Ten Secrets to Risk and Safety Motivation and Ownership (republished by request) Here they are: 1. There are no secrets. What we need to know about motivation is already out there, trouble is, in the risk and safety sector, education in the social sciences is minimal. The best place to start is by unlearning that […]
Wicked Problems
Risk Homeostasis Theory–Why Safety Initiatives Go Wrong
My favourite quote is in relation to racing drivers on normal roads and why they have more crashes and get more fines: “At their level of skill, driving like an average driver may be intolerably boring. Imagine being a master of Beethoven and all you are allowed to play is “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”! (Wilde, […]
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Incommensurability and Discourse in Risk
Incommensurability and Discourse in Risk One of the most important concepts discussed by Feyerbend, Laktos, MacIntyre and Kuhn is that of incommensurability. Incommensurability refers to incongruence and misunderstanding between linguistic structures. What this means is that disciplines are limited in what can be understood outside of their own discipline. One’s language limits one’s understanding and […]
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Where is Safety Leadership Headed?
The Pain of Reporting…article by Paul Nieuwoudt (first published here: http://leadership-observer.com/index.php/blog/where-is-safety-leadership-headed) – raises some interesting questions about our current approach to our safety management and incident reporting systems. More of Paul’s articles: Imperfections and Humble Enquiry – A Great Team Zero Harm and A Peasant in 16th Century Europe Another side to the story The […]
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Isn’t it Time We Reformed the WHS Curriculum?
Isn’t it Time We Reformed the WHS Curriculum? Dr Robert Long – Executive Director – Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk Executive Summary This paper argues the case for reformation of the WHS curriculum in Australia. It proposes that safety cannot be done ‘differently’ without such a reformation. The paper describes the nature of […]
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Dumber Ways To Promote Safety
Dumber Ways To Promote Safety Metro Los Angeles have just released a collection of short videos aimed at improving safety around their rail network. They are being likened to the Victorian Metro’s “Dumb Ways to Die” campaign in the way they are using a combination of comedy and severity to get attention and change behaviour. […]
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What If I Valued People And Not Safety?
What If I Valued People And Not Safety? When organisations say that their number one priority is safety, it can have some unexpected outcomes. Setting, and stating, organisational priorities and values is a wicked problem to begin with. Nothing is neutral and everything has meaning, so when “safety” gets chosen as the poster child of […]
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HumanDymensions Newsletter–June 2016
HumanDymensions Newsletter–June 2016 Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk It is with pleasure we can announce the publication of book 5 in the series on the Social Psychology of Risk – Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk. The book is the result of three days of conversations between Rob Long, Greg […]
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Let’s Get The Dirt On Root Cause Analysis
Let’s Get The Dirt On Root Cause Analysis It has been said that our seduction with the notion of root cause analysis has done more damage to safety and risk that anything else – there is likely never going to be a definitive root cause for anything – and how far back do we go […]
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How to Handle Safety System Paradoxes
Just found this hidden gem by Wade Needham here on LinkedIn How to Handle Safety System Paradoxes As you get promoted it’s easier to take control, to control more of your world they said, well, ‘they’ were wrong. The easy answer to a complex or wicked problem is almost always wrong, if not lacking. I […]
