• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
    • Submit Guest Articles
    • Like us on Facebook
  • FREE RESOURCES
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Safety Acronyms
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • SAFETY SLOGANS & QUOTES
      • 77 OF THE MOST CLASSIC and FAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • THE BEST SAFETY SLOGANS FOR YOUR WORKPLACE
      • Safety Acronyms
      • 167 CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • Christmas Safety Messages and Slogans
      • Safety Slogans List
      • 2016 Safety Slogans
      • Catchy Safety Slogans
      • Hindi Safety Slogans सुरक्षित रहिये
      • Road Safety Slogans
      • Fireworks Safety Slogans
  • PSYCHOLOGY OF SAFETY & RISK
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
  • THE HOT TOASTER
  • SEMIOTICS
  • INVESTIGATIONS
  • LEADERSHIP

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk


SEARCH THIS SITE (Type search term and click ENTER):

Site Navigation Home » The Horse Led To Water

The Horse Led To Water

April 1, 2018 by Phil LaDuke Leave a Comment

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

The Horse Led To Water

DO NOT READ THIS ARTICLE BY PHIL LaDUKE!! First published here:

imageMy romantic entanglement tells a tale of jury duty that I find appropriate to safety. Jury duty has always fascinated me, I get served with notices often but seldom make it past the questions in the selection process.  After sitting eagerly and patiently listening to the patently absurd excuses that each pathetic juror proffers to the judge, I get my turn and answer all questions put to me, only to hear the inevitable, “we’d like to thank and excuse Mr. La Duke for his service”. But my vis-a-vis has yet to be so lucky.  Not only has she been selected, but she has been on a jury and served on a trial. As I mentioned, she tells the story of her experience as a juror. It seems that one of the lawyers was questioning a suspect, and the exchange went something like this:

“Lawyer:  Had you been drinking?

Witness: No sir, I am 10 years sober.

Lawyer: If you don’t drink, why were you in a bar?

Witness: Because I’m a grown-ass man.”

“Because I’m a grown-ass man” the implication being that as an adult he could choose to exercise his God-given right to go where he pleased and make his own decisions.

I think sometimes we forget that when it comes to safety we are dealing with grown-ass men and women who not only have the right to make their own decisions but resent people who have no standing telling us differently.

I have always hated being told what to do, as a child I was indolent and insolent I didn’t want to do work and I was sassy and often disrespectful.  In school, I was worse and let’s just say managing me as an employee is reserved for those leaders single out for singular punishment, I don’t like being told what I HAVE to do.  Point of fact, all I have to do is die. There are people who will tell you that all that is certain in life is death and taxes, but I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to pay taxes; of course, if you don’t, my tax dollars will be spent paying machine-toting thugs to  bash down your compound door and start the other of life’s certainties a reality. That’s why I pay taxes.

When it comes to safety, how I behave is completely my choice and my choice alone. You can tell me you have your safety 10 Commandments and describe all manner of horrific fates that will befall me if I don’t comply, but we both know that you don’t have the power to fire me and even fewer of you have the guts to fire me as long as I shut up and the work gets done.

I feel sorry for people who got into the safety trade to boss people around, waiting to swing the safety baton and rap the knuckles of the great unwashed who dare defy the pure and just ideals of safety.  It ain’t like that kid. In safety, we are often glorified tattletales who run and tell the people who CAN fire us how we misbehaved. Nobody likes a rat and where I come from we have a saying, “snitches end up in ditches”.

Last Great Act of Defiance Women's Plus Size V-NecWhen I was a kid I remember seeing an overly photocopied cartoon of a mouse standing between the descending claws of a hawk.  The mouse stood upright with his middle finger raised; an artist’s interpretation of the last moments of that mouse’s life. The illustration was entitled, “the last great act of defiance.” There’s a lot of safety wisdom in that cartoon.  Sometimes our desire to live our lives as “a grown-ass man” (or woman) is greater than our desire to go home with all our appendages. Some of us, a LOT of us will behave precisely the opposite of the way we’ve been told to. We run with the proverbial scissors, and why? Because in a world where everyone seems to be telling us what to do we will always have the power of defiance.

If I chose to behave unsafely, it’s not always because I am stupid, ignorant, or foolish, it’s because someone like you has told me to behave in a certain way once too often. I will be the horse that you can lead to water but I will be damned if you can make me take a drink.

