The paper’s abstract reads: The failure of 27 wildland firefighters to follow orders to drop their heavy tools so they could move faster and outrun an exploding fire led to their death within sight of safe areas. Possible explanations for this puzzling behavior are developed using guidelines proposed by James D. Thompson, the first editor of the Administrative Science Quarterly. These explanations are then used to show that scholars of organizations are in analogous threatened positions, and they too seem to be keeping their heavy tools and falling behind. ASQ's 40th anniversary provides a pretext to reexamine this potentially dysfunctional tendency and to modify it by reaffirming an updated version of Thompson's original guidelines. The Mann Gulch fire was a wildfire in Montana where 15 smokejumpers approached the fire to begin fighting it, and unexpected high winds caused the fire to suddenly expand. This "blow-up" of the fire covered 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) in ten minutes, claiming the lives of 13 firefighters, including 12 of the smokejumpers. Only three of the smokejumpers survived. The South Canyon Fire was a 1994 wildfire that took the lives of 14 wildland firefighters on Storm King Mountain, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on July 6, 1994. It is often also referred to as the "Storm King" fire. Discussion Points:Some details of the Mann Gulch fire deaths due to refusal to drop their tools Weich lays out ten reasons why these firefighters may have refused to drop their tools:Couldn't hear the orderLack of explanation for order - unusual, counterintuitiveYou don’t trust the leaderControl- if you lose your tools, lose capability, not a firefighterSkill at dropping tools - ie survivor who leaned a shovel against a tree instead of droppingSkill with replacement activity - it’s an unfamiliar situationFailure - to drop your tools, as a firefighter,  is to failSocial dynamics - why would I do it if others are notConsequences - if people believe it won’t make a difference, they won’t drop.These men should have been shown the difference it would makeIdentity- being a firefighter, without tools they are throwing away their identity.  This was also shortly after WWII, where you are a coward if you throw away your weapons, and would be alienated from your groupThomson had four principles necessary for research in his publication: Administrative science should focus on relationships - you can’t understand without structures and people and variables. Abstract concepts - not on single concrete ideas, but theories that apply to the fieldDevelopment of operational definitions that bridge concepts and raw experience - not vague fluffy things with confirmation bias - sadly, we still don’t have all the definitions todayValue of the problem - what do they mean? What is the service researchers are trying to provide? How Weick applies these principles to the ten reasons, then looks at what it means for researchersWeick’s list of ten- they are multiple, interdependent reasons – they can all be true at the same timeThompsons list of four, relating them to Weick’s ten, in today’s organizationsWhat are the heavy tools that we should get rid of? Weick links heaviest tools with identityDrew’s thought - getting rid of risk assessments would let us move faster, but people won’t drop them, relating to the ten reasons aboveTakeaways: 1) Emotional vs. cognitive  (did I hear that, do I know what to do) emotional (trust, failure, etc.) in individuals and teams2) Understanding group dynamics/first person/others to follow - the pilot diversion story, Piper Alpha oil rig jumpers, first firefighter who drops tools. Next week is episode 100 - we’ve got a plan! Quotes:“Our attachment to our tools is not a simple, rational thing.” - Drew“It’s really hard to recognize that you’re well past that point where success is not an option at all.” - Drew“These firefighters were several years since they’d been in a really raging, high-risk fire situation…” - David“I encourage anyone to read Weick’s papers, they’re always well-written.” - David“Well, I think according to Weick, the moment you begin to think that dropping your tools is impossible and unthinkable, that might be the moment you actually have to start wondering why you’re not dropping your tools.” - Drew“The heavier the tool is, the harder it is to drop.” - Drew Resources:Karl Weick - Drop Your Tools PaperThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

In 1939, Alfred Marrow, the managing director of the Harwood Manufacturing Corporation factory in Virginia, invited Kurt Lewin (a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the U.S.to come to the textile factory to discuss significant problems with productivity and turnover of employees. The Harwood study is considered the first experiment of group decision-making and self-management in industry and the first example of applied organizational psychology. The Harwood Experiment was part of Lewin's continuing exploration of participatory action research. In this episode David and Drew discuss the main areas covered by this research: Group decision-makingSelf-managementLeadership trainingChanging people’s thoughts about stereotypesOvercoming resistance to change It turns out that yes, Lewin identified many areas of the work environment that could be improved and changed with the participation of management and members of the workforce communicating with each other about their needs and wants.This was novel stuff in 1939, but proved to be extremely insightful and organizations now utilize many of this experiment’s tenets 80 years later.  