• 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 / Mental health / Psychosocial Safety / No Good Reason to Follow Reason

No Good Reason to Follow Reason

December 30, 2022 by Dr Rob Long 6 Comments

imageWhenever Safety puts conditionality on culture is no longer talks about Culture but rather the adjective that qualifies thinking about culture. We see this with the work of Reason who applied 5 adjectives to define a culture of safety. These are: ‘reporting’, ‘informed’, ‘learning’, ‘just’ and ‘flexibility’. Of course, Reason doesn’t define justice or learning and so makes the ‘dimensions’ conditional on how one considers culture.

In reality, none of this supposed model or dimensions are about culture. Whenever an adjective is applied to a noun it makes the adjective the qualifier of the noun. The adjective is dominant because it describes the nature of the noun. Each adjective Reason applies to culture then become a reductionist approach to try to control culture through definition and branding. This is why Safety loves Reason so much and always cites Reason whenever safety is discussed.

Even when Reason uses language of ‘just’ and ‘learning’ there is complete silence on justice and the learning. What Reason talks about when he uses the word ‘learning’ is about training and indoctrination, it’s not about learning. Similarly, Reason confuses the language of ‘just’ for ‘Justice’ and even uses absurd language like ‘Engineering a Just Culture’ (1997. p.205). Only Safety could make up such complete nonsensical ‘goop’.

There is no relationship between an understanding of culture and the worldview of engineering. Any suggestion that culture can be ‘engineered’ or ‘constructed’ (eg. Hopkins, Cooper) is nonsense.

The same for silly language about culture being a ‘product’.

This also applies for Hollnagel’s nonsense about Resilience Engineering (https://safetyrisk.net/why-resilience-cannot-be-engineered/; https://safetyrisk.net/an-social-ecology-of-resilience/) and makes as much sense as S1 and S2. There is no ‘safety differently’, it’s just a brand for the same methods, the same doing.

Most of Reason’s models and thinking is reductionist and linear, the worst being the infamous Swiss-cheese. The Swiss-cheese model is one of the most dangerous creations of Reason, because it doesn’t reflect reality. Life and living, events and accidents are rarely linear. Life is messy, unpredictable and wicked (https://safetyrisk.net/risk-and-safety-as-a-wicked-problem/). By manufacturing this reductionist and linear construct Reason has provided Safety with the outcome it so desires, but it isn’t real.

Reason’s symbology and myths are not real but rather a construct imposed on reality to try and control it.

Whilst some myths, rituals and symbols are helpful, Reasons are not.

Hey but don’t critique Reason, the sacred cow of Safety (https://safetyrisk.net/a-critique-of-pure-reason/).

This is how Safety imposes its many constructs on reality. Heinrich is another example. Yet, here we are with Safety falling ‘hook, line and sinker’ for a model of injury rates made up like a fairy tale. Only Safety could fall for the concoction of an insurance salesman and make it as symbolic myth. Similarly, Heinrich’s dominoes (p.15), the foundation for the Swiss-cheese.

In reality what we have is an industry in love with behaviourism and engineering finding models to suit its worldview.

None of this is ‘scientific’ as proposed by Heinrich, it’s all a fiction of his imagination. It doesn’t reflect reality. There is no ratio of injury and even then, framing safety by injury is nonsense.

This is what Safety does with the messy and disorderly nature of life and being. See Figure 1. Messy and Figure 2. Imposed Structure.

Figure 1. Messy

clip_image002

Figure 2. Imposed Structure

clip_image004

This is what Reason does with constructing 5 dimensions of culture and the Swiss-cheese.

What Safety does is actually create the confusion about culture that it loves to complain about (https://safetyrisk.net/on-culture-and-safety/).

No wonder Safety says its confused about culture (https://safetyrisk.net/no-wonder-safety-is-confused-about-culture/). No wonder Safety doesn’t want to talk about culture in books it writes about culture.

All this assertion that Safety makes about culture being ‘cloudy’, ‘foggy’, ‘abusive’ and ‘confusing’ is a concoction of its own making. It says much more about the worldview of Safety than it does about culture. And all of this concoction is based on the addiction of Safety to zero, measurement, hazards and control. If Safety could break the addiction to this stuff no doubt safety would improve. Even in the latest Code of Practice on psychosocial issues poor olde safety uses the language of ‘hazard’ to describe them. No-one in a profession associated with psychosocial or mental health issues would use the dumb word ‘hazard’ when speaking of situations or conditions/challenges in mental health. It is a recipe for demonising and brutalising persons. It is essentially unethical language. But back to Reason.

I find nothing in Reason that helps provide practical, positive and constructive approaches to the reality of risk or the complexities of culture. Reason’s models are misleading at best and dangerous at worst.

If you are interested in moving away from these traditional constructs and models you might be interested in two free courses being offered next year in SPoR.

Free Modules in Culture and Safety

So, for those who are able and willing to suspend their own assumptions and framing in knowing, there are ways of understanding culture that can be learned, outside of the safety paradigm. First, a great deal has to be unlearned (stepping away from engineering and behaviourism) and letting go of the safety paradigm, in order to move forward to a different way of knowing.

