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

Safety Risk .net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • 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
  • PSYCH. OF SAFETY & RISK
    • What is Psychological 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
  • Robert Long
    • 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!
  • Slogans
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
    • When Slogans Don’t Work
    • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
    • BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2022
    • 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 2022
    • 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 Culture
    • Safety Culture Silences
  • Psychological Safety
You are here: Home / Robert Long / Safety Starts with Us

Safety Starts with Us

July 23, 2022 by Dr Rob Long Leave a Comment

imageWhen you don’t get language and discourse, don’t understand linguistics (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-silences-in-safety-linguistics/ ) or semiotics or, culture (https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-silences/ ), videos like this make sense (https://safetyrisk.net/barrys-latest-safety-innovation-discovery/ ). Whilst Safety thinks it is so clever it doesn’t understand that it is promoting individualism and Behaviourist worldviews in such nonsense promotions.

So, here is Safety in its own mono-disciplinary bubble, in typical ‘safety is a choice’ rhetoric, projecting the responsibility for safety onto an individual. Of course, the opposite is conveyed in the law and regulation. The biggest message in WHS law and regulation is ‘mutual’ obligation (https://safetyrisk.net/due-diligence-videos-5000-downloads/ ). Mutual obligation is the foundation of Due Diligence (https://safetyrisk.net/free-risky-conversations-videos-and-talking-book/ ).

I once was asked to start consulting with a client and when I arrived they had just put up a huge banner on side of a warehouse, 3 meters high and 50 meters long and it said ‘safety starts with me’.

One of my first words to the GM was, ‘well if you people are interested in what I can offer your organization that poster has to come down’. He was outraged, having just spent a fortune on this huge weather-proof banner, red txt on black. I said to him, ‘it should say, safety starts with us’. And in less than a minute he turned around and said, ‘you’re right, why didn’t we think of that’. He was a GM who quickly got it, unless we maintain basic messages of mutuality, we will never get a communal, social and holistic outcome.

I have similar conversations with organisations that spruik zero. Unless zero goes, I don’t start. Zero cannot compromise, zero is absolute and any compromise with zero endorses it as absolute.

So, often the language of Safety promotes the idea that is ‘everyone for themselves’. When you expect nothing from anyone else, you get a ruthless outcome. When the language is all about the ‘control’ of ‘objects’, don’t be surprised when persons are objectified.

If you want unethical outcomes and brutalist culture just make sure you promote the language of safety: zero, ‘all accidents are preventable’, ‘control hazards’ and ‘safety is a choice you make’. So much of the language/linguistics of Safety supports unconscious messaging that rejects an ethic that is social and communal. This is why Safety loves it so much to focus on ‘factors’ and ‘systems’, the same whether one is in in so called ‘safety differently’. Of course, there is no articulation of an ethic of risk in ‘safety differently’. The worldview is the same (https://safetyrisk.net/the-safety-and-new-view-debate/ ) with a few slogans and rhetoric.

There is no congruence in messaging in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/congruence-in-messaging-in-safety/ ). Safety simply doesn’t know that medium and message are not separate (https://safetyrisk.net/the-medium-is-the-message/ ). It simply doesn’t know what it doesn’t know because it remains satisfied that it knows everything from its bubble of engineering and behaviourism (https://safetyrisk.net/the-curse-of-behaviourism/ ). Any critique that comes outside of such a worldview is deemed anti-safety and anti-compliance. The most important task from such a worldview is to demonize any dissent, brand it accordingly and ensure that no learning occurs. Better still, brand training and data accumulation as ‘learning’ to ensure discovery, enquiry and envisioning is silences.

This is how Safety has the audacity to write about unconscious decision making (https://safetyrisk.net/the-assp-getting-complacency-completely-wrong/ ) with no expertise in it. I know, if you want to know about heuristics, ask an engineer.

I always find it entertaining to see these safety awards go out each year to more of the same using a machine that goes ‘bing’. Just look at any of these so called ‘innovations’ (https://safetyrisk.net/and-the-innovation-is-more-controls/ ) and they all support the same worldview, the same curriculum and the same mythology. More Engineering, more Behaviourism and more individualism. Silent on culture, silent on language and discourse, silent on ethics, silent on personhood, silent on helping and care, silent on semiotics.

Yet, whenever I call for a need for balance apparently, I’m a ‘fanatic’. Whenever I call for reform or a holistic approach I’m toxic. The best way to NOT consider the critical thinking (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-silences-in-safety-critical-thinking/ ) of a discipline outside of safety is to brand it as ‘toxic’. This ensures no learning, no risk, no listening and no change. How professional.

When I think of this dumb video (below) that Safety loves, of opening a door to look at my own image I don’t need to wonder why it doesn’t consider that this be done collectively. Wouldn’t it be nice to open the door and see an image of myself with all my mates who care for each other, knowing that we all ‘have each other’s back’.

No, No, No, that’s NOT what Safety wants, you’re on your own buddy.

