Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist but have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once or twice! This is my take on why “safety affirmations” like “Safety is #1“, “Safety is our top priority,” etc. fail time and again.
Most everyone has heard of “affirmations.” These are the daily and deliberate things one says to oneself to change one’s mindset. If we say it repeatedly, we will begin to believe it, and thus, our attitude and behavior will reflect this newfound belief in ourselves. The science behind self-affirmations is a hotly contested debate in science. But there is one part of self-affirmations that most can agree on…
For them to have a chance at working, the person MUST WANT TO CHANGE.
We also see a form of “affirmations” in team sports. Coaches use their “sayings” and “chants” repeatedly until they begin to take hold within the team dynamics. Coaches, at least the great ones, build cultures within their programs; most focus on “hard work pays off” type cultures, but also on the “there is no I in team” approach.
It seems industrial safety has attempted to shape cultures using affirmations such as “Safety is #1“, “Safety is our top priority,” etc. But there is one massive problem with this approach in industrial safety…
For affirmations to work, the individual must want to change and start with some level of belief in what they are saying.
The problem with these safety affirmations is that they are NOT individual-formed affirmations – they are management affirmations (sort of like the team approach used by coaches).
We can treat our workplace like a locker room and put up banners and posters proclaiming management’s affirmations, and we can even chant them when called upon. But they fail on the surface because they are NOT the employee’s affirmation(s).
Even in sports, the athlete is young(er) and wants to be part of the team. Therefore, they are more likely to want to change their mindset to be part of the winning team. But the recent advent of the “transfer portal” in college sports tends to support my assumption… they played along but never really changed their mindset to the organization’s beliefs. If they had, the transfer portal would not be so popular.
So, I will leave you with these questions:
Do safety affirmations work?
Do they hurt an organization’s credibility in safety?