Discussion Points:Similarities in this study compared to the Chicago Western Electric “Hawthorne experiments”Organizational science – Lewin’s approachHow Lewin came to be invited to the Virginia factory and the problems they needed to solveAutocratic vs. democratic - studies of school children’s performanceThe setup of the experiment - 30 minute discussions several times a week with four cohortsThe criticisms and nitpicks around the study participantsGroup decision makingSelf-management and field theoryHarwood leaders were appointed for tech knowledge, not people skillsThe experiment held “clinics” where leaders could bring up their issues to discussChanging stereotypes - the factory refused to hire women over 30 - but experimented by hiring a group for this studyPresenting data does not work to change beliefs, but stories and discussions doResistance to change - changing workers’ tasks without consulting them on the changes created bitterness and lack of confidenceThe illusion of choice lowers resistanceThe four cohorts:Control group - received changes as they normally would - just ‘being told’Group received more detail about the changes, members asked to represeet the group with managementGroup c and d participated in voting for the changes, their productivity was the only one that increased– 15%This was an atypical factory/workforce to begin with, that already had a somewhat participatory approachTakeaways:Involvement in the discussion of change vs. no involvementSelf-management - setting own goals Leadership needs more than technical competenceStereotypes - give people space to express views, they may join the group majority in voting the other wayResistance to change - if people can contribute and participate, confidence is increasedFocus on group modifications, not individualsMore collaborative, less autocraticDoing this kind of research is not that difficult, you don’t need university-trained researchers, just people with a good mind for research ideas/methods Quotes:“The experiments themselves were a series of applied research studies done in a single manufacturing facility in the U.S., starting in 1939.” - David“Lewin’s principal for these studies was…’no research without action, and no action without research,’ and that’s where the idea of action research came from…each study is going to lead to a change in the plant.” - Drew“It became clear that the same job was done very differently by different people.” - David“This is just a lesson we need to learn over and over and over again in our organizations, which is that you don’t get very far by telling your workers what to do without listening to them.” - Drew“With 80 years of hindsight it's really hard to untangle the different explanations for what was actually going on here.” - Drew“Their theory was that when you include workers in the design of new methods…it increases their confidence…it works by making them feel like they’re experts…they feel more confident in the change.” - Drew  Resources:The Practical Theorist: Life and Work of Kurt Lewin by Alfred MarrowThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

This was very in-depth research within a single organization, and the survey questions it used were well-structured.  With 48 interviews to pull from, it definitely generated enough solid data to inform the paper’s results and make it a valuable study.We’ll be discussing the pros and cons of linking safety performance to monetary bonuses, which can often lead to misreporting, recategorizing, or other “perverse” behaviors regarding safety reporting and metrics, in order to capture that year-end dollar amount, especially among mid-level and senior management. Discussion Points:Do these bonuses work as intended?Oftentimes profit sharing within a company only targets senior management teams, at the expense of the front-line employeesIf safety and other measures are tied monetarily to bonuses, organizations need to spend more than a few minutes determining what is being measuredBonuses – do they really support safety? They don’t prevent accidents“What gets measured gets managed” OR “What gets measured gets manipulated”Supervisors and front-line survey respondents did not understand how metrics were used for bonuses87% replied that the safety measures had limited or negative effectNearly half said the bonus structure tied to safety showed that the organization felt safety was a priorityNothing negative was recorded by the respondents in senior management- did they believe this is a useful tool?Most organizations have only 5% or less performance tied to safetyDavid keeps giving examples in the hopes that Drew will agree that at least one of them is a good ideaDrew has “too much faith in humanity” around reporting and measuring safety in these organizationsTry this type of survey in your own organization and see what you find Quotes:“I’m really mixed, because I sort of agree on principle, but I disagree on any practical form.” - Drew“I think there’s a challenge between the ideals here and the practicalities.” - David“I think sometimes we can really put pretty high stakes on pretty poorly thought out things, we oversimplify what we’re going to measure and reward.” - Drew“If you look at the general literature on performance bonuses, you see that they cause trouble across the board…they don’t achieve their purposes…they cause senior executives to do behaviors that are quite perverse.” - Drew“I don’t like the way they’ve written up the analysis I think that there’s some lost opportunity due to a misguided desire to be too statistically methodical about something that doesn’t lend itself to the statistical analysis.” - Drew“If you are rewarding anything, then my view is that you’ve got to have safety alongside that if you want to signal an importance there.” - David Resources:Link to the PaperThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

