Who is responsible for change?

Last week I spoke about why we as an industry need to change. This week I want to look at the other side of that- WHO should be driving that change.

George Bernard Shaw said “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”. Albert Einstein said “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.

According to these quotes therefore we won’t be changing anything unless we change the people. But which people? It is logical to think that if a group of people are to change, it must be driven from the top. That’s regardless of if it’s a company or organisation, a social group, or a country or culture. Most groups work with a standard top down leadership model. Those who are lower down do as they’re told by those who are higher up. The boss is the one who decides what is to be done and how it is to be done, they then delegate that work downwards. They therefore are also the ones who have set the culture (and possibly problems) in the first place. It’s unlikely that they intentionally set up problems, more likely these evolved over time as things changed. As I discussed last week, keeping things the same is the most comfortable for humans, as we generally dislike change. If change has to be made, it’s easiest to keep it small. But it’s also then very easy for problems to creep in without everyone noticing. Also as ideas and processes evolve, other ways of doing things may appear but be blocked by those who are reluctant to implement bigger changes that might not be popular or are risky in some way. So am I suggesting that the dive industry needs a revolution and we need to kick out all the top executives of the agencies? Of course not. In fact, this would likely be counterproductive.  They have no big incentive to change unless an event happens that’s big enough to negatively affect their finances. Perhaps we should look at things the other way around then, from the bottom?

There are millions of divers. The true number is unknown and difficult to count as there is no definition- do we count everyone who’s completed their open water course? Even if they did it twenty years ago and haven’t dived since? Or only active divers- but again, how do we define that? It’s too difficult to say but it is fairly clear that there are far more divers who enjoy the sport purely for recreation than there are executives in the board rooms of the numerous agencies. So surely this strength in numbers is the answer? They should be the ones driving change? The down side with this model is that many of these divers don’t see any problem, so also have no incentive to change anything. If you have done a few courses and everything went well and now you enjoy doing a few dives at the weekend, you’re unlikely to want to start putting the effort into changing things that don’t seem to affect you.

So who then? Historically, revolution has happened from the middle. It needs to be the people who are most affected who start the movement. In this case, that’s likely to be anyone who is employed in diving. Whether you’re involved in recreational, scientific, media, military, public safety or any of the hundreds of other commercial uses of diving, if you make your money from diving, you are the most likely to be able to drive change. The ones in the middle have the most influence- to encourage both those who make the rules and those who follow them to change. I believe we’ve changed a lot already in the last 10 years but I think we can do more and be better. By pushing for higher standards, we have the motivation to deliver better quality which if course drives the biggest motivator of all: money. Generally, lack of money is the reason most people are pushed into changes, and the way the industry is going at the moment, with fewer numbers joining and quality being pushed down, combined with the pattern of pushing people into working their way quickly through certification levels to attempt to keep money coming in means that we are on the edge of a cliff that I believe is likely to crumble very soon. But that can be stopped if we can improve quality, something that’s not even that difficult to do. If new instructors are taught how to teach, and we use current best practise to decide what skills are taught (along with how they are taught), improvements could be made quickly. The other thing that will naturally also improve is job satisfaction. Happy and safe students generally make for happier instructors.

Imagine if new instructors were taught how to communicate effectively with their students? The horror stories we hear now of egotisitcial instructors putting students off for life would stop. Mistakes could be learnt from, rather than buried, making everyone safer. We could have discussions, rather than arguments, creating even more progress. If leadership was taught, people who make decisions at that mid level would be able to pass on their reasoning to others below them, allowing them to understand and prepare to move up to that level themselves. If skills were taught neutrally buoyant, beginner divers would be able to control themselves, their awareness would be higher and they would enjoy diving far more, making it more likely they will come back and do more.

This then would easily trickle down and influence upcoming divers, which in turn would start to change the culture and make all of these things not only acceptable, but essential. That then drives change up the chain, to the agencies. If changes are made at a cultural level, it would be an uncomfortable position for an agency to instruct their members to do something different.

So if you’re one of the people in the middle, have a think about what kind of culture you’d like to be working in. Because you’re the ones who can make that happen.

Jenny is a full-time technical diving instructor and safety diver. Prior to diving, she worked in outdoor education for 10 years teaching rock climbing, white water kayaking and canoeing, sailing, skiing, caving and cycling, among other sports. Her interest in team development started with outdoor education, using it as a tool to help people learn more about communication, planning and teamwork.

Since 2009 she has lived in Dahab, Egypt teaching SCUBA diving. She is now a technical instructor trainer for TDI, advanced trimix instructor, advanced mixed gas CCR diver and helitrox CCR instructor.

Jenny has supported a number of deep dives as part of H2O divers dive team and works as a safety diver in the media industry.

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