Why "Common Sense" is Dangerous in Workplace Safety Investigations

I want to talk about common sense. You know, that invisible standard we assume everyone should magically understand and apply, regardless of their unique background, experience, or environment. It’s a term I have heard leaders throw around all the time in safety-related conversations:

"Why didn’t they just use common sense?"

It’s seductive, isn’t it? The idea is that there's a universal playbook for what makes sense and what doesn’t. But here's the deal: common sense isn’t common at all.

The Problem with "Common Sense" in Safety

In fact, leaning on the notion of common sense in workplace safety investigations is not just misleading—it’s dangerous. It pulls us away from understanding the system, the conditions, and the why behind what happened. Instead, it drags us straight down Blame Lane—that well-trodden path where we assign fault instead of learning.

Here's the reasoning for my controversial statements - What seems "common" to you depends entirely on your worldview, your training, and the conditions you operate in. What you consider "basic safety sense" may feel completely foreign to someone who’s just joined the workforce or works in a context you’ve never experienced.

Think about it. A maintenance worker balancing efficiency against a tight deadline sees the world differently from a safety professional conducting an incident investigation. The worker might make decisions based on what works "in the moment," not on what looks best on a flowchart. And you know what? That’s not a failure of common sense—it’s a reflection of their reality.

When we frame incidents around "a lack of common sense," we’re doing two things:

1. We make the individual the problem. It’s easy to say, "They should’ve known better," or "Why didn’t they just stop and think?" This shifts the focus from the system to the person—blame, plain and simple.

2. We shut the door to curiosity. If we think the answer lies in someone’s failure of judgment, we stop asking deeper questions. What conditions influenced that decision? What pressures were they under? What signals did the system send—or fail to send?

Plus, it’s not like anyone ever wakes up and says, "I’m going to ignore common sense and mess things up today." People are trying to do the best they can with the tools, training, and knowledge they have in the moment. If we want to learn, we need to understand their perspective, not impose ours.

The Right Approach: From Blame to Learning

I think we need to flip the script. Instead of asking, "Why didn’t they use common sense?" instead ask, "What made sense to them at the time?" This subtle shift changes everything. Now we’re no longer judging—we’re exploring. We’re trying to understand how the system shaped their behavior. Every time we default to common sense, we reinforce a culture where mistakes are moral failures instead of learning opportunities. It’s a shortcut—a lazy way of thinking that lets us point fingers instead of fixing the system and shortcuts in thinking don’t lead to better safety outcomes. They lead to defensiveness, fear, and a workforce that stops reporting issues because they don’t want to be labeled as lacking common sense.

Strategies to Improve Workplace Safety Investigations

So, what do we do instead? We need to replace "common sense" with curiosity. Here’s how:

1. Start with empathy. Assume that people were doing their best with what they had. Ask yourself, "What pressures, constraints, or incentives influenced their actions?"

2. Explore the system. What signals did the organization send about priorities? Were there mixed messages about safety versus efficiency? Did the system make the "right" action harder than the "wrong" one?

3. Learn, don’t blame. Every investigation is an opportunity to make the system better. Blame might feel satisfying in the short term, but it won’t fix the problem.

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If we want to move safety forward, we have to let go of the myth that there’s a universal standard of "common sense." What’s common to one person might be alien to another. And that’s okay—it’s what makes us human.

The goal isn’t to judge people by our own invisible standards. It’s to build systems that guide people toward safer decisions, no matter where they’re coming from. When we stop chasing common sense and start chasing understanding, we leave Blame Lane behind—and we open up a whole new road to learning, improvement, and safety.

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Georgina Poole, 2024 CHOLearning Vanguard Visionary award winner, is a well-respected Health and Safety Leader with over 17 years of experience partnering with organizations to improve their health and safety culture and performance.

Georgina is also a thought leader in Human and Organisational Performance (HOP) and an advocate for learning organizations, decluttering, and creating capacity and resilience to fail safely. As the host of the "Leading Safely" podcast, Georgina is listened to in over 100 countries. She is also a keynote speaker and mentor who shares her insights and expertise with diverse audiences and aspiring professionals around the world.

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