Why did I start this blog?

I got involved with behavioural communications very early in 2008 in one of the most ambitious programmes undertaken by the Chamber of Mines of South Africa. The programme, Mining Industry Occupational Safety and Health Leading Practice Adoption System (MOSH) had as its objective, the improvement of health and safety performance in the mining industry. Behavioural communications was the vehicle used to encourage people to adopt healthier and safer working practices for the improvement of theirs and their co-workers' lives.

It was the idea of being part of an initiative that would actually contribute to saving people's lives in the mining industry that got be involved in this initiative. To me this became much more than just a part of my job. As I got involved, I discovered that Behavioural Communications was an involved process with a great potential for actually contributing to changing people's lives for the better if implemented properly. I have been very fortunate because I have had Decision Partners coaching me all along and sharing their years of experience with me. It may sound sappy, but I actually found myself in a project that made me feel that I was doing something positive and not just making a living.

I found myself compelled to start writing this when I was alerted to a website in which an organization was claiming to specialise in "behaviour communications". The problem was that the "specialist" mentioned was someone I know and the information on the website was misleading. I am a bit calm as write this because I have had two days to think about it and consult before I started writing. In my initial state of extreme rage when I first came across the website, words like plagiarism, fraud, theft and betrayal of trust came to mind in reference to this individual and his organisation.

My extreme rage was because he started using our terminology and the concepts that we introduced to him as his own "specialisation". I was enraged because, as a consultant, some may believe him and he may start implementing what he knows and this could endanger people's lives and eventually lead to loss of confidence in something that can really make a difference if properly implemented.

I think what pushed me into outing this pretender, whose name and organisation's name I have not mentioned as yet, is because the need to safeguard standards to ensure that implementation of this process, in improving health and safety, is done well so as to succeed. This can only happen with the continued support of industry leadership. They can only support if convinced that this process will achieve intended results. People who start making claims of being specialists, without the necessary depth of knowledge can actually lead to doubts of its effectiveness and that would not be good. That is the reason why I believe it is important that "specialists" are actually what they claim to be and not pretenders out to make a quick buck while putting people's lives at risk in the process.