March 8, 2021 • 59 mins
Gareth Lock is the inspirational founder of The Human Diver. On leaving his 25-year career in the RAF he was already an experienced diver having started to learn the sport in 1999. His very first dive took place in Greece while on holiday. However, it was while on work trips to Cape Town and San Diego that he knew diving would become an important part of his life.
As he became more experienced in diving, he realised that it was all about teamwork and there’s one thing the military do very well – working as a team. They know through extensive training and experience in the theatre of war that little mistakes around behaviour, poor decisions, lack of situational awareness and complacency costs lives.
Sadly, Gareth found that often in diving that holistic ethos was lacking. Teams were not always led well, did not get on with each other and members often operated in separate silos without any consideration for those also sharing that diving experience. Dysfunctional teams were often left to cope by instructors who had become complacent and disconnected. Much training focused on technical expertise – which is critically important – yet didn’t touch on the equal importance of human behaviour and team development.
Gareth decided to do something about it and has set himself a mission of introducing human factors training into the diving profession globally. It’s not always easy. There has been resistance to his systems-based approach. However, he’s remained committed and has travelled the world sharing his story.
The Human Diver on Facebook
The Human Diver on Instagram
The Human Diver on Twitter
Gareth's website: The Human Diver
Gareth's book: Under Pressure
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt (00:04):
Podcast for the inquisitive diver.
Hey there, dive buddies andwelcome to the show.
My next guest has served 25years in the Royal air force and
fell in love with the sport ofdiving way back in 1999, he
recognized that there was asignificant similarity between
life as a military man and thatof a diver teamwork.
However, there was an even moresignificant difference between
(00:25):
the two when compared throughthe holistic ethos lens, he
decided to do something aboutthis and same self, a mission to
introducing human factors,training into the diving
profession globally.
In 2019, he released a bookentitled under pressure, which
has since sold thousands ofcopies.
Now I have to admit that Irespect and admire him for his
(00:45):
brave contributions to the diveindustry.
And I say brave, not because I'madmitting a macro shuttle rather
than I recognize thatdifficulties and individual may
face in attempting to createchange, even when it is for the
betterment of all involved.
I honestly believe that what hehas done so far will most
definitely save lives andprobably already has done.
So, Mr.
Gareth Locke, it's an absolutepleasure to meet you.
(01:07):
Welcome to the show.
Gareth (01:08):
Thank you very much.
Really appreciate it.
It says great to have an inviteon here and yeah, it has been a
challenge and has required asignificant amount of
persistence to, to get this girl.
Matt (01:20):
Yeah, I bet.
So, um, w w was it a little bitlike a red flag football or
something to you?
Like a little Jack Russell justchomping at the heels?
Gareth (01:28):
Well, my, my sort of personality traits are about
sort of values based and it'slike, I've got to get this done.
And, and that actually has beena bit of a hindrance when I
first started, because it wasthis, uh, evangelical approach
of you have to change and, and afew people off and burnt a few
(01:49):
bridges and took a number ofyears to, to rebuild those.
Um, and I think that's the samewith anybody.
Who's got a strong value based.
Who's trying to create change.
It's, it's tempering that, thatattitude to look for the long
game, rather than trying to dosomething.
(02:10):
Now, you're never going tochange the direction of, uh, uh,
you know, saying iceberg, youknow, the one that's broken off
the Antarctica, you're nevergoing to change that direction
really easily.
Um, it takes little nudges andactually where I've had the
biggest successes is bottom uprather than top down.
(02:33):
Um, because there are people atthe bottom who recognize
actually this is really useful,knowledgeable stuff that as you
say will, and I already knowthat with people, who've emailed
me saying, you know what?
I listened to, you know, awebinar or a podcast, or read
something of yours or watchtheir phone only.
And that's changed my attitudeas to how, um, how I've
(02:58):
approached a and I've thumbed itearly, uh, or I've not got in,
or I've changed what we weregoing to do.
And to me, that that's a huge,huge buzz because it's like,
yes, you know, the, the changingone person at a time is, uh,
this is how you can change theworld.
Yeah.
It takes a long time.
Matt (03:19):
Well, you've got to start somewhere and then just spread
the legs.
Um, now just to back it up, uh,we smudge for those people that
are listening that have no cluewhat human factors is.
Do you want to try and break itdown into its most simplistic
form?
Just so we've got a basis to gofrom.
Yeah,
Gareth (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, sure.
So in its simplest term, it ishow to make it easier to do the
right thing and harder to do thewrong thing.
And that means looking atindividuals, it means looking at
work or tasks, and he's lookingat equipment, it means looking
(03:56):
at interactions and paperworkand understand how to reduce the
friction to do the right thing.
So for example, you know,checklists are a big thing in
diving at moments.
And then when you look at howthey're written, they're often
sweeping generalization here, awritten from a point of view of
(04:19):
liability rather than execution.
So there's a huge body ofevidence that says, how do you
design a checklist that takeshuman performance variability
that could be errors, um, andtry to design them out and a
checklist.
Isn't just a piece of paperfloor.
(04:39):
It doesn't, it's not just apiece of paper to make it
effective.
It requires a social and acultural setup and a mental
approach that says I'm usingthis checklist because I'm
fallible and I will make amistake and it's getting that
message across.
So there's a whole raft ofissues that, that need to be
(04:59):
addressed in a, as you sort oftouched on earlier holistic
manner or systemic way, ratherthan trying to cherry pick or
fix the diver.
Cause they're there, the stupidones is actually creating an
environment where it's easier todo the right thing and harder to
do the wrong thing.
Yeah.
Matt (05:18):
Yeah.
And I suppose one of the majorbarriers that you've got there
is, um, piece of people'spersonal feelings of
embarrassment.
If they're going to thumb a divewhen everyone else has more
confident or more experienced,whatever,
Gareth (05:31):
Oh, totally.
That, you know, the peerpressure that we're under and
the, you know, ultimately we'resocial creatures.
We, we like to be conform to thesocial norms.
And, and that's why, you know,you can start to create change
at a lower level withindividuals and small groups,
(05:51):
because then you can start toget a swelling it's quite
difficult to create change topdown because you still need to
create that, that swell, that,that, that influence and social
conformance that happens.
But you know, that that sort ofpeer pressure, it might be
touched on in, in diver trainingand instructor development.
(06:13):
But I don't think it's anywherenear emphasized how much
influence instructors leadersand peers have on others'
behaviors.
And you don't have to saysomething almost silence is
enough to speak volumes.
Um, when somebody questions isthis a good idea?
(06:34):
And I, nobody even acknowledgesthat, that, you know, Oh, I'm
not sure about this Barbie.
Okay.
And you haven't actually saidanything or you've just agreed
with them.
Um, so there's, there's a hugebit that that looks at, or that
should be looked at in terms ofinteractions.
Matt (06:53):
Hmm.
So the idea behind the trainingthat you provide is to teach
people not only how to recognizeit in themselves, but have the
confidence to be able to say so,and also recognize it in other
people within the group that I'min with.
Gareth (07:09):
Yeah, totally.
I mean, and actually the core ofthe training is based around the
premise of creating a sharedmental model and an idea of what
we're going to do as a team andwhy are we going to do it?
And that means that if there issome form of dissent, you know,
which is a good thing or someconflict that the, the peers and
(07:34):
the leadership have createdenvironment where actually you
don't need to have courage.
Um, there's often this bit ofpeople, you know, that you need
to be brave to speak up.
This level of bravery is neededto overcome some fear.
And the fear is generated by thesocial environment that the
leaders, the instructors, thepeer group that are there and
(07:56):
therefore it's theirresponsibility to change that
attitude, that, that, uh,environment, so that it is easy
to speak up rather than havingto be brave and go, well, I'm
going to put my neck out on theline here because I'm going to
say something that isn't quiteright.
Um, so it's, yeah, there's a lotto do.
(08:18):
And that is a normal humanthing.
Um, because we are, if we goback, you know, thousands of
years to the African Savannah,where you lived in a tribe in a
thorn Bush ring, because thatwas the protection from the
lines, Hey, you had to beconformed to the norms of the
(08:39):
group because as long as you gotbooted out, outside the phone
book and you're on your own, sothere are very good reasons why
we have social conformance,whether or not there is as valid
as they are, is a differentthing, but you know, it's
hardwired.
So yeah, the training is, iscreate that shared mental model
(09:01):
so that people know what'shappening next.
And if something deviates, thenthey're able to sort of ask the
question and say, is this right?
Are we going in the rightdirection?
Is this the right part of thewreck?
Shouldn't we have turned roundon the reef at this point, you
know, it's, there, there arelots of things where, where this
applies.
Hmm.
Matt (09:21):
So when we're talking about it straight away, I'm
thinking about a blog that Iwrote about three years ago.
And then I was trying todescribe, um, newcomers to the
dive and industry or those thatwant to do that open water
training.
And the two examples I had wasthe alpha male who, you know,
(09:42):
really big.
I can do all this and don't needto listen.
And, uh, the timid lady, youknow, who would just focus and
then do and do everythingcorrect.
And for me, the human factorerror all the way I see it
though, is that Mr.
Belli big, the alpha male, um,was, was hide in his true, um,
(10:09):
fears and incompetencies of whatwas coming.
And I think it does make me looktowards the, uh, professional
side of dive in and ask thequestion if there's been people
qualified to hastily too quicklyand, you know, thinking of zero
(10:30):
to hero.
And then all of a sudden, you'renow teaching people who have no
clue how to dive in a widevariety of, um, scenarios.
Um, I suppose you bring in humanfactors into it kind of puts a
big question, Mark all over allof that stuff that the majority
(10:50):
of us in the dive industry knowit occurs, but don't really
approach the subject.
Gareth (10:58):
Yeah.
It it's, um, it is a bit of anelephant in the room.
And so going to, to a wider sortof safety view as to why that
perception exists of why thecurrent practices are okay, a
lot of safety is measured as theabsence of accidents.
(11:21):
So if you don't have anyaccidents and we don't have any
injuries, um, we must be doingsomething right now that doesn't
take into account the number ofpeople who are scared, um, who
go off and do some training andan, a terrified, um, they
they've got that tick andthey've moved on and gone.
(11:41):
I went diving, but I didn't likeit.
And yet there shouldn't be areason for that.
Yes, there will be a smallpercentage who are, um, not
suited to diving and, you know,and they aren't, um, being the
right mental place to beunderwater.
So, you know, you then look at,so the sort of why the situation
(12:03):
ends up as it is, is because youcan cut away the safety margins,
the experience, the time thatpeople are supposed to do during
training.
And until you have lots ofaccidents, you must be doing
something.
Okay.
And again, that's normal humanbehavior.
We will look for short termgains over waiting for long-term
(12:28):
benefits.
Um, and, and in the case of, ofdiving and instruction and the
zero, the hero of it is cool.
I get to be a dive instructor.
And I, I, you know, I get tomake money out of my hobby.
Um, and you're right.
That as long as, as long as thetraining environment in which
(12:49):
the students are being taught isnot very, um, risky, you know,
that there's no additional Jakedangers involved and everything
goes fine.
That actually the training musthave been okay.
The problem is we don't knowwhat's going to happen on the,
on the dive or with a student.
(13:09):
And so actually you need to havea, almost a bigger box.
You've got the, sort of the corecompetencies or core skills that
you need.
And then there's the bit thatsays, sit a bit further out than
that, that says these thereexcursions that you might have.
And my, you know, my personalview is a lot of diver
(13:31):
instructor training is teachinginstructors how to teach a
student how to pass a class,which is not the same as how to
teach a diver, how to dive inthe real world.
Um, and, and if your measure is,is people graduating well, w
without issues, you must bedoing something right.
(13:51):
Um,
Matt (13:52):
Yeah.
And that inherent skill embeddedinto second nature.
Gareth (13:58):
Yeah.
And they get out of jail cardfor the organizations is you are
only, uh, certified to dive inconditions equal to better than
you've already been certified.
Um, so that, that's the bit thatsays, well, actually, you, you
went diving in the conditionthat you weren't trained for.
Therefore, it's your fault.
(14:18):
It's like, well, hang on aminute.
You know, you've got to look atthis at a system level rather
than an individual level.
Matt (14:25):
Yeah.
But what, where does the systemstart and stop for you?
Because I was kind of discussingthis podcast before we started a
, a couple of days ago.
Actually, I've got a buddy ofmine coming on next week.
I Steinback, no, look, I, um,he's a cost director up in
Cairns.
And I wanted to clarify formyself, albeit I am a
(14:47):
multi-agency instructor.
I wanted to know specificallywhere the law starts and stops
when it comes to training.
And it's so ambiguous, isn't it?
And he, his answer was literallywhen that, when people are in
training, then you have tofollow the letter of the law.
(15:08):
And the letter of the law iswritten by whichever agency is
teaching and whichever agencyyou're teaching under.
But as soon as that person isqualified and they go off on
their own, there's then no lawthat says a diver can't do what
they want.
Um, so as soon as they areoutside the boundaries of what
they've been taught, then, youknow, the agencies are safe.
Gareth (15:30):
Oh, totally.
And you know, the way that riskis managed is all about risk
transference.
So from an eight, you know, if Ilook at, so you ask the
question, where's the boundaryof the system that this to me,
the system starts at theagency's level, or actually the
bodies above.
So the rebury, the traineecouncil, the recreation, scuba
(15:52):
training council, the worldrecreation, steward, training
council.
Those are the levels.
That's the, this almost the topboundary.
There might be some governmentregulation that sits above that
depending on the country you'rein.
And then it ends down at theindividual diver.
Now that's the system, whetheror not people have control or
influence about what happenswithin that system.
(16:14):
Well, that's, that's the waythat the system has been
constructed.
And so the way the organizationsare set up is about transferring
risk from them liability to thelowest level possible.
That's what any organizationwould do.
So the use of liability waivers,uh, transfers all of those
things.
(16:35):
It's about getting the risk downto the diver and or the
instructor.
Um, you know, your point aboutagency standards.
I have to teach to the agencystandards because otherwise, if
something goes wrong, I'mliable.
Now those agency standards maynot be the best that are out
(16:55):
there, but they are at a levelwhich allows the agency to
manage their own individual risk.
Um, by bypassing it on, youknow, is it achievable to do
those tasks?
Yes.
Right.
It's an instructor problem.
If something goes wrong, if adiver goes out on a dive
operation, they will nearlyalways sign, uh, what, depending
(17:15):
on where you are in the world,liability waiver forms.
Um, and now I am acceptingresponsibility for what happens
on this dive.
Now, interestingly in the UK.
And I think Europe, they have tochange the liability waiver
forms because I cannot sign awaymy right for your incompetence.
(17:36):
Now, you know, to Sue based onthat, I can't Sue based on my
end competence, but I can suitbased on your incompetence.
Um, whereas a lot ofinternational waiver forms
basically say, I even Sue you,if you're incompetent, there's
time, we'll hang on a minute.
That's your responsibility tolook after me.
(17:56):
So, you know, where does thesystem, and, and start that it's
about when those students are intheir class, teaching them about
the genuine risks that exist,not just about the physical risk
of being underwater, but alsothe social risks that are there.
(18:16):
So peer pressure, or the factthat we will drift, we will have
this normalization of devianceand Dan, or has just published a
great piece in GEs in-depth blogtoday, talking about
normalization of deviance and,you know, looking at the fact
that it is a normal behavior togo from here's my rules and I'm
(18:37):
drifting.
And I will, I will say, reducemy minimum gas.
I'm going to end a dive with, orexceed my deck or the runtime or
whatever it is.
And everything goes okay, or itcould be having more students on
a class than you're supposed tobecause I generate more revenue
that way, but things don't gowrong.
Therefore nobody knows whatwhat's happening.
(18:59):
So explaining these normal humanbehaviors allows risk to be
better managed after thetraining course or whatever it
is, understanding those errorproducing conditions, the
stressors that lead us to erodethe safety margins that are on,
(19:20):
um, that is not explicitlytaught in the training materials
that, that I've had people come,my ports go, and I'm an
instructor for this agency andthis agency, and so-and-so this
isn't, it might be touched on,but it is not explicitly
explained.
And it really should be put intothe training programs that are
there.
Matt (19:41):
Sure.
Are you trying to get them inthere?
You must be.
Gareth (19:44):
I, I am.
And I have been for quite awhile, and I understand the
resistance from their partbecause actually, and this is
often something that's forgottenis that the training agencies
are businesses, albeit you know,publishing houses to develop
training materials that thensell onto instructor, trainers
(20:06):
and instructors, and thenstudents trying to make money
out of human factors basedtraining is really difficult
because it doesn't actually giveyou anything extra.
It doesn't allow you to godiving any deeper.
It doesn't lay to use any newequipment.
Um, what it does is it allowsyou to use your brain a bit more
(20:28):
effectively.
I think also part of theresistance is that the majority
of the decision makers in the,the training agencies have never
done any training with me.
So they don't even know what theprograms are about and how it
could fit into their existingtraining materials.
(20:49):
So there's a bit of, um, let mesay genuine ignorance, um, from,
from their part of what it lookslike and how it can fit in.
And the difficulty is that I'mnot a diving instructor, so I
don't reach any of thoseagencies.
So I don't know what thematerials look like, where it
slot in, where you could tell aspecific story about maybe
(21:14):
cognitive biases, why we makethe decisions we do, or how to
create effective communicationswithin a team, um, by using
certain techniques that arethere or how a team evolves in a
training environment, and thenhow it evolves in the real world
diving environment and theweaknesses that, that need to be
(21:35):
recognized and dealt with.
So it's a bit of a, an unknownfrom their side and I get it,
you know, that they're there tomake money, um, that they're not
charities
Matt (21:45):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna play devil's advocate.
And, um, it obviously does havea massive place in our industry,
but doesn't have a place inrecreational dive in for your,
some of vacation kind of guysthat dive once or twice a year
that can't even remember how toput their equipment together.
(22:06):
Are they going to be able toremember what, what human
factors is it about?
Gareth (22:11):
Um, so actually the real benefit of if human factors is
taught well is it's transparentto the activities that you're
doing.
Um, and I suppose to answer yourquestion, is there something
that that can help?
Yes.
(22:31):
So at a, at a recreational levelis the recognition that they're
fallible, that they will makemistakes.
That that's the first thing.
Um, and then look at what arethe strategies for, um, making
sure that we reduce thelikelihood and that would be
doing pre dive check.
You know, that that's achecklist, it's making sure that
(22:55):
the instructors and the divemasters who are operating in
that environment, role model,correct behaviors, because the,
those recreational divers, ifyou know, they're there for a
week, um, on a holiday and theymight be diving three or four
times, they will look to theinstructor or the dive master,
or the guide for what should bebeing done.
(23:18):
And if the instructors and thatthe guides dive masters, don't
do any pre dive checks.
You know, the, the, uh, theclients will then turn around
and go, Oh, cool.
When you get to be really good,you don't have to do checks,
whereas actually the other wayround.
So it's, it's how you influenceothers.
So it doesn't have to be puredirective and part of the
(23:42):
lesson, but it can be influencedand role model by behaviors, by
others within the, or by otherswithin the, this sort of system
that, that the dive center or,or the liverboard or whatever.
Matt (23:55):
And to be honest, I mean, you touched on one of my pet
hates, there is people notsetting up their own equipment
and not know how to do itproperly.
And I spent a year in two fi inPapua New Guinea, and every
diver that came to visit anddive with us, had to do their
own equipment sets up beforethey go on the boat just the
first time.
And then the boys would takeover and they could check as the
(24:17):
boys go.
But just for my own sanity andsanitization, you do your own
gear and you would be amazed athow many guests would complain
because they have to do theirown equipment.
And then the humility, when theyrealize that they don't know how
to do their own equipment,because they've not done it for
so long now, surely thatanswered an inherent problem.
(24:38):
That's going on in our industryalready with trying to be too
customer Carey.
And, you know, um, and again,for the guests that are assuming
everything's going to be donefor them now leads me onto
another little point.
We were discussing a couple ofdays ago, and that's the, um,
I'm going to go on a little rantnow, um, assumption and, uh,
(25:03):
Dougal, Windsor Wilson onFacebook.
He asks about assumptions aswell.
And the assumptions from theguests there that that dive
guide is going to do everythingfor them.
It is my pet hate that peopleexpect a dive pro to look after
them on the boat, under thewater.
If there's any emergencies, thediaper is going to sort it out.
And then if anything goes wrong,the dive bros, asphalt and all
(25:28):
of this stuff, and I don't wantto rent too much.
All of this stuff is in myopinion, what you are trying to
get clarification on for theworld and get it set straight,
where everyone everyone's intheir own little box, everyone
works as a team.
Everyone knows how everythingshould and does happen.
And then we've got clarity,hopefully.
Gareth (25:50):
Yeah.
So, you know, going right backto, where does the system begin
if you think about where thosedivers have got those
assumptions and those behaviorsfrom is when they would have
been learned to dive and asguests, they will have been
given the minimum amount ofinstruction time, um, to set up
(26:15):
their gear.
It would have been demoed, andthen they would have been, you
know, stuffed would have beendone for them.
Tick, you've done that skill.
You've put your reg on thecylinder, you put your BC on the
cylinder, right?
Done.
You've demonstrated you can dothat skill.
Now we've got people who will dothat for you.
So all you need to do is pitchup, listen to some lectures, you
(26:36):
know, again, sweepinggeneralizations, listen to some
lectures, watch some videos, geton the boat, go out to the dive
site.
And, you know, you get fed andwatered and treated nicely.
You get kitted up, people helpyou with, with what's going on.
And then you jump in andsomebody is going to shepherd
you.
And so, you know, a lot of that,that initial diver training and
(26:58):
development, you will have aninstructor with you, or you have
a guide with your dive masterwith you.
And there isn't the clarity thatsays you are responsible for
your activities.
I'm paying you a shed load ofmoney to take me diving.
Then I'm taking you to the divesite and you have that.
(27:18):
So there is this looking at, howdoes it make sense for somebody
write it?
I'm going to say the sharp endas a term from the safety world,
the person who's right at thecoalface, you know, doing stuff,
how does it make sense for themto do what they did?
Well, if you look back at theirexperiential journey and, and
how they developed and, and howthey got to where they are,
(27:41):
that's, that's why they behavethe way they do and why?
Matt (27:44):
Well, I've got to pick on you.
You did say it's a sweepingstatement.
It is a big sweeping statementbecause there's a lot of
instructors out there that arevery, very good and very
meticulous at what they do.
But over time you add in skillfade and the ignorance of, you
know, future guests andliverboards, and, and, you know,
more lackadaisical diveprofessionals, then yeah, it
(28:08):
will creep in, but I just wantedto make sure we don't get shot
down in flames there that allprofessionals.
Gareth (28:15):
Yeah.
And so, yeah, I totally agree.
And there are lots ofprofessionals out there, and
actually we only hear about thenegative outcomes that are
there.
They, you know, they have a, uh,a disproportional effect to our
understanding, and that's acognitive bias.
You know, we have a recall or arecency effect where if
(28:38):
something happens and it's gotemotional, significant,
emotional, um, baggageassociated with it, we'll be
able to recall it more easily.
And, you know, going back todefending the organizations,
numerically, statisticallydiving is pretty safe.
You've probably got more chanceof being killed or injured
driving to the dive site thanyou do on the dive.
