Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing As much as STEM thinking knows anything about language, what it doesn’t know is that language is mostly NOT descriptive. Most of the time when humans … [Read more...] about Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing
metaphors
Slogan Power
Many people underestimate the power of slogans because they function like metaphors and in many ways are hidden in language. It is impossible for humans to communicate without using either. The … [Read more...] about Slogan Power
Visual Perception and the Camera Metaphor
We live by myths and metaphors and some of the myths and metaphors we use in risk are unhelpful. We construct guiding principles that we live by (myths-symbols) and express those myth-symbols in … [Read more...] about Visual Perception and the Camera Metaphor
STEM Safety in Drag
All humans select metaphors and metonymies to form coherent systems in terms of which they conceptualize experience. In safety the predominant grammar is mechanistic anchored to Science, … [Read more...] about STEM Safety in Drag
Why Metaphors Matter in Risk
We all use metaphors in how we speak and communicate to each other. Metaphor is poetic language that requires imagination to understand how a bridge is created for understanding. A metaphor is … [Read more...] about Why Metaphors Matter in Risk
Zero Harm, Santa Claus and Other Such Myths
Zero Harm, Santa Claus and Other Such Myths It’s beginning to look at lot like….. well you know the song. It’s that time of the year where you can’t take a trip to the shopping centre (mall) without … [Read more...] about Zero Harm, Santa Claus and Other Such Myths
Who is the Enemy and What War is Safety Fighting?
Who is the Enemy and What War is Safety Fighting? It is interesting after the last piece on the military as a model for safety leadership the responses that assumed that somehow the military was … [Read more...] about Who is the Enemy and What War is Safety Fighting?
Military Metaphors in Safety
Military Metaphors in Safety Check out Rob’s new book: Following-Leading in Risk Weick (1979) tells us that organizing is ‘a consensually validated grammar for reducing equivocality by means of … [Read more...] about Military Metaphors in Safety
