Services
What We Do
Humanizing Risk
“Social Psychology is interested in perception, cognition bias, in social collective attitudes, collective mindfulness, attitudes of populations and in organizations, persuasion, cognitive dissonance, interpersonal attraction and social influence.”
“These are the aspects that humanize safety. However, policy, procedure, mandates, and compliance often ignore the fallible human and instead focus on things, objects, and checklists created by someone whose philosophy is never disclosed.” – Dr. R. Long
There is no argument, what has been done in the past in Risk and Safety assisted us in arriving at the current plateau we sit on, systems are important as long as the system serves the human. Most systems serve the system and the human simply endures it.
If we want to continue to grow, to move beyond today’s paradigm we need to look at other perspectives. In fact, many of the H&S Conferences are requesting this and calling for speakers who can connect risk intelligence to cultural maturity, resilience and leadership. Unfortunately, they are still connecting this to systems not humans.
SPoR prioritizes human connection and trust. Instead of enforcing compliance through rules, SPoR fosters engagement by focusing on relationships, risk intelligence, and genuine conversations that resonate. This approach builds cultures where Risk and Safety is internalized, not imposed. By cutting through the red tape by emphasizing relational tools that connect safety to real human experiences. Practical methods, like Engagement Boards or conversational risk assessments, strip away the bureaucracy and help workers feel heard and valued.
Leadership & Knowledge Development
Leadership is understanding risk intelligence, recognizing others’ risk intelligence & connecting the two.
“People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care” – Theodore Roosevelt
This quote, attributed to various sources, first appeared in my 1998 presentation for an Adult Education course. Years later, Dr. Long introduced me to Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” philosophy. This perspective provided a more complete and connected understanding, as I’ve previously written. Growing up with a philosophy of service to others, devoid of specific religious connotations, the “I-Thou” philosophy helped to fully realize this inherent inclination towards others.
We simply cannot connect with another unless we are willing to be curious and interested in that person, in this high production, fast paced, social media-laden world slowing down to listen, truly listen without an agenda or looking at the phone, or formulating an answer to rebut is rare.
Leadership is about connection, listening communication and building relationships, when these basic concepts are enacted, regularly and applied to all those we encounter, life starts to feel fulfilled.
If you want to understand the philosophy and methodology behind listening with intent, listening with a disposition to another and connecting this to the iCue tool, then we can help.
Culture
One of the most overused cliché’s in Health & Safety is “Culture is what we do around here” I recall when culture was a relatively new concept in Risk and Safety circles, the amount of misinformation, guesses and pure drivel available online was astounding. Everyone wanted to dumb it down and make it a system that could be implemented quickly so they could get on with production.
Culture is complicated, has many facets; it is illusive, the only way to change culture quickly is to change it negatively. Positive culture change takes time and effort, positive culture change is not a system, policy, procedure or common sense. We can’t touch culture, we can’t smell culture, we can’t mandate culture, we can’t control behaviours to change culture.
The metaphor used in SPoR for Culture is a cloud,
Why a cloud? Culture is intangible, but, when we experience it, when we feel it, we know it. Have you ever been on a worksite that had a culture that permeated everything, crews trusted each other, workers trusted supervisors, there was engagement, connection and relationships. These are all non-measurable in safety statistics, but like a cloud these influencers of culture ebb and flow, evaporate and reform when there is turbulence. When leadership changes, or someone with a new/different mandate comes along this can strengthen or destroy what is already in place.
The things that influence what we do are not simple, they are complex and as variable as the fallible humans involved, our decision making is based on satisficing, its rarely cognitive unless learning something new and it is often influenced by other forces that we are not even conscious of.
Like individual behavior that is driven unconsciously, our culture is about our collective unconscious decision making. Behaviour is the only visible part of this dance and we attach meaning to it based on our world view.
Understanding Human Decision Making
The Social Psychology of Risk focuses on how social arrangements condition decision making in risk and how social relationships form the foundation for understanding and tackling risk.
The Social Psychology of Risk will challenge traditional thinking on how humans make decisions, because Western Society relies heavily on ridged control there is no time for questions, understanding and relationships. The rules, policies and procedures and systems, focus on things and objects not humans, connection or decision making.
The reality is most of our decisions are based on the need for efficiency, we expect our workforce to be skilled knowledgeable experienced people who make decisions fast and keep productivity up. So heuristic decision making is developed through auto-pilot, experience, routine and repetitive rituals. This is evident in most of the investigations I have completed over the years when asked what the individual was thinking they will say “I don’t know what I was thinking but I had a gut feeling something was off”.