(29:02):
Now that doesn't mean weshouldn't improve what goes on
in diving, but if you look at itfrom an organizational point of
view of how much risk are wewilling to tolerate?
Well, that's a, that's a soundnumber.
Now, you won't get any of theorganizations to tell you what
that, uh, you know, as low asreasonably practicable number is
(29:24):
because that would be, you know,commercial, reputational,
suicide to say, yes, we're happywith a fatality rate of X, uh,
in, in those sectors.
And to be honest, it's not ourproblem.
We've given them the standardsoff they go.
Um, so, you know, we go back totransparency, risk management
again.
Yeah.
Matt (29:44):
Now, um, I know you've had a struggle all the way along the
journey so far bringing thisinto the dive industry, but I've
got to ask when you released thebook, you must have seen quite a
significant upturn of interest.
It seems to explode when you,uh, when you released that book.
Gareth (30:04):
Yeah.
And so I'd been struggling.
So I suppose the journey startedin 2010 11, where I wrote a
white paper looking about divingincident reporting and, um,
safety management in the UKdiving industry.
And, and it went down like a bitof a lead balloon.
(30:25):
Um, and shortly after that, Istarted a PhD part-time self
funded PhD.
Um, and the struggle there was,nobody was really interested in
what I was doing.
My goal was to try and producesomething like a, um, something
that happens in aviation, wherethey've got a structure, which
looks at organizationalfailures, supervisory failures,
(30:49):
individual failures, where weset ourselves up.
So we're tired, or we're notprepared or things like, and
then there's the act of failure.
So we make a slip or a mistakeor a lapse, or we, we break a
rule.
So that went on for about sixyears.
And in the end I stopped doingit because I was spending money.
I wasn't getting anywhere, butin January, 2016, I ran the
(31:12):
first face-to-face trainingprogram that developed, um, as a
pilot that went well, anotherone in February, another one in
April.
And then somebody said, well,why don't you do the
pre-learning that's there andset it up as a standalone
course.
And I got some traction there aspeople doing online learning and
got some really positivefeedback from people saying,
(31:33):
look, this stuff is, you know,should be in the training
materials.
And it wasn't until probably thespring of 18 where I was running
a face-to-face class.
And somebody had said, why don'tyou write a book about this?
Because people will consume itas a book rather than doing
online materials.
So I had thought about that.
(31:53):
So then they spent the nextprobably from the summer four or
five months in, in the summer of18 writing it, and then the next
sort of six months getting itedited and turned around and
things like that.
And I'd spent a fair amount oftime trying, you know, three
marketing training of how do Imarket this, because it's a
(32:17):
really difficult topic to marketbecause I was trying to do it
from a safety perspective.
And you never market, um, awayfrom a threat.
What you do is you Mark ittowards a benefit because it's
what people will want, not whatpeople are trying to get away
from.
Right.
Um, so I'd spent a lot of timehow to try and market this.
(32:41):
So I spent the total end of 18marketing the book and getting
the first two chapters out thereso people could go on.
So I had a pretty big list bythe time the book was released
in March 19.
And I spent a lot of timepackaging up and signing books
(33:02):
and posting them out.
And then it starts getting intothe hands of, you know, it's a
terrible term influences and notjust in the sort of sports
diving industry, but in thescientific and the military and
the commercial, and actuallypeople in traditional safety as
well.
We'll pick it up and go, Oh,hang on.
This is really good.
(33:23):
And then it starts spreadingout.
So yeah, the, the rise was, was,was really nice to see because
it's like, yes, there is, thereis value being created out
there.
Yeah.
What I write in the books now,though, is knowledge is not
enough.
We must apply willing is notenough.
We must do.
(33:44):
Um, and, and it's attributed toBruce leave that came from God
before that we'll go to, um, andyou know, it's great.
I read this now, do somethingwith it.
I mean, that means I have tochange what I change to change
requires a bit of effort andenergy and things like that.
But starting to get people totalk about things is it's been
(34:05):
huge benefit.
Matt (34:07):
Yeah.
And is it, um, is the wayforward to, um, introduce human
factors to the newer divers, theyounger divers, the ones that
are more accepted, uh, that more, they're more keen to, to
absorb the information that'sgoing to help them progress
(34:28):
rather than the, the ones thatmight be stuck in their ways and
find it difficult to introducethat change.
Gareth (34:35):
Um, so actually I've now got five other instructors who
are, so it's not just me.
I've got, um, I've got two inthe States or two in Canada at
the moment.
Um, I got one in BelgiumHolland, I've got one in Egypt
and, um, our traveler and one ofthe UAE.
(34:55):
So they, they do some of thatsort of the sharing site.
And actually they're all withthe exception of one, they're
all diving instructors.
So they give me ideas of wherethis could fit in.
So there is a, uh, amulti-pronged approach.
One is to go in and try andsimplify it at the, um, probably
(35:18):
the, the rescue diver divemaster level, um, to try and get
some interest there, to get someinterest at the, in the se tech,
curious, those people aresitting there going right, what
what's tech diving about.
Um, and so we're talking aboutkit and depth and insight,
actually, a lot of it's about inyour head, uh, and, and how to
(35:39):
make more effective decisionsand how to recognize that you're
going to expose yourself togreater risk and an
understanding and practicing thestuff that's in the book helps
mitigate and control some ofthose.
And then the other bit is goingin at the sort of experienced
instructors.
Again, we go back to theinfluencer term to get them to
(36:04):
start even just using thelanguage.
Once we start changing words, wecan change worlds.
And that's not my quote.
That's somebody else's, I forgotit's shrunk, but is you, you
change the language.
Um, and people will startchanging their own behaviors
accordingly.
Um, and I've seen that probablyover the last two or three
(36:25):
years, and being in biggerFacebook groups where there's
this concept of localrationality, how does it make
sense for people to do what theydid?
And now I see other peopleposting those same bits or
they'll tag me in, Oh, it'sgreat.
You know, um, and I'll add alittle bit of extra, but the
(36:48):
fact that people are now able togonna say, fight those battles,
using stuff that I've given isincredibly rewarding and it
will, it will start cascadingout, but it's, it's a huge
journey to, to go on.
Um, and I I'm, I'm, I'm up forit
Matt (37:07):
And it, well, it's, it's not gonna stop growing, is it, I
mean, you're, you've, you'vementioned you've got five, um,
instructors.
Oh yeah.
Give him a shout out.
Gareth (37:20):
So there's the five instructors I've got at the
moment and there's four intraining and waiting for them to
sign off.
So the five instructors, GuyShockey who's in Vancouver,
there's Helen Pellerin.
Who's in Quebec, there's BartDen Ouden, who's in the
Netherlands.
And then Jenny Lord in Dahab andDaryl Owen is in the UAE.
And I got four others who, andthat's Meredith Tanguay who's in
(37:43):
Florida.
Uh, Chris Tomlin, a UK, uh,Beatrice Rivara in Italy and
Mike Mason, who's up inNewcastle.
So two weeks ago we weresupposed to be running the
certifying workshops, butobviously COVID has knocked that
on the head.
So I'm hoping as soon as we canstart traveling, I can get to,
(38:04):
uh, to certify them.
And then there'll be four moreinstructors able to, to deliver
the materials.
Okay.
Matt (38:09):
So we're going to have nine, nine global instructors.
That's it, that's a hefty runfrom when was the book released
2019, was it?
And then we've had a year if wecan exclude last year because we
didn't do anything.
Gareth (38:23):
Well, interestingly, didn't do anything face to face.
But to me COVID actually was abit of a, a blessing in disguise
because people were in stuck athome going[inaudible] and I'd
already started in 2000 tail endof 2019, delivering a webinar
based 10 week program.
(38:45):
Um, and since then I'vedelivered six of those.
So there's about 200 people, um,have gone through some training,
um, since, you know, since the,by the online webinar basis.
Um, so, and they then speak and,uh, I'll give a shout out to
(39:06):
Mateas, uh, who's down inVictoria.
Um, he's changed the, theculture of his club having come
on a course with me last yearand gone, ah, this is blow my
mind.
I can't stop thinking about it.
I'm going to take this stuff.
And they got rid of the woodenweight belt award within their
club, which was about thebiggest or most embarrassing
(39:29):
screw up.
Somebody had done the previousyear.
And he said, let, just reallydemeaning.
This is, you know, yes, it'sfunny, but nobody's really happy
to receive this.
So he stopped that and I said,well, you could still turn it
around.
You could still issue a prize,but do it for the biggest
learning experience of the yearwhen it comes to diving.
(39:51):
Um, and now you've, you'verecognized the learning that's
happening in the club.
So really proud of[inaudible]
Matt (40:01):
Victoria as in Australia.
Yeah,
Gareth (40:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
In Melbourne
Matt (40:06):
I'll come and have a dive.
I've not dived Melbourne yet.
And I keep itching to do itevery time I go there.
It's just not long enough to bethere.
Yeah.
Itching, my tests.
I'll come diving with you and Idon't want the wooden belt.
Gareth (40:20):
Well, then you can have the best learning experience
that would go positive thing.
Yeah.
Matt (40:24):
Yeah.
Um, well, as soon as we'retalking about Australia and
you're obviously in the UK andwe've mentioned Canada America
on the kind of thing.
Um, one thing I've noticed with,with work in a dive in, in
various locations around theworld now is that when you go to
particular countries, they havea different kind of take on how
(40:45):
you should be diving now, bythat, I mean, um, Thailand, some
people will moan about it, sayit's bit blahzay.
Well, it's not, um, those placesthat are, uh, very dense
population of people goingthrough basic training, the
courses tend to be run quitetight because they've got to be
(41:08):
up to standard with everyoneelse who's producing.
Um, conversely you come toAustralia and, um, I was, he's a
pretty laid back and, you know,take everything in stride.
Um, and I find it quite shockingto see how many people go solo
dive in just off the shorelineair, um, with no redundant as
(41:30):
supplies.
And it just seems to be thenorm.
I find that quite frightening,but I think there's gotta be a
place there for, I think wementioned it, the what'd you
call it the other day calledculture or cultural differences,
cultural awareness yet, have you, have you experienced much of
that so far going through thetraining and the, the guys that
you've been doing these courseswith?
Gareth (41:53):
Not necessarily because there are self-selecting
audience that, that comes on the, the training programs anyway,
so that then they're the earlyadopters.
So the people who see that, thebenefit of self-development, um,
what I have seen is, um, alittle bit about, I haven't done
(42:20):
much out in the, in, you know,I've done some training in New
Zealand and Australia, I've doneone session in Bali, but they
were all sort of ex-pats thatare, were in Bali.
So they weren't reallyindicative of the culture that's
there.
Um, in, in Europe, there arecertainly different, um,
behaviors between sort ofcountries.
(42:43):
Um, so it's certainly an areathat needs to be looked at in
terms of incidents, but I don'tthink I haven't really
encountered it myself.
Now, what I did find interestingwere your comment about
Thailand.
So here's a cognitive biasstraight away is that my, my
perception of learning to diveout in Thailand is not great
(43:06):
because it's about gettingpeople through the door as
quickly as possible.
And the driving factor is moreabout money than quality because
of the clientele that you'relikely to be training in the day
.
They want a bucket ticket, youknow, bucket list ticket that
says done diving, move on.
(43:26):
Yeah, yeah.
And the, you know, the, the w Idon't know whether or not your
use of the word tight meanttight as they enter the high
quality and they were having tocompete, or whether or not they
were tight because they wererunning back to back courses.
And so they couldn't, um, ththere's no flex for somebody
who's not quite good enough tohave some extra dives, but I
(43:50):
find sign off and off you go.
Um, so yeah, there is a hugeamount that that needs to be
taken into account in culture.
So go back to your book, rumble,rumble, rumble, go back to your
point that solar dive inAustralia, look at the system
and, and the, how the, the localculture will change risk
(44:10):
perceptions, and what can bedone to do that.
