Learning, Not Blaming, When Incidents Occur - Online Classroom

It’s easy to blame human error, or to settle for a simple story like equipment failure when an incident occurs.  The worse the harm, the greater our natural human need to allocate a corresponding amount of blame. However, blame fixes nothing and may, in the end, leave us less safe if it leads us to ignore the deeper lessons that can be learned, strategies to prevent future events from occurring.  How can programs like the Mountaineers shift from blame to learning, and from simple stories to embracing the complexities of how incidents occur?  We will draw from incident causation theories and systems thinking, using case studies to contrast old ways and new ways of thinking about and understanding how to learn, not blame, when incidents occur.  

Presenter

Steve Smith is a risk management consultant at Experiential Consulting, LLC. He has worked in the outdoor industry for over thirty years, including hundreds of days in the field instructing, administrative leadership roles with national organizations including Outward Bound and The Student Conservation Association, and helping The Mountaineers envision and launch Progressive Climbing Education as a member of the Adult Education department. Steve served as chair of the Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) for three years. He has a master's degree in English composition, along with six years of university-level teaching experience, and earned a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the Society for Human Resources Management, all of which help him view outdoor education through a variety of educational and administrative lenses. A regular speaker at regional and national conferences, Steve strives to make his presentations fun, engaging, and practical. He lives in Langley on Whidbey Island and enjoys exploring the mountains, forests, and coastlines of the Pacific Northwest. His superpower has to do with deep frying buffalo wings in improbable places. 

6:30-8:00pm PST via Zoom Meeting
Meeting link will be sent to registered attendees the day of the session.