So much about the safety industry is about wrong thinking. The STEM-only worldview has us convinced that good safety is about rationality and cognition. This worldview has us convinced in typical binary framing that the emotions and rationality are opposites. Yet this is not how we live. This … [Read more...] about Wrong-Headed Safety
thinking
Unthinkable
Unthinkable As we listen to the responses to the Australian Cricket team ball tampering affair we hear that most people think that the team was thinking rationally about cheating. Many attribute the work of conspiracy to the issue as if the senior players ‘planned’ rationally to cheat. Only a few … [Read more...] about Unthinkable
A Much Better Way To Think About Incident Investigations
I’ve recently seen and done a few incident investigations which really fell short of any mark except for ticking the box on the form that says ‘investigation completed’. There are ongoing debates about whether ICAM is better than TapRoot or if that is better than Root Cause Analysis or BowTie or … [Read more...] about A Much Better Way To Think About Incident Investigations
What to Say Instead Of Be Careful
What to Say Instead Of Be Careful Not often you find gems on Linkedin (see poster below) and this is juxtaposed lately with posts about 10 Golden Rules and “who’s to blame” videos. Most legislation requires consultation with the work force and those actually exposed to the risks – many seem to … [Read more...] about What to Say Instead Of Be Careful
Risk Intelligence, Thinking and Decision Making
Risk Intelligence, Thinking and Decision Making A recent article by Dylan Evans (Risk Intelligence) in October 2016 rightly challenges the construct of Kahneman (Thinking fast and Slow). Evans states: ‘This is fine as far as it goes, but it leaves a crucial third kind of thinking out of the … [Read more...] about Risk Intelligence, Thinking and Decision Making
Critical Thinking and Questioning in Safety
Critical Thinking and Questioning in Safety Great to read a piece on the Safety Differently site that situates systems within a social and societal context (Thinking Differently about incident investigations). One of the strange things about the tradition of safety is its maintenance of the myth of … [Read more...] about Critical Thinking and Questioning in Safety
Just Tell Your Mind to Stop It
Just Tell Your Mind to Stop It I saw a classic this week that was posted on Linkedin from a safety ‘thought leader’. It was a model that proposed how one could ‘control’ the unconscious by consciousness. The assumption of the model was that ‘not thinking’ was the ‘first cause’ of the safety … [Read more...] about Just Tell Your Mind to Stop It
Think
James Parkinson asked me to post this for him. James is a good, very down to earth bloke on a journey to unlearn traditional safety. He has only just started but, reading back on some of his original comments on this blog, he has already come along way since his first light bulb moment. I am sure he … [Read more...] about Think
