Whilst there is nothing wrong with positive psychology in itself its evolution as a reaction against perceived negative analysis such as: critical theory, post-Marxist theory and deconstructionism, bring with it some delusional trade-offs.
Unethical practice is best served by silence.
The move of Seligman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology) away from a focus on pathology and illness in Psychology was not a bad thing. However, the suppression of critical thinking, critical discourse analysis and deconstruction, simply fosters silences about destructive and dehumanising forces of which we need to be conscious. Happiness exists in dialectic with sadness, life in dialectic with death. Denying the dialectic of competing forces and energies in ethical practice helps no-one. What often results are; head-in-the sand ideology that fears anything negative even if it is the truth.
Oh, don’t read that Rob Long guy, he’s negative.
The trouble with the extremist mantra of ‘no blame’ is the sacrifice of one view for balance. The absolute of ‘blame fixes nothing’ only operates in the denial of reality. Shifting the linguistics of accountability by calling it ‘just culture’ changes nothing.
Much of this HOP stuff (https://www.thehopnerd.com/post/human-and-organizational-performance-blame) simply fosters ignorance by what it demonises. And so, you see such mindless dumb statements as:
‘But really… BLAME FIXES NOTHING – zip, zero nada!’
Or you see Conklin (with no expertise in ethics) declare a slogan ‘a principle’ (p.21) and then claim such as ‘truth’ (https://safetyrisk.net/declaring-what-is-by-what-isnt-hop-as-traditional-safety/). Declaring one’s own reality via a collection of slogans doesn’t make it so.
And this is what HOP does, it creates its own reality based on ignorance, and asks the lemmings to follow without any consideration of ethics. Then with an evangelical call to focus on ‘performance’ somehow all of this is safety ‘differently’.
The truth is, blame is always held in tension with truth telling (https://safetyrisk.net/investigations-and-truth-telling/). Blame is always held in tension with forgiveness.
Spinning up 5 slogans about a focus on performance (https://safetyrisk.net/declaring-what-is-by-what-isnt-hop-as-traditional-safety/) is just traditional safety.
The Apostle Paul tells us about a group of people in conflict over a range of things and his response to them was: ‘don’t be children, tossed about like the waves and blown about like the wind or falling for fads and cons, but speak the truth in love’.
This kind of conditionality is the foundation of balance. The truth spoken in love is what all good parents seek to do. Why? Because they know lying to children and spinning the truth, helps no one. When the truth is spoken in love, we find ourselves in the in-between. There is nothing wrong about living in the dialectic (https://safetyrisk.net/positives-and-negatives-in-dialectic-in-safety/ ). Blame, when held in tension with love, works.
Blame should always be held in tension with: respect, love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace, understanding and compassion. Practicing these skills are what leaders should know how to do. Running around shouting ‘no blame, no blame, no blame’ just creates a delusion with no balance. This is what LeFebvre called ‘false consciousness’ where truth is exchanged for propaganda and spin, then declared new truth.
The trouble is, HOP is silent about many things especially fallibility and all that is associated with it. Instead, the focus moves to performance and an avalanche of silence about non-performance. The word appears nowhere in Conklin’s book. The spin then becomes ‘fail safely’ but never ‘non-performance’. The same is done with the spin of ‘pre-accident’. People don’t live life in the anticipation of accidents.
A good study in Linguistics would soon bring all this mountain of spin crashing down into the realisation that this is just more traditional safety packaged in new rhetoric.
But do your own research. Look for language that is balanced. Look for semiotics that are humanising. Look for balance of language about performance and non-performance. If the focus is performance, what is said about poor-performance? Or is everything just rosy in the S2, SD, RE, NV, HOP world? Where is the discourse about speaking the truth that may hurt? Or speaking the truth in love? Or about an ethic of performance in risk? Where is the discussion of an undergirding methodology? And what of methods? Or does everything just return to the same systems done ‘differently’?
If you are interested in a methodology and methods that are different in reality, it’s as easy as asking a question. In SPoR, the focus is on a constructive practical way of tackling risk with real methods that work (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/). We don’t anchor the nature of risk to slogans or mono-focused concepts like ‘no blame’ but rather offer methods to better tackle the wicked problem of risk. In this way, persons are humanised and ethical practice is the focus.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
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- The Influence of C.G. Jung in SPoR - September 5, 2024
- Sacrificing Truth for No Blame - September 3, 2024
RICARDO MONTERO says
Hello Rob,
Yes, I agreed “Blame should always be held in tension with: respect, love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace, understanding and compassion” but, It is common in the Western world that this is not done, and worse, that it is assumed that blame is the main way to avoid or prevent repetitions. Do you think that the rest of the components of the system (all built by people) are not relatively easier to change than changing human nature through blame? And of course not with an individual case (in a particular individual it may work, or not, as in the Catholic confession, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t), I ask more as a tendency. I think that blaming the worker as the first option of cause does not help to solve much, which does not mean that he is not held accountable for the consequences of what he caused, and that it is there, in the proposal of what to do, where we must think beyond blame. I feel that we must take care of people and make that the center, demanding responsibility is part of it, but it is very limited if it is the idea that this is the root cause (despite root cause exist or not, but it is assumed usually, “perception is the reallity of us”) of accidents. What is wrong with this? Of course, I don’t only differ from HOP in the way of expressing this idea, I also differ in the other ways. I also think it is valid that they have generated the debate with their HOP principles and yes, they themselves say that they are not a methodology, that they are “an approach”.
Rob Long says
Ricardo, the point of my blog was that making such statements are not true. It would take another blog to discuss the purpose of blame or cultural understandings of blame. I don’t believe blame is exclusively about changing systems. Blame may be a blunt process but it is simply silly to say ‘it fixes nothing’. Surely Safety should try to speak sense to people not non-sense.
The idea of blame the worker as first option was not part of my discussion but I agree such a disposition is unhelpful. Iy is clear in Legislation that any fault finding should be anchored to the PCBU not an individual.
Throwing around a collection of slogans and calling them principles doesn’t help much either, especially when the language spoken is simply not true.
Generating debate by making false statements doesn’t result in an ethical outcome especially when its not a debate. Most of the HOP stuff I see is just mindless back-slapping that lacks any consideration of ethics and critical debate. Telling an untruth to generate debate is also unethical.
Thanks for your questions.
Brian says
Great Blog Rob, so true. If one does never feel being sad, how does one know what happiness feels like, or never feeling ill, how does one know hat is meant by feeling healthy and good.
Rob Long says
Thanks Brian. Much of this stuff packaged in HOP rhetoric has no methodology or method and offers the shallowness of 5 slogans and the lemmings flock to it. It makes it so easy to continue to practice the adoration of systems and performance masked in different words.