When I say the goal of leadership is not to be safe it is because Safe and Safety are words, which defined, mean an absence of risk. Since I am sure most everyone would agree that every activity has some element of risk, we agree that no activity can be safe. Leadership’s goal is to take risks, risks lead to benefits, and avoid unnecessary risk.
Safe and safety are not levels of risk but absolute absence of it. Any risk means an activity is not safe.
There is nothing in life that is without risk, life is inherently unsafe and a combination of decisions, which either minimize risk or ignore it.
Once we concede that life is risky not safe, the question becomes:
What can we do about risk?
This question is the centerpiece of Risk Management and the target we should focus on when we are trying to reduce injury or deaths. The problem is when we believe we can be safe we cannot identify risk. Identification of risk is the first step of what the Navy calls Operational Risk Management.
We know we cannot affect safety because risk exists always. So every time we tell people to be safe, drive safe, or take safety training we ask them to accomplish the impossible. More importantly when we strive for safety we fail 100% of the time.
The ABCs of Risk Management
A Identify risk (not safety)
B Ensure benefits outweigh risks
C Accept no unnecessary risk
So why do we preoccupy our lives in pursuit of the ever elusive and hypothetical safety?
In the advertising industry you can sell anything or at least anything easier if you say it in some way affects safety, so advertisers lie. Sometimes they do not understand the implications and other times they just want to sell more of a product. I have come to believe when I hear “safe” advertising for everything from condoms, to cars, to medications; that SAFE should be an acronym for Selling A Fictitious Environment.
Another industry which seems to commonly misrepresent its products it the training and education industries. Can you believe that the Motorcycle Safety (absence of risk) Foundation has convinced many of the countries Motor Vehicle Departments that they can train riders to ride safely or safer? That is to say that motorcycling can be done safely or without risk. They are just one example though companies offering skills training for moderate or high-risk sports frequently refer to their product as safety training.
One more industry, which I think is largely to blame, is the risk management experts. Lets face it people need jobs and if they admit that safety is not possible they risk being unemployed. I know one organization for example which has set up a “safety center” and preaches tirelessly the religion of safety while at the same time trying to encourage employees to manage risk. I could believe that they do not understand the difference and it is just the lack of understanding that prevents them from seeing this contradiction. If we preoccupy ourselves with safety we will not see the risks.
I am very sure that most of the greatest leaders of the country and the world understand this distinction. For example,
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. – James Thurber
Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. – Walter Anderson
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks. -Herodotus
It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win. –John Paul Jones
If risk exists; safety cannot. –Mark Carroll
To tell our people to be “safe”, attend “safety” training, or to insinuate in any way that the word safe and risk or synonymous is irresponsible and acceptance of unnecessary risk
I say again, the goal of leadership is not to be safe but to encourage risk management. The first step is to accept that we are not ever safe.
©2002 Mark C. Carroll
All Rights Reserved
