A chessboard with monochromatic pieces. What a superb metaphor!
The way organizations approach occupational safety management is very similar to the game of chess. Chess is a game defined by rules, with a rigid structure that results in winning or loss.
Organizations play a similar game: limited resources, clearly defined objectives and roles, rules and structure, players lose or win, hierarchy, limits, need for certainty, competition between participants.
Metaphor is the description of something by something other than it is. Here’s a challenge for you!
Look at the image above and doing an exercise of imagination let’s answer the following question: what happens when the rules disappear?
When I use metaphors in the safety workshops, I notice the surprise on the faces of the participants but also the fact that they manage to open conversations that lead to new approaches.
Imagine Safety as a game that takes place on a whiteboard, with white pieces, whose purpose is beyond rules and compliance: it is the well-being of the participants.
You build a new reality, one in which the traditional black vs. white conflict disappears, and in which the lack of hierarchies and the impossibility of applying <copy-paste> approaches force the participants to be truly present.
The metaphor of the chessboard with monochromatic pieces opens your mind to a new perception of the world. It is the opportunity for a different game that is no longer about You or Me, but about Us.
It is a new game, in which the tensions generated by functional differences and hierarchical status dissolve and the competition between operational and QHSE turns into a collaborative experience, in which conversation and trust are essential.
When the game no longer begins with the intention of domination, the chessboard becomes the ideal ground for collaboration and dialogue.
The metaphor created by Yoko Ono helps us to notice the differences between the rigid game of safety at work and the one at home, in the family.
Although in both situations it is our safety and that of those around us that matters, at work we play the rigid game of rules, supervision, and compliance while at home it is about dialogue, listening and helping, about empathy and learning.
What if at their job the players put the rules and safety performance indicators on the back burner and focused on the things that matter but cannot be measured – care, love, trust?
They could choose to follow the standard rules or create a new way of playing together – for example, all the pieces being available to both players from the start.
The new approach creates opportunities for conversation, collaboration, and the possibility of developing new strategies to address risk.
What do you want to add?
By putting a known problem in a new light, metaphors cause people to rethink their opinions or assumptions and provide them with a useful mental framework for developing new approaches.
When we need to change outdated and widely shared mindsets, the right metaphor can make the difference.
This is why Social Risk Psychology (SPoR) is concerned with understanding culture, studying semiotics, and using metaphors.
If you are interested in SPoR, here you can find more information https://www.corporatedynamics.ro/psihologia-socială-a-riscului-spor/. You can contact us at decebalm@corporatedynamics.ro.
Latest posts by Decebal Marin (see all)
- CHANGING THE SAFETY PARADIGM THROUGH METAPHORS. - October 21, 2025
- Situational Awareness - September 18, 2025
- SAFETY TOPICS FOR MANAGEMENT MEETINGS - October 7, 2024
- Inattentional blindness - September 8, 2024
- Linguistics and responsibility transfer - August 24, 2024
Bruce says
Hi Decebal, thank you for posting this! – expressing alternatives is (I think) inherently somewhat risky and so takes courage. So its fabulous and fascinating to be able to hear from others all around the world who are championing a more authentic and wholistic approach. I particularly like your statement about using the right metaphor can make the difference. It reminds me of one of my favourites – something along the lines of – a bunch of blind monkeys have stumbled upon an elephant, and they are all utterly convinced they know what they have discovered, based on the tiny portion of elephant they can touch. Upon hearing the voices of other monkeys adamantly describing something different, they immediately feel challenged and threatened and “dig in”, proclaiming their own description louder and more earnestly as they are convinced they “know what they know”, any other suggestion is complete heresy! Thus anchored to a fallacy, and having proclaimed it so dogmatically, the sunk cost is too great to consider the possibility of anything existing beyond the immediate (tiny) portion they can touch. I always love how Prof. Long reminds about “there is no learning without risk” – if we take the risk of cutting the “anchor” rope, the ensuing freedom ensures we gain a whole other perspective, and opportunity to learn we were actually looking at (and fighting over, just tiny samples of) a whole big elephant! There are so many paradoxes in Safety, not to mention real life, but some I find most perplexing are: – 1. colossal over-simplification and denial of – complexity, wicked problems, byproducts and tradeoffs, and, 2. More brutalism and toxicity perpetrated under the banner of “health and safety” than any other, the very thing it is supposed to care about! I could see the industry caring way more about the ‘health and safety system’ than the ‘health and safety of the people’, where someone could be bullied or publicly shamed or even sacked for petty little things like holding the handrail on the stairs, and the attitude was ‘who cares – they should’ve followed the rules’. I could never understand this until exploring outside the (tiny) world of Safety into the (enormous and challenging but rewarding) world of philosophy. I then began to see that the biggest and most glaring omission (in my view) is any meaningful study/learning/discussion or understanding of ethics. How else can you explain the phenomenon of “harm being done in the name of good” (especially with ZeroHarm as a mantra!). Most mass human travesties I looked over from the past began with dehumanisation, enforced with propaganda, lacked any foundational ethical understanding (let alone an ethic of care!) and ended with brutalism and destruction, usually perpetrated in the name of ‘good’. Instead of fighting over which one is best/the best -cheese, crackers or wine, why don’t we just ‘meet’ each other and enjoy the picnic!
Rob Long says
Great reflection Decebal. Just imagine in Safety actually considered the language used and the meaning or non-meaning created. Just imagine, Safety not speaking gobbledygook to people about ‘pre-accident’, ‘zero vision’ and ‘safety circus’ Just imagine if Safety realised that text is also a semiotic and that visual language conjures up meaning that actually contradicts the purpose of the message? Just imagine if safety actually read ‘Metaphors We Live By’, and was sensitive to trying to make sense in discourse. Alas, even when Safety talks about ‘work as imagined’ it never discusses the nature of imagination!