If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health

As long as Safety is founded in the nonsense of injury rate counting and zero, it will never ever be able to tackle the challenges of psychosocial health.

The fundamental problem for Safety is, it doesn’t know what to do with fallibility, mortality, vulnerability, corporeal being and what it is to be a human person. As long as Safety holds on to the religious unethical mantra of zero (https://safetyrisk.net/the-spirit-of-zero/ ), it will never even begin to start to understand psychosocial health.

Silly Safety, stuck in its binary behaviourist mono-discipline doesn’t know what to do about any of this. Stuck in the delusion of zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/), Safety continues to march towards irrelevance in the real world where psychosocial harm is at epidemic proportions (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-strengthening-our-response ).

So, what does zero-safety do? It calls psychosocial risk a ‘hazard’ and applies the hierarchy of controls. You couldn’t make up such harmful ignorance!

Just look at the zero invitation (https://safetyrisk.net/auditing-the-7-golden-rules-of-zero-a-miserable-fail/ ) to the ‘zero event’ approaching in November in Sydney and tell me that zero is not the global mantra for the zero-safety cult!

Then have a look at the program and see if you can find anything that offers a holistic understanding ort personhood and psychosocial risk.

Then look at the marketing and see how mental health is anchored to objects (https://safetyrisk.net/why-zero-vision-can-never-tackle-mental-health/) and you will soon see that zero is a toxic ideology that prevents understanding of the human condition.

Then have a look at the other ‘zero events’ being promoted:

I guess you know what you get from a ‘zero event’? Zero!

Just ask, how can zero can tackle psychosocial health when the ideology of zero expects perfection?

There can be no approach to well-being or resilience under the mantra/ideology of zero!

And all of this, promoted by Safework NSW, the champions for zero (https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/workplace-safety-scandal-auditor-general-launches-six-month-investigation-into-failings-20221013-p5bphh.html ).

Ah, work for the regulator, a great place to get right into psychosocial health!

I can just see the ‘welcome to country’ for this ‘zero event’ driving out the evil spirts of binary fundamentalism, zero and behaviourism at the opening to the ‘zero event’. You couldn’t make this up, when First Nations beliefs deny everything about safety, injury rates and zero.

And I bet Rio Tinto will be there, promoting zero just after it has blown up its second sacred site in two years! (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine; https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-22/rio-tinto-blast-damages-ancient-rock-shelter-at-wa-pilbara-site/102888228)

God bless zero and pass me the detonator.

Perhaps DuPont will also be there, the global safety experts who kill thousands then cover it up (https://safetyrisk.net/dark-waters-the-true-story-of-dupont-and-zero/).

Talk about mythology (https://safetyrisk.net/myth-making-and-why-it-matters-to-safety/).

But hey, don’t wait, register now for your ‘zero event’, with zero thought leaders, preaching perfection to the mortal and fallible, promising the impossible to ‘futureproof’ against risk.

Roll up roll up, to hear safety myths (https://safetyrisk.net/the-power-of-safety-myths/) like ‘all accidents are preventable’ and ‘don’t be dumb like me’ (https://safetyrisk.net/dont-be-dumb-like-me-the-typical-safety-keynote/).

Roll up roll up, to hear how mental health is an economic problem! Hear how mental health disorders are 30% higher for lost time than musculoskeletal injuries. I know, let’s count all the times zero is NOT achieved and then promote zero. What a great way to connect with vulnerable, mortal and fallible people. Roll up roll up, ‘come to zero and thou shalt be saved’!

And there is so much more you can hear at this ‘zero event’.

• Hear how ‘Each year, about 340 million occupational accidents and 160 million work-related illnesses occur worldwide’ in a talk about zero!
• Hear how you can ‘reach the unreached’ and evangelize for zero!
• Hear how the gig economy injures and exploits millions and preach zero!
• Hear how zero is a ‘culture’ in a talk about ‘grey areas’, promoted in a ‘zero event’ that is black and white!
• Hear how ‘Each year, an estimated 12 billion working days are missed due to depression and anxiety costing US$ 1 trillion in lost productivity worldwide’. And then listen how zero has not a clue what to do about it!
• Hey but don’t worry, this presentation is NOT about people or helping, it’s about the safety favourite, productivity! Good olde safety, it’s always about measurement and performance (https://safetyrisk.net/what-do-you-mean-by-performance/ ), masked in the language of care and ‘preventing mental health harms’.
• Hear about ‘The 3 C’s of Safety: consultation, communication and collaboration’ built on a mantra of intolerance, telling and policing!
• Hear about the ideology of zero for mobile workplaces or how zero can improve global supply chains.
• Hear how zero is ‘one common denominator that unites all efforts’.
• Hear how you can de-mystify safety amongst all the promotion of the mysteries and mythologies of zero. Hear how faith in safety science can help with safety management.

Most of this stuff is all about packaging a sale and marketing for the zero crowd at the ’zero event’. That’s right, the real god of safety is not zero, its dollars.

And, all that this ‘zero event’ promotes is denied by the results of our zero survey with over 4000 respondents (https://safetyrisk.net/take-the-zero-survey/) that proves that 85% of people in safety don’t believe in any of it.

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

• The Safety Dance - December 6, 2023
• Manufacturing a Worldview to Fit Safety - December 6, 2023
• Tolerance - December 5, 2023
• Lies, Shortcuts and Lessons from Armstrong - December 4, 2023
• Real Risk, An New Icon for SafetyRisk and Competition - December 4, 2023

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.