• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Robert Long / I Don’t Serve Systems

I Don’t Serve Systems

April 3, 2018 by Dr Rob Long Leave a Comment

I Don’t Serve Systems

imageIt’s a strange experience to read a science-managerial text on compliance. It’s strange because of the absence of any reference to human interaction or social psychological influences on behavior and human decision making. This is the case with Singh and Bussen’s book ‘Compliance Management, A How-to Guide for Executives, Lawyers and Other Compliance Professionals’. Amazing how a book can discuss ethics and obedience and yet make no reference to the part humans play in ethics and obedience. How interesting to discuss the need for compliance because the nature of systems is to obey them and because non-compliance costs money??? Very much like safety that studies objects as if people don’t activate them.

How much more different and realistic is Pratkanis’ book ‘The Science of Social Influence, Advances and Future Progress’. Unfortunately Pratkanis feels the compulsion to use the word ‘science’ in the title but there is little science in the discussion of hundreds of social influences that shape behavior and decision making. How strange that the word ‘science’ is used to authenticate knowledge when the constructions of science are just as subjective in discourse as any other discipline’s ontology (see Hesse, Kuhn, Laktos, Feyerbend, Popper, Potter and Wetherell etc). Even the mythology of replication for validation is a scientific myth that is used to subjectively justify the highly negotiable nature of events.

We learned recently that mining of Facebook data has been used to sway decision making in various populations (http://theconversation.com/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078). How strange that the use of propaganda and spin can sway the voting patterns of a population. Ha, Joseph Goebbels knew that 85 years ago! Goebbels was master of compliance to systems. The Nazi’s weren’t monsters, just amazing bureaucrats and masters of Technique in social influence. Meissner, Adorno, Levinson, Milgram, Zimbardo, Hoffer and host of others have demonstrated so. One of several hundred social influences is disinformation. Watch Merchant’s of Doubt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqiCLuOtXts&pbjreload=10) to get an understanding of how this works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt). Goebbels was the master of disinformation in order to get compliance to systems.

A system of course, is designed by a person. The system disguises the ontology and philosophy of the creator. A checklist or process is not neutral, there are no neutral objective systems just as there are no neutral objective people. All systems are designed and bear the bias of the system designer. It’s just that designers rarely inform people who use the system of their bias or design purpose. This is most pronounced in safety regarding incident investigations. It doesn’t matter whether one uses iCam, TapRoot, Bow Tie or Root Cause, the system bears the reductionist mechanistic design of the creator. There are of course other ways of doing investigations that don’t use such methodology. Every methodology has its own anthropology, its own view of what it is to be human. In some cases some methodologies are designed to dehumanize people. Safety has turned such methodologies into an art form.

Humans are not ‘factors’ in a system. I don’t do ‘human factors’. I don’t serve systems, systems serve me and the community I live and work in. Life is not some machine of which I am a part. Life is an organism in which I live. If a system doesn’t help humanize people then it’s a bad system, ditch it.

 

 

 

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’! - May 24, 2023
  • Beware the Cult of Denial - May 23, 2023
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process - May 23, 2023
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble - May 21, 2023
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video - May 21, 2023
Dr Rob Long
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Robert Long, Safety systems, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: human factors, systems

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,522 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Chris. on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Pierre Joubert on Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • James on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Admin on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe

The KISS of Death in Safety

Is Your Safety World Too Small?

You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

When Safety (Zero) is Abusive

Hands Up the Best Safety Fraud!

Communicating Professionally in Risk

How NOT to be Professional in Safety

How NOT to do Anything About Culture in Building and Construction

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • Safety Acronyms
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • What Is Safety?

Recent Posts

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Beware the Cult of Denial
  • My Story is Better than Yours
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process
  • The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video
  • Safetie
  • You are NOT the Sum of Safety
  • Update on SPoR in India, Brazil and Europe
  • It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Safety at the Margins
  • Research Basics for Safety
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us
  • Researching Within The Safety Echo Chamber
  • Confirmation Bias, Risk and Being Offensive
  • Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk
  • Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging
  • Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • Can There Be Other Valid Worldviews Than Safety?
  • Evaluating Value by the Value of What You Don’t Know
  • Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide
  • No Paradigm Shift with BBS
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Is Your Safety World Too Small?
  • What Does Safety Achieve?
  • In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism
  • We are all equal
  • You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination?
  • iCue Engagement Process
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • For the Monarchists of Safety
  • The Sully Effect
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • Scapegoating and Safety
  • Understanding Habit, Habituation and Change
  • Don’t Mention the War
  • Safety in Design for Who by Who?
  • Beyond ‘What We Do Around Here’
  • Asking the Wrong Questions
  • When Safety (Zero) is Abusive
  • Mandala as a Method for Tackling an Ethic of Risk (a Video)
  • Safety Cosmetics
  • Visualising the EHS Role
  • Towards Dumb
  • Workshops with Dr Long – Vienna, Austria 26-30 June 2023
  • Visual, Verbal and Relational Mapping in Risk Assessment
  • Abduction in Risk and Safety
  • Creating Myths and Rituals in Safety

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Celebrating 1000 Blogs on Risk

The Illusion Of Hazard Identification

Mandala as a Method for Tackling an Ethic of Risk (a Video)

I Just Don’t Know

Understanding Risk

Framing Folly and Fantasy in Safety

What Does Misinformation Do in Safety?

The Problem with Zero Harm

Are You on The Safety Teat?

A Culture of Care (and sackings…)

The Mythic Symbology of Safety

The Advisor as Skilled Helper

Cultivating Resilience

The Tension of Opposites and Binaries in Risk

Resilience and Safety

How Do We Know?

Who is Responsible?

Essential Preparation for a Safety Job

Free Safety and Risk Lunch n Learn

London Workshops 24-28 October

The Safetyization of Normal Life

The Dance of Death and Randomness

The Link Between Think and Blink

SPoR Quarterly Newsletter September 2021

Talking Risk Video–The Unconscious In Communication

Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk

International Workshops – Belgium

I DON’T KNOW

The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk

Safety Career Highlight

Free Download – Real Risk – New Book by Dr Robert Long

Social Media and Safety

The Benefits of SPOR

The Sacred Bra Tree

Something Different To Safety

Stand Behind The Yellow Line – Do Engineering Controls Affect Risk?

THE INFLUENCE OF VISUAL STIMULI ON THE UNCONSCIOUS

What’s the Alternative to Traditional Safety? SPoR.

The Human Race…

Sensemaking and ‘Hapori’ – Essential for Tackling Risk in New Zealand

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,522 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY

x
x