We started the year with the visit of two Romanian guests spending 7 days in Canberra to learn as much as they could about SPoR. Dec and Manu are Directors of Corporate Dynamics. (https://www.corporatedynamics.ro/) Based in Bucharest, Romania, Decebal runs training and consulting projects in … [Read more...] about Romanian Perceptions of Australian Culture, A Window to Understanding Organising
culture
Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
'Tis the season to be decorating the workplace with safety slogans so I thought I should republish this classic: Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple One of the most annoying things about social media, especially Linkedin (as its intention is to be professional), is the constant … [Read more...] about Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
When You Don’t Know What Culture Is. How Can you Improve It?
One of the new myths invented by Safety is that psychosocial health is about ‘controlling hazards’. Only Safety could warp reality in such a way. Now we have an industry that thinks it is addressing an issue by actually making it worse (https://safetyrisk.net/what-is-psychosocial-safety/ ). Moreso, … [Read more...] about When You Don’t Know What Culture Is. How Can you Improve It?
Gab & Rob Talking Risk
Two of our authors Gab Carlton and Rob Sams have put their heads together and started their own series of short video blogs to go along with their regular articles. Gab & Rob are part of the gang who are doing the post graduate program in social psychology and risk through ACU … [Read more...] about Gab & Rob Talking Risk
Semiotics and Safety
Semiotics and Safety I read with interest a conference proposed for November 2014 entitled ‘Beyond Zero Harm, Human Factors Safety’. The subtitle of the conference is ‘Humanising impacts in safety operations to reengineer safety approach for enhanced productivity and business profitability’. Oh … [Read more...] about Semiotics and Safety
Culture is NOT a Construct
One of the most important things to know about culture is that it is beyond definition, proposition and mechanistic thinking. One can’t control, define or ‘engineer’ culture as if it is a ‘thing’. Indeed, this is one of the characteristics of discourse in safety about culture, usually coming from … [Read more...] about Culture is NOT a Construct
Risk and Cultural Values
Cultural Values and Translation by Trade One of the most important things we discover in a study of culture is that other people are not like us. This is why it is so crazy to assume ‘common sense’, this is why it’s so misleading to even talk about ‘common sense’. The more we use this language the … [Read more...] about Risk and Cultural Values
A Book to Help Get You Started on Cultural Improvement in Risk
I was talking to a COO yesterday about their attempts to improve their Organisational Culture. They had been using a scattergun approach using LinkedIn Lectures, Simon Sinek and BBS, and not getting the results they wanted. In fact, when pushed to what results they wanted, it was explained as a … [Read more...] about A Book to Help Get You Started on Cultural Improvement in Risk
Risk Culture and Cultural Risk
Risk Culture and Cultural Risk When the risk and safety industry defines culture it doesn’t consider critical aspects of culture. The most common definition is that culture is ‘what we do around here’ which fits in nicely with the behaviourist-cognitivist worldview that dominates the sector. So … [Read more...] about Risk Culture and Cultural Risk
Dolphyn’s First Newsletter for 2015
Late last year I Unsubscribed to dozens of “safety” newsletters (See Isn’t Safety Supposed to be a Positive Thing). Every time I opened these newsletters I was confronted by fines & punishments, legislative updates, death & injury, PPE and the latest snake oil – That’s not safety - I was … [Read more...] about Dolphyn’s First Newsletter for 2015