This week in Berlin after facilitating a session on risk perception we all went out for a semiotic walk.
With a bit of orientation in what semiotics is all about, we found ourselves close to a memorial. No one knew anything about this memorial and so we decided that it would be a wonderful exercise to understand how perception really works.
An orientation in semiotics
If you are wondering what this orientation included, here’s two guidance tools from Social Psychology of Risk to help enrich your semiotic experience.
Visual literacy tool
What is the object?
What does the object mean to me, how does it relate with me?
What is the visual effect?
Never walk in rush. Slow down and take some time to observe your images and symbols. Remember, the human eye was never meant to give us accuracy. In fact, the eyes were meant to hide things from us so we see what we want to see. So take your time observing the most obvious things in your images and language. The more time you spend, the more you will feel and observe. The more time we spend observing, the more the environment will talk back to us. If you stay still for a little while, you may start to see a completely different view than your first impression. Rush and impatience are the enemy of all observation.
What is embodied?
What sense are evoked in your observation. Are you only seeing? Can you also hear, smell, touch and taste? In other words, what parts of the body are you using to make observation? How do those body parts make contact with the object?
How is power communicated?
By now you know that there is nothing power neutral in the world. When you observe something or someone do you feel empowered? Do you feel powerless? Think of observing a child, watching a huge building, looking up to the sky, looking down upon a beggar on the street, looking eye to eye at a statue, looking at the horizon, touching someone’s feet, shaking hands, going up to the top floor of a building to meet with the CEO. Nothing is power neutral.
What is symbolised?
Beyond the literal meaning of the what you are observing, what is the hidden meaning in the symbols. Ask others what they feel and what they find significant and compare with your own interpretation of the experience.
Spatial literacy tool
What is embedded in the object?
How does the object (or the situation) engage with you? Do you feel challenged? Do you feel engaged? Do you feel boredom? What is the location and orientation of the object?
What is the trajectory?
Where would this leave us in a year (or 2 or 5 years)?
How does it make you feel? (Think of a war memorial, a brand logo, a movie banner, a playground).
How am I moved in & to the space?
Consider the transition from one space to another. Think of when you enter into a store, a church, a back street, a site, a control room).
Think of paradoxes. When you see cleanliness and a well organised space where is the mess? What is kept hidden?
Think of the bi-products. What problem do you think may arise when we become too obsessed with cleanliness or order? Is there a risk of dehumanising someone?
What is the symbolic power? What is sacred in the symbol?
The difference between a sign and a symbol is that the latter is sacred to the people. Ask someone, can I remove this policy, statue, chair, podium or whatever (even by a few metres or a few days)? Watch their reaction.
The semiotic walk
And so, everyone was asked to observe and note down how they felt and what they saw in the memorial.
The memorial of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Berlin
What is semiotics? Here’s a short video.
https://youtu.be/nmH6TsyTzdo?si=3N1LqTB8zPKfsVMI
We went around looking at what was significant to each of us? How does the memorial make us feel?
We gathered around for a few minutes and then we came back to the hotel seminar room for some immediate reflections. As always, everyone sees things differently and that’s the whole point in a semiotic walk.
While some focused on the behaviour of those who were observing the memorial, others went into observing the details of the memorial. It was fun listening to different perspectives in the room because by the time we finished this 20 minutes exercise it became clear that no one sees what the other person sees. We cannot see what the other person sees because we cannot feel what they feel. We can agree on the facts and the evidences but our narratives will never be the same. Why then do we become so sure about our our narratives of accidents and audits and discard those who don’t align with us?
The first rule of sensemaking is in understanding that human senses were never meant to give us accuracy of the environment around us. Our senses were meant to make us feel safe. We mix between what we see and what we want to see – in other words, plausibility is mistaken for accuracy. What is more, we fight and scream when the other person does not see what we see. This is the single biggest delusion in the world of risk and safety. (Read Ian McGilchrist on the left hemisphere right hemisphere of the brain)
An observation made by a single person, despite their best efforts, will always reflect what they ‘see’ and what they make of the world. There’s no running away from subjectivity in life. And keep in mind that in risk and safety, most observations are made in rush (time pressure), against people who are powerless (workers), in an anxious mode (when things go wrong), and with a negative framing (a search for non-compliant behaviour). Imagine what we end up with in our databases that we call ‘safety data’?
After finishing the session, I went back to the memorial again and sat there for a few minutes in peace. As I watched the statue again, I was filled in awe. By this time, it was 11am and the sun was almost at its zenith which made the white statue stand out from the pedestal on which it was mounted. This is no coincidence. All memorials are designed with careful thinking and attention to detail with the view to create an experience.
This memorial is a symbol of immortality – the human desire to be remembered. Gone but never forgotten. If there’s one thing that sits at the heart of all human culture it is the denial of death (watch or hear this podcast with Sheldon Solomon and read The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker). Slow down, look carefully, engage all your senses and as one participant noted, ‘you can write a book on just this one memorial.’
Take a look at the statue. The superhero on the pedestal has no interest in the common man. His gestures and his uplifting status makes it loud and clear. What is more, the body of the superhero was disproportionately larger than the average human body. The memorial therefore is a conscious attempt to amplify the power of the superhero.
Now look further. The angel holding the flame makes the superhero sacred and immortal.
Look behind. The devil with a whip and the Owl overlooking from behind the statue. The whip is a symbol of discipline and the Owl is a symbol of wisdom. The angel at the front and the Satan at the back keeps the balance between good and evil.
Look sideways. You will notice two gargoyles to protect the immortal.
And now watch closely at the tourist information plate and you will notice a graffiti. That is what got my attention. It’s the power of the vandals. There is power in everything and that’s precisely where semiotics is so useful.
As one participant noticed, there was poop all over the statue and it was a moment of joy for me that someone spotted shit.
There is power in everything and it is important that people in risk and safety learn to recognise power. One often hears that the primary role of people in risk and safety is to ensure compliance, support operations and enable work. None of that is untrue but it is never the primary role of a risk manager.
Risk and safety is about understanding the sources of power, questioning the decisions of those who have become too sure about themselves (experts, leaders, managers and executives), bringing those in power closer to the voices of the powerless, and in so doing, creating a safe and sustainable future for the organisation.
You cannot be a risk manager if you cannot ‘see’ the graffiti and the poop.
I’m glad at least one person did. You don’t change the world, you don’t save lives, you don’t strive for ‘zero harm’ (that is not even the legal perspective), you only have to learn how to question deeply held assumptions, make people think and then leave them to manage the risk.
Recommended readings
Metaphors we live by by George Lakoff
The Language of War Monuments by Abousnnouga and Machin