You talk about engagement, and maybe I should behave safely because it’s the right thing to do, but then again, who are you to lecture me on right from wrong? Treat me like a child and I will behave like a child but treat me as a partner in making the workplace safety, ask me for my advise and listen to what I tell you and I will exceed your wildest expectations.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Phil
Phil LaDuke

Phil LaDuke

Principle and Partner at ERM
Phil LaDuke

Latest posts by Phil LaDuke (see all)

  • Why Do Anything About Injuries When You Can Pretend to Take Action Instead? - December 10, 2018
  • 80% of Safety Practitioners Are Idiots - December 4, 2018
  • Your Words Matter - July 1, 2018
  • If You Want to Save Lives Be a Lifeguard - April 12, 2018
  • The Horse Led To Water - April 1, 2018
Phil LaDuke
Phil La Duke is a principle and partner in Environmental Resources Management (ERM) a leading global provider of environmental, health, safety, risk, and social consulting services. With over 140 offices in 40 countries and nearly 6,000 top professionals, ERM can help you wherever you find yourself doing business. At ERM we are committed to providing a service that is consistent, professional, and of the highest quality to create value for our clients. Over the past five years we have worked for more than 50% of the Global Fortune 500 delivering innovative solutions for business and selected government clients helping them understand and manage the sustainability challenges that the world is increasingly facing.Phil works primarily in the Performance and Assurance practice at ERM; a speaker, author, consultant, trainer, provocateur…Phil La Duke wears many hats. As an expert in safety, training, organizational development, and culture change, Phil and ERM can help you motivate your workforce, conduct safety performance assessments, help you to build robust training infrastructures, craft interventions to improve how your work place values safety, provide insights to your executive staff, and craft and execute business solutions.If you’re interested in what Phil La Duke and ERM can do for you, or if you would like to inquire about employment opportunites at ERM, contact Phil at phil.laduke@erm.com

Please share our posts

  • Print
  • Email
  • Tweet
  • Telegram
  • WhatsApp

Filed Under: Phil LaDuke

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

STOP PRESS: Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Ever

CLICK HERE

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email and Win (in many ways)

Enter your email address and join over 30,000 other discerning safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email and go in the monthly draw for one of Dr Longs latest books

Recent Comments

  • Bernard Corden on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Rob Long on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Bernard Corden on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Rob Long on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Bernard Corden on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Rob Long on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Peter on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Rob long on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Bernard Corden on The Safety Control Delusion
  • Dave Collins on How to write your own safety slogans

Free! 160 Page eBook

The Max Geyer Collection

WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture

More Posts by Max

Free Safety eBook Downloads

FREE SAFETY EBOOKS

Site Security

image_thumb[7]

This site is one of the first to be secured by the new 2FA Hydrogen Raindrop API

READ MORE HERE

Footer

Featured Downloads

  • 2016AmericasSafestCompanies.pdf (579 downloads)
  • Abdukadirov_UnintendedConsequences_v11.pdf (362 downloads)
  • Accident-Incident-Investigation-eBook-Rev1.pdf (4961 downloads)
  • Achieve A Safe Workplace (2646 downloads)
  • Amusement Devices Risk Assessment (380 downloads)
  • Awareness-EBook-Rev-01.pdf (464 downloads)
  • Broader-Management-Skills.docx (2458 downloads)
  • CLLR-SPoR-Unit1.pdf (238 downloads)
  • Contractor Risk Assessment Form (1040 downloads)
  • Convention-Flyer-November-2018.pdf (234 downloads)

Most popular posts

  • Top 10 Simple Things You Can Do To Dramatically Improve Safety
  • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
  • How To Write a Safety Report
  • How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
  • Impacts of Cognitive Dissonance in the Workplace
  • The Take 5 For Safety Process
  • Christmas Safety Poem
  • Safety Culture Survey Tool
  • Take 5 for Safety: Five Minute Daily Safety Meetings
  • The 5 Ways We Identify Hazards
  • How to Test Your Risk IQ
  • How to write your own safety slogans

Most popular pages

  • 500 BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2019
  • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
  • 129 BRILLIANT IDEAS FOR SAFETY TOOL BOX TALKS and SAFETY MOMENTS
  • 77 FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • 167 CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • 77 OF THE MOST CLASSIC and FAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • Safety Moments Examples, Tips and Resources

Copyright © 2019 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.