The fear of negativity in safety is a disease and phobia. Say anything critical of Safety and you’re are automatically anti-safety. What a great recipe for the cultivation of ignorance. Then we have this nonsense that people can learn from what goes well from the not-so-differently group. How does such ill-informed marketing get left untouched? You can only know what goes well by comparison to what goes wrong.
Failure and the negative are critical for learning, when ignored one lacks balance and space for learning.
Critical thinking is essential for learning.
Imagine going to the doctors and asking only for what parts on your body work well? Imagine going to a school teacher and asking to only hear about what the student has got right?
There is nothing inherently wrong with bad news and negativity, it often just relies on how such information is delivered, but ignoring bad news or branding criticism as being a ‘negative Nellie’, is just head in the sand safety (https://safetyrisk.net/consciously-safe-unconsciously-unsafe-or-head-in-the-sand-safety/).
In SPoR, when criticism of Safety is offered it targets the Archetype, no personal attribution is made. This personification of activities, places and industries is commonly accepted. I don’t get offended every time a journalist states ‘Canberra says’. Discussing an Archetype, draws on the common attributes of its culture and in the case of Safety one can easily state that Safety loves Zero. There is no greater mantra and ideology in the safety industry than zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/). To say that safety=zero is a truism. We can thank the love of the great Heinrich Con for that (https://safetyrisk.net/deconstructing-the-myth-of-heinrich/).
SPoR doesn’t just offer criticism without alternative. SPoR always offers a positive and constructive alternative that works (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/) and most of its resources are available for free (https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/). The great Con in many safety marketing and promotions is the underlying lust for money. What an easy market to sell safety, made even easier by a lack of critical thinking.
When compliance is the foundation, critical thinking disappears.
Unfortunately, the many silences of safety (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-culture-silences/) enable fraudulence and incompetence. This is how opinions with no expertise in a subject are enabled to flourish. As long as one is blindly loyal to safety one can be an expert in Anthropology, Theology, Sociology, Mental Health or Epidemiology.
When SPoR offers criticism, it is often because the message in safety is about dehumanising persons or about unethical practice. For example, declaring humans as a hazard (https://safetyrisk.net/the-enemy-of-safety-humans/) is simply unprofessional and unethical. Declaring anything psychosocial as a ‘hazard’ is unethical and unprofessional. Focusing on objects over subjects is dangerous and unprofessional. Claiming that mental health is simple and fixable is simply fraudulence (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-fraudulence/).
There is an alternative to all this nonsense that makes sense and has a methodology and method (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/) based on extensive research, evidence and positive outcomes. This alternative offers a practical method for the humanisation of persons in tackling risk that is ethical, professional and constructive.
You can download many resources for free in SPoR or study for free (https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/).
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- The Subjectivity of Performance in Safety - December 13, 2024
- Hey Safety, What’s Your Worldview? - December 12, 2024
- Tier One Miners, Psychosocial Risk and Zero - December 12, 2024
- More Nonsense from the EHS Insight – Zero Injury Cultures??? - December 8, 2024
- Safety is an Art - December 7, 2024
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