Just because concepts, theories, and opinions are useful and make people feel comfortable, doesn’t mean they are correct.  No one so far has come up with an answer in the field of safety that proves, “this is the way we should do it,” and in the work of safety, we must constantly evaluate and update our practices, rules, and recommendations. This of course means we can never feel completely comfortable – and humans don’t like that feeling.  We’ll dig into why we should be careful about feeling a sense of “clarity” and mental ease when we think that we understand things completely- because what happens if someone is deliberately making us feel that a problem is “solved”...? The paper we’re discussing deals with a number of interesting psychological constructs and theories. The abstract reads: The feeling of clarity can be dangerously seductive. It is the feeling associated with understanding things. And we use that feeling, in the rough-and-tumble of daily life, as a signal that we have investigated a matter sufficiently. The sense of clarity functions as a thought-terminating heuristic. In that case, our use of clarity creates significant cognitive vulnerability, which hostile forces can try to exploit. If an epistemic manipulator can imbue a belief system with an exaggerated sense of clarity, then they can induce us to terminate our inquiries too early — before we spot the flaws in the system. How might the sense of clarity be faked? Let’s first consider the object of imitation: genuine understanding. Genuine understanding grants cognitive facility. When we understand something, we categorize its aspects more easily; we see more connections between its disparate elements; we can generate new explanations; and we can communicate our understanding. In order to encourage us to accept a system of thought, then, an epistemic manipulator will want the system to provide its users with an exaggerated sensation of cognitive facility. The system should provide its users with the feeling that they can easily and powerfully create categorizations, generate explanations, and communicate their understanding. And manipulators have a significant advantage in imbuing their systems with a pleasurable sense of clarity, since they are freed from the burdens of accuracy and reliability. I offer two case studies of seductively clear systems: conspiracy theories; and the standardized, quantified value systems of bureaucracies.  Discussion Points:This has been our longest break from the podcastDavid traveled to the USUncertainty can make us risk-averseOrganizations strive for more certainty in the workplaceScimago for evaluating research papersA well-written paper, but not peer-evaluated by psychologistsFocus on conspiracy theories and bureaucracyThe Studio C comedy sketch - bank robbers meet a philosopherAcademic evaluations - white men vs. minorities/womenPuzzles and pleasure spikesClarity as a thought terminatorEpistemic intimidation and epistemic seductionCognitive Fluency, Insight, and Cognitive FacilityAlthough fascinating, there is no evidence to support the paper’s claimsEcho chambers and thought bubblesRush Limbaugh and Fox News - buying into the belief systemNumbers, graphs, charts, grades, tables – all make us feel comfort and controlTakeaways:Just because it’s useful, doesn’t mean it’s correctThe world is not supposed to make sense, it’s important to live with some cognitive discomfortBe cautious about feeling safe and comfortableConstant evaluation of safety practices must be the norm Resources:Link to the PaperThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

Assessing the Influence of “Take 5” Pre-Task Risk Assessments on Safety” by Jop Havinga, Mohammed Ibrahim Shire,  and our own Andrew Rae.  The paper was just published in “Safety,” - an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal of industrial and human health safety published quarterly online by MDPI. The paper’s abstract reads: This paper describes and analyses a particular safety practice, the written pre-task risk assessment commonly referred to as a “Take 5”. The paper draws on data from a trial at a major infrastructure construction project. We conducted interviews and field observations during alternating periods of enforced Take 5 usage, optional Take 5 usage, and banned Take 5 usage. These data, along with evidence from other field studies, were analysed using the method of Functional Interrogation. We found no evidence to support any of the purported mechanisms by which Take 5 might be effective in reducing the risk of workplace accidents. Take 5 does not improve the planning of work, enhance worker heedfulness while conducting work, educate workers about hazards, or assist with organisational awareness and management of hazards. Whilst some workers believe that Take 5 may sometimes be effective, this belief is subject to the “Not for Me” effect, where Take 5 is always believed to be helpful for someone else, at some other time. The adoption and use of Take 5 is most likely to be an adaptive response by individuals and organisations to existing structural pressures. Take 5 provides a social defence, creating an auditable trail of safety work that may reduce anxiety in the present, and deflect blame in the future. Take 5 also serves a signalling function, allowing workers and companies to appear diligent about safety.  