recommend his other Articles HERE and his new book: For The Love of Zero

There are many dimensions to the fallibility of being human and many inbuilt psychological mechanisms that operate unconsciously, individually and socially. The idea of behaviourist theory that humans are machines is nonsense. In the face of the evidence, humans are much more than the sum of inputs and outputs. The implications of a holistic understanding of humans is essential to developing a balanced approach to risk and safety management.

The idea that any binary thinking helps mature leadership or learning in risk is also nonsense. The evidence shows that most relationships in human life are not black or white, human living is not binary but complex. Any consideration of the complex nature of humans and fallibility shows that the absolute of zero is nonsense. Any either/or thinking or goal setting that ignores competing goals is simplistic and disconnected from human reality. Zero goal setting, zero language and zero ideology is simplistic and therefore unrealistic and unsafe.

Recently, there have been a number of sackings in Australia made prominent in the media and social media that have demonstrated that some think that effective safety management is all about consequence. The thinking is, if one doesn’t set heavy consequences and heavy examples then, one is either weak or permissive. This binary way of thinking is unable to see beyond the simplistic black and white. Black and white (binary) mindset thinks as follows: one either believes in punishment or not, one either believes in zero or wants people to die, one either believes in the war or terror or you are a terrorist, one is either homosexual or homophobic. There are no shades of grey and no in-between, the world is so simple when everything is black and white.

When it comes to the development of safety and risk ownership, binary simplistic thinking is disconnected from reality. Nothing is more important than understanding human judgement and decision making and motivation. Training and education in understanding human judgement and decision making and motivation should precede all training in risk and safety management. Yet, it is strange that the study of motivation is nowhere to be found orthodox safety training.

The primary focus in leadership in dealing with humans when they make mistakes or errors should be to invest as much understanding and empathy into the situation as is possible. This doesn’t mean workers should not be disciplined nor that there should not be consequences but rather, maturity, relationship and empathy should temper the manner in which humans are disciplined.

Discipline and compliance are not objective actions and are always metered out by subjective humans, sometimes under the myth of some ‘objective’ policy. There is no absolute certainty with anything when it comes to humans, this is the very meaning of the word ‘risk’. Risk is about the effect of uncertainty on objectives. We do our best and try to minimise risk but there is no certainty, there is no perfectionism and no absolutes. The illogical mantra of ‘all accidents are preventable’ is nonsense in a human world and is simplistic ‘spin’ developed in hindsight.

Many in supervision and management in industrial-type industries, where people skills are low, are often appalling at discipline. There are many costly by-products to poor discipline that affect morale, productivity and generate industrial conflict. In such industries such as mining and construction the human and economic toll of poor discipline is extensive yet these industries under value the importance of human skills (sometimes called ‘soft’ skills) in management.

There is no great value in unthinking blind compliance. Blind compliance with rules can be dangerous, especially as context and work environment changes. Innovative, creative, thinking and imaginative workers are those who survive best in moments of turbulence and change, when the rules have not caught up with change. So I would rather put the emphasis on thinking workers rather than just ‘compliant’ workers.

Whilst compliance is valuable but so too is thinking, there must be a balance and our discipline system in our organisations should reflect such. There are some organisations in Australia who propose they have some psychological test that can assess who are risk takers in a group and weed them out of the system. This is more binary nonsense, just as absurd as the ideology of zero.

The problem with binary thinking and goal setting is that it ignores the complexity of what it is to be human. Goals cannot be set in an either/or way when it comes to considering humans, there are far too many competing goals. For example, if one makes a test to select out risk takers from a group (as these psychological diagnostic marketers propose) then one also selects out of the culture any positive approach to learning and innovation. There can be no learning and innovation without risk.

So, the best way to develop buy-in and safety ownership is to balance consequence with understanding, motivation and learning.

So here is the crazy counterintuitive outcome of binary consequence thinking. Workers are rarely impressed by arbitrary discipline and this either leads to workers telling managers what they want to hear or to under reporting. The emphasis on consequences as a means of developing safety, rather than developing safety, actually makes the workplace less safe.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • How to be a Safety Extremist - August 15, 2022
  • The Safety Spoilsport - August 13, 2022
  • The Safety Worldview and the Worldview of Safety, Testing Due Diligence - August 13, 2022
  • The Enemy of Safety – Humans - August 13, 2022
  • The Sacred Bra Tree - August 7, 2022
Dr Rob Long
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.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Risk Aversion, Robert Long, Zero Harm Tagged With: discipline, risk taking, Safe Behaviour, Safety Management, Zero Harm

