We use the word ‘energy’ as a metaphor for many things, often meaning: where our focus is, our sense of determination, motivation, passion or attention. However, none of these ‘energies’ can be measured indeed, if you try to measure them, you wreck them. Such are the myths of performance. There are no ‘measures’ for any of the subjectivities of human ‘being’. You can’t measure safety.

One of the addictions of the safety industry is a fixation on measurement, still believing that old myth ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’.  Really? How do you measure your marriage to manage it? How do you measure your teenagers to manage them? How do you measure trust within your organisation? Indeed, how do you measure your own emotions to manage them?

Yet, we see in Safety, great excitement when it feeds its own myths. This is why Safety loves this stuff like energy-based safety (https://safetyrisk.net/risk-is-about-persons-not-energies/). This is because Safety loves the things it thinks it can measure NOT the things that count. And what counts most in risk and safety are persons NOT objects. Yet, even when it comes to psychosocial wellbeing Safety is focused on ‘hazards’, astounding. Safety would rather measure the objects around a problem than tackle the problem itself.

What does Safety love most? Zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/for-the-love-of-zero-free-download/), injury reporting, systems, performance and measures. Just have a listen to any of the podcasts regurgitating in safety, regardless of punk-rock slogans, and it’s the same old stuff.

Energy-based safety is just more objects-based safety!

You can bet on one thing, when the language is about ‘safety performance’, you know what follows is just more traditional safety and more addiction to measurement.

 Interestingly in Physics, there is significant debate about whether energy can be measured at all (https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/572926/is-it-possible-to-directly-measure-energy). Indeed, there’s some debate whether such discussion is ‘scientific’. Not so Safety.

However, in Social Psychology we know you can’t count essential things for personhood and community like: love, trust, care or helping, you just know when you don’t have them. You feel it.

We can only ‘feel’ when things like trust and care are attenuated or amplified, but they can’t be measured. Yet, there is nothing more foundational to the effective tackling of risk and safety than trust and care. When these are eroded, you can ‘feel’ the toxicity of culture.

Isn’t it funny how all of the higher order goals (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-safety-goals/) for organising, community and group cohesion/culture are not the foundation for safety. How strange that we know what emotions are essential for a healthy organisation yet Safety would rather focus on measuring myths. Safety wants to be energy-based, not person-based.

So, if emotions have an energy, and your energy is focused on energies, what energy are you sending in risk and safety?