So if you know that something islacking in an output where you
need to change what the inputis.
So it's that the instructors, ifthey're not happy about people
solo diving, because that's thenorm.
(44:31):
Well, actually there needs to bemore emphasis on teamwork and
shared mental models and notrelying, but working together as
a team during the trainingprogram, because if it's not
emphasized, then most coursesare individuals who come
together as a group learn, andthey go off, they don't interact
(44:51):
and operate together as a team,and you can do that to
recreation level.
It just requires the instructorto up their game and up their
knowledge and their skills to beable to teach that.
So, um, and you know, the factthat they don't take redundant
air supplies with them.
Well, if that's not somethingthat's been emphasized or taught
or brought up in training, don'tbe surprised that people don't
(45:15):
do it outside of the trainingbecause you know, and their
argument, well, they should knowabout these risks.
They can learn from others.
Well, then we get into thesocial conformance piece.
Well, everybody else is divingwithout redundant air.
Why do I need to, becausethey're not all dropping like
flies, therefore it must besafe.
(45:37):
So these are all bits of thehuman factors, jigsaw, jigsaw
puzzle that needs to be takeninto account.
Oh, it's huge.
It's huge.
And I think this is, you know,the human factors is, is general
and approach and specific inapplication.
And by that, I mean, cognitivebiases, social interactions, the
(46:00):
way we make decisions, Lehmanmake communications.
There's a huge body of researchthat explains how this works,
but how to create change at anindividual level or a team level
or a dive center level has to bespecific.
So I I'm much better atanswering specific problem type
questions than writing somethinggeneric because you write
(46:24):
something generic people go thatdoesn't apply to me.
That doesn't apply to me.
That's another bias that wehave, you know, that they're
different to me.
So it doesn't apply to me well,hanging on it.
Why is it any different?
But I have got examples of beingin Southeast Asia where
authority, or, or the socialculture, which is normally
(46:45):
termed as a sort of authoritygradient where a junior diver or
an experienced diver won'tquestion, a more senior person.
Yeah.
But it's not as simple as justthis seniority piece.
It's about respect.
And we are a family thatactually we're going to, we
wouldn't question our fathers oruncles, or, you know, the
(47:09):
patriarch set up because theymight give me something later
on.
And so you get to be insituations.
And I know instructors whooperate out there where they
will, um, fail something on theleader, the team leader, the
dive is going on and the rest ofthe team, or they will get the
leader to make a mistake.
(47:29):
And the rest of the team willjust sit there and not question
or challenge what's going on.
And so there's, there's a hugelearning that's needed for the
instructors to understand thesebehaviors and come up with
strategies to inform theirstudents that says, look, once
you're out of the, the cover andthe protection of an
(47:50):
instructional setting, you'reout on your own.
And that means that you have tobe aware of these.
And if things do go wrong, youhave to say something before it
becomes catastrophic.
So it's, yeah, it's a, it's ahuge jigsaw puzzle.
Matt (48:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, how much that man, I'msitting here listening to you
and just thinking back over whatwe've discussed over the last,
however long, and it's anawkward topic.
I mean, we've got to say it isan awkward topic to talk about.
And especially, I mean, I'm,I'm, I'm not forwarding, I'm not
shy in coming forward andspeaking what I want to speak.
(48:26):
Um, but I found myself second,you know, thinking twice
thinking before I speak, whichis not usually me.
Um, so I think I can nowunderstand a little bit more why
it takes 10 weeks of webinars toget this training across because
you've got some, some massivevoids to cross.
(48:48):
And so a lot of barriers tobreak down for this to be a
success.
Gareth (48:54):
Oh, totally.
And, you know, I look at whereaviation, you know, started in
the eighties because they wereblaming pilots for pilot error,
sticking the aircraft in theground because they were not
paying attention ormiscommunicating and ropes wrong
selections, but ultimatelyboiled down to pilot error.
And it wasn't until they startedlooking at the cockpit voice
(49:15):
reporters and the flight datarecorders.
And they said, well, hang on aminute.
They, they, there was anawareness of what was going on,
but they were unable to sharethat picture amongst the rest of
the crew.
And when they did, it waspotentially too late.
And then they start looking at,well, hang on with it.
The errors didn't just happen inthe cockpit.
They would have been developedfrom the aircraft design or air
(49:39):
traffic controls, design, orairport design, and start
looking further back up.
So you start taking a systemsview about what's going on.
So even though aviation has beendoing this for 40 plus years, 50
years or so, they still haveissues and they still have, you
know, aircraft crashes, theystill have miscommunication
(49:59):
issues, all of those things.
And that's an incrediblyregulated industry.
Healthcare has been doing it forprobably about 15 years and they
really struggle, um, because ofthe dynamic environment, the
pressures and the socialcultural issues that exist in,
in a healthcare environment.
Um, and in the UK, they'restarting to bring some formal
(50:21):
structure to human factors intothe clinical environment based
on work by a guy called MartinBromley.
Um, who's formed the clinicalhuman factors group as a way of
trying to get that.
And there's now governmentalsupport to, to what they're
doing and, and the colleges thatsurgeons needs, tests, dentists,
whatever.
And now starting to put stufftogether, um, in the diving
(50:43):
industry, it's, it's me andabandon followers who are going,
this is a good idea.
We need to do it.
Um, and, and I get theresistance there.
Aren't dead bodies lying up.
Therefore it must be okay.
Matt (50:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I didn't say right.
I suppose I didn't right at thestart of this bloody episode, to
be honest, Eva, you're 25 yearsin the air force.
You're actually a navigator,wouldn't you?
Yeah.
Gareth (51:10):
Yeah.
Hercules navigator in amulti-crew environment and then
went on and did a master's inaerospace systems, which is
where my knowledge of humanfactors and sort of the deeper
knowledge.
And that's when I sort ofstarted digging deeper and then
went into flight trials, um,with Airbus.
So picked up some human factorsstuff there, then worked in
(51:31):
research and development andthen worked in procurement and
systems engineering.
So very broad view of the world.
And it was during the, thelatter sort of five years of my
time in the air force.
That's not in PhD.
Um, so yeah, huge breadth.
Matt (51:48):
I'll just get a psych, a anyone, any of the divers that
are out there.
Thank you.
I'm not gonna listen to thisfellow.
He's not even, he's not even aprofessional.
He's not even an instructor.
Well, I think you kind of top itfor, um, you know, having
experienced in a structured, uh,work environment and how
teamwork comes together.
Gareth (52:04):
Yeah.
And so, yeah, and from thediving side of the majority of
my training has gone throughgue.
Um, so I did fundamentals in2006.
Uh, we're only had about 40dives to my name.
So I was, I was really luckythat I didn't have to unlearn a
(52:25):
bunch of stuff.
Um, and then since then, um,I've probably got about 800
dives, uh, certified at thehighest levels to, you know, my
highest levels of GV take two,which is, uh, an advanced
tronics course and, uh, JJrebreather, which I'm going to
get recertified on the end ofmay, um, to get back up to speed
(52:48):
on that.
So, but I know there was aquestion about rebreathers.
Matt (52:52):
Yeah.
That was, um, uh, Lisa, Lisa,Marie.
Yeah.
Um, what are your thoughts onrebreathers then?
That was a, that's a whole new,
Gareth (53:04):
My view on rebreathers.
Um, are they safe?
Are they unsafe?
Uh, a piece of equipment is notunsafe in of itself.
And it's a simple example is ahairdryer could be safe.
It's not particularly safe.
You sit in a bath and put thehairdryer in the water with you.
(53:25):
Um, and, and so it's this needto look at a system again.
So rebreathers have beendesigned to the level that the,
um, the market will support.
And by that, I mean, is it costsmanufacturers money to design
builds, certify, and they've gotto recoup that money.
(53:48):
And then they've got to make aprofit.
Otherwise they're not a valid,sustainable business.
So the diving community won'tpay much more than they pay or
ready, um, for, for what'sthere.
So in terms of maturity andequipment set, it's probably,
you know, there are littlenuances, but it's probably about
(54:09):
as mature as it's going to get.
Then we look at the other piecesof the system and that's the
training agencies, theinstructors and the divers
themselves, um, and how they allcome together is how to create a
safe diving, converter, calm, asafe diving operation on a
rebreather and recognize thatit's working together that
(54:34):
creates safety, not a reboot.
Rebreather is unsafe.
The difficulty is that there is,again, there is no formal
training that goes into agencytraining materials that talk
about human fallibility andcognitive biases, and why
checklists are designed the waythey are.
They could probably be improved,um, to make them, you know, to
(54:58):
have less friction, um, to be ina situation that you operate as
a team.
And if one of the team isn'tusing a checklist that you've
created the environment thatactually, if I'm not using a
checklist, I expect you to callme out.
And if you are not using one,I'm going to call you out.
(55:18):
And there is no, there's nothingwrong with that, but it's, it's,
it's not easy because those,those soft bits are not easy to
measure.
Um, it's much easier to measuresimple compliance when you're
delivering a course, but thatdoesn't necessarily help you,
um, develop competencies andattitudes.
(55:41):
And the, the final piece then isthe expectation that if you
haven't read, reached astandard, then you don't get a
certification.
Now I know some agencies putthat in the hands of the
instructor that says, are they,have, they got the right
attitude to dive this equipment?
If not, then you can refusecertification.
(56:02):
That has to be explained reallyclearly before the course
starts, because otherwise you'regoing to end up with a whole
world of hurt that says, hang inthere.
I matched all the skills andit's just your opinion that I'm
not safe.
And so, you know, you end upwith conflict there.
Yeah.
So to answer the question, Lisa,my view is they are a valid too,
(56:24):
and they're potentially saferthan open circuit at certain
depths.
Um, how have you also need totrain in shallower debts to be
able to go to the deeper depths,to, to be competent when things
go wrong and you also need tohave the attitude that says this
thing can fail.
I need to know what it's doingall the time, and I can resolve
(56:45):
those failures.
And that means I need to go andpractice them.
And there's nothing wrong withdoing drills in a quarry in the
shallows to make sure thatyou're competent to deal with
almost no notice failures,because those failures, if we
knew they were going to come,we'd do something about them.
Matt (57:04):
For sure.
I mean, it's gotta be secondnature.
And the only way you're gonna beable to do that is through
training.
Gareth (57:10):
Yeah.
W with effective feedback.
Yeah.
Matt (57:12):
Yeah.
Happy days we've been going onfor quite some time now.
So it must be time for yourbreakfast and time for me to
have a beer.
So it's been an absolutepleasure mate.
How can people just get in touchwith, with you and where can
they find you online?
We'll put them in the show notesas well, but give them a call.
Gareth (57:29):
Yeah.
So the easiest way is the humandiver.com.
Um, and, uh, that there's acontact page there that, that
sends out a form through to me.
Um, so that that's the easiestbit.
There's a Facebook page as well,or a Facebook group rather we've
got about six and a halfthousand people in which if you
just, uh, searching Facebook forhuman factors in diving, then
(57:52):
you will, uh, you'll find that.
And I'd really recommend anybodywho wants to learn more about
human factors in a, in a 30minute documentary is to go onto
the human diver website, go tothe top and look at if only
click the link there and watch adocumentary, which will bring a
(58:16):
tear to some people's eyes,because it deals with a
fatality.
And it deals with raw emotionthat the dive team that lost a
member.
And it's told the story is toldthrough a lens of human factors
and adjust culture, which isabout understanding how it made
sense for somebody to do whatthey did.
There are also some additionalnotes.
So if you're inclined to takethis further, there is a guide
(58:39):
that explains the event in moredetails and also teaches you how
to run a workshop on how tolearn more about, or learn from,
um, the, uh, the documentary, ifonly, and you can get the book
from that from the website aswell, or from Amazon.
Matt (58:56):
Well, we'll put it all in the show notes.
