I remember having a discussion with a safety person who’s semiotic for their identity was a punching fist on a brick wall. Of course, the person was defensive when I deconstructed the semiotic and pointed out that it was inconsistent with the intended message. Even though the person had no expertise in semiotics, it was my view that was the problem not the semiotic that contradicted their core message. This is what Safety does when its incompetence is exposed, it projects and can’t reflect.  How could Safety ever have a problem after all, Safety must not be challenged. Safety is above all disciplines.

I see this all the time across safety where signs and symbol are incongruent with a core message. These symbols show the real unconscious agenda and a lack of expertise behind what is being presented.

No wonder we end up with safety engineers promoting things such as learning, ethics, culture and teaming with no expertise in what is being presented. In this way the semiotic that is adopted is a brain growing out of a pot plant.

Focusing on the brain is neither a focus on learning or teams. Indeed, any focus on persons ought to have semiotics that resonate with how whole persons learn. Persons are not brains and brains are not persons. Such an image anchors whatever is being presented to a rationalist ideology that affirms the idea that learning is something that happens in the brain. All the evidence in neuroscience presents the opposite (https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/).

But this is what Safety does so well. It affirms what it is, by what it isn’t.

We see this all the time when Safety declares that zero is its identity, then counts all the times it doesn’t achieve it. Or makes up language that contradicts the meaning of the word. After all, when you study safety you gain such amazing expertise in linguistics. Or, we see things like swiss-cheese, dominoes and pyramids to represent work and safety, when real life is nothing like the model or symbol. Or, we see Engineering presenting on ethics or culture with no expertise in either. Or, Safety presenting in religious concepts such as atonement with no expertise in religion or theology.

Anyone with expertise in learning should know that learning is person-centric not brain-centric. Education and learning are about how whole persons live in the world, not about the accumulation of data in a brain. Similarly, teams are about groups and collections of persons and their relationships, not about a collection of brains. The Mind is not the brain (https://safetyrisk.net/mindfulness-is-not-brain-fullness-and-other-psychosocial-myths/).

One the ways Safety support common myths such as brain-centrism, is by choosing semiotics that contradict intent. This usually comes from not consulting experts in transdisciplines but by thinking that all wisdom and competence resides in the safety domain (https://safetyrisk.net/engineering-expertise-and-competence-in-safety-culture/). No amount of a safety worldview develops any expertise in Anthropology. No amount of safety practice makes one expert in Education and Learning. This is how we end up with chemical engineers stating that the best thing to do about safety culture is to NOT talk about it.

If you want to understand safety culture perhaps start here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/51-stories-in-culture/

Indeed, if you are looking for expertise in any discipline outside of safety, don’t start with safety (https://safetyrisk.net/the-last-thing-is-dont-start-with-safety/). Safety can never bring a balanced or nuanced view of the world. The purpose and meaning of living and being in the world is not to be safe. People don’t get out of bed in the morning and think, ‘I wonder how I can be safe today’. No-one runs around a worksite like an evangelist shouting ‘safety saves’.

So, what happens when a semiotic contradicts a message is that the semiotic has greater power in the unconscious. The unconscious holds the aggressive image of the punching fist on a brick wall much more than the words that accompany it. All experts in advertising and marketing know this (https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf). The first thing to learn in messaging is that the medium is the message.

Incongruence in messaging is something Safety specialises in. Most safety myths are established semiotically eg. Heinrich’s nonsense pyramid of ratios (https://safetyrisk.net/heinrich-was-wrong-a-nz-case-study/). Safety doesn’t need to read Heinrich’s book, it just needs a model that affirms its own indoctrination. It makes up its own logic to fit its concocted worldview. In this way we create the myth that there is some connection between counting injury rates and the likelihood of fatality. The whole idea is fantasy.

But belief is not established by evidence in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-is-not-what-we-do-around-here-yet-safety-believes-it-is/). Safety develops a theory and looks for a model to affirm it. This is why the swiss-cheese is so loved, creating a simplistic model for prevention. The only thing is, it’s a myth, nothing about the swiss-cheese is real.

If you are looking for models/semiotics for tackling risk that are semiotically congruent, positive and practical you could start here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/