The focus of safety on performance has been about for 45 years. Tarrants’ book The Measurement of Safety Performance was published in 1980. The book was published by The American Society of Safety Engineers that changed its name in 2018 to The American Society of Safety Professionals. The name may … [Read more...] about Good Old Safety Performance
HOP
How Do You DO Safety Differently?
In the tradition of nonsense language in HOP, where ‘blame fixes nothing’ (https://safetyrisk.net/the-blame-game-of-hop/) and slogans are declared ‘truths’. There seems little consciousness of ensuring that Safety doesn’t speak nonsense to people … [Read more...] about How Do You DO Safety Differently?
The Influence of C.G. Jung in SPoR
One is not likely to read the works of C.G. Jung or consider such works as relevant if one is committed to the dominant paradigm of risk and safety – Behaviourism & Positivism. Similarly, if one has a worldview anchored to Scientism and Engineering one is not likely to give any metaphysical view … [Read more...] about The Influence of C.G. Jung in SPoR
Sacrificing Truth for No Blame
One of the by-products of the positive psychology cult is: the massaging of truth, the creation of false narratives, linguistic spin and ethical gymnastics. Whilst there is nothing wrong with positive psychology in itself its evolution as a reaction against perceived negative analysis such as: … [Read more...] about Sacrificing Truth for No Blame
The Danger of Bad Safety Slogans in Traditional Safety
We know that silly slogans mislead people and create single statements that are not true. Such linguistics limit the way we think about risk and promote simplistic thinking when the truth is, risk is a wicked problem. (Our next module on Linguistics and Risk starts tomorrow). The trouble is, … [Read more...] about The Danger of Bad Safety Slogans in Traditional Safety
The Blame Game of HOP
The HOP club seem to think that reality can be reshaped by a collection of slogans and memes. One of the classics is the slogan ‘blame fixes nothing’. Of course, the reality is that blame fixes things, this is the foundation of the justice system. The court decides where the blame lies and what … [Read more...] about The Blame Game of HOP
Better Questions in Safety Require a Better Disposition to Persons
So much of what parades around safety focuses on Technique, what Ellul calls ‘the quest for efficiency’. The word is italicised to accentuate the difference between being technical and Ellul’s meaning. Everyone in safety ought to read his book The Technological Society (1964). Ellul was an amazing … [Read more...] about Better Questions in Safety Require a Better Disposition to Persons
What is a Pre-Accident?
One only knows what precedes an accident by hindsight. In fallibility, there is no such thing as prediction of an accident unless you are a magician, wizard or god. So, a pre-accident is just normal everyday life. In Australia, if you re-name something obvious as something else, we call that … [Read more...] about What is a Pre-Accident?
New Rhetoric but Same Old Dynamics in HOP
We know that the 5 affirmations of HOP are not ‘truths’ as asserted by Conklin. Indeed, this echoes similar claims by Heinrich 90 years ago of ‘self-evident truths’ in safety. Whenever you read assertions like this in safety you know that what follows is NOT science but marketing. Just because … [Read more...] about New Rhetoric but Same Old Dynamics in HOP
Declaring What is By What Isn’t, HOP as Traditional Safety
One of the things Safety does best is declaring what is, by what isn’t and, when it comes to Safety, it seems believing one’s own lies is par for the course. I see this in HOP when reading Conklin’s book The 5 Principles of Human Organisational Performance. Of course, as in all traditional … [Read more...] about Declaring What is By What Isn’t, HOP as Traditional Safety
