Pressure to Produce strikes again

Rushing Brisbane Lady Cilento Children's Hospital opening put patient safety at risk, report finds.

Again showing how pressures such as reputation and money cause much negative effects.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-13/lady-cilento-report-finds-rushed-opening-put-safety-at-risk/6693516

Holiday Death Tolls

The holiday period road toll for the past 12 years shows (as it does in my point about safety) that the mean level rate is relatively constant over a period. As with safety, there will be accidents and incidents and in some cases Pressure Induced Inconvenient Events (PIIE) as people are in hurry to get to their location or home.

What we see is a count that goes up and down with no key reason behind the points (maybe fuel, weather, economy all playing a part). Just like the workplace deaths each year ,the rates vary slightly, but over time show that regardless of any advertising campaign or incentives, events still occur. So I wonder if we saved all that money the government spends of safe driving campaigns and put this money into better roads (engineering) we would see an improvement? Maybe speeding might go up as result of better road, but that's why speed laws are in place...aren't they?

As likened with work, people don't drive to kill themselves; so why do we keep assuming that we can change people using any form of manipulation.

So the mean level I have worked out for these two 12 year periods are;

Christmas 58.6

Easter 26.3

So if we have a count lower than this score then we can say we had a good year (still means nothing). If higher we can say we had a tragic year (still means nothing). As with the road toll, workplace safety is at a level also at around 170 per year. Just like the road toll, the workplace will fluctuate also and as I keep saying; there is nothing we can do to change this, just like people who hit their finger banging in a nail.

So what we can now say is that this year 2015, I think we have had more deaths as the Easter count is going to be higher (probably a factor of wet whether and cheaper fuel) so shame on us, as we have most likely gone above the mean level of accidents.

Warning, there is a speeding camera ahead

I assume most of us have been given a flash of lights to warn us about a speeding camera ahead. I think its aiding and abetting a criminal act.

 

Why do we warn people who are disobeying rules designed to keep us safe?

 

Assume for a moment that you have been effected by a speeding driver, say a loved one has been killed by a speeding driver, would you flash and warn people to slow down when the these people should be fined. Would you warn a criminal who is about to bash a victim in a park  that police is coming? Did my point send a clear message and hit home that speeding kills people. Speed cameras are not revenue makers, they are there to try and keep the rules we set being followed, if there were no speed cameras there would be little care of the speed we travel and many would travel faster than what they can handle on our crappy roads. If everyone did the speed then like all rules we would have no need for enforcement!

Take away business employed safety people

The Safety Collective Group - We all make up safety

 

If we as a society really wanted to ensure safety is being done within organisations with all practicality and due diligence, we would have a separate safety sector (not government) managing workplace safety...the Collective Safety Group.

This sector would visit workplaces and assist with safety (like some Gov departments are supposed to do but don't). These safety representatives with varied expertise (engineering, environment, oligies etc) would not belong to any organisation and they would rotate between all businesses so no bias constraints can be developed. This way there could be no hiding the facts of real issues that need resolve, no under reporting, no fear of reprisal and an outcome that is the best interest of the people and organization.

Issues would have to be solved and people would have to start 'doing'. Risk and corrective actions would not just sit in a register for a short time and then be deleted and forgotten about. Incident investigations and audits would be conducted by this group with no connection to the organization. They would have no biases and no bosses telling them how the incident report 'should be shaped' or what 'should not be addressed' in an audit. Audits and investigations would be done and non conformances issued that would need to be rectified.

These are things we are supposed to be doing now, but is not working because as a 'safety person' (so called owner of safety) you cannot bite the hand that feeds you. There is to much fear and control over safety and safety practices for any real benefit to occur.

Maybe we could co as far as saying that we could introduce a collective "Safety Fee/Tax" of 2% of company turnover. This low fee would cover this safety group (and in many cases be cheaper than having an internal safety person or a safety department). This way all businesses no matter how big or small would have access to the same safety. This would also allow the many different expertise's that make up safety to work in synergy with each other. If the safety issue is a environment one, then an environmental expert would visit. If the safety issue was a engineering one then a engineering safety specialist would visit. If an investigation was needed, then an investigator would visit and they would seek other expertise advice, If an audit needs doing then an auditor would visit etc etc.

