Safety and Risk Critique: Silver Bullets are Noisy

I have observed

~ I have observed ~ By the Safety Cynic (that's me)

I have observed the poor and careless efforts of leaders, I have seen the result of lax systems and overcomplicated methodologies. I have seen the promotion of hiding valuable truths and judging with a protective bias. I have seen the misguided.

It is for these deficiencies I get frustrated...doing is so easy.

We often see a long list of recommendations after a major incident, we often see over reactive actions. We see many say what should have happened, what should have been done and what should have been in place, this said often by those who should have done in the first place. This in-itself is reactive. "Those should haves, should have done".

I believe what we all need to "do" is get talking, get asking questions, get thinking, get listening, get time to evaluate news and information, get time to read and learn from experts and non-experts who have been writing about how to improve safety for years and get active by being proactively focused on failures.

We need to not only read through these mindful views; we need to put them into practice. I have heard many people say "yeah, I read that or went to that course" only to not apply anything that was promoted.

The only way we are ever going to reduce these controllable incidents is if we "get serious" not "consider serious". Training has to be functional, risk management has to be implemented, incident investigations need to be thorough and most of all; we need to ensure pressures are controlled in an manner that gives conducting tasks an ethical sense of practicality.

Safety does not belong to the safety department or to the safety officer; safety belongs to each one of us and each one of us is within an entity, and entities should be as one. MD

If you feel anything on this site is incorrect or false, please let me know and I will investigate.

I also need to aplogise for any spelling mistakes...I am not an educated person and believe it or not left school mostly illiterate.

Silver Bullets are Noisy

I have been observing and hearing a lot of noise lately in relation to OHS over who is to blame for our current predicament of overcomplicated OHS micromanagement. All these experts arguing over who is responsible for not mitigating risk (not doing enough) or for controlling risk too much (going overboard).

Lines painted on railway platforms, hi-visibility painted plant and hi-visibility clothing, safety barriers, fences, warning signs, warning signs warning to read the warning signs, human factors, natural factors, social factors, subjective topics, objective topics, mechanistic systems, process systems, requirements, obligations, options, opinions, more opinions and the dark side force just to name a few that we seem to be making noise about. Some noise is about the lack of not including certain influences or specialised sectors (such as psychology) that if incorporated into the risk management process or OHS system, would have changed the outcome of the event...so they think.

The arguments come from many sectors and from individuals as if they have the answer; the next silver bullet so to speak. Workers fight with OHS officers, OHS officers fight with management, management fight with engineering, psychologists fight with both, both fight with engineers, non experts fight with experts, and experts fight with everyone else...and to make matters worse, some even fight with themselves trying to make sense of it all...mmm, my head hurts! I am sure the cave-peoples of the day were arguing about the risks of hunting mammoth, such as if using a 50m safety radius should be used or if a 5 meter spear is better than a 2 meter one.

In relation to all these subjective experts, it is almost like we are trying to say that the hand is less important than the hearing system, and that the eyes are more important than feet. While this is very much open to debate, and one could arrive at a logical answer as to what is more important, but one fact remains regardless of any evaluation process; the whole collective body in its complete functioning form should not be segregated, for if it is, it becomes an incomplete unit with deficiencies.

We seem to be a continuous cycle of over-complication, a continual expanding process of individuality that constantly prescribes a better and a more advanced way to that last simple system/ideology. While I myself am person who desires change, loves to innovate and who is very much a critical thinker, I fully understand and grasp the context of simplicity first as the golden rule.

The problems I have seen in my working life as a safety person so far are people/managers/leaders overcomplicating the “simple”. This overcomplicating often occurring before simple is mastered. My argument here now could also fall into this process of over-complication, as I am trying to advertise the point that returning to simple could be a form of complexity. What do I mean; returning back to simple is often complicated as people in general have a hard time working with simplistic as the think overcomplicated or more intelligent is better.

Now while it appears that I am critical of all this noise, on the contrary, I think all this debating and divergent thinking is good, as being a critical thinker helps raise issues (the thing we are supposed to be doing in safety and life in general) and find causalities of failure. One has to keep in mind though the line of practicality. The problem I am saying is that all this noise does not seem to be solving or improving OHS issues (or at least not fast enough anyway considering our speed of collective progress) and we continue to act like cave-people arguing over what is the correct safety distance for hunting and what tool is best to use. So in the end, it all just remains as noise, noise that is getting louder and louder and louder, so much so we need hearing protection.

Let’s ask a common question; what would happen if an alien race threatened to take over our world? The world would become as one and all our differences would be negated for a central goal (at least for a short time anyway until one befriended the alien race for gains); this goal being for the good of humankind and protection of our planet.

So I ask this; In OHS, why do we continue to squabble, belittle, compete, and blame others when our collective goal seems to be that of the same; that to protect our fellow humans against risk? Do these people want to understand safety? that being a collective effort.

I personally think that we do need to include human influences and judgments (psychology) in our risk management philosophy just as much as all things that make for something (eggs are needed to make a cake), but it has to be treated as a part of the whole system. If someone falls off a platform at a railway station and onto a railway track, the risk assessment (the reactive after event version) should include such aspects as psychology, just as it should have included it in the original engineering of the platform. Who is best to do this, not safety people, not engineers, not accountants, but psychologists; people with the best understanding of human decision making. I would not go and talk to an engineer to get their opinion about decision making or human thinking just as much as I would not talk to a psychologist about gear ratio design for best power delivery in a sports car.

This is why I always say there is no need for safety people in the workforce in todays context (being everthing but a safety person). Safety comes from many factors; it can only be the holistic gathering of all these factors that make for a provision to apply safety.

Say if I wanted to design a ladder for example, I would gain advice from many industry experts, then I would set my criterion for the design to match the best advice I have available at the time i.e. the ladder needs to be strong enough to hold a 180kg person, but light enough that people’s choice to use the ladder will not be hampered by the human decision making process (that of the lazy human mindset) i.e. this ladder is heavy, I will not move the ladder, therefore I will stand on the windowsill. So the engineer will have to design a ladder that is easy to move, light and strong. One could even argue the use of biomechanics in the design, but that’s risk management.

As with everything in our lives, OHS is a balancing act with weight being added from many sectors (what I have called; the weighing of the factual). I suppose the problem with risk management is that it does not really explain in overcomplicated detail all the factors that would be really needed to make way for the best practicable outcome (for obvious reasons). The guiding material basically says get all information (this should be fairly simple). The complexity of all things would warrant such overcomplicated detail as; too much information/to complex/to time consuming and hence to costly. So it’s therefore left up to the ones (usually safety people) doing the risk assessment to include as much detail that permits or for what they feel is needed to make the task reasonability practicable to do, and or any other constraint that limits practicable management (time, cost, effort etc).

What if there was a legal requirement that told us to include factors such as psychological and humanizing approaches on top the common hierarchy of controls. Let’s just say that the hierarchy of controls listed one of the top controls as Psychological Factors. Would this give the end result a tick of a practicably reasonable pass? Obviously you would think it would as it is us who makes mistakes. The problem though is that psychologists conveniently do not tell you, is that even they cannot predict what people may or may not do in any given scenario, so how would you determine practicability. I have seen physiologists tell the safety world that we should forget everything we know about rules and systems and go with their ideology. This is the “everything is a nail” syndrome.

In safety risk management, we see many step processes, linear systems, flowcharts that depict what we need to do to achieve a goal or desired outcome. We live in a world full of manmade order (humanisation) with little consideration for chaotic randomness. These systems are around because we cannot make sense out of chaos and over complication easily, as it does not fit into our current collective ability and learning styles. Our life is so complex we need many aids to assist us. An animal wakes up each day and does nothing planned; we wake up in the morning and in the first few minutes we are governed by systems and linear processes that are designed to get us through the day and through our calculated programmed life.

Due to our unnatural systematic complex lifestyle that we have created for ourselves, it is then much easier to just follow these processes and systems because it’s sociably acceptable; easier due to all sorts of constraints (time, money, health etc) that limit our ability to be creative and liberated. We are also constrained by the many fears and anxieties from even attempting to deviate away from our known systems and processes that govern our every movement. Fear is crippling us and our natural need to take risks (chemical). This is because many people (mostly incompetent people) hate change (but long for it constantly), so therefore hate the changers (until they make a good change that makes life easier).

Look, all I am saying is that we all (engineering, psychology, legal, production etc) need to start using collective mindfulness, stop competing for sector and individual recognition, stop moving forward into more over complex systems and ideas, and stop the flood of individual ideas that are based around what is collectively required to be done in the first place. Our OHS in design Australia is pretty good, sure some things need to be incorporated more such as human factors, influences, judgments, but all in all it’s not too bad. We just need to take the time to understand and use what is available now in basic methods before we go off thinking of better ways to improve safety.

This issue of everyone adding to the system is allowing for things to develop out of context and out of control to a point people have forgotten what is standard and what is not. We need to move to a ‘back to basics’ (BTB) mentality and build back up from there. If we used a maturity chart to collectively show were OHS is today in business, I think we would be sullenly disappointed but not surprised because people have switched off.

I think OHS in business needs to be re-evaluated on this basis; to include all influences required to make the best choices. I acknowledge that (but don’t necessarily like it) we are enslaved creatures of systems, creatures that are programmed to follow, creatures set and governed by laws and rules with only a few exceptions to this rule (true leaders). As this is true, we need to collectively agree that this is the only option we have and that we must make rules and systems unified and set basic rules etc as non negotiable. This would stop everyone developing over-complicated silver bullets and making things up as they go along as if they know everything. If we have to use a SWMS, the SWMS needs to be amalgamated as a one document template to be used by all business (not every business making up their own versions). If we are to use a risk assessment form, then it needs to be a common template designed for that industry. If the risk assessment (or task) requires input from a specialist sector i.e psychology, then a psychologist has to be involved and that psychologist must sign it off. If it requires input from a scientist, then a scientist has to be used and they have to sign it off, if advice from workers needs to be used, then it must be used.

So, the big question; where to now...

Read the OHS Acts and understand Regulation, follow codes of practice, guidelines and other industry advice because this is our current motivation and means. Communicate with and value your workers. Share ideas and educate those ideas. Learn what motivates your workers. Learn what your workers are good at, use those abilities. Put hierarchy away and rid silos. Stop competing and fearing others who innovate or work hard. Understand people are different than you. Reward those who both do their job well and those who go that bit further, and those who at least try. Make time. In my observations in the workplace, I see that practicable time is not given to safety by managers, go on ask yourself; how much time did you give to safety last week. Safety is mostly treated as a chore, as a side project that gets done after everything else. Sadly, proof of this inaction is in the many lives changed each year through injury and death. And lastly, leaders and managers need to do safety walks that are not about them, but about others. Don’t go walking around in some fake attitude of power and authority looking to justify your walk by finding something trivial and then looking for some to point a finger at. We are all human, trying to make sense of things also.

# 3

I once worked for a company that ignored putting up hand rails on mobile camps because the onsite managers could not be bothered to get workers to do the task, as this action cut into their drinking time (was a wet camp) after a day of travel. The old school managers said "we are miles from anywhere, who is going to care what we do, we have not put these up for years and the last safety guy didn't care". I advised my manager and he said "what can you do". A girl fell and twisted her ankle, this injury was not enough to make change, best leave it for a broken neck, it was my last hitch

# 4

I once worked for a company that was clearing some trees with an excavator. The excavator knocked over a 20m dead tree and it come crashing down where workers were welding formwork, lucky they were not working in the spot and that exact time. The requirements for the job did not allow any tree (living or dead) to be removed without permission from the Government. I started to conduct investigation but was told to leave it alone by site managment. The tree was removed in typical arse covering manner and the issue was forgotten about. I was later told this was the second time in a month this had happened but another worker...the company has an excellent low incident rate! (as nothing is reported). I was talking to a truck driver who was working on the Ipswich hwy upgrade and he told me that a truck rolled on that site and the same company righted it with an excavtor and no incident was reported...that's safety culture for you.

# 6

I once worked for manager that forced me to give a safety talk on safety equipment that was not fit for use and was not a prescribed safety device in Australia, if I did not give the talk I would have been given a warning. This manager also had 6 external consultants to help her do her job. It was interesting to see how the visits were about walking around pointing the manager finger and questioning workers as to why they have not been safe. This was for a major military contractor for governmental helicopters. I was forced to leave because I did not agree with old school methods of safety and to be honest I cannot work under such incompetence.

Philosophy #1

My philosophy of safety is keeping it as simple as it needs to be. I have seen tier one organisational safety operations bogged down with self imposed over-complicated safety management systems (SMS) and safety processes that just confuse everyone,
turn people off, and take up valuable time. It’s not the quantity of paper work that matters or that of having thousands of safe work method statements (SWMS) that covers every task your organisation does that ensures a safe workplace and that ensures that they are meeting legal requirements. It is far better having a safety system people can understand and take ownership than having one that is not used, no one understands or people don’t have time for.

Philosophy #2

I used to believe in this code, but all I ever got was the negativity from the wrong boss.

“If all you do is work faithfully and conscientiously, the verdict in such cases generally is that you perform your present duties so well that you had better continue to perform them,” said Carnegie.

Carnegie said that the secret of his early success was not in asking what “What must I do for my employer?” but, “What can I do?” Never content to simply do what was expected of him and leave it at that, Carnegie thrived on exceeding both his own and others’ expectations. It was in taking his actions to the next level that Carnegie gained not only the reputation but also the success that he did. Carnegie believed in going above and beyond his own responsibilities and finding ways to improve the business whether or not it was his duty to do so. Carnegie always subscribed in the belief that the company should be put first. “Do not think a man has done his full duty when he has performed the work assigned him,” he said. “A man will never rise if he does only this. Promotion comes from exception work. A man must discover where his employer's interests can be served beyond the range of the special work allotted to him; and whenever he sees his employer's interests suffer, or wherever the latter's interests can be promoted, tell him so.” Carnegie applied the same logic whether he was working for someone else or if he was his own boss. Success, he believed, would never come if he simply settled for good; he wanted to do the best and be the best that he could. “There is no service so low and simple, neither any so high, in which the young man of ability and willing disposition cannot readily and almost daily prove himself capable of greater trust and usefulness, and, what is equally important, show his invincible determination to rise,” said Carnegie. “Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.” Well aware of the risks of going above the call of duty, Carnegie paid no matter. “You may be right or you may be wrong, but in either case you have gained the first condition of success,” said Carnegie. “You have attracted attention. Your initiative might sometimes put you into conflict with your superiors, but that is a risk worth taking.” “Boss your boss just as soon as you can,” said Carnegie. “There is nothing he will like so well, if he is the right kind of boss. If he is not, he is not the man for you to remain with. Leave him whenever you can, even at a present sacrifice, and find one capable of discerning genius.” Carnegie believed that it was the first man who gets the oyster, while the second man settles for the shell. While both would achieved something of worth, it is the first man, the one who is willing to take risks, push the boundaries and challenge authority, who receives the bigger reward.

Help Solve Safety and Get Culture

If you want to help solve the safety industry and create culture, you don't need all this talk about psychology and BBS and how it will save the industry. Safety is about giving the workers what they need to do their job; good tools, good training, good procedures, flexible environment, ownership, support etc. Giving these basic gifts equals positive attitudes, high workplace moral, culture and a safer workplace (and better production). If you do these things, then you don't have to go around pretending you are a psychologist and change manager trying to find reasons why things are so bad. You don't need to look that hard to see why safety is failing.

99% fear of doing

99% of safety people I have had any dealings with are scared and anxious about applying safety in any practicable manner as raising real issue threatens their job. When talking to them about an issue that needs practical resolve, a resolve they know they cannot raise due to fear of being attacked by production, the most common reply I have heard is “I know, but what can you do”, this is a cop out and weak.

This is referencing the fact that they have chosen to ignore an issue, have preferred to take the easy way out, they have failed as a person practicing due diligence. These people are not safety practitioners of any real value, for if risk management cannot be taken serious, then there cannot be any real value applied to it. Anyway their reward for ignorance is job security.

LTI rates are trending down

The real reason incident rates are trending down is simply because of underreporting and return to work programs. If you really look at the data, some industries that would not be concerned with under reporting incidents have stayed my the same, yet those like mining, construction have tended down (culture of underreporting).

Now the bullet;

Then if you look at the death rates over that same period, they have stayed much the same (mean level). How can incident rates go down yet death rates stay the same, this proves my point

Complicated is much better

People often look for more complicated solutions to solve a simple issue because they simply have not mastered the basic stuff first. So when someone asks, how’s the basic stuff going, they untruthfully reply with; great, but we have just found out about this new and improved silver bullet that will be even better, thus buying those some time because the simple has not even been done. Then 2 years later the same person asks, how’s the new thing going, the reply is; not so good, maybe we should go back to basics or try this new thing that is guaranteed to work

SM

I believe most safety management today is ad-hoc, reactive, and has lost meaning and direction. Safety is mostly managed by calculative, trivial safety programs at best. Sadly, I also feel that safety, in it’s mostly satellite function, has lost the means to apply the practical time needed to gain and apply risk mitigation knowledge. This is because of the pressure to produce production time restraints and reactive incident investigations and compliance audits. Basically, everyone in safety is chasing their tail dealing with reactive data and retrospective sense making instead of forward looking proactive sense making. Adding pressure to produce into the risk equation I feel increases the likelihood on an unfortunate event occurring.

Defence of cynic

My defense is that not all cynics make for a negative toxic workplaces (although it is very easy to think this because of peoples wrong perceptions and biases and fear of people who stand up for the art of questioning), and that this negative framing done by closed minds experts has totally discredited all those people right now who are raising valid safety concerns. Those others are too afraid to raise. I feel that some experts prefer to support conformity and fear by way of taking peoples free right to be cynical, doubtful, skeptical and cautious; the very thing we need more of. I think this is dangerous, and I am standing up for the positive side of being cynical.

Driving forces

The driving forces behind pressure to produce (PTP) is corporate greed and self-interest. Governments and business leaders often display those negative qualities in their quest for material gains.

In the department-store collapse in Seoul, Government officials accepted bribes from contractors who knew that paying a bribe would be less costly than using proper building materials and
construction practices and a job done on time. This happens in Australia also within the business world but it is hidden deep. And we think terrorism is bad!

Harmonisation works

The new harmonisation laws that were introduced in 2012 have done their job very well. We are now seeing officers take more responsibility for safety; dam shame it took the risk of losing their assets or prison time to make them come around and become ethical! Who said laws dont work.

Note; we are also hearing about safety magic bullet programs working also, maybe a coincidence!!

"a safety law is only introduced and fines applied because we humans are not motivated by ethical values, we prefere to take the easy route which is very often the risky easy way, but the more profitable way"

Dont think for the manager

Much to learn

We all have much to learn in regards to safety in the real sense of the meaning (that being a continual concerted effort by mindful people to protect others), and we owe it to every worker who has died on the job to ensure that we as a country, organisation or individual make it our obligation to ensure we report hazards and stop the job if there are any questions borne from a concern that may result in harm. Management including government) have to accept that their obligation is diverse and accountable and being mindful should not only be about possible fines and litigation or for that matter, meeting statuary requirements.

How are we to ever know

What is the status quo we need to challenge in the safety sector which is governed by laws and regulations that must be adhered to (we humans are bred to follow rules) and followed under many restraints that void such concern.

This is my concern with the pshcology as the next thing; that safety people might be nudged into thinking that all they know is wrong and that we only need to learn about the human mind to stop events. These experts are telling us to unlearn all we know about safety, not so clever when much is good, but not used.

Tell me how you are going to understand each and every individual workers mindset in the workplace to know how to make any difference to them?

I was once reminded

An expert once kindly reminded me that I was not educated, and that I was not a critical thinker or a philosopher. I assume he had pleasure making these statements and making a point to all his followers, as it is easier to denounce a person that way and stay true to a cause. You should have seen the man who said to the Priest that god did not exist. Anyway, I am not sure what this expert thinks a philosopher is, but I do know that it is one who questions, ponders, and who lives according to a way of life. I don't think you don’t need a degree to think or ponder.

System One and Two Heuristics

Throw a new concept at an expert like heuristics being born form negative experiences and they quickly denounce the idea because it has not been researched and put into a telling book.
Some experts are so afraid of a new idea not borne from them. If heuristics are simply experience based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery that give a solution which is not guaranteed to be optimal, then I propose that heuristics used under current pressures could indeed be borne from previous pressured (any form of pressure) experiences,
learning's and discoveries. Maybe there could be such term as System One and Two Heuristics not yet acknowledged or studied in the academic world that we need to be open minded too, not bounded by what is known. An international expert has like my concept is that says anything.

Read it here; https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B30P4aQNj_whOHFadHhYWVVOejg/view

I cannot follow

People who don’t think hindsight is a great tool to use, who don’t think conscience conscious judgments are affected by others or environment, who don’t believe that telling is the most important method to get a message out yet who constantly tell everyone what they need to be to be a safety leader, who don’t believe that stepping into other people shoes to understand them better is of any good, who criticise cynics, and yet criticise everything just like a cycnic, who ridicule processes and mechanistic thinking yet use and parrot develop such tools and systems, and who rides on the sholders of great thinkers who had great philosophies for which they now use to make money from by tricking those naive into buying, I cannot follow that sort of cult.

Professional Spud head

They "tell" everyone there is a problem, they put on the angry face when people don't listen to them, they think everyone else is a spudhead, they dehumanize others (safety people), they territory protect behind the mask of expertise and flow into topics with a quick read of knowledge, they make safety overly complex by putting more ownership of expertise onto safety people (as they have little idea what it takes to be a frontline safety person controled by arse covering stratagies), they continually repeat the nonsense language of safety people owning safety, and on top of this they use their leanred skills to manipulate and control others in many clever, hidden and nudging ways.

Expert of experts

I have seen how experts can expand on their expertise by reading something new to them. Once you have been tittled an expert, any information picked up that they did not know about is only a short expert advertisment away, they never learned this at uni so thinking about their new learning does not fall under the expert lable (as we only assume experts gained their expertise in study at uni). For some reason if the non exert reads the same data, they are still not listened to. Why is it that so called experts are allowed to have a voice and promote their thinking yet others are not.