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

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • 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 2023
      • 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
    • 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
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and 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
  • Dr Long Posts
    • 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!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Robert Long / Breaking the Safety Code

Breaking the Safety Code

March 18, 2023 by Dr Rob Long Leave a Comment

imageWhat is the Safety code? Safety code is the in-group code to sell products. Once in-group-demand is assured then buying silver bullets seems a positive economic outcome, in the name of safety.

I see recently the chance to learn about safety ‘code breaking’ but not the in-group code but rather the confirmation bias code, packaged in all the best spin about psychosocial high reliability organisations with efficiency, quality and injury rates: NSCA Webinar: Code Breaker – Creating highly reliable workplaces with exceptional safety, efficiency and quality.

Of course, Karl Weick disowned the notion of High Reliability Organisations (HROs) and regretted the way it had been misused by Safety. There is no High Reliability Organisation (HRO), there is only High Reliability Organising (HROing). Similarly, Edgar Schein regretted what Safety did to his work on culture. (I wonder if Reason ever regrets thinking up the nonsense swiss-cheese?) Hey but this is Safety, let’s not bother about mythology getting in the way of selling a Safety product.

Whenever you need to market a product in safety it’s pretty much a formula to start with injury rates and regulation. This is always how Safety Work Australia open any discussion. This is the instant magnet for the Safety sell.

In this piece (endorsed by the NSCA), the so-called ‘code’ is mystically what HROs do and this is what unlocks the code. As there is no such thing as a HRO I guess you just make s#@t up. This is what Safety does so well, and throw in language and myths that attract the in-group to the promise of, more of the same. Nothing wins over the in-group like the language of ‘heroes’ and ‘playbooks’ and so the marketing is complete. It’s like telling people that fallible organisations and people that they can ‘drift into failure’, from what?

And what is the ‘hero code’? A ‘powerful set of guiding principles for leaders’ (https://fusionsafetymgt.com/hero-code-project/). And what are the principles? The same stuff you had last time. Considering there is no such thing as an HRO, then the ‘hero code’ is the code to what?

The reality is, the last thing safety needs is ‘hero code champions’ and if Safety needs a code-breaking mechanism to be safe then, why is this so? Is safety that complex that we need to buy products to discover the safety secret?

The reality is, there is no code in understanding the work of Karl Weick (https://archive.org/details/trent_0116403577194) the founder of the Social Psychology of Organising in 1969. I wonder how many in safety have actually read his founding book (second edition): The Social Psychology of Organising? (https://archive.org/details/socialpsychology00weic).

The second edition of his book is essential reading for any safety person. (I must say, I was delighted in 2015 to receive Karl’s personal endorsement of all my work in SPoR – SPoR Handbook   p150).

If you were to read Karl’s books you would realise that what Weick developed is antithetical to most of what is practiced in safety today. The work of SPoR resonates strongly the Karl’s pioneering work. In the second edition of The Social Psychology of Organising, Prof. Weick tears to shreds most of the nonsense that is about today in causality and safety. But what would Wieck know, applying Social Psychology to the challenges of risk? Ah no, but it’s a secret and you need to code to be a hero.

And here we are 50 years later and still Safety has absolutely no interest in the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) or the pioneering work of Weick. Indeed, most of the work I see about safety that claims to be based on Weick, is not. Much of it is mis-attribution to Weick to suit the behaviourist and engineering bias of safety spin. Most of it is a selective grab-bag of snippets of Weick with little knowledge of his body of work. Moreso, if you were to use Weick to criticise Safety, that would put you on the out-group because critical thinking in Social Psychology is antithetical to safety. Such criticism is just about aggression and anger, it has no substance. Perhaps that’s why Safety needs a code? Because it doesn’t read.

A foundation in Social Psychology is essential in understanding HROing and the work of Prof. Karl Weick. Without such an understanding it is relatively easy to bend Weick to attribute what Safety wants to say. In this way it is easy to sell traditional safety products that Weick would never endorse.

In SPoR, we offer a practical, positive and constructive study of Prof. Karl Weick (without secrets, codes or spin) (https://cllr.com.au/product/social-psychology-high-reliability-organising-unit-5/), including a range of practical tools based on Karl’s work to help tackle risk.

