I just had the opportunity to experience one week of SPoR, together with my business partner Decebal and the founder of SPoR, Dr. Rob Long. We have invested in SPoR, during the last years, developing a new line of business on Social Psychology and Safety Leadership. My partner Decebal is more involved than me in this business and he put a great deal of effort in improving our business capabilities. So we flown to Australia to learn SPoR, from Mr SPoR himself, Dr Long.
About me
I am with Corporate Dynamics since 2003, but training was not my major area of expertise. I come from a market research background. I was trained in statistics and nuclear physics (a different kind of statistics) so I have a technical eye on the world around me. I believe in data measurement and I understand the world through figures. I am telling you this about me so that you can understand the biases I have when I will further describe my one week experience with SPoR.
Basic concepts of SPoR like iCue, 1B3M, WS-HS-GS came to me through Decebal, but to be honest I didn’t invest too much time before this trip to Canberra in deeply understanding the concepts.
So this is me, now!
For those of you who are new to the concepts, If you would like to learn more about SPoR, there is a brief description of the concepts for Romanian speaking guys, made by Decebal, here or if English is your main language, you’d better go to the source. There are plenty of resources that can help you better understand the concepts and there are free books you can read to develop your skills and knowledge.
Dr Robert Long
In my opinion, in order to understand SPoR, you need to understand the founding father of SPoR, Dr Robert Long, or Rob.
Rob is a 72 yo, father of 4 with a background in learning and history. He loves spending time with his friends, loves learning stuff, loves a glass of good wine and rock’n roll. He plays guitar and he once had a pint of beer or probably two with Bon Scott, Angus and Malcolm Young. (If you don’t know who they are, you are probably from another planet, so don’t bother) And don’t play pools against him! You have been warned!
But the thing that makes you go wow, about Rob is his capacity to work. He reads a lot and he works a lot, he develops new materials, but most of all, he makes things happen. During our stay in Canberra we recorded more podcasts and i had more ideas exchange since the last two years combined.
Rob is able to read three books in a week, while taking care of his family and friends and has written 17 books already. This might be more than some people read in their life. (sorry for them)
Among other things he is a doctor in Philosophy with a PhD in education and learning. He’s got 5 more education degrees. And he developed SPoR from scratch. He doesn’t usually throw words randomly he researches everything he does. He loves people, freedom, he cares about the weak and has a holistic approach to the things he does.
I made this description so that you understand where the concepts come from and the fundaments of the ideas. Please keep in mind that this is my biased description of Rob after meeting the guy for a week.
How was one week of SPoR? What is this about?
SPoR is an acronym for Social Psychology of Risk. Among many other things it is about what makes people take risks (sometimes unnecessary) in a work environment. This is a biased and incomplete definition of the concept.
It is not my purpose to describe the concepts here but to tell you that in order to understand SPoR, you actually need to feel it. If you want to learn more please use the links in the last paragraph About Me of this article. They are able to help you more than I can do.
The whole week was about feeling and understanding culture and people, through immersion and observation, not by making intelectual value propositions. And this is powerful.
During our learning journey, Rob took us to a cork plantation, a Deep Space communication centre and Observatory, an above the ground cemetery, a couple of museums and met some of his friends. They are all about SPoR and all about Rob. They intertwine in a subtle and deep manner that is hard to explain through words.
After spending a week in Canberra I think that Rob would not had been able to develop the concepts elsewhere. But they are not Canberra specific, they belong to the world, to any organisation made of people. They can be used to address different organisational issues from bullying to physical safety and maybe more.
But the feeling is key here. Because SPoR elements are present in every corporate culture on the planet even if you like it or not, you want it or not, you are aware about it or not. And in order to see it you need to develop the skills and knowledge to feel it. This is maybe the most important learning I had during this trip.
I found out that SPoR is also about the things that you cannot touch or measure accurately. It is about the other side of safety, beyond rules, procedures, equipment and clear regulations.
The Problem with SPoR
As I told you before, I am a man of figures and many of my clients are in the automotive industry. The automotive industry is full of KPI, processes and standards. This probably stays at the core of what make great cars, great. Therefore I have this lens when I look at the world.
After so many years of experience, I know that KPI’s, processes, optimisations and standards work, but often they come with a great deal of stress on the people and the organisations. They are pretty easy to understand and implement.
That’s why the organisations implement standards and regulations and for some time they work. They help us optimise. Sometimes this may lead to accidents. The accidents still happen despite any containment measures we take.
But if you have been in safety and organisational culture for some time you know there is more to that.
Will SPoR solve all your safety issues in the organisation? I doubt that!
For maybe 95% of the organisations these containment measures I am talking about are enough. But 5% of the organisations know there is more. They know that there are problems that are not easily solvable. Sometimes there are issues you cannot touch or see. Here comes SPoR. SPoR will help you get past everything you can regulate.
If you want to join the 5% and get a good feeling of your organisation, if you want to go beyond regulations and get into the deep and shallow ask us everything. I promise to personally answer all your questions on the subject.
If you want to explore more be sure to use the links in the About Me paragraph or search more on Social Psychology of Risk. Join our newsletter or Rob site.
Get a human touch!
article by Emanoil Draganescu