Whenever you hear or read anything from First Nations people about culture it is always anchored to: spirituality, stories, Dreaming, ritual, symbolism, myth, identity, belonging and embodied living in the world. There is no idea that culture is a ‘fog’ or ‘cloudy’, culture is known intuitively, experientially and Poetically.
When Safety discusses culture it speaks none of this. It’s as if defining culture is a kind of rationalist quantitative exercise. We see this in the AIHS Bok on culture, Cooper, Hopkins, Schein, Busch, Dekker etc who speak none of this. Culture cannot be understood from an engineering and behaviourist paradigm (https://safetyrisk.net/on-culture-and-safety/). And yet, this is how First Nations people live culture is it’s life blood.
And it’s not as if safety doesn’t have a spirituality, rituals, symbols, myths etc. it’s just that they are never spoken. Such is the nature of Safety Silences about culture (https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-silences/ ).
Even when Hopkins and Busch call on Safety not to talk about a culture of safety, they do so from a framework of talking about culture. How strange.
Of course, we see the spirituality in safety with everything attached to zero culminating in the video released in 2022 Spirit of Zero (https://safetyrisk.net/the-spirit-of-zero/). We see extensive mythology, symbolism and ritual in so many Safety systems attributed as effective, which they are not. There is rarely any correlation between paperwork and work as it is done. We see mythology in the attribution of injury rates as a definition of safety, endless meaningless rituals attributed as effective and of course, the love of Safety for heroes and gurus (https://safetyrisk.net/no-gurus-no-stars-no-heroes-needed-in-safety/ ). All of these and more are characteristic of the culture of safety.
Even when behaviourists and engineers speak about safety they use mythological, symbolic and salvation metaphors. For example, Hopkins (Safety Cultures, Safety Models) repeatedly speaks of how Safety is ‘lost’, his own dogmatics and his faith in structure. He speaks of Reason’s ‘state of grace’ and ‘a conceptual fog in which many souls have lost their way’. This is typical of the spirituality of safety.
So much of what I read when engineers and behaviourists speak of culture is little more than faith in its own systems, faith that is unquestioned and attributed as able to ‘save’. Speaking of ‘culturebabble’ (Busch), managing and measuring culture, the Bradley Curve, cults, symbolism and censoring ‘culture speak’, all rings of religion, dogma and acts of faith.
Maybe Safety might learn a little of its own culture by overcoming its own fear of religion, despite the fact that it is so religious.
If you wish to understand culture from outside the safety paradigm, then 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. This means that the last session will be on 21 March 2023.
The module is positive, constructive creative and innovative, providing practical tools for helping tackle risk.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
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- Meaningless Non-Vision in Safety - June 15, 2025
- Propositions to Not Live By - June 15, 2025
- 51 Stories in Culture, To Live and To Be – Free Download - June 14, 2025
Crista Vesel says
This is a good post, Rob! I find that safety ‘professionals’ (as they like to call themselves) are focused on controlling and predicting their culture. Of course, this is not really possible and results in them only pushing the artifacts around – such as behaviors – and not feeling or understanding the deep assumptions of culture, as Edgar Schein would say. Those who attempt to control the idea of culture through Discourse never really acknowledge that they, too, are part of this culture they are trying to represent.
Crista
Rob Long says
Thanks Crista, so true. I think Safety would do well to research and study more of First Nations peoples. Even Schein is too focused on organising.,culture is not organised but is far more ecological and emergent. All these efforts to control culture and define culture to suit safety are simply comedy. Unfortunately, amusing but also harmful and delusional.