The first rule of culture is to make sure you talk about culture; the second rule of culture is to talk about it outside of the safety paradigm.

If this module is of interest and you are seeking an understanding of culture and the culture of safety, Dr Long will be conducting a free Module on Culture and safety in 2023. It’s easy to register for this free program, by just send an email to robertlong2@mac.com and you will be put in the list.

The module will run Zoom sessions every Tuesday at 9am (Canberra time) starting on 21 February 2023 and with 90-minute sessions at 9 am and each following Tuesday at 9 am for 5 weeks. So, this means 5 consecutive sessions on the topic. This means that the last session will be on 21 March 2023.

Do NOT register for this program simply because it is free. Register if you think you are ready to let go and learn.

Those interested can start by reading Dr Long’s blogs on culture and culture silences:

· https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-3/

· https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-silences/

Similarly, it will be helpful to read some of Lotman:

· The Unpredictable Workings of Culture

· Universe of the Mind, A Semiotic Theory of Culture

Or Bachelard:

· https://sites.evergreen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/2015/05/Gaston-Bachelard-the-Poetics-of-Space.pdf

Second Free Module – An Ethic of Risk

The second free module on offer is module 17 (https://cllr.com.au/product/an-ethic-of-risk-unit-17/) on Ethics and Risk.

The module will run Zoom sessions every Tuesday at 9am (Canberra time) starting on 28 March and with sessions at 9 am and each following Tuesday at 9 am for 5 weeks. So, this means 5 consecutive sessions on the topic. This means that the last session will be on 25 April.

Registrations for this Module close on 3 February.

Dr Long will create a common list from registrations and will communicate with the group about watching videos and pre-reading.

Please DO NOT register for a course just because it is free.

Both programs are positive, constructive, practical and help with skills in tackling risk.

  • 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
  • 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
  • Safetie - 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: Psychosocial Safety, Robert Long, Safety Culture Tagged With: Psychological Safety, reason, resilience engineering

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rob long says

    January 5, 2023 at 7:55 AM

    Brian, once people are indoctrinated into the traditional safety curriculum they assume they have been taught sone kind of truth. Mostly because the curriculum is supported by the regulator and associations. There is a great deal of sink cost in this.
    The trouble is most of it is a delusion, and is no protection. The trouble is the cost of cognitive dissonance is so painful that they will defend the delusion until they die even though there is not much in what they do that is humanising, liberating or creative.

    Reply
  2. Brian Edwin Darlington says

    January 4, 2023 at 11:46 PM

    Hi Rob, you are so right, many safety persons are not willing to change, I posted the iCue Causation model and some traditionalists hammered it. Some will never change, however we work with those that see the need to change to SPoR.

    Reply
  3. Risk Culture Builder says

    December 30, 2022 at 5:14 PM

    Sometimes risk and safety management suffers from ADD

    Reply
    • Rob Long says

      December 30, 2022 at 6:54 PM

      What an absurd concept to use the notion of ADD in application to risk. Obviously from a source with no expertise or experience in mental health issues. The correlation is nonsense.

      Reply
  4. Matt Thorne says

    December 30, 2022 at 11:30 AM

    Looking. forward to meeting a bunch of people on their SPoR adventure!

    Reply
    • Rob Long says

      December 30, 2022 at 11:54 AM

      Yes Matt, lots of new people signing in from across the globe. Will be a great time of unlearning and learning.

      Reply

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 7,521 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
  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • 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
  • The Safe Christmas Psychosis

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?

Natural Born Learners

Safety Leadership Training

I’m Not Playing Any More

Why Safety Doesn’t See Things

Even Safety Is Fallible

Risk and Safety Matrices and the Psychology of Colour

The Moment of Decision in Safety

Beware of Hazardous ‘OINTMENT’

Framing Folly and Fantasy in Safety

We can Value Safety but Safety is not a Value

The Fallible Factor and What to Do About It

Paperwork and Usability in Tackling Risk

Understanding Conscience and Safety

I was just trying to Help

The Futility of the Centralised Safety Management System?

Bounded Rationality–How Can Too Much Safety Be Bad For You?

The Banned Objects Index – A New Development in Safety Culture

Perth Workshops

Four Indicators of Toxic Safety Culture

Safety and Risk Culture Cloud

King of the World – Why is Sociopathy and Psychopathy so prevalent ‘at the top’?

Abby Normal Safety

The Social Politics of Risk Workshop

Visualising the EHS Role

SPoR Comes to Vienna June 2023

The Quantitative and Qualitative Divide in Safety

Adverse Events: Eliminate or Anticipate?

Ten Risk and Safety Program Essentials

ACTOR + ACTION + TIME = EVENT

No Ethic of Hope in Zero

The Repression of Uncertainty

Safety and Risk Leadership Master Class

Surfacing – Making the Unconscious Conscious

Safety Cries Wolf!

The Curse of Cognitivism

Checklist Seduction and The Delusion of Data

London Workshops 24-28 October

Are You on The Safety Teat?

Chronic Unease is Not Enough

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 7,521 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