There is no quicker way to create psychosocial dis-stress and mental ill-health than to expect perfection of fallible people with fallible Minds and bodies.
In order to understand the dynamics at work in The Psychology of Perfectionism, read here: https://perpus.univpancasila.ac.id/repository/EBUPT200405.pdf
By the time you read this, the Olympic Games in Paris will have started. The Olympics demonstrates what fallible people can do within the constraints of human endeavour. But no athlete expects the impossible. Yet, this is the culture of safety (https://safetyrisk.net/the-culture-of-safety/ ).
Every athlete knows their limits and sets achievable goals knowing that unachievable goals are absurd. The research tells us that this is a huge problem for elite athletes (https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/11/700). Believing the impossible sets any athlete up for a mental health problems. This is also one of the traps of the excessive language of performance and measurement rather than focusing on the whole person.
One of the most important strategies in helping athletes manage failure is not setting absurd expectations and goals. The best way to keep athletes resilient is to ensure they are grounded and live within the scope of realistic possibilities. Managers and sports psychologists know that Everyday Social Resilience and a communitie culture (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/) are essential to manage the psychosocial well-being of athletes.
The expectation that a medal is possible is premised on a combination of many factors beyond anyone’s control. For any athlete, injury is just around the corner, luck has a part (the Bradbury Effect), many things cannot be controlled, perfection is impossible. For many a medal is the difference in micro-seconds.
No-one in athletics or in the Olympics believes in zero harm!
Yet, when an elite athlete comes into the safety space we read rubbish like this:
https://www.nsb.com/blog/workplace-safety-with-adam-kreek/
Why is it that the moment someone comes in contact with safety culture their brain goes out the window? Even in the discourse of this article the speaker confesses to 10 deaths in building the Olympic village in Beijing, and then goes on to speak the nonsense of ‘preventable deaths’.
Adam Kreek was a gold medalist Canadian Olympic Rower with no expertise in social psychology or culture and yet spruiks the nonsense of zero harm on the speakers circuit. He even calls his zero ideology: ‘gold medal safety’. Hmmm, is that the same perfectionism when his rowing eight came fifth in 2004???
Why is it when people enter the safety arena they speak nonsense to people?
Here’s a quote from his speech:
‘Zero-harm can seem as daunting as winning an Olympic Gold Medal, so we need to have courage to dream this big. Aim for perfection, accept excellence. That is how you win the Olympics. That is how you build a strong safety culture. That is how you win in a competitive marketplace.’
So here we are now in dreams and perfection and the language of nonsense.
- This is how to create a toxic safety culture.
- This is how to contradict every rule of goal setting.
- This is how to normalise ignorance.
- This is how to be delusional.
- This is safety culture.
You can even download Kreek’s nonsense ‘gold medal safety’ 6 step guide:
https://www.nsb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adam-Kreek-GoldMedal-Safety-Final.pdf
and what are these 6 steps:
- Be intolerant
- Be petty
- Share ignorance
- Don’t think
- Prepare
- Have an opinion
You couldn’t make up anything more absurd.
The key to safety culture is NOT to be petty. DO NOT focus on small things. What is more, suggesting ‘no excuses’ is appalling advice and a recipe for bullying. Of course, when he speaks of wisdom it’s not about wisdom and speaks about philosophy it’s not about philosophy. And if you have an opinion based on ignorance, its an ignorant opinion.
Can you believe it, he calls his non-philosophy ‘don’t die’. You couldn’t make up anything more stupid. The ethic of the brochure is delusional and a recipe for psychosocial problems. There’s nothing like going to the speaking circuit to be entertained so that nothing makes a difference to how one tackles risk. ‘Simon Sinek safety’ is just entertainment with no methodology or method.
When thinking about tackling risk, the last place to consult is safety=zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/).
The last place to seek mature advice about risk, safety and psychosocial health is an Olympian educated in Engineering!
If you want a positive, practical and constructive way to tackle risk that doesn’t foster psychosocial illness, perhaps start by downloading our book on SPoR methods (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/). It’s not a perfect book which is good, because it means its suitable for imperfect people.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
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- It’s Not a Secret, We Just Don’t Talk About It - January 11, 2025
- Myth, Objectivity and the Subjectivity of Language in Safety - January 11, 2025
- There’s Nothing Better than a Blitz - January 11, 2025
- Linguistic Non-Intelligence with Safety Non-Experts - January 11, 2025
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