If you want to, if you want toput a link to this on your
website, feel free and peoplecan listen to it.
I haven't already, and I'll puta few links in for that.
Um, if only DACA.
Yeah.
I'll put that into the shownotes as well.
So they've got direct link toyou there.
Um, Gareth has been awesome.
Um, let's do it again, somepoint, especially with all these
new instructors that are comingthrough, we can put something
(59:17):
together and, yeah.
Gareth (59:21):
Excellent.
Thanks very much, Matt, and, uh,have fun to everybody.
Thanks so much.
Thanks very much.
Matt (59:26):
Uh, goodbye.
Everybody podcast for theinquisitive diver.
Podcast for the inquisitive diver.
Hey there, dive buddies andwelcome to the show.
My next guest has served 25years in the Royal air force and
fell in love with the sport ofdiving way back in 1999, he
recognized that there was asignificant similarity between
life as a military man and thatof a diver teamwork.
However, there was an even moresignificant difference between
(00:25):
the two when compared throughthe holistic ethos lens, he
decided to do something aboutthis and same self, a mission to
introducing human factors,training into the diving
profession globally.
In 2019, he released a bookentitled under pressure, which
has since sold thousands ofcopies.
Now I have to admit that Irespect and admire him for his
(00:45):
brave contributions to the diveindustry.
And I say brave, not because I'madmitting a macro shuttle rather
than I recognize thatdifficulties and individual may
face in attempting to createchange, even when it is for the
betterment of all involved.
I honestly believe that what hehas done so far will most
definitely save lives andprobably already has done.
So, Mr.
Gareth Locke, it's an absolutepleasure to meet you.
(01:07):
Welcome to the show.
Gareth (01:08):
Thank you very much.
Really appreciate it.
It says great to have an inviteon here and yeah, it has been a
challenge and has required asignificant amount of
persistence to, to get this girl.
Matt (01:20):
Yeah, I bet.
So, um, w w was it a little bitlike a red flag football or
something to you?
Like a little Jack Russell justchomping at the heels?
Gareth (01:28):
Well, my, my sort of personality traits are about
sort of values based and it'slike, I've got to get this done.
And, and that actually has beena bit of a hindrance when I
first started, because it wasthis, uh, evangelical approach
of you have to change and, and afew people off and burnt a few
(01:49):
bridges and took a number ofyears to, to rebuild those.
Um, and I think that's the samewith anybody.
Who's got a strong value based.
Who's trying to create change.
It's, it's tempering that, thatattitude to look for the long
game, rather than trying to dosomething.
(02:10):
Now, you're never going tochange the direction of, uh, uh,
you know, saying iceberg, youknow, the one that's broken off
the Antarctica, you're nevergoing to change that direction
really easily.
Um, it takes little nudges andactually where I've had the
biggest successes is bottom uprather than top down.
(02:33):
Um, because there are people atthe bottom who recognize
actually this is really useful,knowledgeable stuff that as you
say will, and I already knowthat with people, who've emailed
me saying, you know what?
I listened to, you know, awebinar or a podcast, or read
something of yours or watchtheir phone only.
And that's changed my attitudeas to how, um, how I've
(02:58):
approached a and I've thumbed itearly, uh, or I've not got in,
or I've changed what we weregoing to do.
And to me, that that's a huge,huge buzz because it's like,
yes, you know, the, the changingone person at a time is, uh,
this is how you can change theworld.
Yeah.
It takes a long time.
Matt (03:19):
Well, you've got to start somewhere and then just spread
the legs.
Um, now just to back it up, uh,we smudge for those people that
are listening that have no cluewhat human factors is.
Do you want to try and break itdown into its most simplistic
form?
Just so we've got a basis to gofrom.
Yeah,
Gareth (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, sure.
So in its simplest term, it ishow to make it easier to do the
right thing and harder to do thewrong thing.
And that means looking atindividuals, it means looking at
work or tasks, and he's lookingat equipment, it means looking
(03:56):
at interactions and paperworkand understand how to reduce the
friction to do the right thing.
So for example, you know,checklists are a big thing in
diving at moments.
And then when you look at howthey're written, they're often
sweeping generalization here, awritten from a point of view of
(04:19):
liability rather than execution.
So there's a huge body ofevidence that says, how do you
design a checklist that takeshuman performance variability
that could be errors, um, andtry to design them out and a
checklist.
Isn't just a piece of paperfloor.
(04:39):
It doesn't, it's not just apiece of paper to make it
effective.
It requires a social and acultural setup and a mental
approach that says I'm usingthis checklist because I'm
fallible and I will make amistake and it's getting that
message across.
So there's a whole raft ofissues that, that need to be
(04:59):
addressed in a, as you sort oftouched on earlier holistic
manner or systemic way, ratherthan trying to cherry pick or
fix the diver.
Cause they're there, the stupidones is actually creating an
environment where it's easier todo the right thing and harder to
do the wrong thing.
Yeah.
Matt (05:18):
Yeah.
And I suppose one of the majorbarriers that you've got there
is, um, piece of people'spersonal feelings of
embarrassment.
If they're going to thumb a divewhen everyone else has more
confident or more experienced,whatever,
Gareth (05:31):
Oh, totally.
That, you know, the peerpressure that we're under and
the, you know, ultimately we'resocial creatures.
We, we like to be conform to thesocial norms.
And, and that's why, you know,you can start to create change
at a lower level withindividuals and small groups,
(05:51):
because then you can start toget a swelling it's quite
difficult to create change topdown because you still need to
create that, that swell, that,that, that influence and social
conformance that happens.
But you know, that that sort ofpeer pressure, it might be
touched on in, in diver trainingand instructor development.
(06:13):
But I don't think it's anywherenear emphasized how much
influence instructors leadersand peers have on others'
behaviors.
And you don't have to saysomething almost silence is
enough to speak volumes.
Um, when somebody questions isthis a good idea?
(06:34):
And I, nobody even acknowledgesthat, that, you know, Oh, I'm
not sure about this Barbie.
Okay.
And you haven't actually saidanything or you've just agreed
with them.
Um, so there's, there's a hugebit that that looks at, or that
should be looked at in terms ofinteractions.
Matt (06:53):
Hmm.
So the idea behind the trainingthat you provide is to teach
people not only how to recognizeit in themselves, but have the
confidence to be able to say so,and also recognize it in other
people within the group that I'min with.
Gareth (07:09):
Yeah, totally.
I mean, and actually the core ofthe training is based around the
premise of creating a sharedmental model and an idea of what
we're going to do as a team andwhy are we going to do it?
And that means that if there issome form of dissent, you know,
which is a good thing or someconflict that the, the peers and
(07:34):
the leadership have createdenvironment where actually you
don't need to have courage.
Um, there's often this bit ofpeople, you know, that you need
to be brave to speak up.
This level of bravery is neededto overcome some fear.
And the fear is generated by thesocial environment that the
leaders, the instructors, thepeer group that are there and
(07:56):
therefore it's theirresponsibility to change that
attitude, that, that, uh,environment, so that it is easy
to speak up rather than havingto be brave and go, well, I'm
going to put my neck out on theline here because I'm going to
say something that isn't quiteright.
Um, so it's, yeah, there's a lotto do.
(08:18):
And that is a normal humanthing.
Um, because we are, if we goback, you know, thousands of
years to the African Savannah,where you lived in a tribe in a
thorn Bush ring, because thatwas the protection from the
lines, Hey, you had to beconformed to the norms of the
(08:39):
group because as long as you gotbooted out, outside the phone
book and you're on your own, sothere are very good reasons why
we have social conformance,whether or not there is as valid
as they are, is a differentthing, but you know, it's
hardwired.
So yeah, the training is, iscreate that shared mental model
(09:01):
so that people know what'shappening next.
And if something deviates, thenthey're able to sort of ask the
question and say, is this right?
Are we going in the rightdirection?
Is this the right part of thewreck?
Shouldn't we have turned roundon the reef at this point, you
know, it's, there, there arelots of things where, where this
applies.
Hmm.
Matt (09:21):
So when we're talking about it straight away, I'm
thinking about a blog that Iwrote about three years ago.
And then I was trying todescribe, um, newcomers to the
dive and industry or those thatwant to do that open water
training.
And the two examples I had wasthe alpha male who, you know,
(09:42):
really big.
I can do all this and don't needto listen.
And, uh, the timid lady, youknow, who would just focus and
then do and do everythingcorrect.
And for me, the human factorerror all the way I see it
though, is that Mr.
Belli big, the alpha male, um,was, was hide in his true, um,
(10:09):
fears and incompetencies of whatwas coming.
And I think it does make me looktowards the, uh, professional
side of dive in and ask thequestion if there's been people
qualified to hastily too quicklyand, you know, thinking of zero
(10:30):
to hero.
And then all of a sudden, you'renow teaching people who have no
clue how to dive in a widevariety of, um, scenarios.
Um, I suppose you bring in humanfactors into it kind of puts a
big question, Mark all over allof that stuff that the majority
(10:50):
of us in the dive industry knowit occurs, but don't really
approach the subject.
Gareth (10:58):
Yeah.
It it's, um, it is a bit of anelephant in the room.
And so going to, to a wider sortof safety view as to why that
perception exists of why thecurrent practices are okay, a
lot of safety is measured as theabsence of accidents.
(11:21):
So if you don't have anyaccidents and we don't have any
injuries, um, we must be doingsomething right now that doesn't
take into account the number ofpeople who are scared, um, who
go off and do some training andan, a terrified, um, they
they've got that tick andthey've moved on and gone.
(11:41):
I went diving, but I didn't likeit.
And yet there shouldn't be areason for that.
Yes, there will be a smallpercentage who are, um, not
suited to diving and, you know,and they aren't, um, being the
right mental place to beunderwater.
So, you know, you then look at,so the sort of why the situation
(12:03):
ends up as it is, is because youcan cut away the safety margins,
the experience, the time thatpeople are supposed to do during
training.
And until you have lots ofaccidents, you must be doing
something.
Okay.
And again, that's normal humanbehavior.
We will look for short termgains over waiting for long-term
(12:28):
benefits.
Um, and, and in the case of, ofdiving and instruction and the
zero, the hero of it is cool.
I get to be a dive instructor.
And I, I, you know, I get tomake money out of my hobby.
Um, and you're right.
That as long as, as long as thetraining environment in which
(12:49):
the students are being taught isnot very, um, risky, you know,
that there's no additional Jakedangers involved and everything
goes fine.
That actually the training musthave been okay.
The problem is we don't knowwhat's going to happen on the,
on the dive or with a student.
(13:09):
And so actually you need to havea, almost a bigger box.
You've got the, sort of the corecompetencies or core skills that
you need.
And then there's the bit thatsays, sit a bit further out than
that, that says these thereexcursions that you might have.
And my, you know, my personalview is a lot of diver
(13:31):
instructor training is teachinginstructors how to teach a
student how to pass a class,which is not the same as how to
teach a diver, how to dive inthe real world.
Um, and, and if your measure is,is people graduating well, w
without issues, you must bedoing something right.
(13:51):
Um,
Matt (13:52):
Yeah.
And that inherent skill embeddedinto second nature.
Gareth (13:58):
Yeah.
And they get out of jail cardfor the organizations is you are
only, uh, certified to dive inconditions equal to better than
you've already been certified.
Um, so that, that's the bit thatsays, well, actually, you, you
went diving in the conditionthat you weren't trained for.
Therefore, it's your fault.
(14:18):
It's like, well, hang on aminute.
You know, you've got to look atthis at a system level rather
than an individual level.
Matt (14:25):
Yeah.
But what, where does the systemstart and stop for you?
Because I was kind of discussingthis podcast before we started a
, a couple of days ago.
Actually, I've got a buddy ofmine coming on next week.
I Steinback, no, look, I, um,he's a cost director up in
Cairns.
