• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Safety Risk .net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

Discover More on this Site

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE RESOURCES
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • 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
  • PSYCHOLOGY OF SAFETY & RISK
    • 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
  • Covid-19
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Covid-19 Returning to Work Inductions, Transitioning, Safety Start Up and Re Entry Plans
    • Covid-19 Work from Home Safety Checklists and Risk Assessments
    • The Hierarchy of Control and Covid-19
    • Why Safety Loves Covid-19
    • Covid-19, Cricket and Lessons in Safety
    • The Covid-19 Lesson
    • Safety has this Covid-19 thing sorted
    • The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time
    • How’s the Hot Desking Going Covid?
    • The Semiotics of COVID-19 and the Social Amplification of Risk
    • Working From Home Health and Safety Tips – Covid-19
    • Covid-19 and the Hierarchy of Control
  • Dr Rob Long 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!
  • Quotes & Slogans
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
    • When Slogans Don’t Work
    • 77 OF THE MOST CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
    • 500 BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2020
    • 167 CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus) 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
    • 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

Safety-1, Safety-2, Safety-3

October 10, 2015 by Dr Rob Long 2 Comments

Safety-1, Safety-2, Safety-3

safety 123The idea that there are two safeties endorses a binary mindset that supposes that the second safety is radically different from the first. The general idea is that Safety-1 is a system that focuses only on what goes wrong, Safety-2 is a system that focuses on what goes right. Both safeties endorse a systemic approach to safety that understand the human as a ‘factor’ in a system. Whilst the challenge to orthodox punitive mechanistic safety is good, in many ways the focus and semiotics of Safety-2 remain the same. Rather than making a paradigm (Polanyi) shift, the discourse of Safety-2 is similar to Safety-1. Talking about ‘safety differently’ doesn’t mean it’s ‘different’. I looked at some advertising for a conference recently that promoted a ‘new frontier’ in safety, and it was all the same old stuff. I read a book recently on ‘Lean Safety’ and it was all about increasing systems and bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, the semiotics and discourse of Safety-2 is that of engineering and systemic control, one may be able to engineer system resilience but one can’t ‘engineer’ resilience in people. The language that is used in System-2 is functionalist, what is the human’s function ‘within’ a system? (It is little wonder that the system proposed by Safety-2 is a Functional Resonance Method and a new bureaucracy) The priority of Safety-2 remains the system. The problem of poor safety according to this idea is system design, the discourse of engineering remains. The language of Safety-2 is that of ‘performance’, ‘adjustment’, ‘complementarity’ and ‘humans as a ‘resource’ for system flexibility’.

One of the good things that has come out of this Safety-1/Safety-2 discourse is the presentation of ‘emergence’ (Letiche). It is good to see some progression away from the archaic language of ‘control’, ‘choice’ and ‘cause’ in safety. The notions of ‘emergence’ and ‘wickedity’ are critical for understanding what happens in complex adaptive organizing. However, it is fascinating to witness the discussion in socio-technical systems discourse slip in and out of the use of organic and socio-psychological metaphors to endorse a systems-focus for safety improvement. Can there be a change in culture in safety without a change in semiotics? If systems can learn, how can they learn by using the same language?

Semiotics is the study of the signs, text as sign and symbols of sign action. Understanding semiotics is foundational to the discipline of social psychology. (A good start would be a study of Goebells and the Ministry of Propaganda in 1933-1945 http://psi312.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Welch,%20Third%20Reich–Politics%20and%20Propaganda,%202nd%20ed.PDF) Semiotics can describe any process that includes the production of meaning. Thus semiosis defines the process of making meaning as mediated by signs, text and the interpretation of symbols. Such an awareness could be called ‘meta-semiosis’, that is, being aware that the very signs, text and symbols one uses are part of the constructing method. This is why the use of the words like ‘engineering resilience’ may appeal to engineers and lovers of systems but offer little hope for the resilience of people. Unless the semiotics change, the discourse is unlikely to be transformational. The bedrock of belief is contained in language.

