Québec, Canada, l’hiver! Un couple de sportifs se dirigeait de Québec vers le Parc National des Monts-Valin, un paradis pour la raquette. Ils suivaient les indications de leur GPS - Global Positioning System - jusqu'à ce que leur voiture se coince dans la neige… beaucoup de neige. Ils tentent alors de dégager la voiture en pelletant, mais c’est peine perdue… la voiture s’enlise de plus en plus… Ils sont coincés dans une piste de motoneige! Comment cela a-t-il pu arriver? Pourtant, ils suivaient strictement les indications du GPS!

En fait, c’est peut-être la raison… ils suivaient strictement les indications du GPS. Ils se fiaient à leur outil de géolocalisation à 100%, sans se questionner… pire… sans réfléchir. Lorsque l'indication fut de tourner à gauche, ils ont fait confiance au GPS et ont obéi. Ils n'ont pas...

Quebec, Canada, Wintertime – A couple of young people were driving from Quebec City to the Parc National des Monts-Valin, a paradise for snowshoeing. They were following the directions on their GPS - Global Positioning System - until the car got stuck in the snow… lots of snow. They tried to shovel it, but it just got worse… They were stuck on a snowmobile trail! How could this have happened? They were strictly following the indications of their GPS! 

Maybe that is the reason… they were strictly following the indications of their GPS. They were relying on the geolocation tool 100%, without any question… worse… without any thinking! When the directive was to turn left, they trusted the tool and obeyed, and they did not notice the changes in the road pavement that was becoming completely covered by snow, nor the red and blue poles that had appeared on the sides of the road for the past 3 km, marking the snowmobile trail. When they...

Quando le cose vanno male, o accadono degli incidenti, è facile identificare come il problema avrebbe potuto essere previsto semplicemente applicando una delle seguenti frasi “Se solo avessero fatto questo...”, “Avrebbero dovuto fare quello...”, “Avrebbero anche potuto fare così...” o “Io avrei fatto...”. Lo facciamo perché stiamo cercando di identificare un modo per poter evitare che la stessa cosa si ripeta in futuro.

È una reazione naturale. Stiamo cercando di porre ordine al disordine ed è nota come ‘ragionamento controfattuale’. Nella sua forma più basilare, pensiamo che se le persone avessero preso delle decisioni differenti, il risultato sarebbe stato diverso. Sfortunatamente, stiamo applicando dei fatti che non esistono ad una storia, per raccontarne una diversa, una con un finale felice.

Di seguito una coppia di esempi di ragionamento controfattuale relativi alle...

Che cosa significa “sicura” per te? Il dizionario la definisce come “protetta da, o non esposta a pericoli o rischi; improbabile che venga danneggiata o persa” nell’ambito delle immersioni, noi spesso pensiamo ad un rischio fisico. Il che può includere problemi decompressivi, ferite causate da organismi animali, essere separati dalla barca o dal gruppo, rimanere impigliati, perdersi in un sistema di grotte od esaurire i gas. Sono tutti esiti profondamente negativi e dei quali dovremmo preoccuparci. Alcuni di questi sono apparsi nell’articolo scientifico pubblicato dal DAN nel 2008 (“Common causes of open-circuit recreational diving fatalities”), nel quale vengono esaminati gli inneschi, gli eventi ed infortuni invalidanti e le cause di decesso durante le immersioni. Quindi dovrebbero assolutamente essere presi in considerazione per lo sviluppo dei nostri piani di gestione del rischio e delle immersioni.

E le altre forme di...

Uno dei concetti chiave che insegno è che la sicurezza non è necessariamente l’assenza di rischi od incidenti, ma piuttosto la presenza di barriere e difese che permettono al sistema di fallire in sicurezza. Questa definizione arriva da Todd Conklin, un ricercatore e professionista che lavora nell’ambito della sicurezza e delle performance umane nell’industria americana. L’idea è che si sviluppino delle capacità tecniche e non tecniche, che si creino attrezzature, procedure ed addestramenti e che si gestisca la situazione così che si possano affrontare rischi ad un livello gestibile. Tuttavia, non possiamo creare o gestire qualunque cosa in anticipo, quindi dobbiamo essere in grado di affrontare gli eventi imprevisti e poi condividerne le storie, in modo che anche gli altri possano imparare.
 

Nelle immersioni con il rebreather, uno dei modi migliori per accertarsi che la macchina sia pronta e sicura è di...

One of the key themes I teach is that safety is not necessarily the absence of accidents or incidents, but rather the presence of barriers and defences and the capacity of the system to fail safely. This quote comes from Todd Conklin, a researcher and practitioner working in the safety and human performance industry in the US. The idea is that we develop technical and non-technical skills and design the equipment, procedures and training and manage the environment so that risk is managed at an acceptable level. However, we can't design or manage everything beforehand, so we need to be able to handle those 'odd events' and then share the stories so that others may learn. 

In rebreather diving, one of the best ways to ensure that the unit is safe to dive is to make sure that the build and final pre-dive checks are completed. However, even if this is done diligently on the surface including packing the scrubber and then executing the complete set of final checks, things can go...

What does safe mean to you? The dictionary defines safe as “protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost” and in the context of diving, we often think about the physical risks. These can include decompression sickness, animal-induced injuries, separated from the team/boat, entanglement, lost within a cave system or running out of gas. These are all credible negative outcomes which we should be concerned about. In fact, a number of these appear in the 2008 research paper from DAN (Common causes of open-circuit recreational diving fatalities) which examined triggers, disabling event/injuries and causes of death in diving, and so they should be definitely considered as part of our risk management plans and diving plans.

 
But what about another form of safety? A form which Google under project Aristotle identified as the key trait of high-performing teams and without which nothing else really mattered. A form...

It would be difficult to imagine a life that didn’t involve goals. Goals provide inspiration, direction and motivation for nearly everything we do. Goal setting is responsible for nearly all the amazing things that we do, from walking on the moon to diving into the Marianas Trench. In a simpler form, goals get us out of bed in the morning and help us put food on our table. Goals and goal setting are synonymous with human nature and part of who and what we are. Indeed, goal setting is almost always viewed as a positive act on our part and something that drives us to accomplish things.

Goal setting also has a darker side and one that can lead us into trouble. In his book “Destructive Goal Pursuit”, D. Christopher Kayes reviewed the events surrounding the tragedy on Mount Everest in 1996 where experienced mountain guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer led teams of climbers in a summit attempt of that mountain that ended in disaster. Eight climbers perished in this tragedy...

When things go wrong, or incidents/accidents happen, it is easy to identify how the problem could have been prevented by applying one of the following the phrases ‘If only they’d done A…’ or ‘They should have done B…’ or ‘They could have done C…’ or ‘I would have done D…’ We do this because we are trying to identify a way in which we could prevent the same thing happening again in the future.

This is a natural reaction. We are trying to bring order to disorder and is known as counterfactual reasoning. At its most basic form, we think that if the people had taken different actions, then the outcome would have been different. Unfortunately, we are applying non-existent facts to the story to tell a different one, one with a happy ending.

Here are a couple of examples of counterfactuals in relation to diving:

• If the rebreather diver had done his checklist properly, then he wouldn’t have entered the...