Here are some tips to help your organisation ensure that people don’t ‘speak up’.
Make Safety a Policing Activity
Nothing supresses reporting, openness, trust and engagement more than a culture of policing. Turning regulations into a policing code, is sure way to make sure that no-one talks about safety.
Score or Count Conversations
The best way to silence people is to give language a numerical value. When numerics and metrics are applied to language all trust ceases.
Use AI and NLP to Manipulate Data
The moment conversations move from the personal to the impersonal all trust ceases. Turning language into data is a sure way to destroy trust (https://safetyrisk.net/myth-objectivity-and-the-subjectivity-of-language-in-safety/ ).
Use Language Analytics for Safety Outcomes
The best way to supress trust is to turn conversations and language into a safety product (https://safetyrisk.net/linguistic-non-intelligence-with-safety-non-experts/ ). People never speak up to those who use language for an ulterior motive.
Ask Safety for Advice on What it Doesn’t Know
The best way to create dangerous outcomes is to ask Safety for advice on what it doesn’t know. In this way organisations can elevate ignorance as truth and create results that harm people.
Make Zero Your Safety Mantra
One of the best ways to supress reporting is to make zero your safety mantra. The moment people know that safety=zero, they know that safety must not be spoken about. Anything reported in a zero organisation is interpreted as anti-zero.
How strange this industry that does all it can to suppress reporting and learning and then complain about why people don’t speak up.
Skeptical thinker says
Another one for the list – tell people you’re a “no blame” or “learning organisation” and then let them go as soon as there’s a breach.
Rob Long says
Spot on, the list is endless.