  • 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)

  • How to be a Safety Extremist - August 15, 2022
  • The Safety Worldview and the Worldview of Safety, Testing Due Diligence - August 13, 2022
  • The Enemy of Safety – Humans - August 13, 2022
  • The Sacred Bra Tree - August 7, 2022
  • Understanding Psychological Terminology - August 7, 2022
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 Tagged With: behaviourism

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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 7,460 other subscribers

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Admin on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Andrew Floyd on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • grumpy on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Ray on How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Rob Long on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Wynand on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on Culture Silences in Safety – What Culture Isn’t
  • Rob Long on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Rob Long on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Brent Charlton on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Richard Brookes on How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Rob Long on The Rhizome as a Learning Model for Risk
  • Ooker on The Rhizome as a Learning Model for Risk
  • Rob Long on Safety Doesn’t Need Military Language
  • Manjit Handa on Safety Doesn’t Need Military Language

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

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
  • BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2022
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • How to be a Safety Extremist
  • Road Safety Slogans 2022
  • The Enemy of Safety – Humans
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • IDEAS FOR SAFETY TOOL BOX TALKS, HARD HAT CHATS and SAFETY MOMENTS
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS

Recent Posts

  • How to be a Safety Extremist
  • The Safety Worldview and the Worldview of Safety, Testing Due Diligence
  • The Enemy of Safety – Humans
  • The Sacred Bra Tree
  • Understanding Psychological Terminology
  • Beware False Profits and Messiahs in Safety
  • Risk Boldly
  • Poetics of the Self
  • Culture Silences in Safety – What Culture Isn’t
  • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • When Only More Guilt Will Do
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • Keep Counting Every Time You Don’t Achieve Your Goal, That’s Professional
  • Safety and Non-Neuroscience
  • Paperwork and Usability in Tackling Risk
  • Safety as a Masculinist Activity
  • You Don’t Want a Compliance Culture
  • The Soul of Mental Health
  • Identity and Safety
  • Psychosocial Controls and Measures for Who?
  • Linguistics and Safety
  • Not a Profession’s Bootlace
  • Cultural Silences in Safety – Power and Politics
  • History and Safety
  • What is Psychosocial Safety
  • It’s the –ism That Matters
  • A Guide to Psychosocial Safety Skills
  • Doing Away With Health and Safety–Language and People
  • The New Enemy of Safety – The Unconscious
  • Tape Down Those Leads
  • More Safety Code to Disguise Behaviourism
  • Why Safety is Attracted to Behaviourism
  • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
  • Understanding Safety as an Archetype
  • The Purpose of Safety
  • Learning Styles Matter
  • Due Diligence and Holistic Ergonomics Workshops
  • Having FUN in Safety FUNdamentalism
  • 80% of Safety Practitioners Are Idiots
  • Risk Homeostasis Theory–Why Safety Initiatives Go Wrong
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Semiotics
  • Flooding is Dangerous, and I don’t Mean the Water….
  • Cultural Silences in Safety – Aesthetics
  • Impacts of Cognitive Dissonance in the Workplace
  • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
  • Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk
  • Due Diligence Videos – 10000 downloads
  • Release the Safety Monster and Wreck a Good TV Show
  • Paper Safe
  • Safety Starts with Us

FEATURED POSTS

The ‘Noise’ of Safety, Silence and Practicing of Mindfulness

Can There be a Feminist Safety?

I’m biased, but that’s ok!

Risk as a ‘Leap of Faith’

Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk (CLLR)–Study Calendar

The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser

How do we mourn?

Mental Health, Risk and Safety

Just distract you!

TRIFR Safety Zombies

No Soft Skills in Safety

The Social Politics of Risk Workshop

Is Safety a Choice You Make?

Holistic Ergonomics

Target Trade-Offs and Numeric Goals

Its All In The Sign

Emotions are not the Adversary

It’s the –ism That Matters

Workshop – Understanding Culture Tackling Risk

Leadership, Risk and the Zone of Reciprocal Relationship

Amping it Up in Safety

Transdisciplinarity and Worldviews in Risk

Making the World fit the Safety Worldview

A Small Change and ‘Y’ it Matters?

The Paradox of Positivism for Safety

The Safetyization of Normal Life

10 Reasons Why Safety Can Never Make You Happy

Free Books – 66 Downloads for Tackling Risk

Zero as Morally Wicked

A Professional Ethic of Risk

In Praise of In-Between Thinking in Risk and Safety

Third Group Commences the Graduate Program in The Psychology of Risk

Suicide Prevention – a Social Psychological Perspective

Conforming and Questioning in Safety

Human Dymensions Newsletter–Feb 14

ADVENTURES IN RISK AND SAFETY–KING ZERO

Semiotics and Safety

Talking Risk Video–Anti-Fragility

The Repression of Uncertainty

Hoodwinked by Heinrich

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 7,460 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 at Work?