Discussion Points:Drew, how are you feeling with just a week of comments and reactions coming in?If people are complaining that the study is not big enough, great! That means people are interestedIntroduction of Jop Havinga, and his top-level framing of the studyWhy do we do the ‘on-off’ style of research?We saw no difference in results when cards were mandatory, or optional, or bannedPerplexingly, some cards are filled out before getting to the job, and some after the job is complete, when there is no need for the cardOne way cards may be helpful is simply creating a mindfulness and heedfulness about proceduresThe “Not for Me” effect– people believe the cards may be good for others, but not necessary for selvesResearch criticisms like, “how can you actually tell people are paying attention or not?”The Take 5 cards serve as a protective layer for management and workers looking to avoid blameMain takeaway:  Stop using Take 5s in accident investigations, as they provide no real data, and they may even be detrimental– as in “safety clutter”Send us your suggestions for future episodes, we are actively looking! Quotes:“You always get taken by surprise when people find other ways to criticize [the research.] I think my favorite criticism is people who immediately hit back by trying to attack the integrity of the research.” - Dr. Drew“So this link between behavioral psychology and safety science is sometimes very weak, it’s sometimes just a general idea of applying incentives.” - Dr. Drew “When someone says, ‘we introduced Take 5’s and we reduced our number of accidents by 50%,’ that is nonsense. There is no [one] safety intervention in the world where you could have that level of change and be able to see it.” - Dr. Drew“It’s really hard to argue that these Take 5s lead to actual better planning of the work they’re conducting.” - Dr. Jop Havinga“What we saw is just a total disconnect – the behavior happens without the Take 5s, the Take 5s happen without the behavior. The two NEVER actually happened at the same time.” - Dr. Drew “Considering that Take 5 cards are very generic, they will rarely contain anything new for somebody.” - Dr. Jop Havinga“Often the people who are furthest removed from the work are most satisfied with Take 5s and most reluctant to get rid of them.” - Dr. Drew  Resources:Link to the PaperThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

Discover the essential characteristics of high-quality safety leadership engagements defined by industry experts. Learn how effective leadership can enhance workplace safety through genuine communication and understanding workers' challenges. The conversation shifts from counting initiatives to measuring their true impact on safety culture. A unique scoring system is introduced to assess leadership effectiveness, urging organizations to invest in training for meaningful interactions. This insightful discussion promises to reshape how safety leadership is perceived and evaluated.

We will discuss the pros and cons of “Golden Safety Rules” and a punitive safety culture vs. a critical risk management approach, and analyze the limitations of the methods used in this research.The paper’s abstract introduction reads: Golden safety rules (GSR) have been in existence for decades across multiple industry sectors – championed by oil and gas – and there is a belief that they have been effective in keeping workers safe. As safety programs advance in the oil and gas sector, can we be sure that GSR have a continued role? ERM surveyed companies across mining, power, rail, construction, manufacturing, chemicals and oil and gas, to examine the latest thinking about GSR challenges and successes. As we embarked on the survey, the level of interest was palpable; from power to mining it was apparent that companies were in the process of reviewing and overhauling their use of GSR. The paper will present key insights from the survey around the questions we postulated. Are GSR associated with a punitive safety culture, and have they outlived their usefulness as company safety cultures mature? Is the role of GSR being displaced as critical control management reaches new pinnacles? Do we comply with our GSR, and how do we know? Do our GSR continue to address the major hazards that our personnel are most at risk from? How do we apply our GSR with contractors, and to what extent do our contractors benefit from that? The paper concludes with some observations of how developments outside of the oil and gas sector provide meaningful considerations for the content and application of GSR for oil and gas companies. Discussion Points:There isn’t a lot of good research out there on Golden RulesMost of the research is statistics on accidents or incidentsMost Golden Rules are conceived without frontline or worker inputGolden Rules are viewed as either guidelines for actions, or a resource for actionsSome scenarios where workers should not/could not follow absolute rules– David’s example of the seatbelt story in the AU outbackIf rules cannot be followed, the work should be redesignedDiscussion of the paper from the APPEA Trade JournalAnswering seven questions:Are life-saving rules associated with punitive safety cultures?Have life-saving rules outlived their usefulness?Has the role of life-saving rules been replaced by more mature risk management programs?Do we actually comply with life-saving rules?How do we know there is compliance with life-saving rules?Do life-saving rules continue to address major hazards?How do we apply life-saving rules to our contractors?There were 15 companies involved in the research and a one hour interview with a management team member for each companyOur conclusions for each of the questions askedKey takeaways -If we’ve got rules that define key roles, they may continue to be relevantThere are a lot of factors that influence the effectiveness of the rules programIt’s difficult, if not impossible, to divorce a life-saving rule program from the development of a punitive safety cultureCritical control management needs to be developed in partnership with your workforceSo the answer to this episode’s question is – this paper cannot answer itSend us your suggestions for future episodes, we are actively looking! Quotes:“People tend to think of rules as constraining.  