It Works! A New Approach to Risk and Safety
Global Book Launch
We are proud to announce the publication of the 10th book in the series on the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR). The book is entitled It Works! A New Approach to Risk and Safety.
You can purchase the book HERE
This is the fourth book in the series that involves a collaboration of authors, this time with Brian Darlington, Group Head, Health and Safety for Mondi.
This book is directed by Brian Darlington and is a case study of an organization that moves away from the ideology of zero and practices the skills and principles of SPoR. This study could be told over and over, as many organisations realize the need to humanize the activities of safety in an ethical way in how they tackle risk.
To achieve the humanizing of safety, organisations soon realize that the traditions of safety immersed in engineering/science alone have not been effective. The industry of safety has now become bogged down in paperwork, a fixation on petty risk and anxiety about measurement. Worst of all, Safety defines itself by the ideology of zero, that safety practitioners don’t believe in.
Organisations that take on this new SPoR approach to risk, adopt a Transdisciplinary approach, that privileges persons over the quest to manage objects. They soon realize that a humanizing approach risk, works! Hence the title of the book.
What organisations discover when they take on the Social Psychology of Risk is that it brings a new approach to helping and care in tackling risk. What a sad indictment of an industry that is yet to articulate an ethic of helping and care in how it identifies itself in managing risk.
The book is being released in Europe and Australia and sells for:
$29.95 (aust) – post and packing $15
19.50 (euro) – post and packing 10 euro
Post and packing to US, Canada and Asia is $30 (aust)
Orders of multiple copies (including discount) will be managed by email: rob@humandymensions.com
More About the Book
This is a book about a transformation in approach to risk and safety. It tells the story of how the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) has made a change in an organisation. The story-case study is set in Europe around the work of the author Brian Darlington and the transformation and change he has enacted in Mondi Group. The book chronicles personal and collective change in the organisation and how the new SPoR approach has enlivened the organisation to better manage risk in the workplace.
The case study starts with Brian’s personal story of change after being challenged by traditional approaches to risk and safety for many years. However, after one of his close friends Michael, implemented SPoR in his organisation (Borealis) Brian began to investigate and test the possibilities of SPoR and see if it could help him humanise risk and safety in a better way in his organisation.
So, Brian took a leap of faith in 2018 and, started his journey in the Social Psychology of Risk. He commenced a close relationship with Dr Rob Long, the founder of SPoR. After making several trips to Australia and Rob to Austria and Belgium, Brian commenced developing the practices of SPoR in Mondi and never looked back.
During implementation many Eureka moments were realised when the practice of SPoR enlivened people to a person-centric approach to risk. The old traditional modes of telling, policing, excessive paperwork and process-centric methods, faded to the background as people began to have better conversations in risk and became engaged in risk assessment from a person-centric model.
This is a book about very practical ways of improving the way organisations tackle risk and safety as if persons are central in all that is done. Whilst the book spends some time in discussion about what doesn’t work in risk and safety, it doesn’t get stuck on problems, but rather sets out SPoR methods in which change for the better has made a difference in an organisation.
SPoR is a disposition towards people that ensures its by-products consider the human first rather than an objects-centric approach common in traditional risk and safety.
The book gives details of the practical tools, processes and skills available in SPoR and how these have been enacted in an organisation over a two year period. The work of SPoR however, is ongoing and this book simply documents the beginning. The book includes details on training, skill development and engagement strategies across the Mondi Group, not just in Europe but globally.
The authors hope that the reader will realise by reading this case study, the possibilities for enhancing risk and safety in their own organisation so that persons matter.
Perhaps this book can help the reader discover their own Eureka moment too, when the world of risk and safety might become more humanised.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- Shared Ritual in the Safety Congregation? - October 24, 2021
- Practice, Repetition, Habit, Routine, Ritual and Decision Making in Risk - October 23, 2021
- Safety Cosmetics - October 18, 2021
- The Myth of the SWMS Manifesto - October 16, 2021
- Visual Thinking and Risk - October 15, 2021
Matthew Thorne says
Having met Brian Darlington in 2019, I am looking forward to reading about Mondi and SPoR, their journey and reflections. As a case I imagine it will inspire other organisations to take the leap.
Rob Long says
As you know Matt, SPoR is a very practical, positive and inspirational way of doing safety. BRian’s story could be told by many who are using SPoR in their organisations and humanising how thye approach risk. Who knows, one day safety might give up its cult of zero and brutalism and come into the real world. 2 books on the way for you.
Bernard Corden says
Dear Rob,
I have just started reading your latest book and I went straight to Chapter 9 References:
Douglas, Claxton, Polanyi, Ellul, Postman, Damasio and Jung.
These names are not too prominent in the OHS BoK.
Rob Long says
Bernard, the AIHS BoK is a monodisciplinary safety-centric political text that demonstrates that safety knowledge is all about objects, counting and hazards. The chapter on ethics is so pathetic is should be withdrawn, many of the other chapters lack depth and breadth which is evidenced by always going to a safety person to write no matter what the topic is, including on things such as: learning, epidemiology, leadership, health, politics etc. It’s just a place holder to maintain the facade of association and claims to professionalism. Similarly, the WHS curriculum is a shallow kiddies pool with very little substance or relevance to the realities of being a safety person in the field devoid of any reference to anything cultural or psychological.
As for the new book, enjoy. Demonstrates just how doable SPoR is and how bankrupt traditional safety is.