• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • 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
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • 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 HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Rob Sams / We Are Such Experts….

We Are Such Experts….

November 30, 2015 by Rob Sams 3 Comments

We Are Such Experts….

Hello I Am an Expert Nametag Expertise TagI’ve just arrived home from an annual trip taken with three of my best mates who I’ve known since school. Each year, we attend a day of test cricket, something that we all enjoy and look forward to. Not only is it good to spend time with friends, it’s great to watch a sport that we all enjoy.

A day at the cricket for four mates who have known each other for over 30 years and with many of those either playing or watching cricket together, also sets the scene for us to provide commentary, views and analysis as we watch the game. I suspect if you were a ‘fly on the wall’ listening to our conversations throughout the day, you might be fooled into thinking that we were ‘experts’.

Here are a few quotes that I can remember from our ‘day at the cricket’:

“What was he thinking, that’s such a silly mistake.”

“You’d think he would know better playing at this level”

“I just don’t understand why he would do it like that, it makes no sense to me”

“He should just do what he did last game, he’s been on a real roll over the past year”

“I just knew that was going to happen”

Do any of these comments sound similar to what people working in an industry that you and I know, might say?

When we take on the role of expert, whether in our analysis of sport or in risk and safety, the danger is that we see people as ‘problems to be fixed’, rather than ‘people to be met‘. We did a lot of fixing in just one day!

When my mates and I get together to watch sport, it’s easy to become ‘expert’. It’s quite amusing actually when I reflect on some of the Blogs that I’ve written over the past couple of years. There is definitely no immunity to the temptation of being an ‘expert’, just because I’ve increased my knowledge!

This of course doesn’t mean that my mates and I are going to stop our ‘armchair’ commentary when we sit down and watch sport together. It’s fun and it’s part of ‘what we do’. Our commentary and ‘expert’ views aren’t likely to influence anyone that really matters.

However, my mates and I are not alone in moving to become ‘expert’. So what are some other examples?

Sports commentators world over are classic examples of being ‘experts’ in others. For instance, in cricket, the Channel Nine Commentary Team has become legendary in Australia. What is obvious to me know is how their comments are filled with hindsight bias, confirmation bias and availability bias.

Listening to their commentary, there is much talk of ‘mistakes’, ‘errors’ and ‘failure’, or at the other end of ‘legends’, ‘greatness’ and ‘heroes’. It seems like every sportsperson must perform perfectly during every game or if they don’t, there are any number of experts prepared to offer answers and solutions.

Sound familiar at all?

I guess we all can be experts from time to time, it’s hard to resist the temptation of providing views on how others can do things better or different.

Can you think of an example of when you have become an expert in someone?

With so much discussion about ‘expert’, I thought it would be useful to examine just what an expert is and what someone needs to do to be considered an ‘expert’.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers provides a useful definition with his ‘10,000 Hour Rule’. Simply put, Gladwell proposes that to be considered ‘expert’ in anything, one must have practiced that skill or activity for at least 10,000 hours. While not getting caught up in the specific numbers (i.e. I don’t propose that 10,000 hours should be captured in a log book as we are prone to do in risk and safety), I think Gladwell has probably got this right.

This go me thinking of some questions about being ‘expert’ in risk and safety?

· I wonder what makes one an expert in risk and safety? What do we spend 10,000 hours doing?

· If we study in risk and safety, what could that make us ‘expert’ in? Is it law? Is it process? Is it machines and/or engineering?

· If we do spend so much time being ‘experts’ in ‘objects’, what does this mean for our understanding of people?

· When we do think that we are an ‘expert’, how much of this is really just about ‘hindsight bias’, ‘confirmation bias’, ‘availability bias’ and ‘representative bias’? We are all bias and that’s ok…

Are you easily tempted into ‘expert’ mode? What are you ‘expert’ (10,000 hours) in? What do you do to deal with the seduction of being an ‘expert’? How do you feel if someone becomes an ‘expert’ in you?

We can all be such experts at times.

We’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences and comments.

Author: Robert Sams

Phone: 0424 037 112

Email: robert@dolphyn.com.au

Web: www.dolphyn.com.au

Facebook: Follow Dolphyn on Facebook

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Rob Sams

Rob Sams

Owner at Dolphyn
Rob Sams

Latest posts by Rob Sams (see all)

  • My Story is Better than Yours - May 23, 2023
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us - May 19, 2023
  • Learning is a Social Activity - April 13, 2023
  • Balancing Tight and Loose Coupled Systems - April 13, 2023
  • The Human Race… - April 13, 2023
Rob Sams
Rob is an experienced safety and people professional, having worked in a broad range of industries and work environments, including manufacturing, professional services (building and facilities maintenance), healthcare, transport, automotive, sales and marketing. He is a passionate leader who enjoys supporting people and organizations through periods of change. Rob specializes in making the challenges of risk and safety more understandable in the workplace. He uses his substantial skills and formal training in leadership, social psychology of risk and coaching to help organizations understand how to better manage people, risk and performance. Rob builds relationships and "scaffolds" people development and change so that organizations can achieve the meaningful goals they set for themselves. While Rob has specialist knowledge in systems, his passion is in making systems useable for people and organizations. In many ways, Rob is a translator; he interprets the complex language of processes, regulations and legislation into meaningful and practical tasks. Rob uses his knowledge of social psychology to help people and organizations filter the many pressures they are made anxious about by regulators and various media. He is able to bring the many complexities of systems demands down to earth to a relevant and practical level.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Rob Sams, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: bias, experts

Reader Interactions

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

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,521 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Chris. on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Pierre Joubert on Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • James on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Admin on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe

The KISS of Death in Safety

Is Your Safety World Too Small?

You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

When Safety (Zero) is Abusive

Hands Up the Best Safety Fraud!

Communicating Professionally in Risk

How NOT to be Professional in Safety

How NOT to do Anything About Culture in Building and Construction

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • My Story is Better than Yours
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process
  • The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video
  • Safetie
  • You are NOT the Sum of Safety
  • Update on SPoR in India, Brazil and Europe
  • It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Safety at the Margins
  • Research Basics for Safety
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us
  • Researching Within The Safety Echo Chamber
  • Confirmation Bias, Risk and Being Offensive
  • Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk
  • Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging
  • Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • Can There Be Other Valid Worldviews Than Safety?
  • Evaluating Value by the Value of What You Don’t Know
  • Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide
  • No Paradigm Shift with BBS
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Is Your Safety World Too Small?
  • What Does Safety Achieve?
  • In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism
  • We are all equal
  • You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination?
  • iCue Engagement Process
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • For the Monarchists of Safety
  • The Sully Effect
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • Scapegoating and Safety
  • Understanding Habit, Habituation and Change
  • Don’t Mention the War
  • Safety in Design for Who by Who?
  • Beyond ‘What We Do Around Here’
  • Asking the Wrong Questions
  • When Safety (Zero) is Abusive
  • Mandala as a Method for Tackling an Ethic of Risk (a Video)
  • Safety Cosmetics
  • Visualising the EHS Role
  • Towards Dumb
  • Workshops with Dr Long – Vienna, Austria 26-30 June 2023
  • Visual, Verbal and Relational Mapping in Risk Assessment
  • Abduction in Risk and Safety
  • Creating Myths and Rituals in Safety
  • The Safe Christmas Psychosis

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Something Different To Safety

Fear of Being-in-the-World

Safety Surveying What You Already Know

Don’t Let Evidence Get in the Way of Safety

Gestures in Risk Management – A Podcast

Question for the Safety Thinkers

What’s the Alternative to Traditional Safety? SPoR.

What Can Safety Learn from Barbie

Why is Safety an Easy Target?

I Have the Power, I’m a Safety Hero

Developing Our Inner Introversion

The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started

Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk

My Journey with SPoR

Consciously Safe, Unconsciously Unsafe or Head in the Sand Safety

Risk, Safety and Fundamental Attribution Error

Human Dymensions Newsletter September 2016

And the Dirty Word is – Fallibility!

Anxiety and Fear Professionals

You Don’t Want a Compliance Culture

Safety in Design as if Humans Matter

SPoR Community Network

Real Risk for Real Life

Making Sense of Semiotics and Safety

Shock and Fear in Safety

Keep Discovering

CLLR April 2017 Newsletter–Not Your Usual Safety Newsletter!!

There is Nothing more Imaginative We can Do in Safety

Embracing Diversity & Critical Thinking to Help us ‘Create’?

A Critique of Pure Reason

A Parallel Universe in Safety

What Are Observation-Conversation Skills?

I was just trying to Help

You Have No Idea What Goes on in the ‘Real World of Safety’

In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism

Selective Harm for Rio Tinto

What or Who Is Safety?

The Social Psychology of Risk Handbook, i-thou

Risk and Safety Matrices and the Psychology of Colour

Tackling the Reality of Harm

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,521 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY

x
x