All performance is subjective according to one’s criteria for judgement. When someone judges a performance as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, they rarely provide their methodology for judgement. All we hear is that something is good, bad or indifferent.
What makes for a good safety performance? Who judges this ‘performance’? and, what criteria is used to judge ‘goodness’, ‘failure’ or ‘effectiveness’?
These are subjective moral questions we observe in the safety industry, anchored to undisclosed methodologies and an absence of an ethic. It is easy to name anything a ‘principle’ or ‘virtue’, without articulating an ethic. Afterall, Ayn Rand declared selfishness as a virtue (https://ikesharpless.pbworks.com/f/AynRand-TheVirtueofSelfishness.pdf). And, HOP declares no Justice (‘blame fixes nothing’) a virtue. It seems in safety; you bend your virtues to suit you hidden agenda. In zero, brutalism is made a virtue.
What we value in safety is contingent on what we believe about: culture, persons, ethics and our worldview. You won’t read much in safety about culture, persons or ethics, but we sure know what Safety loves as criteria for judgment of performance, let’s name a few:
‘Performance’: There’s little doubt that Safety loves the word ‘performance’. This is because Safety also loves measurement. The moment you talk about ‘performance’ the next step is to rate such performance and in Safety, there’s no better performance than zero, the global mantra for safety.
If you want to raise the ears of Safety, make sure you talk about ‘Measuring Your Company’s Safety Performance’. And it doesn’t matter whether one is criticising performance like Dekker, it is still a preoccupation with performance and often, the selling of a view of performance with different branding. In SPoR, we have absolutely no interest in the language of performance, indeed, we find such language counterproductive to tackling risk.
Search Google for ‘safety performance’ and see what you come up with. Safety performance is preoccupied with ‘measures’ but safety can’t be measured. None of this stops Safety from promoting and selling snake oil to improve safety. A great way to make money from organisations that think injury rates are the measure of safety.
Conforming to Safety Myths: Conforming to safety myths is another way of demonstrating ‘safety performance’. Simply regurgitate the language the sector loves to hear and you are in the club. All you have to do is roll out a bow-tie, swiss-cheese, Bradley curve, Heinrich triangle, risk matirx or any of the many myths of safety and the in-group will burst into praise on Linkedin. Of course, none of these myths are real but are used to create political belonging to the safety club. If you took all of them away, it would make no difference at all to the management of risk.
Affirming Zero: Repeating the language of ‘zero’ brings one into the sacred place where academics from the Safety Science Lab (with no expertise in ethics) can declare zero as a moral goal (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-an-immoral-goal/). Of course, zero is unattainable, denies fallibility and mortality and is evidence of a mental health condition. Yet, Safety loves it. Say it often and say it loud and you will be deemed a top safety performer.
Speaking the Language of ‘Professional’: This is a sure way to be acknowledged as a safety performer. Repeat the words ‘safety professional’ as often as possible and everyone will know you are a great safety performer. It doesn’t matter that you have no articulated ethic or methodology, the magic word by repetition makes it so.
Counting Injury rates: One of the favourite delusions of safety performance is parading and recording injury rates. And, it doesn’t matter that there is no connection between injury rates and safety, the myth must be maintained, otherwise how else could blame and brutalism be metred out in the same of safety.
Maintaining the Myth of Choice: The best way to sustain blame in safety is to maintain the myth of choice. Even though risk and culture are ‘wicked problems’, safety must be presented as simple, black and white and accidents, as the fault of someone. In this way, one can maintain safety superiority and arrogance, and these are one of the best indicators in safety culture of being a great safety performer.
Repeating Slogans: The repetition of slogans is one of the best ways to be recognised as a top ‘safety performer’. When people indoctrinated in safety hear the language they like and worship, they know they are in the presence of safety performers. It doesn’t matter that these slogans are meaningless and not true, nor that they are not principles and not based on a moral philosophy. It’s like the propaganda of all marketing, repeat and repeat until myth is made truth. The same applies for the fixation on hazards and controls.
Nothing says ‘top safety performer’ better than applying the Hierarchy of Controls to Psychosocial Health.
Preventing All Accidents: The great safety performer can claim to be one who prevents accidents. There is little difference between the safety performer and ‘safety saves’. Both are premised on the same myth that risk can be controlled and that order can be created out of disorder.
So, there are your tips to becoming a top safety performer. It’s all just a matter of how one acts.
brhttps://safetyrisk.net/tips-to-become-a-top-safety-performer/
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