They can’t tell us what they were thinking because they were in mind 3 (1 brain, three minds) (1B3M) is a fundamental concept of SPoR, more on that later). That is not to say they are complacent; complacency is a poor description of what they were experiencing at the time. The gut feeling originated in the gut but the information on what we expect to occur and what is occurring does not make it to the conductor (the brain) to initiate a change in action.
Decisions are rarely conscious, deliberate or a choice we make, understanding the nature of the individual and the collective unconscious is the beginning of the journey to understanding how humans make decisions.
A great place to start this journey is this three and a half minute video:
Critical Thinking, Coaching & Mentoring Services
We take thinking for granted, we assume everyone is engaged at the same level of thinking because we “do it” every day, we sense-make that is, distill information and the inputs from our physical senses, our memory, our past experiences and observations; we come up with idea’s based on our perception, biases and world view.
The critical thinking clock is a great tool to promote critical thinking in an era where AI has taken over the thinking for us, few if any take the time to actually think through the discourse of what is presented.
Our coaching and mentoring through critical thought can improve teams’ cohesion, connection and relationships, used in conjunction with the Competing Values Framework we can identify strengths, opportunities and further education and training to support the teams desired direction.
Psychology of Risk - A Different Language
The Social Psychology of Risk will introduce you to a different language, new authors, philosophers, and different ways of priming, framing, pitching and questioning.
How often do we hear “complacency” being the easy answer when things go wrong? It’s often just our brains working efficiently, on autopilot. Fallibility means we can’t be hyper-vigilant all the time! The reality is humans live in a state of tension between the complexities of living (fast and frugal decision making) and the limitations of time and resources (optimizing).
So, how do we tap into a gut feeling before something happens? How do we stay connected to the risks, even when things feel routine? How do we keep each other sensitized to the risk of the work? How can we connect what we know unconsciously to be conscious of it and in the zone?
SPoR offers a fresh look at how we can truly understand and navigate risk together.
How We Do It
As someone who approaches Risk and safety from the workers point of view, the opportunity to support, educate, coach and mentor those who interact with workers daily is a critical part of our “service to others” philosophy; This is completed in either the classroom or the field, one on one or in group sessions, building trust through:
Coaching
By Understanding the Methodology Behind the Method
- Although many use the words method and methodology interchangeably, there is a difference. Methods are the tools used, like the iThink Clock, one of the many thinking tools in SPoR, this helps the user be conscious of the process of thinking to surface what is in the unconscious.
- The methodology behind this is Socratic inquiry and deconstructionist theory, a part of critical theory. Has anyone ever disclosed the methodology/philosophy behind Zero Harm, The Bradley Curve or Just culture?
- Although many use the words method and methodology interchangeably, there is a difference. Methods are the tools used, like the iThink Clock, one of the many thinking tools in SPoR, this helps the user be conscious of the process of thinking to surface what is in the unconscious.
Reframing Risk
By Visual – Verbal – Mapping
- Mainstream Safety frames risk in objects and things, Inspections, audits, hazard hunts, paperwork, counting all part of Technique (Ellul) (the methodology) (WorkSpace), SPoR expands this view of risk to include HeadSpace and GroupSpace, areas that are difficult to measure but add significant value to humanize risk.
Grow Self Awareness
By Learning about Learning
Using personality indicator tools to understand personal strengths, biases and opportunities, learning the difference between indoctrination, learning and multiple intelligences. Applying meta-learning, understanding our own ontology to address our political, social, cultural and historical learning and teaching styles. Which changes our world view and disposition to others.
Surfacing Cultural Norms
By Surfacing Cultural Norms
- With culture being an intangible SPoR uses the cloud metaphor to orient organizations through language audits,layers of risk models, listening and dialog tools to custom design programs based on your rituals, mythology and semiotics creating a positive work environment, boosting engagement and improving the overall experience of working for your organization.
These programs can involve various activities, from leadership development to team-building exercises, with a focus on trust, communication, relationships, collaboration, and community building.
- With culture being an intangible SPoR uses the cloud metaphor to orient organizations through language audits,layers of risk models, listening and dialog tools to custom design programs based on your rituals, mythology and semiotics creating a positive work environment, boosting engagement and improving the overall experience of working for your organization.
Enabling Critical Thinking
By Changing World Views
Mainstream Safety has been monodisciplinary since its inception, by studying concepts and theories in anthropology, philosophy(the love of wisdom), social psychology, theology/religion, ethics, critical theory and cultural theory in the humanities we can improve critical thinking, changing world views and our disposition to others.
There are over 40 SPoR tools available that support a transdisciplinary approach to tackle risk.
Benefits
Connection
Understanding
Communication
Improved listening, communication & relationships
Semiotics
Risk Intelligence