They’re like laws that you stick within that you don’t step outside of.” Dr. Drew“Often the type of things that are published in trade associations are much closer to the real-world concerns of people at work, and a lot of people working for consultancies are very academically-minded.” - Dr. Drew“One way to get a name in safety is to be good at safety, another way to get a name in safety is to tell everyone how good you are at safety.” Dr. Drew“They’re not just talking to people who love Golden Rules [in this paper].  We’ve got some companies that never even wanted them, some companies that tried them and don’t like them, some companies that love them. So that’s a fantastic sample when it comes to, ‘do we have a diverse range of opinions.’” - Dr. Drew“In many organizations that have done life-saving rules, they saw this critical risk management framework as an evolution, an improvement, in what they’re doing.” Dr. David“I think that’s the danger of trying to make things too simple is it becomes either too generic or too vague, or just not applicable to so many circumstances.” Dr. Drew Resources:Link to the Golden Safety Rules Paper by Fraser and ColganThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork.com

The paper results center on a survey sent to a multitude of French industries, and although the sampling is from only one country, 15 years ago, the findings are very illustrative of common issues among safety professionals within their organizations.  David used this paper as a reference for his PhD thesis, and we are going to dig into each section to discuss. The paper’s abstract introduction reads: What are the training needs of company preventionists? An apparently straightforward question, but one that will very quickly run into a number of difficulties. The first involves the extreme variability of situations and functions concealed behind the term preventionist and which stretch way beyond the term’s polysemous nature. Moreover, analysis of the literature reveals that very few research papers have endeavoured to analyse the activities associated with prevention practices, especially those of preventionists. This is a fact, even though prevention-related issues and preventionist responsibilities are becoming increasingly important. Discussion Points:The paper, reported from French industries, focuses heavily on safety in areas like occupational therapies, ergonomics, pesticides, hygiene, etc.The downside of any “survey” result is that we can only capture what the respondents “say” or self-report about their experiencesMost of the survey participants were not originally trained as safety professionalsThere are three subgroups within the survey:High school grads with little safety trainingPost high school with two-year tech training program paths to safety workUniversity-educated levels including engineers and managersThere were six main positions isolated within this study:Prevention Specialists - hold a degree in safety, high status in safety managementField Preventionists - lesser status, operations level, closer to front linesPrevention Managers - executive status, senior management, engineers/project managersPreventionist Proxies - may be establishing safety programs, in opposition to the organization, chaotic positionsBasic Coordinators - mainly focused on training othersUnstructured - no established safety procedures, may have been thrown into this roleSo many of the respondents felt isolated and frustrated within the organizations– which continues to be true in the safety professionThere is evidence in this paper and others that a large portion of safety professionals “hate their bosses” and feel ‘great distress’ in their positionsOnly 2.5% felt comfortable negotiating safety with managementTakeaways:Safety professionals come from widely diverse backgroundsTraining and education are imperativeThese are complex jobs that often are not on siteRole clarity is very low, leading to frustration and job dissatisfactionSend us your suggestions for future episodes, we are actively looking! Quotes:“I think this study was quite a coordinated effort across the French industry that involved a lot of different professional associations.” - David“It might be interesting for our readers/listeners to sort of think about which of these six groups do you fit into and how well do you reckon that is a description of what you do.” - Drew“I thought it was worth highlighting just how much these different [job] categories are determined by the organization, not by the background or skill of the safety practitioner.” - Drew“[I read a paper that stated:] There is a significant proportion of safety professionals that hate their bosses …and it was one of the top five professions that hate their bosses and managers.” - David“You don’t have to go too far in the safety profession to find frustrated professionals.” - David“There’s a lot to think on and reflect on…it’s one sample in one country 15 years ago, but these are useful reflections as we get to the practical takeaways.” - David “The activity that I like safety professionals to do is to think about the really important parts of their role that add the most value to the safety of work, and then go and ask questions of their stakeholders of what they think are the most valuable parts of the role, …and work toward alignment.” - David“Getting that role clarity makes you feel that you’re doing better in your job.” - Drew Resources:Link to the Safety Science ArticleThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork.com

