The Seduction of Drift in Safety

I wonder why the idea of ‘drifting into failure’ is so attractive to people in safety? Yet, in all I read about the concept there is never any discussion of fallibility. Surely, the first question we must ask this concept is: drift from what to what? Surely, the starting point should be that all humans start at imperfection, fallibility and mortality and cannot drift into anything else. The starting point for understanding drift should be the nature of personhood, not the nature of organisational systems. There is no promise of perfection in fallibility.

What is most amusing about Dekker’s book about drift, is the semiotic on the cover of chaotic symbols going down a drain. The sub-title gives it away. This is about broken ‘components’ and complex systems. The book is not about the nature of people who work with systems, the fallibility of systems or the nature of personhood, it’s about life going down the drain.

What is attractive about all this, is the reverse evolutionary nature of ‘drift’ and the idea that some how we don’t know about it. It even embeds the positive psychology notion that it’s better to learn from success than to learn from failure.

One of the strange things about the spin of Safety Differently is its constant focus on failure and ‘brokenness’. Even the idea that failure is an ‘option’ misrepresents the realities of fallibility. There is no other ‘option’ than human fallible being and fallible systems (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/ ). The real question should be about how we live in resilience in those social systems? (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/ )

There is no point talking about organisations and movement in organisations without discussing an ethic of personhood. Organisations are made up of the organising of people.

One of the things Safety loves most is talk of disasters, accidents and mistakes. This is what the talk of ‘drift’ is all about.

The other language associated with the discourse of ‘drift’ is ‘complexity’. Yet, there is no discussion of ‘wicked problems’ or Transdisciplinarity in any of this discourse? Why are these missing from the discussion? Because Safety wants to promise fixes and solutions where there are none. Again, ‘drift’ is a simple proposition so that simple slogans can promise a ‘fix’.

There are no fixes for fallibility, mortality and the imperfections of human being. There is no drift! There is no drift into success either. Such a proposal is a recipe for arrogance and hubris.

What Safety needs is not the seduction of studying the drift/movement of systems and organisations but rather a study of persons, ethical methods and tackling risk as fallible persons.

If this is of interest to you then you can make a start on a positive study of human personhood and fallible being here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/4233556

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

• Defining Safety by the Absence of Accidents, Injury and Harm - October 9, 2024
• Visual and Verbal Mapping of Risk in SPoR - October 7, 2024
• Making Nothing Happen in Safety - October 7, 2024
• Understanding the Nature of Performance and HOP - October 5, 2024
• Forecasting Safety - October 3, 2024

PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.