The Complacency Concoction
Someone posted this on our Discord group yesterday and I had thought that Safety had grown up beyond this nonsense. Why is it that safety continues in this useless meaningless myth when it has no idea what complacency is.
Complacency is one of those silly safety terms used to project blame on any error (https://safetyrisk.net/the-convenience-of-complacency/). All it is, is a convenience to attribute a sense of understanding to an event where there is none. You can easily demonstrate this by asking the safety person what complacency is. They donโt know and usually end up repeating nonsense language from James Reason about lapses, violations blah blah blah. None of it explains anything.
What is complacency? Seek out a definition from Safety and generally there is reference to:
- Excessive self-confidence
- Numbed to risk
- Lack of motivation
- Over-estimation of capability
- Inability to see oneโs own faults
- A state of mind
- Unwillingness
- Desensitization to threat
- Lack of desire
- Smugness
- Hubris
- Apathy
- Arrogance
- Lack of care
- Not concentrating
- Unconscious mindlessness/indolence
Complacency is just a pejorative word that somehow seems to satisfy Safety that it has a cause.
Complacency is a brand given by Safety to anything it doesnโt understand.
For example. Just look at this goop from the ASSP: https://safetyrisk.net/the-assp-getting-complacency-completely-wrong/
Strangely, Safety never talks about consciousness, unconsciousness, fallibility or anything that transcends the physical and measurable (https://safetyrisk.net/complacency-consciousness-and-error-in-safety/). In this way, everything can be kept โsafeโ and certain, so as not to venture into any space where doubt and uncertainty reside.
Complacency is just another safety myth (https://safetyrisk.net/the-complacency-myth/). Complacency is just a delusion (https://safetyrisk.net/the-complacency-delusion/) that gives an industry the faรงade of competence where there is none.
- What we see in this poster is the ignorance of Safety on full display. Consider this:
- The purpose of routine (to develop heuristics) is to make a task fast and efficient, so it can be done โwithout thinkingโ.
- Heuristics and habits are essential for efficient work.
- No-one pays money to hire the slowest worker.
- Heuristics are psychological micro-rules that hard wire humans through muscle and neuron memory to do things by not thinking rationally.
- Most accidents are not caused by lapses (Reason) in memory or concentration (more of James Reasonโs myths).
In this poster we see the projection that routine is a problem. Even though routine (heuristics) is essential to undertaking efficient actions (https://safetyrisk.net/tackling-the-challenge-of-heuristics-in-safety/).
Of course, the poster is just more โtellingโ making Safety so superior as if there is some understanding of what complacency is. And then the favourites: shortcuts, ignoring near misses (read intentional harm), rushing and PPE. The solution? Mental checks (what-ever they are) being alert (whatever that is), call out shortcuts (dob in team member) and constantly think of what could go wrong. Then wash it all down with blame and taking the time for safety, whilst the organisation pays workers to take less time to do a job.
Yep, what a concoction.
And, look at the semiotic. The pointed-up finger of telling and superiority. Fully masked up so there is no facial expression. No relational element just the sole safety amateur in the telling pose and, the brand of โsafetyโ on the hard hat so you know that safety resides in one person.
Prof. Robert Long
Latest posts by Prof. Robert Long (see all)
- Weick and Organisational Sensemaking - June 12, 2026
- Safety Beliefs โ Free Workshop July - June 10, 2026
- Weickโs Understanding of Systems - June 8, 2026
- Creating Safety Beliefs for Markets, Products to Sell and Incremental Safety - June 6, 2026
- The Evolution of Safety Beliefs and Rhetoric - June 6, 2026