In the world of safety, are your results due to your actions or inactions? On the surface. Yes. Looking deeper, the answer is, "Uh-Oh!"

Check out The Cognitive Filter and how it specifically relates to an unsettling bias regarding safety training and compliance related workshops within organizations today.

It is easy to default to a simple assumption:

Action leads to Results. Or no action on your part will lead to results. But take a look at The Cognitive Filter below.

We humans follow the cognitive sequence of:

1. You process Information through your own, individual personal filter of Beliefs, Attitudes and Truths.
2. That Information then gets interpreted by your specific Judgement.
3. That Judgement will lead to an Action (or inAction).
4. This (in)Action leads to a Result.
5. The result is often in keeping with the Beliefs, Attitudes and Truths you had in the first place (otherwise known as a self-determined prophecy).

If we stopped here, all would be good in the world. But mistakes happen. Hurts happen. Incidents happen. Why? Predominantly because most of our Beliefs, Attitudes and Truths are swimming around in our own subconscious mind. In other words, you and I are not conscious of most of your Beliefs, Attitudes and Truths.

"Not true," you say. "I know, what I know." But that is your conscious mind talking.

Consider research by Dr. Lee Pulos who found that in a second of time, your conscious mind processes with 2,000 neurons of "conscious thought." While, in the same second, your subconscious mind is processing with four billion neurons.

The ratio between the activity in your conscious mind versus your subconscious mind is the exact same ratio between an ant and an elephant. Your ant, your conscious mind, is walking on the back of your elephantine, subconscious mind. Does the ant see and elephant? Nope. Only a grey, bumpy landscape. To the same degree, your conscious mind has little comprehension of awareness compared to the massive activity in the subconscious mind.

Bake on that one for a minute.

If someone asked you, "How well do you know your beliefs, attitudes and truths?" what would your answer be? "I know them really well."

But entertain the mind-bending reality, "You don't know, what you don't know."

Now, let's jump back to present-day safety training and compliance related workshops. Most of them are based on the simple formula:

Action --> Results

Action--> Results

Action --> Results

Okay. Take a breath. All is well. We just need an unconventional way to approach safety training. This is why this series of articles are under the banner of "Radical Safety." The antonym for "conventional" is "radical." Hence, radical safety is designed to help you approach safety training from a more wholistic approach.

Start with the end in mind and work your way backwards. (Chances are you have an existing approach to the first two items on the following list. Add to your conventional sequence with these additional steps.)

1. What positive RESULTS do you want? Which negative RESULTS do you want to eliminate?
2. What ACTIONS or INACTIONS are required?
3. What JUDGEMENTS will set up the best ACTIONS?
4. Two parts:
1. What are the conscious BELIEFS, ATTITUDES and TRUTHS that exist?
2. Uncover the subconscious BELIEFS, ATTITUDES and TRUTHS that exist.
5. What "INFORMATION" input will help align a conscious and subconscious paradigm?
6. Are your RESULTS in keeping with the BELIEFS, ATTITUDES and TRUTHS you have in the first place?

Steps 3 to 6 are entirely definable for everyone in your sphere of safety. Yes, Radical Safety has an accelerated approach to making that happen. And, over the course of the next few weeks, I will reveal those steps in subsequent articles. (Or, you can buy the book Radical Safety, when it comes out; or bring in our experts for a Radical Safety session.)

In the meantime, take an unconventional approach to how you deliver safety training. Lives depend on it.