Safety for Luddites I often receive marketing for safety products and get astounded at the way ‘dumb down safety’ is seduced by technology. Often the assumption is that if we collect data on an iPad somehow safety is better. Or, if we use GPS or some kind of new technological product somehow we are … [Read more...] about Safety for Luddites
Safety
The New Enemy of Safety – The Unconscious
I read with interest the ‘Safer Communities: Six Lessons in Health and Safety’ from the British Safety Council. The assumptions and hidden agenda of Lessons 1, 4, 5 and 6 are most concerning and demonstrate many of the problems associated with dumb down Safety. Here are the 6 lessons as a … [Read more...] about The New Enemy of Safety – The Unconscious
The Human Race…
The Human Race… It’s Christmas, a time of the year that can create both a feeling of community and togetherness (we) while (ironically) also drawing us easily into a world of ‘I’ and ‘things’ (me). Christmas, set within the Christian tradition, is a story about the birth of Jesus as a human on … [Read more...] about The Human Race…
Top 10 Things About Safety and Risk That Only a Handful of People Know
Top 10 Things About Safety and Risk That Only a Handful of People Know Republished by request Here are 10 and a bit things about safety that I plucked from some recent blog posts, that singularly or collectively only a handful of people may know. Or, if they knew them, perhaps did not know … [Read more...] about Top 10 Things About Safety and Risk That Only a Handful of People Know
Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition
Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition One of the most annoying things about Daniel Ariely's book Predictably Irrational is that it allows risk and safety people to dismiss aspects of human decision making as stupid when they are not. The framing of the word ‘irrational’ is simply … [Read more...] about Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition
Safety Justifies Anything and Everything
Safety Justifies Anything and Everything Once we have the safety moral high ground we can offend anyone, because we care about them? Once I have this moral high ground I can manipulate data for my own ends, I can police others, crusade and oppress others because, in the name of care, I must drive … [Read more...] about Safety Justifies Anything and Everything
Risk vs Hazard vs Safety
The never ending debate over the difference between a risk and a hazard………..and what is Safety? The poster, courtesy of Dr Rob Long from SPoR, very succinctly and effectively defines each, perhaps slightly differently to what you may have thought or heard before. You wont see words like faith and … [Read more...] about Risk vs Hazard vs Safety
Safety Should NOT Be About Safety
One of our most popular articles in 2014 in terms of the number of comments. We recently asked “What is Safety”? and got quite a mixed response but I think this article by Dr Rob just about nails it! I often get called into organisations under some concern about safety, many see my work as … [Read more...] about Safety Should NOT Be About Safety
The Social Politics of Safety
The Social Politics of Safety All organizing is social and political and seeks to create order (equivocality) through language, symbols and discourse. How we organize through systems economically and historically creates the politics of governance. One cannot talk about governance without … [Read more...] about The Social Politics of Safety
WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture
WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture. I asked a couple of managers the other day what they thought the WHS legislation was about. You see, my client had asked me to make sure that their managers knew of their legal compliance obligations – a fairly typical request often from … [Read more...] about WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture
