When Safety Culture is Toxic

Most times when the call or email comes in, it is often too late in the life of the organisation for a mild review. Furthermore, many of these organisations have tried all the same old stuff, same old management ideology, same old slogans, some old silver bullets, same old slick marketing and still nothing changes except a bank balance.

My last chat was with an international organisation and their first question was about how I framed problems. I asked if they knew of ‘Wicked Problems’ (https://safetyrisk.net/tackling-wicked-problems/) and they hadn’t. I then explained that traditional leadership management stuff can’t work with Wicked Problems (https://safetyrisk.net/no-taming-or-fixing-wicked-problems/ ). Indeed, risk is a Wicked Problem.

The next question was about ‘performance’ and I replied that I was not interested in measurables or performance. This was followed up with questions about fixing and outcomes and I replied I was not interested in those either. We then ventured down the track of all the same old tired management and leadership propaganda that floods the market. I made it clear that was of no interest.

The caller was bewildered, all that he had learned in his MBA was of no interest to me. Perhaps, he should have read Mintzberg 20 years ago (https://archive.org/details/managersnotmbash0000mint ). But they had just spent a fortune on international leadership and safety consultants. I asked them how that went and their reply was that the only thing that changed was their bank balance.

We then got on to culture and I asked him how he defined culture, and you can bet it was ‘what we do around here’. I told him that was an appalling and a useless definition that held no interest to me. I then asked what indicators prompted the phone call. The reply was, deep distrust, bullying, psychosocial ill-health, massive levels of sick leave, poor communication, unethical conduct and so on. I asked, ‘and how can any of these fit into your framework of: problem definition, fixing, measurement, outcomes and performance?’ The phone went silent.

I was then asked what I thought about Zero and I told them it was the most dangerous and brutal ideology that created toxic safety cultures.

By this time the phone call was going no-where. Why did I not align with the major organisations across the world selling leadership products? I made it clear; I don’t come from such an ontology or methodology as those money-making machines. (He didn’t know what ontology was). I had developed my own methodology and methods that work but are not aligned to populist Behaviourist and Positivist ideologies. He didn’t know about Social Psychology either.

And despite the fact they had been worked over by leadership and safety consultants, they had been left with no methods to help develop a positive safety culture. Indeed, after several years with DuPont they felt like they were in a worse place.

So, how did the phone call end? Apparently, I was too risky and they would go to yet another slogan-wielding, ‘principle’ performance company and see if they could ‘fix’ their safety culture based on all the same old stuff that he just told me didn’t work.

It seems when it comes to safety culture, doing the same old thing expecting change, is the safety way.

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

• Heinrich’s Alternate Reality - May 19, 2025
• Heinrich Humbug - May 18, 2025
• When Semiotics Show Your Real Agenda in Safety - May 10, 2025
• Heinrich Was Wrong, A NZ Case Study - May 7, 2025
• iCue Methodology – A Video - May 6, 2025

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.