• 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 / Social Psychology of Risk / Organising to Manage Uncertainty in an Unpredictable World

Organising to Manage Uncertainty in an Unpredictable World

October 16, 2017 by Admin Leave a Comment

Organising to Manage Uncertainty in an Unpredictable World

Inaugural post by Rob Edmondstone (I am sure he would appreciate your feedback and encouragement)

imageMost people would agree that life is unpredictable and full of uncertainty. They would also agree that everything in the world is not necessarily rational or knowable. With that in mind, is there any way a person can prepare for something that they don’t truly know or is unexpected?

Although it appears to be a silly or trick question, the answer is that you can not. If you were able to, whatever you were planning to prepare for would not be unexpected because you have to think of it in order to plan for it, therefore making it expected.

There are however, certain things that can be done to help. Although not a fix or guarantee, the research and knowledge shared by Weick and Sutcliffe in “Managing The Unexpected” provides some insight.

While the term “unexpected event” sounds rather innocuous, Weick and Sutcliffe highlight what is a stake when they claim “Unexpected events often audit our resilience. Some of these audits are mild but others are brutal”.

Many of us are familiar with the brutal audits created by unexpected events. They become widely publicised, some even dramatised into Hollywood features with examples including chemical plant accidents, coal mine explosions and off shore oil rig disasters.

Weick’s research has led to the development of five high reliability organising principals. He presents five things which can help an organisation become more robust and resilient should an unexpected event occur. Weick puts forward 5 principles for developing robust and resilient organising, these are:.

Weick’s HROing Principle

Collective Mindfulness Meaning

Preoccupation with failure

Always thinking what could go pear shaped and prepare for it by attending to it – no gloating

Reluctance to simplify

Refuse to understand things as simple or easy

Sensitivity to operations

Ongoing concern with the unexpected and focus on the frontline and relationships

Commitment to resilience

Mistakes are not the end of functioning, errors are kept small. Errors are welcomed as an opportunity for learning

Deference to expertise

Making sure the best person does the job regardless of rank or level

With support and coaching from Dr Rob Long, our organisation has begun the task of transforming the culture to be able to firstly face, then tackle and ultimately survive unexpected events when they occur. We have achieved this by implementing a program with a strong focus on human centred systems, developing risk maturity and improving resilience. This transformation is building a robust organisation with people who can adapt and overcome the unexpected and tackle uncertainty.

Our journey is away from the usual; or standard closed system, away from policing and towards a more open, trusting and mindful system. As a result we have seen less focus on data, figures, statistics and injury rates and an increased focus on creation of mindfulness, independent thinking, observation, conversation and listening.

Our leaders have been educated in aspects of the ways that people think and make decisions, both conscious and unconscious. Time has been spent understanding the significance of language and enhancing communications which facilitate open dialogue where leaders suspend their agendas and move away from telling and towards caring.

Our workforce has been trained to consider individual psychological factors and Group (culture) psychological factors when developing their risk assessments for their daily activities. Before undertaking tasks, workers go beyond considering the usual physical factors or objects involved which may pose a risk and developing controls, and also consider individual psychological factors and social or cultural factors which may also influence the task. Our entire workforce has been made familiar with these concepts and know them as Workspace (physical objects), Headspace (psychological factors) and Groupspace (social or cultural factors).

Our workforce are more open in reporting of incidents, hazards and near misses. Our investigation process has been updated and formalised, including a cross section of employees in any investigation process and a method of capturing learnings and sharing these is now in use. There are plans to incorporate a method of improving our current investigation methodology by adding the dimensions of Headspace and GroupSpace as areas to explore as part of the process.

The education sessions in this human-centred program and associated positive interactions within the workforce have created additional benefits as people remain more engaged, open and receptive to conversations around risk and show ownership of the risk. Furthermore, It is notable that interpersonal relationships across all levels of the organisation have improved significantly and there are observations of people being more willing to listen and seek advice.

Conversations with our workers indicate that they understand in terms of resilience that they have not “arrived” but are still in the process of journeying and will undoubtedly face challenges (or audits as discussed by Weick) in the future. Focusing on leadership, language and learning, and through a continuing education program building upon what has already laid down supporting the implementation and use of Dr Long’s practical Social Psychology of Risk tools, we will be increasing our capacity to adapt and tackle the unknown. This means we will be better equipped to a working position where the uncertain is unlikely to break us.

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: Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: groupspace, headspace, unexpected, weick

Reader Interactions

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 7,522 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
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • What Is Safety?
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Beware the Cult of Denial
  • 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

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

We can Value Safety but Safety is not a Value

The Social Psychology of Risk Handbook, i-thou

There is no way I would do that!

Traditional Safety

The Seduction of Measurement in Risk and Safety

The Mystery of the Emotions

Why People Do As They Do

SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June

Workshops with Dr Long – Vienna, Austria 26-30 June 2023

Risk and Safety Starts with Being?

SPoR, Ideology and Safety Myth

How Do We Know?

Why Metaphors Matter in Risk

Investigations and Truth Telling

The Futility of the Centralised Safety Management System?

It’s Always About Paperwork

Diagnosing Safety

Take Safety Seriously

The Illusion Of Hazard Identification

Tensions and Faultiness in Risk

Look With Your Heart and Not With Your Eyes

Selective and Slow Harm is not Zero Harm

Critical Thinking and Questioning in Safety

The Safety Control Delusion

Just distract you!

Workshop – Understanding Culture Tackling Risk

Utopian Language and the Quest for Perfection in Safety

Courage to Challenge the Great TRIFR and LTIFR Delusion

Shock and Fear in Safety

Risky Conversations Book Launch in Perth

What is Your Risk iCue?

I Don’t Serve Systems

Safety is the Wrong Anchor

Safety Aphorisms and Platitudes

7 Incredible Ways To Diagnose Risk More Effectively

Safety as a Worldview

Safety Myopia

Complacency and The Wayward Mind

Due Diligence Workshop Sydney 20,21 February 2019

What is SPoR?

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 7,522 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