Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety?

There are many people working in Safety who seek a ‘different’ way of engaging with others, and rightly so. The current policing and patrolling approaches adopted by many, seem to be doing little to support people in how they tackle the challenges of risk. Some even suggest that rather than being a problem, people are the solution; a creditable idea, but what might this mean in practice?

There are a few questions that come to mind when considering this ‘new view’ in Safety, including:

· How can we adopt an approach focused more on people if we don’t also broaden our ‘way of being’ from the deep-seated STEM focus that currently dominates Safety’s discourse?

· If we are to see people as a ‘solution’[1], how do we then resist also viewing them as objects to be studied and corrected, and instead see them as subjects (people) to be ‘met’?

· How do we deal with the often unrecognised and unconscious social forces in our modern world, that drive us toward individualistic thinking and steer us toward being an expert in others?

Counter intuitively, perhaps the answers to these questions may lie outside of Safety’s traditional literature, studies and references? Conceivably we also require a different ‘way of being’ if Safety is really going to be ‘different’? So where else can we look for guidance on this?

Read the full article first published HERE.