Culture Starts With…?
Carsten Busch
Safety Mythologist and Historian. The "Indiana Jones of Safety". Grumpy Old Safety Professional.
A while ago, I participated in a seminar on safety culture. As always on such occasions, there were some great speakers. And then there were some presentations that make you cringe / frown / shake your head /cry / scream in despair (*: select whatever feels relevant to express your reactions).
One speaker (I will not disclose my reaction) claimed that she had found a way to reduce the complexity of that culture stuff and bringing things back to the basics. It was as simple as the revelation that “Safety Culture Starts with You”. If we all decide to contribute our part, and do so, we will start creating a positive safety culture.
Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? But is it really?
Contrary to what I said above, I need to disclose some of my reaction. Because really, I just wanted to unmute and yell through Teams, “No, it bloody is not. Culture is not about a person; culture is a group thing.” Well, a good upbringing and social conventions (let’s call that culture if we must) prevented me from doing so.
The thinking demonstrated by this speaker is highly symptomatic for how many speak and think about culture. They discuss culture in terms of awareness, motivation, behaviour, commitment, or engagement. However, all of these are properties of individuals. Culture, on the other hand, is a property of a group of people.?
When you observe a group of people for a while, you will be able to notice certain regularities in the way they interact, how they talk to each other, the specific language they use, the rituals they perform, the places they meet, maybe even in the ways they dress. It is as if these things are governed by an invisible force or unwritten set of rules. That ‘force’ we have come to call ‘culture’. It happens all of its own, not because the persons in the group, but because of the interactions between the people in that group.
Using a difficult term, we call culture an ‘emergent property’ of the group. It is not intentionally caused in any way. Instead, the property emerges (or develops, evolves, grows, if you want to use another word with a similar meaning). Emergent properties of social systems (which groups of people are) cannot be reduced to the separate parts of that system. Therefore, culture is not about us in isolation. Culture is a group phenomenon, not an individual phenomenon. We cannot reduce culture to a person, not even to all the individual persons.
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Sure enough, as individuals we do influence the cultures we move in. Through the way we interact with others. How we reply to questions. The questions we ask. The language we use. The actions and rituals we perform. However, it is not about us. It is about the interactions. All those interactions together result in the patterns that we attribute to culture.
Trying to contribute in a positive way is a praiseworthy effort, for sure. However, instead of quoting Michael Jackson (“If you want to make the world a better place…” and so on), we should be reluctant to oversimplify culture. Turning culture into something that starts with all of us is turning the group thing into a personal thing. Even more, it is turning it into a thing that we are made responsible for. And that sends the wrong message. First, because not all have equal opportunities to influence culture. Managers high up have better opportunities to influence interactions – for better and worse. Second, if this shift of responsibility is not backed up by resources and authority to support the taking of personal responsibility, then it is simply not fair. In the long run it perhaps just is a prelude to blame in the vein of, “Our culture sucks because you did not do your part!!”
Culture starts. Period. Most likely not with you.
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More about culture and not speaking about it, check out my most recent book, The First Rule of Safety Culture. The problems of various Amazon marketplaces have been resolved, so you should be able to get both the paperback and the e-book for a decent price. If you are in doubt, contact the author:
Freelance preventieadviseur en Safety Maverick die Safety aan het fixen is en tippexongevallen bespreekbaar maakt
1 年Mooi!
“… when one looks for direct evidence of the effects of culture on actual behavior, culture seems to vanish.” “… there is no clear consensus on what culture is, what effects it might have, or what, if anything, should be done about it. Culture presents a perplexing appearance for many reasons. Some of them have to do with the nature of the phenomena and some have to do with the ways in which the phenomena are represented and perceived.” ‘Culture and Flight Deck Operations’ Hutchins, Holder, Perez in:- ‘Chapter 18 Is the Aviation Industry Ready for Resilience? Mapping Human Factors Assumptions across the Aviation Sector – Resilience Engineering in Practice’ allied to:- ‘Cross-Cultural survey of aviation professionals reveals perception that flight safety is decreasing’ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268271017
Safety Management Professional Consultant
2 年See the crew....you see the leader. Culture of any type, Safety, Community or otherwise. is heavily influenced by the leader.
Award Winning Safety & Risk expert | Behaviour Change Pioneer | NED | Chair | Keynote Speaker |
2 年Interesting Carsten Busch . I am minded of the Heideggarian hermeneutic concept of the table...is it there when you are not. Do we create it by being present with it..? Similarly with culture. Does it exist before an individual becomes involved or does that individuals interaction influence the culture through their engagement. Depends upon ones philosophy ontologically and epistemologically I think?
Dutch Safety Board
2 年Well put Carsten. Slow clap ??