And I wanted to clarify formyself, albeit I am a
(14:47):
multi-agency instructor.
I wanted to know specificallywhere the law starts and stops
when it comes to training.
And it's so ambiguous, isn't it?
And he, his answer was literallywhen that, when people are in
training, then you have tofollow the letter of the law.
(15:08):
And the letter of the law iswritten by whichever agency is
teaching and whichever agencyyou're teaching under.
But as soon as that person isqualified and they go off on
their own, there's then no lawthat says a diver can't do what
they want.
Um, so as soon as they areoutside the boundaries of what
they've been taught, then, youknow, the agencies are safe.
Gareth (15:30):
Oh, totally.
And you know, the way that riskis managed is all about risk
transference.
So from an eight, you know, if Ilook at, so you ask the
question, where's the boundaryof the system that this to me,
the system starts at theagency's level, or actually the
bodies above.
So the rebury, the traineecouncil, the recreation, scuba
(15:52):
training council, the worldrecreation, steward, training
council.
Those are the levels.
That's the, this almost the topboundary.
There might be some governmentregulation that sits above that
depending on the country you'rein.
And then it ends down at theindividual diver.
Now that's the system, whetheror not people have control or
influence about what happenswithin that system.
(16:14):
Well, that's, that's the waythat the system has been
constructed.
And so the way the organizationsare set up is about transferring
risk from them liability to thelowest level possible.
That's what any organizationwould do.
So the use of liability waivers,uh, transfers all of those
things.
(16:35):
It's about getting the risk downto the diver and or the
instructor.
Um, you know, your point aboutagency standards.
I have to teach to the agencystandards because otherwise, if
something goes wrong, I'mliable.
Now those agency standards maynot be the best that are out
(16:55):
there, but they are at a levelwhich allows the agency to
manage their own individual risk.
Um, by bypassing it on, youknow, is it achievable to do
those tasks?
Yes.
Right.
It's an instructor problem.
If something goes wrong, if adiver goes out on a dive
operation, they will nearlyalways sign, uh, what, depending
(17:15):
on where you are in the world,liability waiver forms.
Um, and now I am acceptingresponsibility for what happens
on this dive.
Now, interestingly in the UK.
And I think Europe, they have tochange the liability waiver
forms because I cannot sign awaymy right for your incompetence.
(17:36):
Now, you know, to Sue based onthat, I can't Sue based on my
end competence, but I can suitbased on your incompetence.
Um, whereas a lot ofinternational waiver forms
basically say, I even Sue you,if you're incompetent, there's
time, we'll hang on a minute.
That's your responsibility tolook after me.
(17:56):
So, you know, where does thesystem, and, and start that it's
about when those students are intheir class, teaching them about
the genuine risks that exist,not just about the physical risk
of being underwater, but alsothe social risks that are there.
(18:16):
So peer pressure, or the factthat we will drift, we will have
this normalization of devianceand Dan, or has just published a
great piece in GEs in-depth blogtoday, talking about
normalization of deviance and,you know, looking at the fact
that it is a normal behavior togo from here's my rules and I'm
(18:37):
drifting.
And I will, I will say, reducemy minimum gas.
I'm going to end a dive with, orexceed my deck or the runtime or
whatever it is.
And everything goes okay, or itcould be having more students on
a class than you're supposed tobecause I generate more revenue
that way, but things don't gowrong.
Therefore nobody knows whatwhat's happening.
(18:59):
So explaining these normal humanbehaviors allows risk to be
better managed after thetraining course or whatever it
is, understanding those errorproducing conditions, the
stressors that lead us to erodethe safety margins that are on,
(19:20):
um, that is not explicitlytaught in the training materials
that, that I've had people come,my ports go, and I'm an
instructor for this agency andthis agency, and so-and-so this
isn't, it might be touched on,but it is not explicitly
explained.
And it really should be put intothe training programs that are
there.
Matt (19:41):
Sure.
Are you trying to get them inthere?
You must be.
Gareth (19:44):
I, I am.
And I have been for quite awhile, and I understand the
resistance from their partbecause actually, and this is
often something that's forgottenis that the training agencies
are businesses, albeit you know,publishing houses to develop
training materials that thensell onto instructor, trainers
(20:06):
and instructors, and thenstudents trying to make money
out of human factors basedtraining is really difficult
because it doesn't actually giveyou anything extra.
It doesn't allow you to godiving any deeper.
It doesn't lay to use any newequipment.
Um, what it does is it allowsyou to use your brain a bit more
(20:28):
effectively.
I think also part of theresistance is that the majority
of the decision makers in the,the training agencies have never
done any training with me.
So they don't even know what theprograms are about and how it
could fit into their existingtraining materials.
(20:49):
So there's a bit of, um, let mesay genuine ignorance, um, from,
from their part of what it lookslike and how it can fit in.
And the difficulty is that I'mnot a diving instructor, so I
don't reach any of thoseagencies.
So I don't know what thematerials look like, where it
slot in, where you could tell aspecific story about maybe
(21:14):
cognitive biases, why we makethe decisions we do, or how to
create effective communicationswithin a team, um, by using
certain techniques that arethere or how a team evolves in a
training environment, and thenhow it evolves in the real world
diving environment and theweaknesses that, that need to be
(21:35):
recognized and dealt with.
So it's a bit of a, an unknownfrom their side and I get it,
you know, that they're there tomake money, um, that they're not
charities
Matt (21:45):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna play devil's advocate.
And, um, it obviously does havea massive place in our industry,
but doesn't have a place inrecreational dive in for your,
some of vacation kind of guysthat dive once or twice a year
that can't even remember how toput their equipment together.
(22:06):
Are they going to be able toremember what, what human
factors is it about?
Gareth (22:11):
Um, so actually the real benefit of if human factors is
taught well is it's transparentto the activities that you're
doing.
Um, and I suppose to answer yourquestion, is there something
that that can help?
Yes.
(22:31):
So at a, at a recreational levelis the recognition that they're
fallible, that they will makemistakes.
That that's the first thing.
Um, and then look at what arethe strategies for, um, making
sure that we reduce thelikelihood and that would be
doing pre dive check.
You know, that that's achecklist, it's making sure that
(22:55):
the instructors and the divemasters who are operating in
that environment, role model,correct behaviors, because the,
those recreational divers, ifyou know, they're there for a
week, um, on a holiday and theymight be diving three or four
times, they will look to theinstructor or the dive master,
or the guide for what should bebeing done.
(23:18):
And if the instructors and thatthe guides dive masters, don't
do any pre dive checks.
You know, the, the, uh, theclients will then turn around
and go, Oh, cool.
When you get to be really good,you don't have to do checks,
whereas actually the other wayround.
So it's, it's how you influenceothers.
So it doesn't have to be puredirective and part of the
(23:42):
lesson, but it can be influencedand role model by behaviors, by
others within the, or by otherswithin the, this sort of system
that, that the dive center or,or the liverboard or whatever.
Matt (23:55):
And to be honest, I mean, you touched on one of my pet
hates, there is people notsetting up their own equipment
and not know how to do itproperly.
And I spent a year in two fi inPapua New Guinea, and every
diver that came to visit anddive with us, had to do their
own equipment sets up beforethey go on the boat just the
first time.
And then the boys would takeover and they could check as the
(24:17):
boys go.
But just for my own sanity andsanitization, you do your own
gear and you would be amazed athow many guests would complain
because they have to do theirown equipment.
And then the humility, when theyrealize that they don't know how
to do their own equipment,because they've not done it for
so long now, surely thatanswered an inherent problem.
(24:38):
That's going on in our industryalready with trying to be too
customer Carey.
And, you know, um, and again,for the guests that are assuming
everything's going to be donefor them now leads me onto
another little point.
We were discussing a couple ofdays ago, and that's the, um,
I'm going to go on a little rantnow, um, assumption and, uh,
(25:03):
Dougal, Windsor Wilson onFacebook.
He asks about assumptions aswell.
And the assumptions from theguests there that that dive
guide is going to do everythingfor them.
It is my pet hate that peopleexpect a dive pro to look after
them on the boat, under thewater.
If there's any emergencies, thediaper is going to sort it out.
And then if anything goes wrong,the dive bros, asphalt and all
(25:28):
of this stuff, and I don't wantto rent too much.
All of this stuff is in myopinion, what you are trying to
get clarification on for theworld and get it set straight,
where everyone everyone's intheir own little box, everyone
works as a team.
Everyone knows how everythingshould and does happen.
And then we've got clarity,hopefully.
Gareth (25:50):
Yeah.
So, you know, going right backto, where does the system begin
if you think about where thosedivers have got those
assumptions and those behaviorsfrom is when they would have
been learned to dive and asguests, they will have been
given the minimum amount ofinstruction time, um, to set up
(26:15):
their gear.
It would have been demoed, andthen they would have been, you
know, stuffed would have beendone for them.
Tick, you've done that skill.
You've put your reg on thecylinder, you put your BC on the
cylinder, right?
Done.
You've demonstrated you can dothat skill.
Now we've got people who will dothat for you.
So all you need to do is pitchup, listen to some lectures, you
(26:36):
know, again, sweepinggeneralizations, listen to some
lectures, watch some videos, geton the boat, go out to the dive
site.
And, you know, you get fed andwatered and treated nicely.
You get kitted up, people helpyou with, with what's going on.
And then you jump in andsomebody is going to shepherd
you.
And so, you know, a lot of that,that initial diver training and
(26:58):
development, you will have aninstructor with you, or you have
a guide with your dive masterwith you.
And there isn't the clarity thatsays you are responsible for
your activities.
I'm paying you a shed load ofmoney to take me diving.
Then I'm taking you to the divesite and you have that.
(27:18):
So there is this looking at, howdoes it make sense for somebody
write it?
I'm going to say the sharp endas a term from the safety world,
the person who's right at thecoalface, you know, doing stuff,
how does it make sense for themto do what they did?
Well, if you look back at theirexperiential journey and, and
how they developed and, and howthey got to where they are,
(27:41):
that's, that's why they behavethe way they do and why?
Matt (27:44):
Well, I've got to pick on you.
You did say it's a sweepingstatement.
It is a big sweeping statementbecause there's a lot of
instructors out there that arevery, very good and very
meticulous at what they do.
But over time you add in skillfade and the ignorance of, you
know, future guests andliverboards, and, and, you know,
more lackadaisical diveprofessionals, then yeah, it
(28:08):
will creep in, but I just wantedto make sure we don't get shot
down in flames there that allprofessionals.
Gareth (28:15):
Yeah.
And so, yeah, I totally agree.
And there are lots ofprofessionals out there, and
actually we only hear about thenegative outcomes that are
there.
They, you know, they have a, uh,a disproportional effect to our
understanding, and that's acognitive bias.
You know, we have a recall or arecency effect where if
(28:38):
something happens and it's gotemotional, significant,
emotional, um, baggageassociated with it, we'll be
able to recall it more easily.
And, you know, going back todefending the organizations,
numerically, statisticallydiving is pretty safe.
You've probably got more chanceof being killed or injured
driving to the dive site thanyou do on the dive.
(29:02):
Now that doesn't mean weshouldn't improve what goes on
in diving, but if you look at itfrom an organizational point of
view of how much risk are wewilling to tolerate?
Well, that's a, that's a soundnumber.
Now, you won't get any of theorganizations to tell you what
that, uh, you know, as low asreasonably practicable number is
(29:24):
because that would be, you know,commercial, reputational,
suicide to say, yes, we're happywith a fatality rate of X, uh,
in, in those sectors.
And to be honest, it's not ourproblem.
We've given them the standardsoff they go.
Um, so, you know, we go back totransparency, risk management
again.
Yeah.
Matt (29:44):
Now, um, I know you've had a struggle all the way along the
journey so far bringing thisinto the dive industry, but I've
got to ask when you released thebook, you must have seen quite a
significant upturn of interest.