The mix of anthropomorphic terms in the Safety-1/Safety-2 discussion is extraordinary. The use of organic language to propose systemic change doesn’t make sense. The idea that one can be person-centred by being system-centred, doesn’t make sense. Systems are not culture. The purpose of systems as organizing is to reduce equivocality rather than engage in dissonance and change. So, the use of an engineering metaphor for trans-semiosis of safety doesn’t make sense.

Safety has become an ideology and religion over a very short period of time, it has become much more than a way of organizing a system. Perhaps what safety needs is Safety-3, a non-engineering, non-systemic and non-mechanistic focus on safety reform. Perhaps the language of Safety-1, Safety-2 and Safety-3 is unhelpful. Maybe it might be better to talk about dehumanization, technique and people and remain silent to Safety-1 and Safety-2. Maybe Safety-2 serves as a semiotic distraction from Safety-3. So, just a few questions for further thinking.

Can there be any reform of Safety through the same language? How can a change in system shift religious ideology? If Safety-2 seeks counsel in Derrida, why does it not seek to ‘speak’ in trans-semiotics? Can a revolution in safety come about without a subversion of Safety? If we want to move safety ideology away from the preoccupation with safety, shouldn’t we be using a non-safety semiotic?

  • 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)

  • The ‘Feeling’ and ‘Being’ of Safety - April 13, 2021
  • Please Don’t Use the ‘F’ Word in Safety - April 13, 2021
  • The Voodoo of The Hoodoo - April 9, 2021
  • The Heinrich Hoodoo - April 8, 2021
  • Deconstruction and Reconstruction for Safety - April 4, 2021
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 this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Resilience, Robert Long, Safety Differently, Safety systems, Semiotics, Social Psychology of Risk, Wicked Problems Tagged With: safety 1, safety 2, semiotics

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

Visit Count – Started Jan 2015

  • 22,011,602 Visitors

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join over 30,000 other discerning safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Bernard Corden on Professional Conferences Are A Sleazy Con
  • Rob Long on The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • Admin on The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • Nicholas Sanders on The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • Admin on The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • Admin on The Gemba Safety Walk
  • Sean Walker on The Gemba Safety Walk
  • Wynand on The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • Admin on The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • Wynand on The Heinrich Hoodoo

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Featured Downloads

  • My_Defining Moments in Safety .pdf (2160 downloads)
  • template_training_needs.xls (3174 downloads)
  • Zero-to-HRO-15-March-2017 (1584 downloads)
  • Electrical Equipment Risk Assessment Checklist (2567 downloads)
  • CLLR-SPoR-Unit1.pdf (454 downloads)
  • Supervising Children Around Water (7389 downloads)
  • Field Activity Risk Assessment Form (714 downloads)
  • Manual Handling Risk Assessment Template (467 downloads)
  • WHS-Legislation-A-to-Z-2012.doc (57715 downloads)
  • SEEK-Brisbane-91011-Nov-2016-2.pdf (363 downloads)
  • covid–19: Identifying the symptoms (6250 downloads)
  • Real-Risk-Free-Copy.pdf (5628 downloads)
  • Zero-to-HRO.docx (836 downloads)
  • Supervisor-Induction-Checklist.docx (387 downloads)
  • Risk Assessment Template (657 downloads)

Recent Posts

  • The ‘Feeling’ and ‘Being’ of Safety
  • Please Don’t Use the ‘F’ Word in Safety
  • The Voodoo of The Hoodoo
  • The Heinrich Hoodoo
  • CLLR Newsletter–April 2021
  • Deconstruction and Reconstruction for Safety
  • The Politics of Safety Legitimization
  • An Ethic in Error for Safety
  • Blinded by the Light
  • A Typical Safety eBulletin

Footer

AUTHORS

  • Alan Quilley
    • Heinrich–Industrial Accident Prevention
    • The Problem With ZERO Goals and Results
  • Bernard Corden
    • Blinded by the Light
    • Covid 1984 – The Shake Hands Maskerade and Vial Diplomacy
  • Bill Sims
    • Employee Engagement: Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry?
    • Injury Hiding-How do you stop it?
  • Craig Clancy
    • Task Based vs Activity Based Safe Work Method Statements
    • Safety And Tender Submissions
  • Daniel Kirk
    • It’s easy being wise after the event.
    • A Positive Safety Story
  • Dave Whitefield
    • Safety is about…
    • Safety and Compliance
  • Dennis Millard
    • Are You Risk Intelligent?
    • Honey they get me! They get me at work!
  • Drewie
    • Downturn Doin’ Your Head In? Let’s Chat….
    • How was your break?
  • Gabrielle Carlton
    • All Care and No Care!
    • You Are Not Alone!
  • George Robotham
    • How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
    • How To Write a Safety Report
  • Goran Prvulovic
    • Safety Manager – an Ultimate Scapegoat
    • HSE Performance – Back to Basics
  • James Ellis
    • In search of plan B in workers’ recovery
    • What and how should we measure to support recovery from injury?
  • James Parkinson
    • To laugh or not to laugh
    • People and Safety
  • John Toomey
    • Who is Responsible for This?
    • Who Are Your People?
  • Karl Cameron
    • Abby Normal Safety
    • The Right Thing
  • Ken Roberts
    • Safety Legislation Is Our Biggest Accident?
    • HSE Trip Down Memory Lane
  • Mark Perrett
    • Psychology of Persuasion: Top 5 influencing skills for getting what you want
  • Mark Taylor
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • Enculturing Safety
  • Max Geyer
    • WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture
    • Due Diligence Is Not Just Ticking Boxes!
  • Matt Thorne
    • It was the SIA until someone wanted to swing from the Chandelier
    • Common Sense is Remarkably Uncommon
  • Peter Ribbe
    • Is there “Common Sense” in safety?
    • Who wants to be a safety professional?
  • Phil LaDuke
    • Professional Conferences Are A Sleazy Con
    • Hey Idiots, You’re Worried About the Wrong Things
  • Admin
    • CLLR Newsletter–April 2021
    • Zero is not a Target or Vision, it’s a Language/Discourse
  • Dr Rob Long
    • The ‘Feeling’ and ‘Being’ of Safety
    • Please Don’t Use the ‘F’ Word in Safety
  • Rob Sams
    • I’m just not that into safety anymore
    • Social ‘Resiliencing’
  • Barry Spud
    • Barry Spud’s Hazard Control Tips
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
  • Sheri Suckling
    • How Can I Get the Boss to Listen?
  • Safety Nerd
    • The Block isn’t portraying safety as it should be
    • Toolbox Talk Show–PPE
  • Wynand Serfontein
    • Why The Problem With Learning Is Unlearning
    • I DON’T KNOW
  • Zoe Koskinas
    • Why is fallibility so challenging in the workplace?

FEATURED POSTS

Safety as Ritual Performance

Is there “Common Sense” in safety?

Sitting Safely at the Table

10 Reasons Why Safety Can Never Make You Happy

Safetie

Social Psychology of Risk Workshop-Sydney

Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?

SEEK is not a Method

We Are Such Experts….

Censorship in Safety

Promoting Dumb, Anxiety and Harm in the Name of Good

Shock and Fear in Safety

Speaking a New Language in Safety

It Takes Two to Tango–Reflections on Safe Behaviour

Safety Can’t Control Nature (or People)

Leadership, Risk and the Zone of Reciprocal Relationship

Why Some People Never Achieve

Is Complacency Evil?

Reflections of a ‘Doer’

Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk

More Posts from this Category

Paperwork

https://vimeo.com/162034157?loop=0

Due Diligence

https://vimeo.com/162493843?loop=0

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.