These sectors would then enter their findings and data into a central hub where the safety issue would be managed collectively. Organizations would get a detailed report and corrective actions and have deadlines to close out actions. The safety collective would be there to assist the organization. If the organization is large enough, they may still need a person to collaborate with the safety collective and internal mangers.

What is safety HERE 
What is a safety Person HERE

Wicked Problem

If safety is a wicked problem, and we accept this, we do we spend so much time and effort trying to go below the mean level of incidents and unsafe acts. All these safety programs and new old solutions will not make a collective difference because we have allowed for safety to be a wicked problem by imposing many topics. There is always going to be mistakes, pressures, greed and stupidity. There is nothing that will change this, as this is us and our existence.

A "wicked problem" is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. This is a society, and history proves we don't solves issues.

 

Society itself is a collective wicked problem when we divide it with nonsense and individualism. War is a wicked problem when it divides humanity into sectors. Bullying is a wicked problem that causes much  negative costs. Schooling is a wicked problem when many children leave school with less than average education. Our drive to success and to be number one (winner) is a wicked problem when its told to us that we can be anything we want to be as children. Greed is a wicked problem when it alters a persons life in a negative way. Government is a wicked problem when they lie and steal and cannot manage money. Control is a wicked problem when its used to manipulate people into doing topics for the gain of another. Failure to learn is a wicked problem when we see that the same occurrence of incidents occur often. Fear is a wicked problem when it's imposed onto moral dispositions.

I look at us, the human species as stupid, and you only have to watch the news and or TV shows about people whatching TV shows to prove this point. You might like my writing HERE maybe even this lecture HERE - I don't care either way

 

The list of wicked problems is long and growing, and it is us who have made them and built them, will it be us who fixes them...no, it will be a external motivator! 

 

Safety is a wicked problem, this is true. Maybe it's time to accept that like all things wicked, that these wickedness's are a collective wicked problem that cannot be solved or improved. It's a nice thought to have, a great dream, to fix a wicked problem, but foolish to assume that they are in fact curable with such collective stupidity. 

 

Maybe its time to move on from the incurable.

 

Not complete

51% behavioral choices

According to many safety stats 50% of workplace incidents are from worker complacency...Yes, many incidents are caused by complacency; lack of training, lack of good tools, lack of equipment maintenance, lack of officer commitment, lack of leadership, lack of communication, lack of job standards, lack of appropriate time given to do a task safely, lack of fair pay rates, etc etc...hang on... corporate complacency is a big cause of inconvenient events MD

 

I look at this and see it for what it is and showing...

 

Personal Behavioral Choices are a result of points 2 to 10...( so that's nearly 100% issues not directly related to the worker...

 

Well done PEER.

Masquerade

When are we going to really start talking about real issues instead of talking about topics that are not the leading issues in safety? Topics like safety managers and officers who are incompetent yet continue to get jobs as a leader (LinkedIn is full of lies and self promotion), yet these people have failed as a leader and have been a partial cause to workplace deaths and injuries. Topics like psychology, where there seems to be people who think this is the answer and will stop incidents occurring (keep in mind people don't go to work to hurt themselves), in my view this is just another expensive band aid, especially when the people promoting this stuff tell us to unlearn safety topics, to embrace risk, to not use hindsight as a way to learn, to be loose and ignore rules and not find blame.

In so many workplace safety events, there are key issues that cause incidents, but they mostly get lost within all sorts of trivial safety programs that come out by those looking to cash in and make a quick buck.

The simple fact is that organisations that are not making enough money cut corners, organisations that cause mental health issues and stress are pushing people to hard and asking them to do things outside best practice. Organisation that are not making money do not maintain equipment, or purchase better equipment, they also go lax on training workers. This (greed) is the key to most workplace tragedies, yet we continue to masquerade behind the false notion that it’s everything but these things.

As I have been saying for years, get rid of organisation paid safety people, introduce a safety TAX so that "all" organisations have access to non bias professionals/inspectors that make organisations more accountable for fixing non compliances. If safety is to become a priority, then this is the only way I see it working. There are to many organisation not doing real safety and things being ignored. It is only after event that we see what should have been done by those who knew what should have been done in the first place.

I would also like to see a day where workers have a day where they can have a minute silence for all those workers that have been killed. We need to start remembering that work kills many people, at in most case its corporate greed that does it.

Due Diligence of officers

In such tragic events such as the Beaconsfield mine incident, it was the officers and managers that failed to think critically about the expert advice being presented; it is the officers and managers who did not address critical safety concerns in relation to that industry, it was also the workers who did not think critically about known risk as they had families to feed and lives to live. Therefore it is not just the ‘safety people’ or safety department (silo) that needs to think critically, the whole organisation does and I am sure this is what they mean by Due Diligence of officers and mindfullness

Safety walk to look for high risk activities

A safety expert once said we should do a safety walk to look for high risk activities in the workplace. This sort of comment has not addressed that the high risk work should have been investigated proir to it being done in the first place, so much me expertise!!

 

So. 

 

High risk (in context of the work) should have been investigated in a safety assessment/study conducted prior to the organisation commencement of operation. A safety assessment is a comprehensive and systematic investigation and analysis of ‘all’ aspects of risks to health and safety associated with events that may potentially occur in the course of operation.

A safety walk should not have to look for high risk activities for 1) they should be addressed by the competent workers overseeing/doing the task if the risk presents itself outside of the known context 2) the organisation should have already addressed high risk prior to the inception (could be at the start or an introduction of a new topic into the company that should have gone through a risk assessment process) of any new risk. Who is best to understand their team, the team leader of the operation, not the safety person or for that matter the CEO.

Who gives stuff away (people who pursuade)

In all fairness to the cynics who question those who claim they give their safety systems and ideas away for free. I am not sure they give much away in their entirety, hey give out samplers. If you give out a picture-graph that has does not have an accompanying instructions, instructions that make sense of the picture-graph, then you have given ambiguity, for which one then needs to pursue (purchase) to get further clarity. First chapters of books, sample lollies, free gifts, first hour free consultations, I will give you my precious time free, give me your name and I will send you something etc, are all text book marketing strategies.

 

These tacts are all part of humble pursuation and reciprocity. It is so interesting to see these tricks promoted on some safety sites.

Failures and ignoring of information

You could easy reference many aspects of the Longford case to others of similar result. The more I read the Beaconsfield reports and relevant info, I am seeing failures and ignoring of information everywhere. This is why I constantly say safety is not going to be controlled by trivial safety programs or phycology. These big incidents (as with many small ones) are caused by corporate greed which forces workers to cut corners and under report real factors. 

 

I think the whole Longford (and A Hopkins book is quite good) incident was related to complacency bought on by the culture set by top levels and pressure/budget demands to not interrupt flow to customers (profit driven). Not doing a HAZOP is nothing short of OHS incompetence in an operation that should have had one, to ignoring alarms, makes way for my point relative to Isaac Newton comments below (which I cannot even get into as you will have a 30 page email).

 

While the Longford report does mention 2 main causes (but defining operator error is based on the fact operators were not trained properly, so I feel is not operator error), I can say there was a multitude of causalities that contributed (each leaning on each other). These including eleven breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act along with all the social influences that played a part in ignorance in light of these breaches.

 

As with most cases related to the proper function of proactive OHS, (that being it costs a lot of money to be proactively mindful) such OHS topics are not fully implemented due to this cost. I.e. training workers past what their obligated basic task is something many companies do not spend money on. You are shown what to do but not shown how things work to know why things may and can go wrong.

 

I.e. Training on such as what would happen if you pump hot liquid through really cold pipes, what does ice mean on pipes that are normally red hot etc (Longford accident). Just these two factors may have stopped the incident is people were trained better...what would this training cost have been compared to the final outcome? Training is key, funding training is key! What to military pilots do in-between wars...train, train some more training and train again...(but most business do not have a set budget like ADF)

 

Where the ball may fall for the next big one. (I have been working on a paper what I was calling Foreseeable Trajectories.

 

Isaac Newton explained that the future of any part of the universe can be predicted with complete certainty, if its state at any time was known in all facts. With enough information of the conditions of the objects and of the laws that govern their motion, all subsequent events can be foreseen. I don’t think we can be that accurate in safety but I think we can get pretty close.

 

Now if we look at this in an OHS context, you should be able to see the commonalty I am referencing. State being the organisation preoccupation with failure, objects being workers, parts being tasks, and laws being management systems etc..sorry for the deep thinking, but I do believe you can predict with a certain amount of accuracy the type of events that may occur in the future within an organisation using very stringent data collecting (as long as that data is correct and has full information) and known’s (what we not to be true for hindsight). Once you know what the certain risks could be, then you ensure these are mitigated.

 

Maybe if safety was done by external unbiased consultants and that all safety people were not owned by the organisation, things may improve as safety people would not have to lie to keep their jobs. I can tell you right know, safety records and training needs would not be given a quick glace over as the business would be greatly constrained to 'doing' what is required to be done to ensure OHS is best practice as said by these external safety people.

Consciousness Bombarded

Here is an interesting quote; 

 

“Humans cannot retain extensive amounts of information in one sitting. It doesn’t take much to flood human consciousness. Bombarding the senses with data over a number of hours cannot be absorbed. Real learning is both longitudinal and relational.” RL

 

I would have to wonder how anyone could have made it through school and university when not only was the consciousness bombarded in one sitting, it was bombarded every day for many years. 

 

If with think about school, and we use the 80/20 rule for example as a rough guestimate to make my point (students only remember 20% of what they a told).

 

8820 hrs in school (grade one to seven) at 20% = 1764 hrs of data absorption....that's about 58 weeks of schooling 294 weeks of school (7 years)...that's just over one year in seven.

 

That in my world is a lot a days not learning much.

Workplace death rates are going down

I did an interesting the other night. I was again looking at workplace death rates stats (as I have been for sometime), and was staring at the national fatality rate between, 2003 to 2013. Something was not right as I know stats do not always show the truth, why was it going down. I was in a critical thinking state of mind and was trying to work out another reason why rate was trending down (which looks real good). Readers of mine know that I also think that this rate is going down for other reasons, such as better plant and equipment design and more officer ownership of safety. But there had to be more to it.

I thought, what did the unemployment line look like. So I got onto a site showing the employment rate and punched into the graph the dates between 2003 and 2013. I then copied these and placed them next to each other and then looked at them to see if there was any relationship there. At first I could not see anything, but always thinking outside the box, I flipped one graph upside down. There it was; a somewhat similar trending line that when superimposed over the other matched very close the other trending line. What I have observed is that the unemployment rate seems to have a similar line to the death rate. What does this mean? We’ll just on this one point, we cannot look at our death rate and advertise to naive people that safety must be working, that there are other influences that can make a difference to outcomes on graphs. The government is not going to say that workplace death rates are down because unemployment if up are they! I wonder if suicide rates can be related to unemployment, I know they do, I have already looked.



The red and blue lines are what I superimposed; the death rate is red line and blue line is unemployment rate (the red line is the one I turned upside down to relate the incline in unemployment with decrease in deaths (although it looks like an increase in deaths here which is not correct as its upside down)- point here is the
less people working the less death rates - bring on AI

And people call me too passionate and to critical to dam right (you can see why business don't want to employ such high drive and passion for safety – don’t use my research for your own gain!

OHS sector full of leadership incompetence

With all these workplace deaths that happen in Australia every year, other than maybe the real big ones that have inquests, why are the causal factors not released to the public?. Are we afraid of the truth? Do we prefer play them down and forget about them? Is it unethical to lay blame on whatever caused the event? If it’s purely an accident there is nothing to be ashamed of and there still could be some good learnings. If though there are another reasons, such as pressure, unfit plant and equipment, rules not being followed, poor supervision or management etc etc, then these have to be advertised. I want to know the main causality of all workplace incidents. I think there are also too many “phoenix” companies – companies which intentionally go into receivership in order to avoid their legal obligations.

"We want to talk morality and ethics in relation to OHS, I see not much of it being practiced" MD

 

There has to be a few main inherent causalities that do not deserved to be swept under the carpet. There has to be reason why people who allowed for these incidents to occur have been able to kept their jobs. I know of leaders/officers that still work in a company or have gained new employment elsewhere who have contributed to an incident through inaction of known factors. You don’t see this on their LinkedIn profiles, it’s all perfect and full of advertised Safety First promotion and Safety Leadership. It is like the big incidents we have, if there were no inquiries into these, the truth would never be known (other than what crap is spun on TV). Companies would hide every truth and lie about all facts using the old “ah, we didn’t know”...

 

I would propose as a start, that all workplace death causalities and or any other incident requiring state OHS inspectors involvement be made public in central national OHS webpage, that officers to be named if found responsible (this includes harassment, bulling etc). I have seen incidents occur that did not have to occur, but did due to neglect of requirements and the ignoring of best practices. I have seen in these cases not one penalty handed out as WHS Qld was not interested (to under staffed). I have seen the investigation not handled with due consideration and real causal factors hidden. No one seems to be taking safety serious. It’s a reactive industry full of ass covering and incompetence.

Why RULES matter and looseness is loose

Here is an small example of why rules matter and why it’s important to not allow workers under control of organisation to make their own rules up based on their own judgment. in repsonse to this post HERE

I am not a welder, but I know through past procedures and guidelines on welding practices it states that you must not start cutting or welding a sealed drum, tank or any other sealed space without knowing what was in that space first.

Now if I was the owner of this company and had such a basic welding rule, and my deviate loose thinking worker decided to take it upon themselves to not follow a rule that is in place to protect them, and if they are still alive and or I have not been forced to close down due to a this workers death, then I would not want that person working for me. It is very dangerous for safety experts to be telling people to loosen up on rules and use their own judgment within the workplace.

Worker injured in industrial site blast

08:14am, Monday 19 January, 2015

 

A man has been taken to hospital in a critical condition following an explosion at an industrial site in the Central West region of New South Wales, approximately 254 kilometers west of the state capital, Sydney. The incident occurred on Thursday morning. According to reports, the 41 year old worker was cutting the lid off a 44 gallon drum when the drum exploded, causing serious fractures to his head and upper body.Police said they suspected the drum contained explosive materials. This is not the first time a drum explosion has caused injuries to a worker. In September 2014, a drum containing paint thinner exploded at a mobile workshop in High Wycombe causing serious injuries to a worker, while in early July, a man was killed and another seriously injured after a petrol tank exploded at a cattle station at the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. The two were doing welding repair works on the cattle truck when the incident occurred.

 

DSM - how do we get a new listing entered.

If we agree we are just fallible, if we accept that we just operate in autopilot most of the time, if we think we only learn best by trial and error, if we express hindsight as being stupid for determining risk, if we say measuring history to gauge the future is nonsense, if promoting thinking in grey is better than binary thinking, if telling everyone that making hard choices is dangerous, if wanting everyone to be loose on rules is the way forward, if thinking we can learn to think unconsciously is the answer, if telling everyone to unlearn all that we know about safety, if telling people we can know how to adapt to the unexpected/unforeseen/unpredicted will protect us, if advertising to all that planning for the unknown is key to safety, and that safety is a wicked problem that cannot be solved, then we are screwed in safety and you might as well pack it up.

I have seen experts try and allude to us that being cynical, sceptical, pessimistic is toxic, that the very act of cynicism hides behind undisclosed values as only they can discern what is true or not. That this sort of thinking they say is a psychological disposition, and that because its listed in the DSM as a neurosis it must exist...WELL...I am skeptical to all this. I would rather be all these things ten times over than believe in the bullshit spun by some people trying to tell/sell us the next silver bullet. I am optimistic that we could fix safety but as our species cannot work together and that people will push their own agendas, safety won't be solved. I would rather be a realist than live in an unconscious state of unawareness. I think these few things listed in the first paragraph can only show a state of delusional awareness. Can we add professional delusional awareness to the DSM?


 

As for the truth about the DSM click HERE

99%

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 or management, the most common reply I have heard is “I know, but what can you do, best leave as don't wan't to upset anyone”, 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 and failed as a safety person. These people are not safety practitioners of any real value, for if risk management cannot be taken serious or you are affraid to raise topics of safety, then you would get more self dignity cleaning toilets. If you ignor safety isues then there cannot be any real value applied to safety. Anyway those who choose to look the other way, who choose to live in grey areas are reward for this ignorance; job security.