It seems to explode when you,uh, when you released that book.
Gareth (30:04):
Yeah.
And so I'd been struggling.
So I suppose the journey startedin 2010 11, where I wrote a
white paper looking about divingincident reporting and, um,
safety management in the UKdiving industry.
And, and it went down like a bitof a lead balloon.
(30:25):
Um, and shortly after that, Istarted a PhD part-time self
funded PhD.
Um, and the struggle there was,nobody was really interested in
what I was doing.
My goal was to try and producesomething like a, um, something
that happens in aviation, wherethey've got a structure, which
looks at organizationalfailures, supervisory failures,
(30:49):
individual failures, where weset ourselves up.
So we're tired, or we're notprepared or things like, and
then there's the act of failure.
So we make a slip or a mistakeor a lapse, or we, we break a
rule.
So that went on for about sixyears.
And in the end I stopped doingit because I was spending money.
I wasn't getting anywhere, butin January, 2016, I ran the
(31:12):
first face-to-face trainingprogram that developed, um, as a
pilot that went well, anotherone in February, another one in
April.
And then somebody said, well,why don't you do the
pre-learning that's there andset it up as a standalone
course.
And I got some traction there aspeople doing online learning and
got some really positivefeedback from people saying,
(31:33):
look, this stuff is, you know,should be in the training
materials.
And it wasn't until probably thespring of 18 where I was running
a face-to-face class.
And somebody had said, why don'tyou write a book about this?
Because people will consume itas a book rather than doing
online materials.
So I had thought about that.
(31:53):
So then they spent the nextprobably from the summer four or
five months in, in the summer of18 writing it, and then the next
sort of six months getting itedited and turned around and
things like that.
And I'd spent a fair amount oftime trying, you know, three
marketing training of how do Imarket this, because it's a
(32:17):
really difficult topic to marketbecause I was trying to do it
from a safety perspective.
And you never market, um, awayfrom a threat.
What you do is you Mark ittowards a benefit because it's
what people will want, not whatpeople are trying to get away
from.
Right.
Um, so I'd spent a lot of timehow to try and market this.
(32:41):
So I spent the total end of 18marketing the book and getting
the first two chapters out thereso people could go on.
So I had a pretty big list bythe time the book was released
in March 19.
And I spent a lot of timepackaging up and signing books
(33:02):
and posting them out.
And then it starts getting intothe hands of, you know, it's a
terrible term influences and notjust in the sort of sports
diving industry, but in thescientific and the military and
the commercial, and actuallypeople in traditional safety as
well.
We'll pick it up and go, Oh,hang on.
This is really good.
(33:23):
And then it starts spreadingout.
So yeah, the, the rise was, was,was really nice to see because
it's like, yes, there is, thereis value being created out
there.
Yeah.
What I write in the books now,though, is knowledge is not
enough.
We must apply willing is notenough.
We must do.
(33:44):
Um, and, and it's attributed toBruce leave that came from God
before that we'll go to, um, andyou know, it's great.
I read this now, do somethingwith it.
I mean, that means I have tochange what I change to change
requires a bit of effort andenergy and things like that.
But starting to get people totalk about things is it's been
(34:05):
huge benefit.
Matt (34:07):
Yeah.
And is it, um, is the wayforward to, um, introduce human
factors to the newer divers, theyounger divers, the ones that
are more accepted, uh, that more, they're more keen to, to
absorb the information that'sgoing to help them progress
(34:28):
rather than the, the ones thatmight be stuck in their ways and
find it difficult to introducethat change.
Gareth (34:35):
Um, so actually I've now got five other instructors who
are, so it's not just me.
I've got, um, I've got two inthe States or two in Canada at
the moment.
Um, I got one in BelgiumHolland, I've got one in Egypt
and, um, our traveler and one ofthe UAE.
(34:55):
So they, they do some of thatsort of the sharing site.
And actually they're all withthe exception of one, they're
all diving instructors.
So they give me ideas of wherethis could fit in.
So there is a, uh, amulti-pronged approach.
One is to go in and try andsimplify it at the, um, probably
(35:18):
the, the rescue diver divemaster level, um, to try and get
some interest there, to get someinterest at the, in the se tech,
curious, those people aresitting there going right, what
what's tech diving about.
Um, and so we're talking aboutkit and depth and insight,
actually, a lot of it's about inyour head, uh, and, and how to
(35:39):
make more effective decisionsand how to recognize that you're
going to expose yourself togreater risk and an
understanding and practicing thestuff that's in the book helps
mitigate and control some ofthose.
And then the other bit is goingin at the sort of experienced
instructors.
Again, we go back to theinfluencer term to get them to
(36:04):
start even just using thelanguage.
Once we start changing words, wecan change worlds.
And that's not my quote.
That's somebody else's, I forgotit's shrunk, but is you, you
change the language.
Um, and people will startchanging their own behaviors
accordingly.
Um, and I've seen that probablyover the last two or three
(36:25):
years, and being in biggerFacebook groups where there's
this concept of localrationality, how does it make
sense for people to do what theydid?
And now I see other peopleposting those same bits or
they'll tag me in, Oh, it'sgreat.
You know, um, and I'll add alittle bit of extra, but the
(36:48):
fact that people are now able togonna say, fight those battles,
using stuff that I've given isincredibly rewarding and it
will, it will start cascadingout, but it's, it's a huge
journey to, to go on.
Um, and I I'm, I'm, I'm up forit
Matt (37:07):
And it, well, it's, it's not gonna stop growing, is it, I
mean, you're, you've, you'vementioned you've got five, um,
instructors.
Oh yeah.
Give him a shout out.
Gareth (37:20):
So there's the five instructors I've got at the
moment and there's four intraining and waiting for them to
sign off.
So the five instructors, GuyShockey who's in Vancouver,
there's Helen Pellerin.
Who's in Quebec, there's BartDen Ouden, who's in the
Netherlands.
And then Jenny Lord in Dahab andDaryl Owen is in the UAE.
And I got four others who, andthat's Meredith Tanguay who's in
(37:43):
Florida.
Uh, Chris Tomlin, a UK, uh,Beatrice Rivara in Italy and
Mike Mason, who's up inNewcastle.
So two weeks ago we weresupposed to be running the
certifying workshops, butobviously COVID has knocked that
on the head.
So I'm hoping as soon as we canstart traveling, I can get to,
(38:04):
uh, to certify them.
And then there'll be four moreinstructors able to, to deliver
the materials.
Okay.
Matt (38:09):
So we're going to have nine, nine global instructors.
That's it, that's a hefty runfrom when was the book released
2019, was it?
And then we've had a year if wecan exclude last year because we
didn't do anything.
Gareth (38:23):
Well, interestingly, didn't do anything face to face.
But to me COVID actually was abit of a, a blessing in disguise
because people were in stuck athome going[inaudible] and I'd
already started in 2000 tail endof 2019, delivering a webinar
based 10 week program.
(38:45):
Um, and since then I'vedelivered six of those.
So there's about 200 people, um,have gone through some training,
um, since, you know, since the,by the online webinar basis.
Um, so, and they then speak and,uh, I'll give a shout out to
(39:06):
Mateas, uh, who's down inVictoria.
Um, he's changed the, theculture of his club having come
on a course with me last yearand gone, ah, this is blow my
mind.
I can't stop thinking about it.
I'm going to take this stuff.
And they got rid of the woodenweight belt award within their
club, which was about thebiggest or most embarrassing
(39:29):
screw up.
Somebody had done the previousyear.
And he said, let, just reallydemeaning.
This is, you know, yes, it'sfunny, but nobody's really happy
to receive this.
So he stopped that and I said,well, you could still turn it
around.
You could still issue a prize,but do it for the biggest
learning experience of the yearwhen it comes to diving.
(39:51):
Um, and now you've, you'verecognized the learning that's
happening in the club.
So really proud of[inaudible]
Matt (40:01):
Victoria as in Australia.
Yeah,
Gareth (40:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
In Melbourne
Matt (40:06):
I'll come and have a dive.
I've not dived Melbourne yet.
And I keep itching to do itevery time I go there.
It's just not long enough to bethere.
Yeah.
Itching, my tests.
I'll come diving with you and Idon't want the wooden belt.
Gareth (40:20):
Well, then you can have the best learning experience
that would go positive thing.
Yeah.
Matt (40:24):
Yeah.
Um, well, as soon as we'retalking about Australia and
you're obviously in the UK andwe've mentioned Canada America
on the kind of thing.
Um, one thing I've noticed with,with work in a dive in, in
various locations around theworld now is that when you go to
particular countries, they havea different kind of take on how
(40:45):
you should be diving now, bythat, I mean, um, Thailand, some
people will moan about it, sayit's bit blahzay.
Well, it's not, um, those placesthat are, uh, very dense
population of people goingthrough basic training, the
courses tend to be run quitetight because they've got to be
(41:08):
up to standard with everyoneelse who's producing.
Um, conversely you come toAustralia and, um, I was, he's a
pretty laid back and, you know,take everything in stride.
Um, and I find it quite shockingto see how many people go solo
dive in just off the shorelineair, um, with no redundant as
(41:30):
supplies.
And it just seems to be thenorm.
I find that quite frightening,but I think there's gotta be a
place there for, I think wementioned it, the what'd you
call it the other day calledculture or cultural differences,
cultural awareness yet, have you, have you experienced much of
that so far going through thetraining and the, the guys that
you've been doing these courseswith?
Gareth (41:53):
Not necessarily because there are self-selecting
audience that, that comes on the, the training programs anyway,
so that then they're the earlyadopters.
So the people who see that, thebenefit of self-development, um,
what I have seen is, um, alittle bit about, I haven't done
(42:20):
much out in the, in, you know,I've done some training in New
Zealand and Australia, I've doneone session in Bali, but they
were all sort of ex-pats thatare, were in Bali.
So they weren't reallyindicative of the culture that's
there.
Um, in, in Europe, there arecertainly different, um,
behaviors between sort ofcountries.
(42:43):
Um, so it's certainly an areathat needs to be looked at in
terms of incidents, but I don'tthink I haven't really
encountered it myself.
Now, what I did find interestingwere your comment about
Thailand.
So here's a cognitive biasstraight away is that my, my
perception of learning to diveout in Thailand is not great
(43:06):
because it's about gettingpeople through the door as
quickly as possible.
And the driving factor is moreabout money than quality because
of the clientele that you'relikely to be training in the day
.
They want a bucket ticket, youknow, bucket list ticket that
says done diving, move on.
(43:26):
Yeah, yeah.
And the, you know, the, the w Idon't know whether or not your
use of the word tight meanttight as they enter the high
quality and they were having tocompete, or whether or not they
were tight because they wererunning back to back courses.
And so they couldn't, um, ththere's no flex for somebody
who's not quite good enough tohave some extra dives, but I
(43:50):
find sign off and off you go.
Um, so yeah, there is a hugeamount that that needs to be
taken into account in culture.
So go back to your book, rumble,rumble, rumble, go back to your
point that solar dive inAustralia, look at the system
and, and the, how the, the localculture will change risk
(44:10):
perceptions, and what can bedone to do that.
So if you know that something islacking in an output where you
need to change what the inputis.
So it's that the instructors, ifthey're not happy about people
solo diving, because that's thenorm.
(44:31):
Well, actually there needs to bemore emphasis on teamwork and
shared mental models and notrelying, but working together as
a team during the trainingprogram, because if it's not
emphasized, then most coursesare individuals who come
together as a group learn, andthey go off, they don't interact
(44:51):
and operate together as a team,and you can do that to
recreation level.
It just requires the instructorto up their game and up their
knowledge and their skills to beable to teach that.
So, um, and you know, the factthat they don't take redundant
air supplies with them.