  • 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)

  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea? - September 27, 2023
  • The Blessings of Fallibility - September 27, 2023
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event - September 25, 2023
  • Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero - September 25, 2023
  • The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety - September 24, 2023
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: Robert Long, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: HRO, NSCA Foundation, safety code, weick

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them belowCancel reply

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 7,508 other subscribers.

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • rosa a carrillo on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Matt Thorne on Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Rob Long on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Rosa Carrillo on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Brent Charlton on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Anonymous on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Rob Long on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Rob Long on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Rob long on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Anonymous on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Joseph D Zinobile on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Jason Martell on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?

If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health

Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk

7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden

Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health

If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking

Effective Strategies in Mental Health at Work

CLLR Newsletter July 2023

Playing With Mental Health in Safety is Dangerous

STOP ‘BREAKING’ PEOPLE! The notion of Psychological Safety

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Footer

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

  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • Free Risk Assessment Template in Excel Format
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails

Recent Posts

  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event
  • Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health
  • Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk
  • Embodied Enactivity in Safety
  • The Meaning of Myth in Risk
  • Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • The Power of Safety Myths
  • What Do You Mean By Performance?
  • Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Podcast – Dr Rob Long With John Morlan and The Risk Matrix
  • What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Free Videos, Podcasts and Books on Zero
  • Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • If You’re Happy in Safety, Clap Your Hands
  • Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Zero Hour Part 5 – Surfacing the Unconscious
  • Zero Hour Part 4 – Zero and the Unconscious
  • Auditing the 7 Golden Rules of Zero, A Miserable Fail
  • 7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden
  • The Non-Golden Rules for Leadership in Zero
  • Seven ‘Golden’ Rules for Zero and Yet No Ethic
  • Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health
  • Is this Your Safety?
  • SPoR Workshops Canberra 18-21 September
  • The Dominance of Zero as the ‘Common Denominator’ of Safety
  • Zero Hour Episode 3
  • Goal Setting and Zero
  • Zero as a Worldview
  • If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking
  • Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Breach of Faith and Psycho-Social Risk
  • Zero Harm is Never Zero Harm
  • Why Would You Want to be a Safety “Geek’ or Hero?
  • The Mental Illness of Identifying as Safety
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a place holder
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a Philosophy
  • CARING ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
  • Care is NOT a Factor and Yes, Your Model Matters
  • Care Ethics and the Ethics of Care, in Risk
  • FEAR AND CONTROL – Dialogue in a technological society
  • Of Course, Method Matters in Safety
  • Day 12 SPoR in Europe
  • Free Study Module Following-Leading in Risk August-September

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

What is the Mind of Safety?

Why Resilience Cannot be Engineered

There is no Hierarchy of Controls

7 Incredible Ways To Diagnose Risk More Effectively

Leadership, Risk and the Zone of Reciprocal Relationship

Europe – International Workshop Social Psychology of Risk Introduction

Biases and Perceptions in Safety

What If I Valued People And Not Safety?

Safety Cries Wolf!

Snap, Crackle, Pop. That’s the Sound we Love to Hear

Next Free Online Studies Introduction to Social Psychology of Risk

SPoR Comes to Vienna June 2023

The Hero Myth in Modern Management

Binary Opposites and Safety Goal Strategy

Social Psychology of Risk Two Day Workshop

Risk and Safety Starts with Being?

Investigations and Truth Telling

The New Safety Saviour – Algorithms

Actions in ‘Bad Faith’

Sitting Safely at the Table

Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

Risk Culture and Cultural Risk

People Skills Are Not Soft Skills

What Safety and Risk Could Learn From Patch Adams

Safety as Avoidance

An Engineering Dreamworld

Day 6 SPoR in Europe

None so Blind as Those That Don’t Want to See – Due Diligence

European Tour Dr Long 1-5 June 2020

Take a lesson or two from scuba divers about safety

Gestures in Risk Management – A Podcast

Risk and Safety Matrices and the Psychology of Colour

Could Understanding Grey Be The Silver Bullet

Social Psychology of Risk in Canada

The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser

Why is Safety an Easy Target?

Day 11 SPoR in Europe

Resilience and Safety

Visualising Risk

The Bias of Method Design in Risk

More Posts from this Category

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

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 7,508 other subscribers.

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY