One of the important things we focus on in SPoR is skill development. This involves considerable unlearning and re-learning. We find most who come to our courses and programs have been indoctrinated with safety ideology that places a focus on objects not subjects. It doesn’t take any skill to count hazards, document hazards/injuries and police their management. The only trouble is, this doesn’t work and is not a defence in court (https://vimeo.com/showcase/3938199).

All methods emerge out of a methodology. A methodology is a philosophy (whether declared or not) and that methodology shapes the chosen method. For example, if you believe in linear causality such as with Reason’s and Dekker’s methodology (swiss-cheese and tunnel), the method that follows will also look for linearity. If you believe in Heinrich’s concocted causation ratio then, you develop a method that calculates multiples of harm searching for the final fatality. If your methodology is founded in measurement and performance (eg HOP), then any tools that follow will seek to measure safety performance. A quantitative methodology drives quantitative methods.

In SPoR, our methods (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/) are not focused on quantitative measures nor on linear causality. The methods created in SPoR, focus on non-linear cause and visual/verbal mapping of social relationships in how people organise.

However, once clear methods have been developed this in itself doesn’t make anything new or different. SPoR methods require a whole new set of skills and an ethic that moves away from policing, counting, prevention of linear hazards and measuring performance.

Once one decides to tackle the challenging aspects of SPoR one has to unlearn traditional safety methodology and develop new skills in how to use SPoR methods. Developing methods and tools is pointless without the skill development to accompany such methods. This is why SPoR has developed such an extensive curriculum: https://cllr.com.au/elearning/

Nothing in the SPoR curriculum is offered anywhere in the safety world.

This is why SPoR offers so much for free, both in resources (https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/) and courses: Introduction to SPoR https://vimeo.com/showcase/4233556; Due Diligence; https://vimeo.com/showcase/4883640 and Risky Conversations (https://vimeo.com/showcase/3938199).

This is why SPoR has such a focus on education, ethics and development. This is because any alternative to traditional safety (1 or 2) requires a new methodology and methods.

If you are interested in unlearning traditional safety and re-learning new skills in SPoR that work (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/), you can sign up for coaching here: admin@spor.com.au. And, a SPoR expert will be assigned to you so that you can begin a new journey in tackling risk. This journey is nothing to fear because it is positive, practical and constructive in skill development focused on how to use new methods to humanise risk in the workplace.