Well, if that's not somethingthat's been emphasized or taught
or brought up in training, don'tbe surprised that people don't
(45:15):
do it outside of the trainingbecause you know, and their
argument, well, they should knowabout these risks.
They can learn from others.
Well, then we get into thesocial conformance piece.
Well, everybody else is divingwithout redundant air.
Why do I need to, becausethey're not all dropping like
flies, therefore it must besafe.
(45:37):
So these are all bits of thehuman factors, jigsaw, jigsaw
puzzle that needs to be takeninto account.
Oh, it's huge.
It's huge.
And I think this is, you know,the human factors is, is general
and approach and specific inapplication.
And by that, I mean, cognitivebiases, social interactions, the
(46:00):
way we make decisions, Lehmanmake communications.
There's a huge body of researchthat explains how this works,
but how to create change at anindividual level or a team level
or a dive center level has to bespecific.
So I I'm much better atanswering specific problem type
questions than writing somethinggeneric because you write
(46:24):
something generic people go thatdoesn't apply to me.
That doesn't apply to me.
That's another bias that wehave, you know, that they're
different to me.
So it doesn't apply to me well,hanging on it.
Why is it any different?
But I have got examples of beingin Southeast Asia where
authority, or, or the socialculture, which is normally
(46:45):
termed as a sort of authoritygradient where a junior diver or
an experienced diver won'tquestion, a more senior person.
Yeah.
But it's not as simple as justthis seniority piece.
It's about respect.
And we are a family thatactually we're going to, we
wouldn't question our fathers oruncles, or, you know, the
(47:09):
patriarch set up because theymight give me something later
on.
And so you get to be insituations.
And I know instructors whooperate out there where they
will, um, fail something on theleader, the team leader, the
dive is going on and the rest ofthe team, or they will get the
leader to make a mistake.
(47:29):
And the rest of the team willjust sit there and not question
or challenge what's going on.
And so there's, there's a hugelearning that's needed for the
instructors to understand thesebehaviors and come up with
strategies to inform theirstudents that says, look, once
you're out of the, the cover andthe protection of an
(47:50):
instructional setting, you'reout on your own.
And that means that you have tobe aware of these.
And if things do go wrong, youhave to say something before it
becomes catastrophic.
So it's, yeah, it's a, it's ahuge jigsaw puzzle.
Matt (48:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, how much that man, I'msitting here listening to you
and just thinking back over whatwe've discussed over the last,
however long, and it's anawkward topic.
I mean, we've got to say it isan awkward topic to talk about.
And especially, I mean, I'm,I'm, I'm not forwarding, I'm not
shy in coming forward andspeaking what I want to speak.
(48:26):
Um, but I found myself second,you know, thinking twice
thinking before I speak, whichis not usually me.
Um, so I think I can nowunderstand a little bit more why
it takes 10 weeks of webinars toget this training across because
you've got some, some massivevoids to cross.
(48:48):
And so a lot of barriers tobreak down for this to be a
success.
Gareth (48:54):
Oh, totally.
And, you know, I look at whereaviation, you know, started in
the eighties because they wereblaming pilots for pilot error,
sticking the aircraft in theground because they were not
paying attention ormiscommunicating and ropes wrong
selections, but ultimatelyboiled down to pilot error.
And it wasn't until they startedlooking at the cockpit voice
(49:15):
reporters and the flight datarecorders.
And they said, well, hang on aminute.
They, they, there was anawareness of what was going on,
but they were unable to sharethat picture amongst the rest of
the crew.
And when they did, it waspotentially too late.
And then they start looking at,well, hang on with it.
The errors didn't just happen inthe cockpit.
They would have been developedfrom the aircraft design or air
(49:39):
traffic controls, design, orairport design, and start
looking further back up.
So you start taking a systemsview about what's going on.
So even though aviation has beendoing this for 40 plus years, 50
years or so, they still haveissues and they still have, you
know, aircraft crashes, theystill have miscommunication
(49:59):
issues, all of those things.
And that's an incrediblyregulated industry.
Healthcare has been doing it forprobably about 15 years and they
really struggle, um, because ofthe dynamic environment, the
pressures and the socialcultural issues that exist in,
in a healthcare environment.
Um, and in the UK, they'restarting to bring some formal
(50:21):
structure to human factors intothe clinical environment based
on work by a guy called MartinBromley.
Um, who's formed the clinicalhuman factors group as a way of
trying to get that.
And there's now governmentalsupport to, to what they're
doing and, and the colleges thatsurgeons needs, tests, dentists,
whatever.
And now starting to put stufftogether, um, in the diving
(50:43):
industry, it's, it's me andabandon followers who are going,
this is a good idea.
We need to do it.
Um, and, and I get theresistance there.
Aren't dead bodies lying up.
Therefore it must be okay.
Matt (50:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I didn't say right.
I suppose I didn't right at thestart of this bloody episode, to
be honest, Eva, you're 25 yearsin the air force.
You're actually a navigator,wouldn't you?
Yeah.
Gareth (51:10):
Yeah.
Hercules navigator in amulti-crew environment and then
went on and did a master's inaerospace systems, which is
where my knowledge of humanfactors and sort of the deeper
knowledge.
And that's when I sort ofstarted digging deeper and then
went into flight trials, um,with Airbus.
So picked up some human factorsstuff there, then worked in
(51:31):
research and development andthen worked in procurement and
systems engineering.
So very broad view of the world.
And it was during the, thelatter sort of five years of my
time in the air force.
That's not in PhD.
Um, so yeah, huge breadth.
Matt (51:48):
I'll just get a psych, a anyone, any of the divers that
are out there.
Thank you.
I'm not gonna listen to thisfellow.
He's not even, he's not even aprofessional.
He's not even an instructor.
Well, I think you kind of top itfor, um, you know, having
experienced in a structured, uh,work environment and how
teamwork comes together.
Gareth (52:04):
Yeah.
And so, yeah, and from thediving side of the majority of
my training has gone throughgue.
Um, so I did fundamentals in2006.
Uh, we're only had about 40dives to my name.
So I was, I was really luckythat I didn't have to unlearn a
(52:25):
bunch of stuff.
Um, and then since then, um,I've probably got about 800
dives, uh, certified at thehighest levels to, you know, my
highest levels of GV take two,which is, uh, an advanced
tronics course and, uh, JJrebreather, which I'm going to
get recertified on the end ofmay, um, to get back up to speed
(52:48):
on that.
So, but I know there was aquestion about rebreathers.
Matt (52:52):
Yeah.
That was, um, uh, Lisa, Lisa,Marie.
Yeah.
Um, what are your thoughts onrebreathers then?
That was a, that's a whole new,
Gareth (53:04):
My view on rebreathers.
Um, are they safe?
Are they unsafe?
Uh, a piece of equipment is notunsafe in of itself.
And it's a simple example is ahairdryer could be safe.
It's not particularly safe.
You sit in a bath and put thehairdryer in the water with you.
(53:25):
Um, and, and so it's this needto look at a system again.
So rebreathers have beendesigned to the level that the,
um, the market will support.
And by that, I mean, is it costsmanufacturers money to design
builds, certify, and they've gotto recoup that money.
(53:48):
And then they've got to make aprofit.
Otherwise they're not a valid,sustainable business.
So the diving community won'tpay much more than they pay or
ready, um, for, for what'sthere.
So in terms of maturity andequipment set, it's probably,
you know, there are littlenuances, but it's probably about
(54:09):
as mature as it's going to get.
Then we look at the other piecesof the system and that's the
training agencies, theinstructors and the divers
themselves, um, and how they allcome together is how to create a
safe diving, converter, calm, asafe diving operation on a
rebreather and recognize thatit's working together that
(54:34):
creates safety, not a reboot.
Rebreather is unsafe.
The difficulty is that there is,again, there is no formal
training that goes into agencytraining materials that talk
about human fallibility andcognitive biases, and why
checklists are designed the waythey are.
They could probably be improved,um, to make them, you know, to
(54:58):
have less friction, um, to be ina situation that you operate as
a team.
And if one of the team isn'tusing a checklist that you've
created the environment thatactually, if I'm not using a
checklist, I expect you to callme out.
And if you are not using one,I'm going to call you out.
(55:18):
And there is no, there's nothingwrong with that, but it's, it's,
it's not easy because those,those soft bits are not easy to
measure.
Um, it's much easier to measuresimple compliance when you're
delivering a course, but thatdoesn't necessarily help you,
um, develop competencies andattitudes.
(55:41):
And the, the final piece then isthe expectation that if you
haven't read, reached astandard, then you don't get a
certification.
Now I know some agencies putthat in the hands of the
instructor that says, are they,have, they got the right
attitude to dive this equipment?
If not, then you can refusecertification.
(56:02):
That has to be explained reallyclearly before the course
starts, because otherwise you'regoing to end up with a whole
world of hurt that says, hang inthere.
I matched all the skills andit's just your opinion that I'm
not safe.
And so, you know, you end upwith conflict there.
Yeah.
So to answer the question, Lisa,my view is they are a valid too,
(56:24):
and they're potentially saferthan open circuit at certain
depths.
Um, how have you also need totrain in shallower debts to be
able to go to the deeper depths,to, to be competent when things
go wrong and you also need tohave the attitude that says this
thing can fail.
I need to know what it's doingall the time, and I can resolve
(56:45):
those failures.
And that means I need to go andpractice them.
And there's nothing wrong withdoing drills in a quarry in the
shallows to make sure thatyou're competent to deal with
almost no notice failures,because those failures, if we
knew they were going to come,we'd do something about them.
Matt (57:04):
For sure.
I mean, it's gotta be secondnature.
And the only way you're gonna beable to do that is through
training.
Gareth (57:10):
Yeah.
W with effective feedback.
Yeah.
Matt (57:12):
Yeah.
Happy days we've been going onfor quite some time now.
So it must be time for yourbreakfast and time for me to
have a beer.
So it's been an absolutepleasure mate.
How can people just get in touchwith, with you and where can
they find you online?
We'll put them in the show notesas well, but give them a call.
Gareth (57:29):
Yeah.
So the easiest way is the humandiver.com.
Um, and, uh, that there's acontact page there that, that
sends out a form through to me.
Um, so that that's the easiestbit.
There's a Facebook page as well,or a Facebook group rather we've
got about six and a halfthousand people in which if you
just, uh, searching Facebook forhuman factors in diving, then
(57:52):
you will, uh, you'll find that.
And I'd really recommend anybodywho wants to learn more about
human factors in a, in a 30minute documentary is to go onto
the human diver website, go tothe top and look at if only
click the link there and watch adocumentary, which will bring a
(58:16):
tear to some people's eyes,because it deals with a
fatality.
And it deals with raw emotionthat the dive team that lost a
member.
And it's told the story is toldthrough a lens of human factors
and adjust culture, which isabout understanding how it made
sense for somebody to do whatthey did.
There are also some additionalnotes.
So if you're inclined to takethis further, there is a guide
(58:39):
that explains the event in moredetails and also teaches you how
to run a workshop on how tolearn more about, or learn from,
um, the, uh, the documentary, ifonly, and you can get the book
from that from the website aswell, or from Amazon.
Matt (58:56):
Well, we'll put it all in the show notes.
If you want to, if you want toput a link to this on your
website, feel free and peoplecan listen to it.
I haven't already, and I'll puta few links in for that.
Um, if only DACA.
Yeah.
I'll put that into the shownotes as well.
So they've got direct link toyou there.
Um, Gareth has been awesome.
Um, let's do it again, somepoint, especially with all these
new instructors that are comingthrough, we can put something
(59:17):
together and, yeah.
Gareth (59:21):
Excellent.
Thanks very much, Matt, and, uh,have fun to everybody.
Thanks so much.
Thanks very much.
Matt (59:26):
Uh, goodbye.
Everybody podcast for theinquisitive diver.
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