• 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
      • BIGGEST COLLECTION of 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 / Robert Long / Nothing is Learned Through Brutalism

Nothing is Learned Through Brutalism

August 21, 2022 by Dr Rob Long 2 Comments

imageI’m not a mad footy fan of any of the codes but as my home town is Adelaide, I took note of this story: Eddie Betts and the shameful legacy of the Crows’ camp , and it has a message for Safety.

There is a popular myth in organisations (https://safetyrisk.net/posture-myths-and-holistic-ergonomics/) that brutal confrontation helps people learn. I have witnessed this a few times at conferences where a sports star of some sort is brought in as a consultant with no expertise in learning or psychology. I once experienced such a session with an ex-army SAS with a Victoria Cross but I walk out immediately.

Many feel compelled by Groupthink to comply at such events, regardless of how brutal or stupid the session is.

When compliance is your code and critical thinking is discouraged, such blind compliance is dangerous, and often harms people.

Such is the story of Eddie Betts and others in the Crows Football team.

The same philosophy also exists in cultic religious groups when power is exercised unethically in the name of good.

Again, compliance and a lack of critical thinking sanctions harm.

Similarly, the mythology of ‘boot camp’ is also popularised in risk and safety:

  • https://productivitybootcamp.com.au/;
  • https://www.aiche.org/academy/courses/ch900/process-safety-boot-camp;
  • https://www.milliken.com/en-us/businesses/performance-solutions-by-milliken/education-and-events/safety-bootcamp;
  • https://www.udemy.com/course/health-and-safety-bootcamp/

The idea of ‘boot camp’ is that brutalism evokes learning by the exercise of power over others. Such boot camps are often militaristic, binary rigid fundamentalist behaviourist activities with no ethic of personhood or expertise in learning. The philosophy of such programs is always about what is good for other people. And it’s always about brutalism.

Such is the attraction of behaviourism in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/why-safety-is-attracted-to-behaviourism/) that these programs are found with greater frequency.

But this is all mythology, none of this works to affect culture or foster learning.

In the case of the Adelaide Crows players they were mocked, kidnapped, ‘brainwashed’, traumatised, bullied and brutalised in the name of ‘good’. When you have a deontological ethic (like safety) this kind of stuff is normalised. None of this is motivational, none of this is about learning (https://theconversation.com/eddie-betts-camp-saga-highlights-a-motivational-industry-rife-with-weird-harmful-ideas-188354) and none of this is ethical. No wonder the AIHS BoK Chapter on ethics makes no mention of personhood. Yet many of these consultancies (charging a fortune in fees) thrive because the mythology (and its symbolism) fuels the myth.

Just read any of the disclosures by players about this camp and you wonder why players did not leave. This is a perfect example of what Social Psychologists know about the Zimbardo Effect or Lucifer Effect.

The beginning of understanding morality and ethics (that the AIHS wrongly combines) is the exercise of power. Also not discussed in the AIHS BoK Chapter on so called ‘Ethics’.

Even the silly Conversations piece restates silly myths like ‘the brain is a highly efficient learning machine’. This is also part of the problem. Trauma is not ‘felt’ in the brain but in the body, heart and gut. Trauma is embodied, not a brain-centric thing (https://app.box.com/s/0t352y734r8kso7rkasbvc8s5dxgv5dj) as Van def Kolk demonstrates.

The body is not a ‘machine’, the brain is not a computer, the eyes are not a camera and any silly mechanisation of such is simply more behaviourist nonsense.

Unless we think ecologically about persons as embodied holistic beings we simply foster language and metaphor that objectified humans (https://safetyrisk.net/posture-myths-and-holistic-ergonomics/).

Such is the problem of thinking of humans as a ‘factor’ in a system (https://safetyrisk.net/human-factors-is-never-about-humans/ ).

Such is the problem of using the language of engineering and focusing on systems over persons (https://safetyrisk.net/why-resilience-cannot-be-engineered/). Such language demonstrates the use of the brand ‘differently’ when nothing is different.

Of course, the exercise of boot camps and confrontative methodologies is all about harm in the name of good. The ideology of zero in particular fosters such an approach.

When your focus is on metrics and people as objects, factors and enemies of safety (https://safetyrisk.net/how-to-be-a-safety-extremist/), it is a ‘piece of cake’ to brutalise others in the name of good. Such is an industry with no ethic or moral compass that loves to boast about professionalism.

Such is the nature of BBS (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-safety-incentive-schemes-a-question-of-balance/).

Such is the ideology of zero (https://safetyrisk.net/the-safety-worldview-and-the-worldview-of-safety-testing-due-diligence/).

If you are interested in treating persons morally and ethically so that learning occurs then the first thing to do is to move away from zero so that safety improves (https://safetyrisk.net/moving-away-from-zero-so-that-safety-improves/).

If you are interested in learning then perhaps download our free book on learning (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/tackling-risk/). How amazing these safety consultancies about ‘learning’ with no expertise in learning (https://safetyrisk.net/motivation-learning-and-risk/ ). Such is the nature of an industry that applies the metaphor of ‘engineering’ to ‘being’ as if people are machines. This is despite the fact that such consultancies personify organisations in their language as metaphors then proceed to advocate behaviourist methods.

