When people talk about ‘psychological safety’, critical qualitative and moral perceptions are presented that pose a huge challenge for the safety industry. This is because most of the critical issues associated with psychological safety are never discussed. The moral dimensions remain completely ignored and the naivety about the nature of power is breathtaking.
When people experience gaslighting, bullying, and victimisation in the workplace, in the name of safety (https://safetyrisk.net/using-safety-as-a-moral-weapon/ ), most often we experience a breach of trust.
Much of the research and discourse about psychosocial risk and psychological safety doesn’t discuss or define trust very well. Yet, trust is foundational to the feeling of safety. Some describe trust in psychological safety as: ‘the feeling that one will not be harmed’. Others describe it as: ‘the willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of another’. But these are just attempts to rationalise what trust actually is.
Trust is not just about the feeling of confidence but much more aligned to the notion of faith. Faith and trust are not about rationality and so any idea that one can develop a feeling of trust through cognition is naïve.
The fact is, when one risks one’s being in a relationship, one doesn’t ‘know’ the outcome. This is an act of faith. When one’s trust is brutalised by another, we learn quickly that our faith in the other was not based on reality but on the ‘feeling of what happens’. Moreso, trust never acts alone. Trust is always part of the faith-hope-love-justice dialectic. This was discussed extensively in the book Envisioning Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/).
Trust and faith are founded in perception and the gift of discernment. The ability to sift through perceptions, emotions and feelings is risky stuff. And, there is little certainty in any of it.
We all have experienced disappointment and hurt by those we have trusted and had faith in. In fallibility, we experience the imperfections of life and being, some more than others. I would like a dollar for every time I heard the word ‘surprise’ in a counselling session from people who trusted another and discovered that trust was ill founded.
In an age where billionaires are telling the poor not to trust in institutions, science and government, discernment is needed more than ever. When the idea of a ‘common good’ is being trashed as being ‘woke’, the message is simply about a switch in trust. Demonise the enemy but trust in me, is the message.
And so, we see millions vote against their own best interests, enabling billionaires to make more money through the marketing of propaganda. Propaganda only works when an audience lacks the discernment and critical thinking required to recognise what is happening underneath the façade.
We see this all the time in the safety industry. There is so much marketing of slogans, hype, certainty and ideas that have so little substance. Just scratch under the surface with a few critical questions and a sense of discernment and you quickly realise there is no methodology or method. So much of it is just a con. 1% safer is a classic example! (https://safetyrisk.net/1-safer-than-what/).
When there is no substance, all Safety does is switch from one fad to the next one.
When one looks through the cycle of slogans and marketing in safety over time, one realises that it’s all just a distraction from actually enacting something. Most of it is just a club marketing for members, selling a supposed product but nothing changes, except your bank account.
So often claims are made that something ‘works’, when there is no moral method to define what that means. Most often the promise is made to reduce injury rates. The perfect words safety wants to hear.
So often in safety, entertainment is sold off as the conference one must attend. And, once the lighting and sound systems have been packed up and the speakers fly home, there is nothing remaining of any value for how to tackle risk effectively.
When the industry sells itself, it’s always ‘Safety knows best’ and ‘trust in Safety’. But, when the cool-aide has been purchased and the product lacks substance, nothing changes, nothing has been learned. Back to the old systems of traditional safety. Checklists, paper-systems and policing.
So, where and in what have you placed your trust in safety? Why and does it ‘work’? for what? Have the promises that have been made, been fulfilled? Has your trust been affirmed? Has anything moved in the way you tackle risk? Has anything improved? Is the marketing matched by method? Is there any substance underneath the noise? Are you even safe enough in your organisation to ask such questions?
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
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