The Safety Fallacy
The Safety Fallacy
A lot of the common and current safety strategies are
preventing the majority of companies from improving
their health and safety performance.
The biggest barrier we face is the reinforcement that we
currently receive from our flawed and outdated beliefs.
Introduction
The world around us is full of aspirations, opinions and facts. We are by nature, a very
aspirational species, often believing that we can achieve more than is perhaps possible.
Opinions are plentiful; everyone has an opinion on something or other and it seems that
there are more facts reported daily than ever before.
As individuals, we have a unique perspective; no one else will ever observe the world as I,
the individual, through my eyes or through yours. Each of us have our own construct of
reality. However, although we are unique, our frame of reference, our basic assumptions,
values and concepts can be swayed depending on who we associate with, who we spend
time with and who we discuss and debate ideas with. We are, research has shown, not as
good at independent thinking as we would like to believe.
Our opinions it seems, are not perhaps our own.
Opinions are judgements and beliefs and they are formed through our exposure to the
world. To what we see, hear and what we experience. Our opinions are malleable, subjective
and are very prone to cognitive biases.
Cognitive biases
Cognitive biases are errors in our way of thinking that occur when people are processing and
interpreting information from the world around them. These biases are often the result of
our attempt to simplify information.
Simplifying information and creating a story helps us to make sense of the world and reach
decisions more quickly. Unfortunately, these biases can lead to poor and flawed decision
making. They can also lead us to ignore the facts in favour of our preferred constructed
story looking for confirmation that our decision was or is correct. (This is Confirmation Bias).
We spend a lot of our lives sharing our beliefs and trying to influence those around us
through our verbal behaviour. We construct arguments based on tradition and what we
were once taught or have experienced. We try to impart our knowledge on others, on to our
children, our grandchildren, our peers and spouses.
We are prone to using arguments that are not entirely logical. We construct reasoning
around a loosely linked set of pseudo facts that if delivered with enough confidence and
authority should, we hope, persuade the audience at hand of our belief, purpose and call for
action.
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The Safety Fallacy
We lack patience in using and listening to both facts and research based arguments. “Just
tell me the answer; summarise that for me; well, what do you think it means?”
When we try to persuade people that our beliefs or opinion are correct but don’t possess
the facts or evidence that it is so, we sometimes resort to constructing fallacious arguments
to make our point sound credible.
Fallacious arguments
Fallacious arguments are constructed arguments that use false logic to persuade or influence
others in lieu of fact or evidence. Logic fallacies are sometimes purposefully used by
politicians or campaigns to persuade individuals or groups of people to follow a specific
cause or movement.
Using fallacious arguments is especially reinforcing if the bias for flawed logic sounds good to
the user, supports our cognitive biases and appears to gives us a quick solution without
doing the leg work of a properly researched answer to our problem.
One type of fallacious argument is ‘Ad populum’ (appeal to the people), which can conclude
that a belief or opinion is true because many or most people believe it. Groupthink?
Some examples include –




659m Manchester United Fans can’t be wrong.
Everyone's doing it, we should do it too.
Millions of people drink coke so it can’t be that bad for you.
Millions of people agree with my viewpoint, therefore it must be right.
Link to health and safety
So what’s all this got to do with Health and Safety? Well, a large number of major national
and international industrial and construction company’s health and safety performance has
plateaued yet again. Furthermore, it’s their current safety strategies that are preventing
many an organisation from achieving further improvement. These strategies are preventing
improvement because they are based on fallacy and flawed logic, fuelled by cognitive bias.
Time and time again, as we work with major organisations, we experience programmes that
are built on systems of belief rather than systems of science. Where once the biggest risk to
workers (mostly of which were children) was the direct exposure to moving machinery in
factories, the biggest risk we now face is believing we have improved health and safety. We
have adopted a number of popular initiatives, including many fallacious behavioural safety
programmes.
We have created and perpetuated a Safety Fallacy to feed our cognitive biases.
Introduction of the Safety Fallacy
A Safety Fallacy is any safety strategy, initiative, procedure or practice that is based on
supposition, false premise, belief, wishful thinking, mass copying, and rationalisation. Its
desired objective can be disproved by logical debate, deductive reasoning and scientific
research.
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The Safety Fallacy
The problem with Safety Fallacies is that they are believable, to most. Especially, the more
popular they are. It is easier to follow the crowd and agree to a fallacious argument than it is
to challenge it. Even if you are in possession of the facts your current cognitive biases will
most probably support the fallacious argument.
Examples of fallacious arguments for safety include –
 Use of Heinrichs Triangle’s theory to reduce the more serious injuries by focussing on
reducing the less serious injuries.
 The belief that introducing a near miss reporting procedure will increase the hazard
awareness of the individuals and improve worker safety.
Examples
What
What the believers say Reporting near miss
incidents can significantly
improve worker safety. –
from….???
What actually is –
The reporting of a near
miss will increase the
number of near misses
reported by one.
The use of the right tool
for the right job can
significantly improve the
worker (who needs to use
that tool)’s safety.
Using the appropriate
suitable and sufficient fall
protection equipment can
significantly improve the
worker’s (who is working
at height) safety.
Cognitive bias
Fallacy type
Fundamental Attribution Error.
The tendency for people to place an undue
emphasis on the internal characteristics of a
person, to explain someone’s behaviour in a
given situation rather thn considering the
situational external factors.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on
and remember information in a way that
confirms one's preconception.
Anchoring bias
People are over reliant on the first piece of
information they hear.
Observer-expectancy effect
A cousin of confirmation bias, here our
expectations unconsciously influence how we
perceive an outcome. Researchers looking for
a certain result in an experiment, for example,
may inadvertently manipulate or interpret the
results to reveal their expectations.