As we witnessed with the camp for the Adelaide Crows, brutalism always teaches its opposite. The real learning is that brutalism harms people, brutalism disrespects personhood and proposes immoral acts as good.

  • 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)

  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea? - September 27, 2023
  • The Blessings of Fallibility - September 27, 2023
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event - September 25, 2023
  • Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero - September 25, 2023
  • The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety - September 24, 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: Robert Long, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: AIHS BoK Chapter of Ethics, boot camp, brutalism

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Chiara Acciano says

    August 22, 2022 at 10:41 AM

    I’ve had the same experience with a “motivational” speaker at a recent work event. The person was an owner / founder of a well-known supermarket brand. He spent the best part of 30 minutes telling “his story” and then in the last 5 minutes said that it was only achieved by the culture of his workforce but gave no details of what that culture was or what it even meant in their workplace.

    Reply
    • Rob Long says

      August 22, 2022 at 5:01 PM

      Many of these consultants are complete frauds and yet people fall for the snake oil.

      Reply

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them belowCancel 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 7,509 other subscribers.

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • rosa a carrillo on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Matt Thorne on Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Rob Long on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Rosa Carrillo on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Brent Charlton on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Anonymous on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Rob Long on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Rob Long on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Rob long on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Anonymous on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Joseph D Zinobile on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Jason Martell on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?

If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health

Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk

7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden

Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health

If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking

Effective Strategies in Mental Health at Work

CLLR Newsletter July 2023

Playing With Mental Health in Safety is Dangerous

STOP ‘BREAKING’ PEOPLE! The notion of Psychological Safety

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Footer

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Free Risk Assessment Template in Excel Format
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event
  • Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health
  • Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk
  • Embodied Enactivity in Safety
  • The Meaning of Myth in Risk
  • Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • The Power of Safety Myths
  • What Do You Mean By Performance?
  • Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Podcast – Dr Rob Long With John Morlan and The Risk Matrix
  • What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Free Videos, Podcasts and Books on Zero
  • Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • If You’re Happy in Safety, Clap Your Hands
  • Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Zero Hour Part 5 – Surfacing the Unconscious
  • Zero Hour Part 4 – Zero and the Unconscious
  • Auditing the 7 Golden Rules of Zero, A Miserable Fail
  • 7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden
  • The Non-Golden Rules for Leadership in Zero
  • Seven ‘Golden’ Rules for Zero and Yet No Ethic
  • Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health
  • Is this Your Safety?
  • SPoR Workshops Canberra 18-21 September
  • The Dominance of Zero as the ‘Common Denominator’ of Safety
  • Zero Hour Episode 3
  • Goal Setting and Zero
  • Zero as a Worldview
  • If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking
  • Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Breach of Faith and Psycho-Social Risk
  • Zero Harm is Never Zero Harm
  • Why Would You Want to be a Safety “Geek’ or Hero?
  • The Mental Illness of Identifying as Safety
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a place holder
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a Philosophy
  • CARING ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
  • Care is NOT a Factor and Yes, Your Model Matters
  • Care Ethics and the Ethics of Care, in Risk
  • FEAR AND CONTROL – Dialogue in a technological society
  • Of Course, Method Matters in Safety
  • Day 12 SPoR in Europe
  • Free Study Module Following-Leading in Risk August-September

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Don’t Let Evidence Get in the Way of Safety

Measurement in Safety, You’ve Got it All Wrong

Hoodwinked by Heinrich

The Challenges for Organisations in Dealing with Mental Health

Bridging the Disciplines for Better Outcomes

Questioning Skills and Investigations

How do we mourn?

Can There be a Feminist Safety?

Free Safety and Risk Lunch n Learn

Intuitional Ways of Knowing in Safety

No Soft Skills in Safety

Are You on The Safety Teat?

Overcoming Safety Indoctrination

Why Some People Never Achieve

Acknowledge Trade-offs to Make Better Inquiries

I Just Want Clear Answers

Surfacing – Making the Unconscious Conscious

The Real Barriers to Safety

There is Nothing more Imaginative We can Do in Safety

The Essentialist Pleasure Of Safety

Why Resilience Cannot be Engineered

There is Another Ethic than Zero Accidents

Suicide Prevention – a Social Psychological Perspective

Rituals in Risk Management – Podcast

Understanding Language Influencing, A Video

Does Safety Have A Soul?

Personhood and Risk

Is Choice The First Casualty in the Worker’s Compensation War?

Safety-as-Persona

The Binary Barnacle

The Moment of Decision in Safety

Focus on ‘Meeting’ people, not legislation – a path to risk maturity

I’m 100% Certain About That….

SPoR Body of Knowledge – A Video

If you truly believe in zero it will happen

European Tour Dr Long 1-5 June 2020

Censorship and Taboos in Safety

Turning Neuroscience into Behaviourism

No Ethic of Hope in Zero

Thinking About Harm

More Posts from this Category

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

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 7,509 other subscribers.

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY