Robert Long argues that safety practice prefers tidy models that simplify messy human life. He calls for methods that accept disorder and focus on Everyday Social Resilience instead of swapping one neat model for another.
Common safety models (swiss-cheese, bow-tie, Jenga, dominoes, risk matrices) simplify disorder by imposing order.
Replacing one model with another (for example, HOP swapping swiss-cheese for Jenga) risks offering the same illusion of control.
Everyday Social Resilience and SPoR are proposed approaches that acknowledge fallibility and manage risk as a wicked problem.
We see this in semiotic models of: swiss-cheese, bow-tie, Bradley curve, dominoes, risk matrices, Jenga blocks etc. risk, dissonance, disorder, human error, blame and any other nasties they dislike. The best way to do such wishing is with slogans, a common strategy with HOP who simply swap one model (swiss-cheese) for the same model (Jenga blocks) then act as if there is something new.
It creates a fictional reality, with models to match. (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/) If we face up to reality, fallibility and risk as a wicked problem, we accept disorder and fallibility and develop positive and constructive methods to tackle the realities of risk. Robert Long (see all) Psychosocial Contexts and Risk Factors.
I saw a neat cartoon the other day (Figure 1. It's the same methodology as the dominoes and swiss-cheese. And, we all know the favourite word for Safety is 'control'.
Safety at work is often discussed in terms of compliance, but its impact goes much deeper. When employees feel protected, they can focus more on their tasks, worry less about risks, and build stronger trust with their employers. A workplace that puts safety first creates conditions where both people and businesses thri
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