Can't believe everyone did not do the moral and ethical things - we live in Dystopia

I just had to reply to this stupid post here in shorts bites (i am sure the author was in dreamer state),  http://www.safetyrisk.net/i-cant-believe-that-nobody-was-seriously-injured/.

Each point is reflection of the original post.

We allowed social free choice and moral judgment – A society example

1.    We no long have engineers checking the integrity of structures and we sacked all those surveyors who check earth movements. We now do a drive by and use a pair of binoculars. All the checklist data that is usually put into the computer model for trending analysis and risk monitoring is all gone, some radical experts said She’ll be right mate”

2.    We now have companies building and fixing roads whenever they like, school teachers can now teach what they want based on what they feel suits them. We have sacked all police because there is not generic rules anymore, people drive to suit what they feel is best, car manufactures have decided to take out all safety devices as the safety by design rules are now governed by the auto group, Mining companies can just dig a hole and not worry about long term environmental issues, we are sure they will do the right thing as moral humans

3.    All safety campaigns and advertising is gone.

4.    We no longer ask any person or business to keep records, we see no value in trying to understand why events occurred who was told about safety issues etc and the last thing we want to do is lay any blame on anyone, we believe they will not cover up evidence and will fix the problems so it will never happen again

5.    If we do require a risk assessment, no scientific data is allowed to be used, we don’t believe in using tested knowledge as way to mitigate further risk,

6.    With all this freedom, our community members are going ape, going around doing as the please, they are so happy with no constraints. Last thing we want in our society is structure and rules, no one likes these things as proven by a novel human survey tool.

7.    We have closed all prisons and mental health facilitates; we all make mistakes, yes even rapists and murderers. They now live in your street and drive around doing burnouts and when you’re not home they will steal your TV and food.

8.    All asylum seekers and new Australian residents do not have to pass any tests to gain a common understanding of Australian traditions and rituals. When anyone walks onto a military base or enters a nuclear reactor plant, all areas are accessible, if visitors what to tell them how to run their workplace, then they will tell them. No one deserves to be told anything, you just have to listen to people telling you as this is the only way we learn.

9.    All road rules and laws have been axed, pilots no longer have to follow any flight prestart procedures as we feel that accidents just happen. Last thing we want is everyone being controlled to some degree, in fact planes can land in any order they want, first in best dressed we feel, let's rid control towers also.

10. Nurses have set a new goal, they say 15% from the mean level of accident is now achievable. There is a great new system better than the old one that will do this; it’s so achievable to lower incidents as we now understand why people make mistakes Dah. They just don’t think 95% of the time and are always running around on auto pilot; we have controlled this through with another new program or mind manipulation. We are glad they now use their own means to manage collective risk.

So, ten years on and society as we know has broken down, There are more wars, more extremist groups fighting over what is right and what is wrong, crime is everywhere, people are being killed because they have no sense of common rules that alert them to such dangers and best collective ways to do things, I would say if you know the Easter Islands story, well, this is what we created; we just did not want to learn or lead our people, the fundamental rule of building a society was broken. We now have to set up a committee to work on trying to bring back sense out of all this chaos, we should have just done what our society needed so it could succeed. Now we have to bring back all the old stuff that actually worked.

Let me just remind everyone that a society cannot exist without structure and rules as man is just as cruel and self-serving as every living thing, we do not allow ourselves free choice because we chose bad choice over moral choice. Anyone who knows a little about social psychology would know this through the scientific study on how we act and what makes us act.

Is an Academic always one?

Once an academic has their title (Dr, PhD etc), they seem to have a life protected by that title, but are they always an academic? I mean; would you let a 60 year old mechanic who has not worked on a modern car and who got their certificate 40 years ago fix your modern car? And just because one says they are a mechanic, does this mean they can fix anything mechanical? I see people with Dr in front of their names...but what expertise is it for? Could be for art for we know.

They can go on and read a Google document, or watch a TED talk just like everyone else can if they are interested in a topic, but then use this to market themselves as is they knew it all along. I would say some academics get presented with an idea they are not that knowledgeable about, go and do some basic research, then come back into an argument making out they are experts in that area also. Like all aspects of working life, there are good and bad in everything, There are doctors who are better than others, yet both passed the same tests. Some academics are just good at memorising data from text books, sadly, the concept of having a good memory seems to class you as smart.     

If you got your title 40 years ago, and many things have changed since then, and you don’t need to renew your academic title, then everything you have learned since then is just as accessible to everyone.

So why do we assume that because someone has a academic title (that they use to persuade others) that everything they say must have been learned via academic studies. I mean I can read a book about subatomic particles, be very understanding of current information, maybe know a bit more that some academic who got the title 40 years ago, but my knowledge will not be preferred over the titled academic. The other thing I have always had a concern with is novel thinking.

If I had a theory about subatomic particles and how they act in a given situation, as an non academic, my view would not pass into the academician world unless an academic took my idea. I think an example would be my system one and two embedded heuristic idea. Yes it maybe be raw and not written in a academic way, but I don’t think you can get away from the fact that there are ways in which heuristics are embedded into our minds. I think some academics despise anyone outside the academic world coming up with ideas and concepts. But just imagine for a moment if a world leading academic did come up with my concept a write a book about it, there would be lesser academics all over the world praising the ideas and using it on blogs to explain, for example; why it is hard to override (as one cannot unlearn) a system two embedded heuristic with a system one heuristic.  

Why do we take academic hearsay as the only truth in so many areas of life. It seems having a title in front of your name gives you some magic pass into the world of “you must be or are always right”, and sadly many who cannot think for themselves just agree with everything they say and say; “they’re the expert they should know”. I am not saying that all experts think that they are always experts and say they are right all of the time, but there are many that seem to ride on the “expertise chariot” and use their title to promote their subjective opinions in all areas outside their original study.

Let me put something to you. An academic is only an academic up to the point they became an academic, everything they learn after that is just as accessible to every other thinking person.

Say to become an academic, you have to read and memorised a book, you do that and pass the test at the end with a 99% score. Great, you are now an academic and do no further research into that study. Then say another person come along who has never studied and was not an academic. This person was self educated and read not only the book that you did that granted the academic pass and accompanying title, but also continued to learn and study other topics of similar nature. This person actually became more knowledgeable about the topic than the titled academic. This person writes a theory and so does the non-academic person about how to solve a systemic problem. Both theories are submitted, but instantly the non academic is passed off as non credible because there is no title to their name. As an academic, their idea gets used while the non-academic goes away being told their idea will not work. But what if the idea presented by the non academic was in fact the better concept, yet is lost forever because of the theory that only academics have a brain and can think. I mean, imagine that I told you a couple of bicycle mechanics was working on a machine that would make us fly...the academic world would laugh and say that you need an engineering degree to understand flight...

There are many examples where non academic ideas have been lost because the academic establishment and people within those establishments do not like anyone breaking into their realm of academia. There are many No Nos (Our Iceberg is Melting) in this world that cannot stand their super ego being challenged. And sadly, I would say that this is major contributing factor as to why so many things do not work well in our society and in our workplaces. We don’t listen and take into consideration the ideas from people who also have good ideas and workable concepts very often. These non academics try and put in an idea and they are quickly reminded about all the other academic books and studies done to prove you must be wrong. I have had Kahneman tell me in a private email "it’s almost impossible to break into the academic world from the outside" there it was in black and white form a person who knows.

Having a title does not give anyone the right to discredit anyone. In fact I would say it is unhealthy as is driven by ills intentions. There are many clever people out there in this world with good ideas and concepts with little to know formal education, it’s just a dam shame many people prefer self serving protection than being open and accepting.

And there is one other thing that I feel is a great injustice; this is when the academic uses the idea the non academic came up with and spin it into their own idea that you guessed it, is then used.

 

 

We want freedom!

All this talk about giving workers their freedom at work, about allowing for self motivated decision making, about permitting looseness, about letting go of rules and systems and ignoring the old ways is fanciful on the pretext that workers will not do good with all this liberty and relaxing of constraints and it will also add to the confusion; more freedom, more choice, more choice, more chance to make wrong choice, more blame, more fault. As dehumanising as it might seem, it is actually collectively humanising us to be exactly how “those” want us to be.

 

The organisation is different from self governing employment; a group cannot operate in a social system run without control/rules. Egos must be controlled in the presence of others. Let me just say that in the practice of safety, just like in all things that comprise civilisation, there are all these things ordered onto us that are derived from negative results that grant us an improved form of collective moral virtue and order that are for the benefit and greater good of our existence as a societal creature. Teams work better when they act in the same manner and within constraints, just as untouched nature does. Even a single predator keeps a rule; do not kill off your host!

 

Let me also say that if we do allow for such small deviations of loosening up, of relaxing rules that continue to creep into the nature of order itself; that which gives us some sense out of chaos, then even those newly set parameters will be tested and pushed into further and worse deviations by nature of man I.e. allowing for a relax on speed from 100kph to 110kph will still attract the same amount of deviations, you will have the same amount of speeding fines as those who once sped at 110kph in a 100kph zone will now do 120kph in the 110kph zone, you may even have the same amount of incidents but the consequences will be worse. Constraints are already tested with looseness (and lucky for most there is a safety factor included in this process) and when they are tested, there is more of a chance for things to go wrong. So what then results is a greater negative outcome/trade-off that goes even further away from the original sense based fulcrum point (by this I mean the rule). The more loosening of the rope (the task at that current point to of time) from fulcrum to bob, the wider the reach and the bigger the pendulum sway area. By this I mean, more chance of floating unknown risks being caught and a knot formed that will alter its smooth sway. It is best to keep the rope tight, the rules governed, and system neat. Too much freedom in our current immature state of being (by this I mean collective naivety and stupidity) causes greater chaos.  We humans simply do not do the right thing most of the time, and giving freedom will cause negative effects on the long term goal of the governing body (society, organisation, family unit etc) i.e. society needs control, the organisation need a goal and even the family needs a goal.
 

I have made a quick drawing to show my concept. Simply put, the more looseness that is accepted, the further out the risk bob goes, and the more area where risk will be collected in its sway between point A and point B (start and finish of task). By allowing for looseness to grow/expand, the bigger the chance for unknown risk to be activated. In my concept there are an unknown quantity of risks that are unknown (cannot ever be thought of) in every single step within a single task. I would say that there would be at least a factor of 10x for every known risk in every step in every task. I.e. taking the cake to the oven (one step) might have 3 known risks 1) drop 2) burn 3) slip, so in this case there will be at least another 30 potential uncertainties (grey areas, unknowns) that are floating around just waiting to be activated by randomness. It falls in line of the old “who would have thought of that happening” comments after an incident has occurred. I would say that the unknown risks would look like something like the universe and be infinite with endless possibilities the longer the looseness  and the more possibilities could be activated, it is only by keeping a relatively tight reign within governing constraints that we can keep the many unknown risks out of the pathway swing from point A to B. I will improve on this novel concept in more detail at a later date.

 

 

 

ALARP

If there were truly a organisation out there that really wanted to manage risk to ALARP, that really wanted to follow the rules and work within said constraints, that really did want to put people first, that after incident really did want to find real causality, that being alerted to a hazard acted with due diligence, that after audit and or inspection really did want to improve, that took time to run what if scenarios to help prepare for risk, and who really did want to be proactive in all other aspects of getting people home to be not worried about work, then they would be lining up to employee me. If I were compared to an Olympic Superhero, and could win a single race by doing the very best I could, by following all the rules and other methods for success like training and diet, then I would be rewarded with great respect...sadly though, I am not an Olympian!

ISO31000 what's that

With all these new systems and ideas flooding the safety market and being promoted as the next new big thing, the next new way, I see little to no reference to ISO31000 and supporting documents. I have worked for managers that did not even know this document even existed, let alone follow any of the practices it explains in what I think a fairly simple process. I have seen some experts put down ISO31000 with trivial points and utopian thinking. How much more simple can it make a point about consultation and ways to mitigate risk. If organisations just start (I mean really start not a half ass effort) to use and promote such well prepared documents that really do lead us to managing risk as best as practicable, we would be able to make “safe safety”.