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'Treat the articulate citizen like voting cattle and he behaves like voting cattle', writes the historian David van Reybrouck, 'but treat him like an adult and he behaves like an adult'. Placebo The Pygmalion Effect, named after the mythological artist who loved a statue he made of a woman, that the gods decided to bring her to life. The Pygmalion effect is reminiscent of the placebo effect. Only we are not talking about an expectation that will make us better ourselves. This

It is interesting to investigate the core message of my book "Safety from Inside". This is brilliantly unravelled by Daniel Pink in his book "Drive". Scientifically substantiated and hardly found or recognized in the business world. Many who read the following statement will be surprised: "When money is used as a reward for an activity, people lose their intrinsic interest in the activity." This goes against motivating by rewarding! There are three forms of #motivation. Motiv

In mid-2010, I received a call from a renowned engineering firm that I had previously worked with several times. They asked me if I was interested in building a chemical plant and becoming a site manager. It was for a relatively small international joint venture. The first meeting with the initiator was positive and given my fascination with "building" factories, I became enthusiastic about the challenge. Shortly after, I travelled to meet again, and we soon reached an agreem

I am very passionate about mindfulness simply because I am more present at what is happening right now. While pretty obvious, I've never seen a connection between attention and #safety. Until I read the following in Brainsafe 2.0 by Gerd-Jan Frijters, which makes sense: Mindfulness is a form of #meditation where you focus on the mental and physical sensations of the moment itself. In a broader sense, #mindfulness is an attitude to life in which both negative and positive expe

Many people do not know that severe and fatal accidents in the Netherlands are rising again since 2015. Before that, that number had been declining for a long time. Existing safety management should, therefore, be reviewed. The explanation below may turn the tide. And that also results in pleasant side effects such as fewer accidents in general, improvement of the quality of products and services, less damage, higher productivity, lower costs, and so on. And even without this

Does saying 'Be careful' to someone help them become more aware of dangers? "Really?" I've been in the industry for years and have heard the following conversations in different ways: "We've had accidents on the ground, and we want to reduce them." "Do we know why?" "Well, our studies have shown that people are not paying attention." "Hey, that's great. We can tell our workers to be more careful - I bet they never thought of that." "Well, of course not; otherwise, they wouldn