Bias blind spots
Failing to recognize your cognitive biases is a
bias in itself. Notably, Princeton psychologist
Emily Pronin has found that "individuals see
the existence and operation of cognitive and
motivational biases much more in others than
in themselves."
Conservatism bias
Where people believe prior evidence more
than new evidence or information that has
emerged. People were slow to accept the fact
that the Earth was round because they
maintained their earlier understanding the
planet was flat.
Ostrich effect
The decision to ignore dangerous or negative
information by "burying" one's head in the
sand, like an ostrich.
Appeal to probability
A statement that takes
something for granted
because it would
probably be the case (or
might be the case)
Suppressed correlative
where a correlative is
redefined so that one
alternative is made
impossible
Correlation proves
causation (post hoc ergo
propter hoc) – a faulty
assumption that
correlation between two
variables implies that one
causes the other.[27]
Appeal to tradition
(argumentum ad
antiquitatem) – a
conclusion supported
solely because it has
long been held to be true.
Argumentum ad
populum
(appeal to widespread
belief, bandwagon
argument, appeal to the
majority, appeal to the
people) – Where a
proposition is claimed to
be true or good solely
because many people
believe it to be so.
Safety Fallacies are very dangerous as they distract from the truth. It is easier to believe the
flawed logic than it is to go against it, especially if it has a lot of momentum. Safety Fallacies
in the UK have a lot of momentum.
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The Safety Fallacy
Think about how long it took people to accept that the world was round. The belief that the
world was flat was perfectly supported by the fallacious arguments of the time. It wasn’t
until Aristotle and Eratosthenes used mathematical science and astronomy to prove
otherwise that people started to accept the fact. The idea was definitely proved of course by
Columbus.
Other examples include
 Preaching and believing that all harm is preventable in hazardous environments will
decrease the tolerance to unsafe situations.
 The belief that getting people to make safety commitments will make them more
likely to behave safely and believing that can and will actually do what they stated.
 The belief that making people reverse park will increase their safety on site because
they have already carried out an act of ‘safety’.
All tosh!
Why do we continue to use initiatives built on Fallacy?
The supportive argument for continuing to use these popular practices to improve health
and safety standards is fuelled by a lack of understanding of what is actually driving
behaviour and delivering the results the company is currently getting.
Behaviour; the things we say and do, all happen at a local level. Behaviours are a product of
the local environment. The actions of the worker, of the leader or manager, at the moment
in time they happen, are prompted by the antecedents in the local environment. If the
antecedent in not present, the behaviour will not occur. All behaviours that occur are
reinforced by the perceived consequence or outcome the performer will get from executing
that behaviour.
Safe behaviour is a behaviour that can be executed when it needs to be, without the person
performing it getting injured or causing incident. In a company that employs thousands of
people, there are millions of behaviours performed every day. The majority of which will
lead to task executed correctly with no injury. All of these behaviours are supported by the
local environment.
Strategic Fallacy
Your safety strategy doesn’t dictate your safety performance, your business strategy does
 The belief that having a specific Health and safety strategy separate to that of the
business strategy will improve health and safety performance.
Each local environment has come about because of the company’s business decisions, the
company strategy. The reason why the worker is working on a building site in the centre of
London is because the business chose to tender for that work. The choice of which tool the
worker uses for the task is a product of the availability, or lack of thereof driven by the
requirement to do the task and the support and planning (or not) from the supervisor.
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The Safety Fallacy
If you follow the chain of local environments up towards the directing mind of the company
you will find that they are in line with the true focus of the company. Companies direct their
employee’s attention towards where it needs to go in order to fulfil a purpose. The purpose
of a company is determined by its strategy. In absence of a strategy, the direction is
determined by the primary consequence providers.
According to Daniel Goleman author of Focus, attention tends to focus on what has meaning
- what matters. The story a leader tells can imbue a particular focus with such resonance,
and so implies a choice for others on where to put their attention and energy. A leaders field
of attention and the particular issues and goals being focussed on, guide the attention of
those who follow them, whether or not the leader explicitly articulates it. People make their
choices about where to focus based on their perception of what matters to leaders. When
leaders choose strategy, they are guiding attention.
This being the case, it is the leader’s focus that creates the environment that leads to the
behaviours that deliver the results. It is the leader’s business strategy (the leader’s attention)
that delivers the results, all the results, including health safety, quality, environment etc.
Having a separate set of initiatives, a bolt on safety programme, and a distinct and
disconnected strategy cannot compete for attention.
But, and here’s the thing, we don’t care…..
Our current Cognitive bias, supports our Safety Fallacies. We are comfortable with the
delusion. Believing or even entertaining the idea that we may have created and have been
relying upon something already broken to deliver our safety improvements would be very
punishing. Why on earth would we admit that we have been counting on flawed logic to
prevent the deaths of say the most recent 35 people to die in construction in the last 6
months – we wouldn’t! It doesn’t make cognitive sense. But, it is, nonetheless, true.
Change has always taken effort. Change isn’t just a cultural struggle, it’s an internal struggle,
a struggle against our biases. Change always starts with an individual. There are many
individuals in this room. Individuals who are not so cognitively bias or you wouldn’t be here.
However, you are swimming against a tide of fallacious arguments.
There is a growing and overwhelming base of evidence supporting the use of behavioural
science and BMT in improving safety. When combatting cognitive bias and the Safety
Fallacy, it is better to focus on what actually makes behaviour safe rather than reason against
a fallacious argument.
Don’t argue that the world is round, go prove it!
END
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