The Heinrich Hoodoo
If there was ever a disastrous start to the birth of an industry it has to be safety. When Herbert Heinrich published Industrial Accident Prevention in 1931 he launched an industry that would be obsessed with numerics, metrics, counting and misattribution.
Most of what Heinrich concocted was pure fiction. His theory was not based on evidence but rather the fanciful dreaming of an insurance Clerk. Whilst parading the words ‘science’ and ‘facts’ in his discourse, his theories were about neither. Nothing much has changed in safety since then. You can nearly guarantee if Safety says it’s doing something, it’s the opposite.
Heinrich the dreamer came fresh on the heels of Taylorism and the adoration of linearity. What a shame the messiness of life and living doesn’t match the delusions of his concocted falsities. How neat to grab domino theory and apply it to incident causation, only trouble is such theory has no connection to reality. But hey, what a wonderful delusion for those who think humans can be engineered as ‘factors’ in a system.
One of the beauties of Heinrich is his sheer imagination. His pyramid of statistical causality, perhaps one of the best acts of fraud ever believed by Safety. How neat to invent a mathematical construct to match a numeric worldview of risk, trouble is, it’s complete fiction. Nevermind Safety, what a lovely theory to attach to the fresh theory floating at the time expounded by Skinner and Watson. The only trouble is, all of this is pure fiction. None of this matches the reality of personhood, human identity or anthropological evidence.
However, once a religious cult has started its hard to resist a statement of faith supported by an insurance salesman and the promises of mechanistic behaviourism.
Move the clock forward 90 years and who would have thought that an industry in 2021 would be still functioning under the Heinrich Hoodoo. Even more strange is the consummation of the cult in the ideology of zero. How delighted would Heinrich and his pal Peterson be, to know that their weird concoctions of dominoes, pyramids and mechanistic models were being worship in the zero cult today!
Dr Rob Long
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Stephen the Tackler or Risk says
Rob, “Zero” is only gaining momentum in parts of the world. At my company, we adopted the delusional zero ideology and the current campaign / propaganda (Gobbels would be proud) not only does not define zero, now the executives / high priests of Safety Orthodoxy are putting out videos on “What Zero harm means to me”. So define nothing, promote the symbol and continue oppressing the great unwashed. Blech…my hope is they do not fully understand the harm they are inflicting. Otherwise, the other choice is they are inherently evil.
Frank Garrett says
Love, the metaphor of the hoodoo, these are common where I live and the play on imagery, context, function and permanence is fantastic. Nothing under the rock is eroded by time or elements thus this “turd” of a rock stays supported for eons. Well done Rob, would not have thought of connecting a geological formation to pyramids, even inverted ones!
Rob long says
Frank, a hoodoo is both a rock and a spiritual practice. It is impossible to anchor to zero without an act of faith and so Safety has made its leap of faith and doesn’t know how to leap out it’s near impossible when you’ve got a huge rock tied to your head. So when you can’t leap out of the spell that’s when the hoodoo voodoo starts.
Rob long says
Stephen, such a strategy is common. It’s impossible to define an act of faith. This is why they cannot define zero. More so, the next step is the ‘make it personal’ delusion in some vain attempt to develop relevance and anchor it politically.
All the time this happens safety is undermined and becomes meaningless. Even the high priests of safety in the AIHS don’t believe in it, but still attend the cult.
Bernard Corden says
The following link provides access to an interesting article by Matthew Parris, which was published in The Spectator over a decade ago:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/when-several-things-go-wrong-at-once-we-rarely-consider-that-it-may-be-a-coincidence
Wynand says
Stephen, I doubt the people at the top of the company understand this. I believe this is one of those things most of them shrug off and delegate to a department to tick the box of “this is done”, then they move on to running a business (i.e. make money). The book “The Goal” gives a nice perspective on this – what is the goal of the business? This is what top management spends their time on. In the meantime, they are indoctrinated to believe in noble sounding goals (who wants to injure people in the workplace, so the Zero goal sound noble on the surface). I tend to blame the “Safety” senior management, since they are the ones with both the power to make the rules regarding how “safety” should be “managed”, and then sell, indoctrinate and enforce it on the rest of the company to the point that it becomes a religion. I think if the executive level of companies were to be informed properly, there will be a massive change, but that will mean the safety senior management will have to relinquish power, and that is not a natural thing to do. In the meanwhile, to change the views at executive level is not easy, since they are wired to think business, not social psychology, and the ones in a position to start this process are not doing their job.
