safety

There is an interesting phenomenon in social psychology called pluralistic ignorance or the "Abilene Paradox".  In short it is the reluctance people have to voice a minority opinion in a group, especially if they feel that they're the only ones holding that opinion. 

We do so much work in the mine safety arena, that I couldn't help but chuckle at the truth that Jeremy Nell has uncovered in this recent cartoon:

"Give me a chance to go down today, I'll do it!  I'm desperate to get out of this poverty. I'm not scared to die or get arrested because even the police are involved in this. I don't blame zama-zamas; in fact I'm encouraged by their initiative."

These are the words of a 18 year old jobless hostel resident in Welkom, South Africa.  These words are especially disturbing after  a week where at least 76 illegal miners (zama-zama's or chance-takers) have died in disused shafts of a gold mine.  This man also admitted that illegal mining continues, despite the tragedy and a spate of raids by the police and soldiers, the illegal mining continues. ...

Most traditional companies are quite intentional about choosing their mission, often settling on a well-crafted statement that sets market domination and excellence as their target. Sonja and I have been less intentional, and have rather let our mission emerge over the last 12 months - emergence is a key factor in managing complexity after all :)

What is our mission then?

It's not market domination, nor is it service excellence ... while those are important factors of our business. Rather, our mission is two-fold:

1. Changing the mindsets around the perceived value of water, and
2. Transforming the culture of safety on mines

These have emerged out of numerous client engagements in the water and mine safety arenas. Through gathering stories of water management and mine safety incidents, we have become convinced that part of our calling (if you like) is to use our narrative techniques to assist in changing mindsets and transforming the culture associated with water usage and mine safety.

The case for improved mine safety is a well known one in South Africa, and globally. However, we believe that the case for improved water usage and management in South Africa is less understood. In fact, we are of the opinion that South Africa is on the verge of a water crisis. If our sense of the early warning signals (mainly seen through the stories we have gathered from companies, government, research institutions and society) is correct, we believe that the average South African needs to better understand the true value and cost of water.

The predominant mindset is that water is cheap and of low value - it is a resource that is "on tap" ... I open my tap and water comes out of it. Simple as that. The reality is that potable (drinking) water is more scarce than we'd like to believe, and hence, the value of water is much higher than most would admit.

Here's one story to support this argument ...

This post is an extension of the thinking in yesterday's post on the evangelism of mine safety (read it here).

It strikes me that, in South Africa especially, we have managed to externalise the role of safety. If we had to deconstruct what quality work, or mining, is we would find that operating safely is a core component of that work. In recognizing this, and the critical nature of safety, we have successfully extracted safety from quality work, and put it on a pedestal of its own. In doing so, an industry has been borne - and this is how most industries come to be.

But then I'm also aware of how, in South Africa especially, anyone who has anything to do with safety has their own perspective on the problem of safety. Share a cup of coffee with them on a break at a safety conference and you'll find they know what "the biggest problem" is in safety, and they'll eat up the rest of your break with their monologue on how the government doesn't do enough of this, how leaders should be doing that, and it goes on.

Now, if the emergence of a religious metaphor in the industry is valid, then I wonder if we can draw parallels between how an established religion works and the dynamics of the safety industry ...

We attended an interesting public workshop on Mine Health and Safety today.  One of the speakers said the following:  Zero harm should be a value, not a slogan.

This made me wonder,  how many supposed "values" are nothing more than slogans? ...

The recent Presidential Mine Safety Audit has caused a ruckus on the wires for reporting that compliance with safety legislation in the South African mining industry is a mere 66%.

We find this interesting in light of our just-released narrative research with Deloitte into the state of mine safety in the country. Our report (click here to download) highlighted the evident gap between the complex nature of the problems facing mine safety and the ordered solutions being utilized to address these problems. One of the concerning patterns we found was what we called an "over-focus on compliance". In light of the Audit's findings one may argue that there is clearly not enough focus on compliance. Well, we would agree and disagree. Here's why ...

"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice that how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds."

 I came across this great quote recently (although I can't remember where, so apologies for not crediting the author).  Mindfulness is a term that keeps popping up in discussions lately.  We're busy with a research project on mine safety in collaboration with Deloitte, and it seems that being mindful or situationally aware is key when it comes to safety.

Leon from Occam's Donkey alerted me to an article that was published in a recent Scientific American on the impact that the language leaders use when referring to terrorism has on the perception of the general population.   For example, a metaphor of "law enforcement" triggers very different responses than a "war" metaphor.

The article starts with the sentence "How we characterise an issue affects how we think about it".  This is perfectly illustrated by typical responses to occupational safety incidents.  Because people tend to classify these as ordered or simple problems, they apply ordered solutions i.e.  they create rules. 

As part of a mining safety project we're currently involved in, we conducted interviews with several key industry stakeholders.  During one of these interviews we were told the following story:

A worker at a mine that has recently experienced a spate of fatal accidents told investigators that he knew the reason why there were so many accidents at this mine, and he also said that they would continue unless certain measures were taken.  According to him, the "ancestors" were angry because they were not consulted before the mine decided to allow women to work underground. Until they were appeased by a "cleansing ceremony", the accidents would continue.