Podcast
Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving
Hosted by Gareth Lock at The Human Diver · EN
Human factors is a critical topic within the world of SCUBA diving, scientific diving, military diving, and commercial diving. This podcast is a mixture of interviews and 'shorts' which are audio versions of the weekly blog from The Human Diver.
Each month we will look to have at least one interview and one case study discussion where we look at an event in detail and how human factors and non-technical skills contributed (or prevented) it from happening in the manner it did.
65episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
SH253: Top Tips for Diving Instructors: Decision Making
Feb 1400:12:17Tap to summarizeThis episode explores how instructor decisions in diving are shaped long before an accident happens, often by habit, pressure, and past success rather than careful thought. Using real-world accounts from a fatal training dive in poor visibility, it shows how instructors often rely on fast, instinctive decision-making that usually works but can fail when conditions are complex, rushed, or risky. When dives end without incident, messy decisions often get hidden behind a “successful outcome,” which can lead to normalising higher levels of risk over time. The key message is to separate luck from skill, challenge assumptions, and judge decisions by how they made sense at the time, not just by the outcome. Simple tools like pausing to ask why you’re acting, what you expect to happen next, and whether the risk matches the benefit can slow thinking and improve safety. Reflective debriefs and open sharing of near-misses help instructors learn, adapt, and make better decisions before small issues line up into serious harm.Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/top-tips-for-diving-instructors-decision-making-the-big-ones-not-the-little-onesLinks: Learning in the Heat of the Moment: An Interview With Sabrina Cohen-Hatton‘Storytelling to learn’Tags: - english decision-making gareth lock instructors top tips
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SH252: Top Tips for Diving Instructors: Situation Awareness
Feb 1100:05:52Tap to summarizeThis episode looks at a common teaching challenge: when a student can complete the required skills but still isn’t ready to be certified. Through a personal story, the author explains how the missing piece was situation awareness — the ability to notice what’s happening, understand what it means, and think ahead. The student was using so much mental effort just to manage basic skills like buoyancy and trim that there was no capacity left to track their buddy, navigation, or decompression. The key lesson is that learning and performance are limited by mental capacity, and when students are overloaded, awareness drops. Instructors can help by building basic skills slowly, watching for signs of overload, using debriefs to understand where attention was focused, sharing their own experiences, and remembering that instructors can lose awareness too. Developing situation awareness takes time, practice, and the right focus — and recognising this helps instructors support students more effectively.Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/top-tips-for-instructors-situation-awarenessTags: - english jenny lord situation awareness situational awareness
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SH251: Top Tips for Diving Instructors: Psychological Safety and the Thumb Rule
Feb 700:05:22Tap to summarizeThis episode explores why calling a dive can be harder in practice than the famous “any diver can end any dive” rule suggests, especially for instructors under time, money, or reputation pressure. Using a real cave-diving example, the blog shows how small equipment issues and disrupted routines created warning signs that the team wasn’t ready, even though nothing had gone seriously wrong yet. The dive was safely called, and the team later recognised how important psychological safety was in making that decision feel acceptable and supported. The key message is that psychological safety — feeling able to speak up, admit mistakes, or stop without fear of criticism — is essential for safe and effective training. Instructors play a major role in creating this by staying calm under pressure, reacting constructively to small problems, and leading by example when it’s time to call a dive.Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/top-tips-for-diving-instructors-psychological-safety-and-the-thumb-ruleLinks: Some previous blogs about psychological safety:https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/HFforD-part-10-psychological-safetyhttps://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/what-if-just-culture-and-psychological-safety-is-not-enoughhttps://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/the-challenge-of-psychological-safetyhttps://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/what-we-get-wrong-about-psychological-safety-in-divinghttps://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/top-tips-for-beginner-divers-psychological-safety-just-culturehttps://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/team-building-psych-safety-1 - Part one of a four-part series.Tags: - english cave diving human factors lanny vogel psychological safety teamwork top tips training
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SH250: Top tips for Diving Instructors: Performance Influencing Factors
Feb 400:07:56Tap to summarizeThis episode looks at why students — and instructors — sometimes struggle in dive training, even when the skills seem simple, and explains how performance is shaped by more than just ability. Factors like fatigue, stress, cold, time pressure, anxiety, social expectations, and difficult conditions can all affect how people think, learn, and perform. When these pressures stack up, students may panic or stall, and instructors may rush, lose patience, or make poor decisions. The key message is that good instruction means recognising these performance influences early, managing what you can, and adapting your teaching and self-care to match the situation. By slowing down, checking in, normalising mistakes, managing comfort and stress, and using thoughtful debriefs, instructors can create safer, more effective learning environments where both students and teachers perform at their best.Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/top-tips-for-diving-instructors-performance-influencing-factorsLinks: Blog about having difficult conversations: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/top-tips-for-diving-instructors-communication-the-difficult-kindTags: - english fatigue mike mason performance influencing factors performance shaping factors stress
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SH133: Blood, Banks and Diving: The value of knowledge, experience and training
Dec 25, 202400:05:18Tap to summarizeThis episode dives into the importance of investing in skills and experience to prepare for unexpected challenges in diving and life. Using an analogy of red and white blood cells, we explore the balance between productivity and response readiness, emphasizing why both are essential. Drawing lessons from Captain Sullenberger’s emergency landing on the Hudson River, we highlight the value of deliberate practice, teamwork, and situational awareness. By learning from our own experiences and others’ stories, we can improve decision-making and be better equipped to handle ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity. Are you ready to invest in your “bank of experience”? Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/blood-banks-diving Tags: English, Decision Making, Gareth Lock, Human Factors, Risk
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SH132: Leadership in Diving? Why is it needed, it is only a sport...