Admin says
The whole thing self perpetuates as companies have to demonstrate devotion to zero to win contracts and then lie about achieving it to keep them
Wynand says
I sometimes wonder how the workplace would look like if “safety” as a function was never introduced. In places where this never has been introduced (I am thinking back a few decades) like farms, small businesses and one-man outfits I have seen a basic interest in the safety of workers anyway, even before this became big. An injured worker is not there to do his job, and most people inherently do not want to hurt other people. A scared worker is probably an unproductive worker. A proud tradesman will share his secrets on how to do a job without getting hurt, without being told to do it by a “safety professional”. I am glad there are some laws to protect the vulnerable against the unscrupulous bosses, but to what extent has it become the case that the very laws that were intended to protect the vulnerable are putting them in danger, while giving the unscrupulous employers/managers the opportunity to do protected bullying? To what extent are the “protective” laws the ones hurting the most vulnerable workers against the very real non-visible harm perpetrated by so many companies under the guise of “safety”?
Admin says
It would probably be much like we deal with risk at home, with friends or in social groups – where it is more about caring for other people than compliance, image and power
Nicholas Sanders says
Rob, I have been searching for a detailed breakdown on why Heinrich’s 1931 work is so statistically poor and unscientific. One apocryphal tale I have been unable to confirm is that Heinrich at some point concluded the workers were “too stupid” to read the signage in their workplace, rather the signage was not written in a language they understand. Any insight or referrals to more in depth reviews are both deeply appreciated. I am surprised how hard it is to find a copy of his original work even with the power of the internet.
Admin says
I haven’t read this one but seems to be a very thorough appraisal and I respect the author https://www.routledge.com/Preventing-Industrial-Accidents-Reappraising-H-W-Heinrich-More-than/Busch/p/book/9780367343804
Rob Long says
Nicholas
It is expensive and difficult to get Heinrich’s 1931 work, but I’m not sure getting a copy would be that enlightening. Heinrich knew nothing of sociology or psychology or a range of other disciplines that are necessary to understand the nature of risk and safety. His focus was engineering and loss control for an insurance company hence why he concocted a framework to suit his bias.
Even if you look him up on Wikipedia its mostly concocted mythology about ‘heinrich’s law’ and nonsense about empirical and or scientific knowledge, that it is not. Heinrich and Petersen are all about belief systems not reality. There is no ratio between incidents, hazards and risk. There is no domino reality. Events are not pyramidic or have any resemblance to swiss cheese. All of these are concocted metaphors that an industry loves because it rejects the realities of human personhood.
You can easily get a copy of a later work by Heinrich that includes Petersen and Roos, again full of all the safety mythology that wishes into existence a linearality to risk that doesn’t exist. If you get works by Petersen you will also read about nonsense ‘axioms’ of industrial safety and weird nonsense assumptions about humans and risk including, nonsense about how humans ‘choose’ to make errors and rubbish assumptions about consciousness.
Like all mythology Safety wants to believe the myths rather than tackle the realities. It would rather believe a theory that is 90 years old because it confirms a worldview, than tackle the real issues of human complexity and risk. Even the most casual observation of life and living informs you that the assumptions of BBS and Heinrich are concocted crap.
What is really missing in the safety world that focuses on Heinrich is any element at all of critical thinking or transdisciplinary thinking. Because the Heinrich discourse supports the erroneous nonsense of injury rates as a definition of safety, it continues to be trotted out like a fundamentalist text in a cult. Then two steps from Heinrich and you get zero.