How many do you want harmed today? It seems not a week goes by on Linkedin without the perpetual Safety demonstration of nonsense talk, nonsense language, life denying, fallibility denying and the immortality delusional semiotics of zero. As usual it starts with the silly binary question ‘How many … [Read more...] about How many do you want harmed today?
Wicked Problems
Safety and Risk Culture Cloud
I wanted to republish this article from last year after just reading yet another article about safety culture being "the way we do things around here" and therefore to change that, "Leaders need to walk the walk and talk the talk". I have never been comfortable with the term "safety culture", its … [Read more...] about Safety and Risk Culture Cloud
Safety Investigations – Are they VUCA, BANI, or Wicked?
We’ve all heard about VUCA (Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex and Ambiguous) - https://safetyrisk.net/kiss-safety-in-a-vuca-world/) and now there is BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible - … [Read more...] about Safety Investigations – Are they VUCA, BANI, or Wicked?
Safety-1, Safety-2, Safety-3
Safety-1, Safety-2, Safety-3 The idea that there are two safeties endorses a binary mindset that supposes that the second safety is radically different from the first. The general idea is that Safety-1 is a system that focuses only on what goes wrong, Safety-2 is a system that focuses on what goes … [Read more...] about Safety-1, Safety-2, Safety-3
Espoused Theory and Theory-in-Use in Safety
Many years ago I read Agryris and Schon (1996) Organisational Learning II, Theory Method and Practice. It is a transformational book. Agryris and Schon explained that we all hold beliefs, ethics, values, ontologies and orientations that are rarely articulated. They called these ‘espoused … [Read more...] about Espoused Theory and Theory-in-Use in Safety
Getting The Drift, Dekker on Safety
Getting The Drift, Dekker on Safety I read many risk and safety books and most don’t go on the shelf but in the bin. Most regurgitate tired old safety myths, spin about behaviourism or target vigilance or zero for ineffective strategies in safety. Many of the books brand their central thesis in the … [Read more...] about Getting The Drift, Dekker on Safety
The Repression of Uncertainty
The Repression of Uncertainty The belief is that the solution to every safety problem must be a rational systems process, hence the ever growing overload of paperwork in the workspace driving new cultural problems of ‘tick and flick’, overconfidence and ‘dumb down’ thinking. The most common words … [Read more...] about The Repression of Uncertainty
Making the Wicked Simplistic, The Safety Way
There is no better way to demonstrate complete delusion from reality than to invoke the magic language of zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/). Anyone who knows anything about the homelessness problem knows that it is a ‘wicked problem’ … [Read more...] about Making the Wicked Simplistic, The Safety Way
Fallibility Realised is NOT ‘Drift into Failure’
One of the delusions of the idea of ‘drift into failure’ is that when things seem to be uneventful such is defined as success. Then when things go wrong somehow there has been a ‘drift into failure’. What a strange notion of causation. I recently read a supposed academic paper entitled … [Read more...] about Fallibility Realised is NOT ‘Drift into Failure’
Wicked Problems in Safety and Risk
14 minutes on how embracing wicked problems thinking can help us to both better understand, and then begin to tackle, some of the negative unintended consequences that can emerge in safety and risk. … [Read more...] about Wicked Problems in Safety and Risk