Dec 21, 202400:12:55Tap to summarizeThis episode explores the critical role of leadership in diving, drawing on a challenging night dive on the Abu Nuhas reef and lessons from military aviation. The dive highlighted the importance of accountability, planning, and adapting leadership styles to the situation. Diving lacks formal leadership training, yet all divers—from instructors to dive center managers—play leadership roles. Drawing inspiration from a Marine Corps officer’s letter, we discuss core leadership values such as professional hunger, focus, attitude, moral courage, and dedication. These values, combined with structured debriefs and continuous learning, are essential for fostering safety, excellence, and teamwork in diving. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/leadershipindiving Links: Blog about deviation: ”Leaders in learning mode develop stronger skills than their peers”: https://hbr.org/2017/08/good-leaders-are-good-learners Tags: English, Gareth Lock, Human Factors, Leadership, Teamwork
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SH131: With Errors: Aviation Blames The System, The Diving Community Often Blames the Individual
Dec 18, 202400:06:07Tap to summarizeThis episode dives into the lessons the diving community can learn from aviation safety practices, using the near-disaster of Air Canada Flight AC759 at San Francisco Airport as a starting point. In aviation, near-misses are thoroughly investigated to uncover systemic issues rather than just individual mistakes, fostering a culture of learning and improvement. By contrast, the diving industry often discourages open discussions about close calls due to fear of criticism or legal consequences, hindering collective growth. We explore how a shift toward non-judgmental analysis and systemic thinking could enhance safety in diving, encouraging shared learning from mistakes and near-misses to prevent future incidents. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/aviation-diving-errors Links: Mercury News report: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/02/ntsb-finds-blind-spot-in-sfo-radar-following-air-canada-near-disaster/ Tags: English, Gareth Lock, Human Factors
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SH130: The Power of One
Dec 14, 202400:07:33Tap to summarizeIn this episode, we explore how authority gradients—the imbalance of power or experience between individuals—can lead to critical mistakes in diving and other high-stakes environments. Drawing lessons from aviation, medicine, and real-world diving incidents, we discuss how the fear of questioning a more experienced person can prevent vital safety concerns from being raised. Whether it's a student diver hesitant to challenge their instructor or a junior crew member in aviation unable to assert their concerns, the consequences can be life-threatening. We highlight the importance of fostering open communication, psychological safety, and mutual accountability to prevent errors and improve safety across all levels of experience. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/the-power-of-one Links: Wrong site surgery: http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/05/how-mistakes-can-save-lives Pan Am/KLM accident: https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/B742_/_B741,_Los_Rodeos_Tenerife,_1977_(RI_AGC_WX) Landing gear light problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_173 Crew Resource Management: https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP720.PDF Non-Technical Skills: https://www.rcsed.ac.uk/professional-support-development-resources/learning-resources/non-technical-skills-for-surgeons-notss Human Factors skills in Diving: https://www.thehumandiver.com/ Tags: English, Gareth Lock
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SH129: We judge based on outcomes, not on process
Dec 11, 202400:10:49Tap to summarizeIn this episode, we dive into the role of social conformity, biases, and decision-making in diving safety. Humans naturally seek group belonging, but this can lead to harsh judgments when incidents occur, particularly on social media. We explore how biases like hindsight and outcome bias affect our perceptions of accidents, often focusing on blame rather than understanding the decision-making processes behind them. To improve diving safety, it’s essential to create a "Just Culture"—a psychologically safe environment where mistakes can be shared without fear of humiliation or judgment. By examining flawed systems rather than individual outcomes and teaching the "why" behind protocols, we can foster better decision-making and prevent future incidents. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/we-judge-based-on-outcomes-not-on-process Links: Learning teams blog: https://www.thehumandiver/blog/can-divers-learn-from-the-us-forest-service Hindsight bias: https://www.thehumandiver/blog/incompetent-and-unaware-you-don-t-know-what-you-don-t-know More about Just Culture: https://humanisticsystems.com/2016/11/24/just-culture-who-are-we-really-afraid-of%EF%BB%BF/ Tags: English, Gareth Lock
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SH128: I am biased...you are biased...we are all biased...!
Dec 7, 202400:05:15Tap to summarizeIn this episode, we explore how cognitive biases—mental shortcuts that influence our decisions—affect our actions in complex and dynamic situations. Whether things go right or wrong, biases like overconfidence, expectation bias, and hindsight bias shape our thinking, often without us realizing it. We discuss practical ways to identify and reflect on these biases to improve decision-making, drawing from Buster Benson’s framework that simplifies 175 cognitive biases into four key challenges: filtering too much information, finding meaning in a confusing world, acting quickly under uncertainty, and deciding what to remember. Tune in to learn how understanding biases can enhance awareness and resilience. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/blog/i-am-biased-you-are-biased-we-are-all-biased Links: Wikipedia page of cognitive biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases Cognitive bias cheat sheet blog: https://betterhumans.coach.me/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-55a472476b18 Links: English, Gareth Lock
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