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,460 other subscribers

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Admin on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Andrew Floyd on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • grumpy on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Ray on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Wynand on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on Culture Silences in Safety – What Culture Isn’t
  • Rob Long on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Rob Long on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Brent Charlton on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Richard Brookes on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Rob Long on The Rhizome as a Learning Model for Risk
  • Ooker on The Rhizome as a Learning Model for Risk
  • Rob Long on Safety Doesn’t Need Military Language
  • Manjit Handa on Safety Doesn’t Need Military Language

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2022
  • Road Safety Slogans 2022
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • What Is Safety?
  • IDEAS FOR SAFETY TOOL BOX TALKS, HARD HAT CHATS and SAFETY MOMENTS
  • Free Risk Assessment Template in Excel Format
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS

Recent Posts

  • How to be a Safety Extremist
  • The Safety Spoilsport
  • The Safety Worldview and the Worldview of Safety, Testing Due Diligence
  • The Enemy of Safety – Humans
  • The Sacred Bra Tree
  • Understanding Psychological Terminology
  • Beware False Profits and Messiahs in Safety
  • Risk Boldly
  • Poetics of the Self
  • Culture Silences in Safety – What Culture Isn’t
  • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • When Only More Guilt Will Do
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Keep Counting Every Time You Don’t Achieve Your Goal, That’s Professional
  • Safety and Non-Neuroscience
  • Paperwork and Usability in Tackling Risk
  • Safety as a Masculinist Activity
  • You Don’t Want a Compliance Culture
  • The Soul of Mental Health
  • Identity and Safety
  • Psychosocial Controls and Measures for Who?
  • Linguistics and Safety
  • Not a Profession’s Bootlace
  • Cultural Silences in Safety – Power and Politics
  • History and Safety
  • What is Psychosocial Safety
  • It’s the –ism That Matters
  • A Guide to Psychosocial Safety Skills
  • Doing Away With Health and Safety–Language and People
  • The New Enemy of Safety – The Unconscious
  • Tape Down Those Leads
  • More Safety Code to Disguise Behaviourism
  • Why Safety is Attracted to Behaviourism
  • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
  • Understanding Safety as an Archetype
  • The Purpose of Safety
  • Learning Styles Matter
  • Due Diligence and Holistic Ergonomics Workshops
  • Having FUN in Safety FUNdamentalism
  • 80% of Safety Practitioners Are Idiots
  • Risk Homeostasis Theory–Why Safety Initiatives Go Wrong
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Semiotics
  • Flooding is Dangerous, and I don’t Mean the Water….
  • Cultural Silences in Safety – Aesthetics
  • Impacts of Cognitive Dissonance in the Workplace
  • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
  • Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk
  • Due Diligence Videos – 10000 downloads
  • Release the Safety Monster and Wreck a Good TV Show
  • Paper Safe

FEATURED POSTS

I Just Want Clear Answers

Workshop – Introduction to the Social Psychology of Risk

A Great Comparison of Risk and Safety Schools of Thought

Collaborating, Cooperating and Cohesion in Risk

Prepositions for Risk and Safety Leadership

Hoarding as a Psychosis Against Uncertainty

Safety Can’t Control Nature (or People)

WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture

The New Leadership – Risk and Safety

Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk

Post Graduate Studies in the Social Psychology of Risk

The Illusion Of Opposites

Real Risk – Free Download

Semiotics, Semiology and Safety Sense

Sensemaking and ‘Hapori’ – Essential for Tackling Risk in New Zealand

Unthinkable

CLLR Christmas 2016 Newsletter and Competition

How Workers Really Make Decisions

Selective Harm for Rio Tinto

Overcoming Safety Indoctrination

Why we make mistakes

Understanding Risk

The Primacy of Play in Learning

The Paradox of Positivism for Safety

The Hero Myth in Modern Management

Why Safety Controls Don’t Always Work

When ‘Hearts and Minds’ are not ‘Hearts and Minds’

Developing Our Inner Introversion

By What Method?

Humanising Workers Compensation (Sydney Workshop)

Deconstruction and Reconstruction for Safety

I’ve got a feeling this isn’t right, but…..

Sergeant Safety

Risk Culture and Cultural Risk

Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts

Safety Investigation – Whodunit?

The Tyranny of Absolutes

History and Safety

The Tyranny of Metrics

The Fallible Factor and What to Do About It

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,460 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

What is Psychological Safety at Work?