If we go back to the early days of Greek and Roman Theatre, Performance and Drama we get a good idea of what performance is about. Moreso, if one studies the Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, one gets an amazing insight into the Poetics of communication and the power of Para-linguistics. All of this has to do with meaning, purpose and connection. This is not the way HOP understands performance.
None of this is a part of any thinking in the safety industry indeed, the prominence of performance in the discourse of HOP is a classic example of how to warp any understanding of performance.
The purpose of performance is not the measure of outcomes, organisations, systems nor an analysis of behaviours!
A good start in understanding what performance is can be undertaking by reading:
One of the foundations of teaching English in Australian schools is the teaching of Drama, Theatre and Performance. I taught English and History for several years and such curriculum enlivens one to the foundations of communications, engagement and meaning in being. This also includes studies in film, movies and any other mode of visual performance.
Spectacle was a central characteristic of the Greco-Roman world and this included the drama of the amphitheatre, triumphal processions, aristocratic funerals, public banquets, dance, musical performance, the arts of the coliseum and the visual presentation of other forms of entertainment. The culture of spectacle was understood as how the world was presented to everyone in society. Tragedy and Comedy were often detailed in the re-enactment of common myths. Much of this was anchored to religious festivals and belief systems eg. the Roman cult of Eleusinian-Mithraic Mysteries. Neither safety no HOP have any concept of these as essential for culture.
Today, we see all of these elements of Performance in the theatre and the movies, including its highly religious nature (Conrad, Secular Steeples, Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination). The top 20 grossing movies and miniseries of all time are profoundly religious and metaphysical. You will find no discussion anywhere in safety of religion as a foundation for understanding culture.
We see all of the elements of spectacle in the performance of HOP, its adoration of zero (Rae and Provan) and its maintenance of myths associated with safety. These are all maintained through the theatrics of presentation, slogans (declared as principles) and, myths associated with undeclared beliefs. Eg. the slogan ‘blame fixes nothing’ is not true but believed to be true through the sloganeering of HOP (https://safetyrisk.net/sacrificing-truth-for-no-blame/).
None of the slogans of HOP have any substantial research support, have no anchor to an ethic and are sustained by the semiotics of theatre. Eg. the brain-centrism learning teams or the so-called ‘fail-safely movement’. The idea that one can fail-safely is pure mythology and is never explained by HOP. No-one knows what it means but it sounds good. This is how the theatrics of entertainment work. It is similar to ‘drift into failure’ that has no explanation. It’s seductive (https://safetyrisk.net/the-seduction-of-drift-in-safety/) theatrics but has no meaning. If we are born in fallibility, what do we drift to? Of course, HOP never talks about fallibility.
One of the reasons why HOP is catching on so quickly in traditional safety is because it has no philosophy, no methodology and no method. This makes it so easy to market and sell to traditional safety. Then you can just add HOP to anything. For example:
HOP never answers the fundamental question: ‘what do we do, that’s ‘different’? BTW, everything is this so called ‘practical guide’ is just traditional safety with 5 slogans.
This is what HOP does. It throws out a headline (fail-safely – https://safesitehq.com/human-organizational-performance-hop/) but never explains what it means. There’s plenty of theatre about how HOP changes safety but there’s no methodology or method and nothing changes. Yep, traditional safety.
There’s plenty of talk of: principles (that are slogans) philosophy (that are thought bubbles) mindsets (that are not are not about Minds), theory to practice (with no practices) and change (that is traditional safety) (https://www.sbec.com/Insights/Embracing-HOP-How-Five-Principles-Changed-The-Way-We-Think-Of-Safety-/).
All of this is theatrical performance about the nature of the performance of systems. Most of the language is ‘in-house’ spin for more of the same and the outcome of marketing for HOP is HOP itself. The performance is not about an ethic for persons but the organising of humans into a system for performance. Yep, traditional safety.
It’s pretty straight forward, HOP is so named: human, organisational performance. The choice of this language is a sure give away. This enables the continual focus on systems, humans as a factor in a system and the performance of the systems. Yep, traditional safety, with a few slogans. But it’s obviously better than ‘safety differently’ that only had 3 slogans, wow, HOP has 5 slogans.
The HOP smoke and mirrors theatre is performed on the safetyculture website (that has nothing to do with safety culture) (https://safetyculture.com/topics/safety-performance/human-and-organizational-performance/). Look at all the claims of improved safety performance. All made with no evidence but are accompanied by all traditional attractions of safety promises: saved time, reduce costs, productivity improvement, improvement and data-driven business decisions. Yep, traditional safety.
And so, it doesn’t really matter that there’s nothing new, the spectacle is the outcome.
The focus is still on the failure of systems (https://safetyiq.com/insight/human-and-organisational-performance-hop/), behaviourism, slogans and the marketing of HOP as somehow ‘different’.
HOP is not a philosophy (https://www.dakotasoft.com/blog/2024/07/23/bringing-hop-to-ehs-a-practical-philosophy-for-safety-management – even though HOP claims so), it’s safety theatre.
It’s a performance.
However, there is an alternative if you are interested, that has a clearly articulated methodology and methods. None of it involves a focus on humans, organising, slogans, systems or performance. It’s an alternative that is positive, practical and doable. You can find out more about it here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/
brhttps://safetyrisk.net/understanding-the-nature-of-performance-and-hop/
Prompt