TRIFR Safety Zombies

The surge in interest in the zombie phenomena (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie) across media, social media, movies and literature is extensive. The zombie apocalypse (societal breakdown) projects a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life that engage in a general assault on civilization. The surge in interest in zombies was anchored to the work of Michael Jackson in Triller (1983) and has taken off exponentially since then. You can see a list of all the zombie movies released (over 420 movies) here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films). But there are particular zombies that ought to be of interest to the risk and safety industry, the TRIFR Zombies.

A recent report into a prominent Construction company showed that incidents and events were being covered up (http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-02/barangaroo-incidents-covered-up-former-safety-manager-says/8086054?pfmredir=sm). This was reported by an ex-manager of safety on site. Now before anyone starts feel superior or somehow better than this company, don’t start throwing stones. For, anyone under the spell of TRIFR, LTI reporting (https://safetyrisk.net/challenge-the-great-trifr-and-lti-delusion/) and zero ideology must also cover up incidents and events, the ideology commands it. The TRIFR scourge is a power of control. Amazing how an irrelevant idea can animate life from the human undead when a cover up is possible. See how the TRIFR zombies rise up when numbers and numerics become the measure of safety. See how life jumps into the dead weight of numbers when an LTI or TRIFR rate needs hiding. Only the TRIFR Zombies can give life to a meaningless number when chance is denied (https://safetyrisk.net/the-bradbury-effect-bp-syndrome-and-trifr-stats/).

Recently it was reported that a global construction company decided to get rid of ‘Mission Zero’ (https://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/construction/safety-differently/what-comes-after-zero ). It is amazing that this is even a news story (such is the power of the zero ideology). And all that is being invoked in dropping zero ideology is the presentation of three simple maxims, that: people are the solution, not the problem; safety is about positives, not the absence of negatives; and safety is a moral responsibility, not a bureaucratic activity.

Perhaps, this will be the first Tier 1 company that prioritises learning over the attribution of value to numerics. Perhaps the open reporting that should follow the dropping of zero ideology will change the culture of under reporting given life by the TRIFR Zombies. Perhaps learning will become the principle value in the organization and ward off the trance of the TRIFR Zombies. Good on the work of John Green and Sidney Dekker.

The Zombie archetype is all about the delusion of re-animating life as a scientific process rather than a mystical one. The archetype commands control and re-animates life into something that is dead and makes it alive. The re-animated dead are however uncontrollable, can’t think, mute and primitive, they project fear into the environment and are hard to kill off. This is the power of the spell of the TRIFR Zombies.

The best way to kill off a TRIFR Zombie is to reject the ideology of zero, a life destroying and dehumanizing ideology (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-harm-debate/ ). The fear of numbers (zero plus 1) and anything more than zero is animated only by the binary mindset (https://safetyrisk.net/the-tension-of-opposites-and-binaries-in-risk/ ). The binary TRIFR mindset can’t imagine any other goal/target (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-safety-goals/) than zero and keeps the ideology alive by hiding, suppressing learning and under-reporting. Unfortunately a zombie doesn’t have self awareness, only those focused on what is human know that zombies are animated dead.

What are you going to do about the TRIFR zombies?

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

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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.