We will go through each letter of the amusing and memorable acronym and give you our thoughts on ways to make sure each point is addressed, and different methodologies to consider when verifying or assuring that each element has been satisfied before you cite the source.Sarah Blakeslee writes (about her CRAAP guidelines): Sometimes a  person needs an acronym that sticks. Take CRAAP for instance. CRAAP is an acronym that most students don’t expect a librarian to be using, let alone using to lead a class. Little do they  know that librarians can be crude and/or rude, and do almost anything in order to penetrate their students’  deep memories and satisfy their instructional objectives.  So what is CRAAP and how does it relate to libraries? Here begins a long story about a short acronym… Discussion Points:The CRAAP guidelines were so named to make them memorableThe five CRAAP areas to consider when using sources for your work are:Currency- timeliness, how old is too old?Relevance- who is the audience, does the info answer your questionsAuthority- have you googled the author? What does that search show you?Accuracy- is it verifiable, supported by evidence, free of emotion?Purpose- is the point of view objective?  Or does it seem colored by political, religious, or cultural biases?Takeaways:You cannot fully evaluate a source without looking AT the sourceBe cautious about second-hand sources– is it the original article, or a press release about the article?Be cautious of broad categories, there are plenty of peer-reviewed, well-known university articles that aren’t credibleTo answer our title question, use the CRAAP guidelines as a basic guide to evaluating your sources, it is a useful toolSend us your suggestions for future episodes, we are actively looking! Quotes:“The first thing I found out is there’s pretty good evidence that teaching students using the [CRAAP] guidelines doesn’t work.” - Dr. Drew“It turns out that even with the [CRAAP] guidelines right in front of them, students make some pretty glaring mistakes when it comes to evaluating sources.” - Dr. Drew“Until I was in my mid-twenties, I never swore at all.” - Dr. Drew“When you’re talking about what someone else said [in your paper], go read what that person said, no matter how old it is.” - Dr. Drew“The thing to look out for in qualitative research is, how much are the participants being led by the researchers.” - Dr. Drew“So what I really want to know when I’m reading a qualitative study is not what the participant answered.  I want to know what the question was in the first place.” - Dr. Drew Resources:Link to the CRAAP TestThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork.com

An excerpt from the paper’s abstract reads as follows: The proposition is based on theory about relationships between knowledge and power, complemented by organizational theory on standardization and accountability. We suggest that the increased reliance on self-regulation and international standards in safety management may be drivers for a shift in the distribution of power regarding safety, changing the conception of what is valid and useful knowledge. Case studies from two Norwegian transport sectors, the railway and the maritime sectors, are used to illustrate the proposition. In both sectors, we observe discourses based on generic approaches to safety management and an accompanying disempowerment of the practitioners and their perspectives. Join us as we delve into the paper and endeavor to answer the question it poses.We will discuss these highlights: Safety science may contribute to the marginalization of practical knowledgeHow “paper trails” and specialists marginalize and devalue experience-based knowledgeAn applied science needs to understand the effects it causes, also from a power-perspectiveSafety Science should reflect on how our results interact with existing system-specific knowledgeExamples from their case studies in maritime transport and railways Discussion Points:David has been traveling in the U.S. for much of January seeing colleaguesThis is one of David’s favorite papersDiscussion of the paper’s authors being academics, not scientistsHow does an organization create “good safety” and what does that look like?The rise of homogenous international standards of safetyCan safety professionals transfer their knowledge and work in other industriesThe two case studies in this paper: Norwegian railway and maritime systems/industriesThe separation between top-down system safety and local, front-line practitionersOur key takeaways from this paperSend us your suggestions for future episodes, we are actively looking! Quotes:“If you understand safety, then it really shouldn’t matter which industry you’re applying it on.” - Dr. Drew Rae“I can’t imagine, as a safety professional, how you’re impactful in the first 12 months [on a new job] until you actually understand what it is you’re trying to influence.” - Dr. David Provan“It feels to me this is what happened here, that they formed this view of what was going on and then actually traced back through their data to try to make sense of it.” - Dr. David Provan“I have to say I think they genuinely use these case studies to really effectively illustrate and support the argument that they’re making.” - Dr. Drew Rae“Once we start thinking too hard about a function, we start formalizing it and once we start formalizing it, it starts to become detached from operations and sort of flows from that operational side into the management side.” - Dr. Drew Rae“I don’t think it's being driven by the academics at all and clearly it’s in the sociology of the profession's literature all the way back to the 1950s and 60s.” - Dr. David Provan“We’re fighting amongst ourselves as a non-working community about whose [safety] model should be the one to then impose on the genuine front line practitioners.” - Dr. Drew Rae Resources:Link to Paper in JSSThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork.com