With a poorly educated sector with little expertise in Ethics, Critical Thinking, Politics, Linguistics and Propaganda, it’s is ripe for the picking. What is more, with a culture of compliance and deontology, the market is hot for any new trend, scam or snake oil.
The latest in the Hollnagel stable is ‘Incremental Safety’. This comes after confessions of error/naivety in previous concoctions (S1/S2; Resilience Engineering) but now we have a new ‘manifesto’ and a ‘metamorphoses’. Of course, wonderful metaphors for nothing.
What is clear in safety, when you don’t know what to do, you just make up more s#*t, create a following, produce a market, sell a product and monetise an idea. Then jump start it with an inaugural conference.
What happens when the trend/scam wanes? Leave that group and create a new slogan, new rhetoric and appeal to the lemmings. Such is the recent evolution of safety rhetoric and beliefs (https://safetyrisk.net/the-evolution-of-safety-beliefs-and-rhetoric/). Once you have reeled in the lemmings who fell for the last concoction that didn’t work, then tell them you have something better.
The reality is, the rhetoric/slogans may change but the philosophy stays the same:
- Make the model binary (incremental/decremental)
- Rename S2 as ‘Incrementalism’ as if there is something ‘new’
- Refute the absurdities of S3
- Call it ‘safety science’
- Anchor to past created myths (WAI/WAD)
- Sell a technical/mechanical idea (FRAM)
- Re-define slogans with new rhetoric
- Suppress contradictions
- Give it an academic flavour (quote and write papers)
- Anchor the myth to semiotics/metaphors (decremetal graph/incremental graph)
- Makes sure the metaphors are about up (good) and down (bad)
- Sell the second binary as ‘positive’ and first binary as ‘negative’
- Create a website
- Copyright the slogan
- Target traditional safety beliefs needing certainty, systems and authority
- Return to the love of improved systems-as-solution
What a formula, works every time. Then call a conference, sell the idea, create a market and concoct a new product to sell. Then use the culture of compliance so that the idea can’t be analysed or criticised, because such is anti-safety.
The Problems with Incrementalism
The idea of incrementalism is exactly the same problem as with 1% safer. Such claims can’t be tested, measured, analysed or criticised.
Incremental safety is a meme/slogan for an aspiration, idea and safety attitude that is set up to resist criticism.
In reality, incrementalism like 1% safer, is a scam (https://safetyrisk.net/1-safer-than-what/).
The problem with incrementalism/decrementalism is that it is qualitative/subjective rhetoric disguised in Quantitative rhetoric/semiotics (graphs/numerics).
Of course, if anything changes by small increments, they cannot be detected by humans without some kind of advanced scientific instrument. None of us can tell the difference between 35 degrees or 36 degrees on a hot day, none of us can tell if a system, process, method or practice is 1% more or less safe. If is 1%ssafer, how is that measured? Less injuries over time? Hmmm, sounds like traditional safety.
What a great sell. Someone in safety (usually an academic) convinces you that they have a new and great attitude to safety but use a mechanism that ensures you can assess it.
Theoretically, if you make incremental improvements in safety each day, you will get to perfection in 100 days? Ah, 1% safer each day. Zero harm in different rhetoric.
Then argue that your new slogan ‘incremental’ is tangible. Sort of like ‘doing safety differently’ with no ‘doing’ (method).
None of this stuff represents any change in philosophy/methodology and none of it has a
clearly articulated method. For example, Hollnagel’s example of tangible method is STOP – Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. In other words, Incremental safety has no new methods and no new methodology.
You can look up ‘incremental safety’ for yourself but I am not going to validate the scam by attaching a link.
None of this new rhetoric in safety in the last 10 years has any clearly articulated ethic, methodology or method. It is a collection of academic thought bubbles, aspirations and slogans that leaves practitioners high and dry with the question: what do I do?
If you want to know more about safety beliefs and rhetoric you can register for free workshops on studying safety beliefs (https://safetyrisk.net/the-construction-of-belief-in-safety-free-workshops-july/) with Dr Long at 9am (Canberra time) on 7, 14, 21, 28 July. Register here: admin@spor.com.au
In SPoR, we don’t just deconstruct scams but offer a real methodology and method for developing practical, positive ways to tackle risk. All of the free books published in SPoR (https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/) clearly articulate positive, constructive methods for tackling risk.
brhttps://safetyrisk.net/creating-safety-beliefs-for-markets-products-to-sell-and-incremental-safety/
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