If I repeat the word ‘innovation’ twenty times, does it make it innovative?
If I repeat the word ‘professional’ thirty times, does it make something professional?
Well, you should know the answer but it doesn’t seem to matter in safety.
I’d like a dollar for the number of ‘innovation’ safety conferences I’ve seen trotted out in the last five years with lots of entertainment, repetition, spruiking ‘thought leaders’ and projection about ‘different’ with no outcome, a lower bank balance and back to traditional safety, ad a few new slogans.
It seems in safety, there’s nothing better than packaging up traditional safety, rebranding the lipstick for the same pig, only to find out that the outcome is the same pig.
Then bring in the sponsors, pay absurd money for some speakers, get others for free, repeat the same old stuff that was regurgitated last time. Put in some passion, retell the same stories, project about community celebration, share the common language of the tribe, bring in the catering, play some catchy music, run a dance night and return home wondering, what was that all about? What changed?
The first thing one should do when you see safety marketed in this way is to challenge a few assumptions. Why is the cost so high? Who gets the money? Follow the paper trail? What is the product? What are the measurable and identified tangible outcomes? Usually there are none except the sponsor’s bank account shrinks and people are entertained. Then back to traditional safety. My brother used to often say, ‘there’s a lot of people about, making lots of money saying nothing well’.
One of the first things one should do when targeted by safety propaganda is to count the number of repetitions of key words. This is a sure indicator that whatever follows, it is NOT what it’s about. Excessive repetition and slogans are the craft of the propagandist and there is plenty of that in Safety.
The next thing one needs to do is ask about driving methodology, concrete tangible methods and ethical practice. If these can’t be answered then look elsewhere. When propaganda is effective all questioning stops. Just spin out all the same club phrases and convince everyone that ‘having a good time’ is a safety outcome.
The key to all of this is discernment, critical thinking and not getting sucked in by the positive psychology stuff that proposes any criticism of safety or, any negativity is anti-safety (https://safetyrisk.net/for-gods-sake-dont-be-negative-about-safety/).
Questioning, interrogation, testing motives, deconstruction and seeking evidence for claims, are not ‘bad’. Without this, the same cycles continue, nothing changes and comfort in traditional safety under re-branding in ‘smoke and mirrors’ continues.
Prof. Robert Long
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Rob Long says
Thanks Bruce for the encouragement, I get very little. I like your comment re ‘professional actor’. Plenty of them in safety, conning people with slogans, stories and hype. But never express any view on ethics or espouse anything with any moral meaning. Indeed, they never espouse a methodology of any sorts, seems that’s what Safety loves most, fluff n bubble. Best regards.
Bruce says
Thanks Rob. It’s always refreshing to hear support and affirmation for ‘Questioning, interrogation, testing motives, deconstruction and seeking evidence for claims’. I used to keep hearing it said over and over and over about “acting Professional”. I would always think to myself – ‘acting’ professional doesn’t make one ‘professional’, maybe it just makes one a ‘professional actor’??? The numerous articles on this site expounding ‘a mature understanding of ethics is the foundation for any profession’ has been so helpful in understanding so much of what is missing.