It’s tough to bring professionalism to a trade that actively looks to make itself look stupid. There are only so many hours in the day, only so many resources, and if we waste either it’s tough to go to the well and ask for help and money.

And let’s face it, as safety professionals we are perpetual victims, unloved, over-worked, and most of all under-staffed and under-funded. On the other hand, we spend our scarce time and meager resources doing things that don’t reduce the risk of injuries, reduce our operating costs or do really much of anything. 

Chief among the waste-of-time activities that make us look out of touch with any semblance of reality is the creation and promotion of safety slogans. What is the purpose of safety slogans? Deming specifically signaled out slogans in his tenth point for management, “Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belongs to the system and thus lies beyond the power of the work force.”

Creating adversaries

Do safety slogans create adversarial relationships? In a way they do. The fact that we post safety slogans implies that were it not for our little gems of wisdom, the great unwashed would stick their entire heads in the machinery. At their worst, safety slogans patronize and demean the worker. 

Am I stating things too strongly? I don’t think so. Safety slogans don’t raise awareness of safety; it raises and reinforces the awareness that safety professionals think themselves superior to the people who turn wrenches for a living. It widens the gulf between blue and white color. And while safety professionals may not recognize Deming for his genius, I think he hit the nail on the head with this point. If we believe that all but the rarest injuries are the result of either unintended actions (human error/accidents) or poorly calculated risks, then a pithy saying isn’t likely to have much of an effect.

 Who among you has ever read a safety slogan and thought, “Wow, I’ve been approaching my life completely wrong. I’m completely turned around on this. I need to make some changes.” 

The long and the short of it is safety slogans serve no purpose, offer no benefit, and yet we devote precious time and money to thinking them up, launching campaigns around them, and promoting them as if they were a crucial part of our efforts to lower risks. So why do we persist in engaging in an activity that does nothing but make us look ridiculous in the eyes of the organization?  And make no mistake, thinking up safety slogans doesn’t garner safety professionals the respect or esteem of the organization because they coined the phrase, “Safety: It’s Better Than Dying.”

Don’t curry favor

We do it because we like it, and we never ask the question, “Is this activity in the furtherance of safety?”  Sometimes misguided executives press us to come up with a slogan and eager to curry favor, we rush forward in an orgy of sycophantic fervor delighted at the exposure to the C-suite.  Trust me when I tell you this is exposure you can do without. 

As uncomfortable as it may be, we are better served by declining this request and fetching coffee and bagels instead.  We don’t need exposure that perpetuates the C-suite view of safety as simpletons who you call when you want something a kindergarten teacher would refuse to do.  Far better to explain to the executive that your finite time would be better spent engaging in an activity that would return real business results.

Doing “fun” completely wrong

 Not many safety professionals feel comfortable speaking up to an executive, but your first interactions with executives set a tone for the relationship. Do you want to be taken seriously? It begins here. When I have railed against safety slogans before, I invariably get some soft-baked safety guy roll his eyes, smirk and ask, “What’s wrong with having a little fun with safety?”  I am something of an expert in fun (I have had fun that will forever keep me out of any elected office, has gotten me barred from entire countries, and damn near got me killed on multiple occasions), and I am here to tell you that if you think that coming up with safety slogans is fun, you are out of your mind. You are doing “fun” completely wrong. I wouldn’t even categorize thinking up safety slogans as amusing or as a brief respite from mind-crushing boredom. Let me be clear: I think safety slogans are stupid and make us look like simpletons.  Deming was right, we have got to get rid of them.