Amongst the many myths of Safety one is that ‘safety starts with me’. This is individualist language that doesn’t help people manage risk. This myth combines with other myths such as ‘safety is a choice you make’ and ‘all accidents are preventable’. None of this language helps anyone and should be eradicated from any culture hoping to create a mindfulness about risk and safety.

There are several reasons why this language is dangerous.

1. When safety is an individualist activity, we neglect the critical element of trust in work. When we focus on the self, it is also naïve, because so much of tackling risk is contingent on context and others who come before or after you. This idea of a focus on the self, ego and the individual is also disastrous when things go wrong. When something goes wrong, the last person of any comfort, solace or hope is the ego-centric individual who we already know can’t help, listen or care. This ideology/myth is also a Western cultural thing and doesn’t represent social reality. No wonder we have chemical engineers telling us to not talk about culture.
2. In SPoR this is why we emphasise dialectic, trust, relationships, social meaning, helping, care and community. The language of ‘safety starts with me/you’ (https://youtu.be/gLOh0q82kwo?si=GDp0b9QnrG7Oy89-; https://youtu.be/q71WY-TxtWg?si=vKOyKshoOch38D8n ; https://youtu.be/UzGnmYFLMko?si=j8r52VAnu2lKpSOx ; https://youtu.be/CxXl3gsY5o0?si=IYmG1dSlZ2BJD7xh ) erodes all of this. Afterall, language is the bedrock of culture, not behaviours. Culture is NOT ‘what we do around here’.
3. And, this language is everywhere (https://youtu.be/D7WRrTyBCoI?si=q4pM9mSocF1Mql-1) and it is anti-motivational and anti-learning. It is what Safety is so good at, stating what something is, by what it isn’t. We see this often in the safety discourse on just culture’ when it means neither or with the company safetyculture that has nothing to do with safety or culture.
4. The same applies for the silly myth/mantra make safety ‘personal’ (https://youtu.be/KUi5KwiZC6U?si=gFUg3wZrlHHBKtwc; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9WthTBEKsw; https://youtu.be/5UlZ0q101KQ?si=Bop_fJQVAnsy5EQp ) Just more safety goop with no methodology clutching for slogans to find meaning (https://safetyrisk.net/punking-safety-when-its-not/ ). All of this is like telling someone ‘Take care’, use ‘common sense’ or ‘be careful’. Just more meaningless language with no meaning that fills the air with safety noise.
5. I have discussed the myths of ‘safety is a choice you make’ and ‘all accidents are preventable’ previously (https://safetyrisk.net/is-safety-a-choice-you-make/; https://safetyrisk.net/why-safety-isnt-a-choice-you-make/) and this language is also naïve in the same way. The language suggests that safety is contingent on an individual and on their choice when in reality we know all social living and movement is contingent on many things both prior, in context and long after one has left the scene. And of course, the language of ‘all accidents are preventable’ just fosters blame and zero ideology (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/ ). None of this is helpful for risk and safety.

The language, discourse and Discourse we use about risk and safety is foundational to establishing a wise and mature culture about risk.

There is much better language we should use when we want to inspire people about safety. Similarly, the nonsense language of ‘heroes’ alienates people and works against psychosocial health in the workplace. How strange all this noise from safety podcasts and safety propaganda from a perspective with no expertise in the psychology of motivation or learning.

There is little point in talking about ‘psycho-social health’ then in the next breath, promote individualism, blame, ego, self and behaviourism. All that results from this is contradiction and confusion, and people then just see safety as some kind of stupidity that just polices hazards and loves paperwork (https://vimeo.com/932711888 ).

Greg Smith reminds us that if anything should go wrong that you will be held accountable to your language in a court of law (https://vimeo.com/163648220).

So, your talk matters and ought to be meaningful if one wants to motivate others to risk and safety consciousness. This can be done by simply dumping the dumb slogans and myths and reframing one’s language so that Risk Makes Sense (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/risk-makes-sense/)

There are plenty of constructive, practical and positive alternatives one can find in SPoR. All you have to do is ask.