Organisations that identify safety as zero must logically supress ‘speaking up’ in safety. Zero is an ideology of the absolute (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/) and any absolute in organising supresses discussion, dialogue, listening and compromise.
Edmondson’s latest book on the so called ‘science of failing well’ clearly has no idea how Zero works in large organisations. The whole dynamic of zero drives fear of harm and failure. Any small injury or any harm cannot be tolerated in a zero organisation. Indeed, in a zero organisation one can never question zero. Such questioning will quickly see the safety advisor lose their job. I regularly get emails from people often called zero harm advisors, from these organisations that demonstrate this.
I did a quick search on SEEK and discovered, there are currently over 400 zero harm advisor jobs advertised on SEEK (https://www.seek.com.au/zero-harm-advisor-jobs). There are over 330 of these jobs advertised in NSW (https://au.jora.com/Zero-Harm-Adviser-jobs-in-New-South-Wales). Just imagine being in one of these jobs and being asked to act out the impossible. Just imagine the reporting on injury rates in any of these positions. Just imagine talking about fallibility and failure in these organisations. So much for the fearless organisation (https://safetyrisk.net/the-naivety-of-psychological-safety/).
In all of Edmondson’s publications there is no discussion of the ideology of zero and how Zero works against openness, trust, helping, learning and care. Zero is the ideology of brutalism and we know that zero is centre stage for the safety industry (https://visionzero.global/vision-zero-takes-centre-stage-world-congress). Indeed, safety=zero is the global mantra of safety. All wonderfully supported by regulators, associations and zero companies (https://safetyrisk.net/the-sponsors-of-zero-are/).
Every person in safety knows that zero must not be challenged. To challenge zero is to be anti-safety. Such is the silly binary nature of the zero delusion.
I’d sure hate to work for Transport for NSW who have been putting out this idiot ad for 4 years (https://youtu.be/ra5LK8x86zU?si=etYV0zkmjeYb4zJW). Transport for NSW is in love with zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/for-the-love-of-zero-free-download/) whilst the road toll increases! Wouldn’t it be fascinating to see Transport for NSW use the same binary logic for absenteeism for bullying. I wonder what is an acceptable number of lost days in Transport for NSW for being bullied? Is it zero?
However, the delusion this is not just in government. Companies like Anglo American continue to have fatalities (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1018722/number-of-work-related-fatal-injuries-angloamerican/) and disasters (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/03/queensland-coalmine-fire-moranbah-anglo-american-grosvenor) and continue to spruik the nonsense of zero vision (https://www.angloamerican.com/sustainable-mining-plan/our-critical-foundations/zero-harm). And, everyone in safety knows how stupid this looks.
Of course, all those who spruik psychological safety (eg. https://psychsafety.co.uk/the-four-stages-of-psychological-safety/; https://thepsychologicalsafetyplaybook.com/) remain silent on zero. Yet, the critical factor in all this discourse is the sin of silence! But this is no surprise, Safety specialises in silence (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-culture-silences/).
When it comes to safety, we all know that one can’t speak up! This is why Safety runs these speak up campaigns (https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/resource-library/blogs/blogs-accordions/speak-up-to-report-unsafe-work) regularly, proving there is no psychological safety in Safety. What a great way to sell safety software (https://www.mangolive.com/blog-mango/speaking-up-on-health-and-safety-in-the-workplace) and not deal with the source of the problem.
In our survey that has been running for four years (https://safetyrisk.net/update-on-zero-survey-just-believe/) with over 4000 respondents, we know that zero=safety is the guarantee for psychological harm.
At the foundation of all this stuff on psychological safety is a strange sense of egalitarian superiority that is selectively silent on what it speaks up about. Yet our survey shows conclusively that 85% of all people in safety don’t believe in zero. Indeed, 90% of people in safety believe that zero drives unethical behaviour! Yet we have academics (with no expertise in ethics) declaring that zero is a moral goal (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-an-immoral-goal/). Well of course it is, such innovation from an innovation lab! I know, lets seek moral content on ethics in safety and ask an engineer.
One of the silences of this psychological safety discourse is about the nature of power. In SPoR we conduct a module on the social politics of power (https://cllr.com.au/product/the-social-politics-of-risk-unit-14/). This is a constructive, practical and positive critique of how power works in organisations. Certainly, such critical thinking is not a part of the psychological safety group. This kind of critique is not conducted in Safety because it would be a quick passage to the loss of employment. The thinking of critical theory is not found in safety because it is named as toxic by safety. One of the tools we use to question this power is below:
Just apply any of these questions in a Zero organisation towards the ideology of zero and see how long you last.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- Understanding the Nature of Performance and HOP - October 5, 2024
- If You Want to Know About Mental Health, Don’t Ask Safety - September 30, 2024
- Its all About Behaviours - September 20, 2024
- I Wasn’t Thinking Mr Spock - September 20, 2024
- The Seduction of Drift in Safety - September 20, 2024
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