When You Don’t Know What Culture Is. How Can you Improve It?  

One of the new myths invented by Safety is that psychosocial health is about ‘controlling hazards’. Only Safety could warp reality in such a way. Now we have an industry that thinks it is addressing an issue by actually making it worse (https://safetyrisk.net/what-is-psychosocial-safety/ ). Moreso, the safety curriculum still remains focused on objects and behaviourism with no focus at all on psychosocial health.

Another myth of safety is that culture is ‘what we do around here’, a wonderful behaviourist slogan that ensures that nothing about culture is addressed. No wonder nothing is improving.

We see these two myths blend together in approaches by organisations trying to address ‘toxic’ cultures.

Yesterday, I read a report from Rio Tinto into workplace culture  that showed that sexual assault, bullying and rape was on the rise. I was not surprised. There is no mention in the article about ethics or moral meaning, which tells us much about the report.

So, the company claims there were efforts to improve workplace culture and yet from this, things have gotten worse! Maybe, this is because they don’t know what culture is. Improving systems, behaviours and rules has very little to do with culture (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-cloud-tour/ ).

I see so many in Safety and Psychosocial Safety delivering programs that are supposedly about ‘culture’, that they are not. When the focus is on ‘hazards’, nothing will improve. Add to this the claim by some in safety, that the best approach is to put one’s head in the sand (Busch) and no wonder things don’t improve.

We also know that terminating people with poor behaviours doesn’t put a dent in culture. We should have learned this from the prison system (that mostly practices CBT) years ago.

Paying bonuses, is also just more behaviourism.

Until organisations better define culture and move away from behaviourist ideology (https://safetyrisk.net/the-behaviourist-human-and-human-being/ ), it is unlikely that much will improve. Behaviours are not a manifestation of culture.

One thing is for sure, if your language to address psychosocial health is about ‘hazards’, then there is no hope for improvement in safety, culture or psychosocial health. Such an approach does a wonderful job of hiding and shifting problems elsewhere.

If you are interested in culture change in a positive, constructive and practical approach that works then, you might want to explore a SPoR. (https://cllr.com.au/product/culture-leadership-program-unit-15-overseas-elearning/). This approach is semiotic, poetic and the opposite of the behaviourist worldview and, it works (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/). All it requires is to jettison the safety myths of hazards, zero and behaviourism to discover that it works. If you are up for such a journey then we are happy to help just email admin@spor.com.au

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

• The Subjectivity of Performance in Safety - December 13, 2024
• Hey Safety, What’s Your Worldview? - December 12, 2024
• Tier One Miners, Psychosocial Risk and Zero - December 12, 2024
• More Nonsense from the EHS Insight – Zero Injury Cultures??? - December 8, 2024
• Safety is an Art - December 7, 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.