How can we manage hazardous attitudes in ourselves and others?

The FAA in the US has identified five hazardous attitudes that are present in human caused airline crashes. These five attitudes are anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho and resignation. These attitudes can negatively impact judgment in any risk-taking situation.

In this episode Geoff Powter shares how we can manage these hazardous attitudes in ourselves and others.

Geoff Powter is a retired psychologist, an experienced climber, writer, and adventurer from the Canadian Rockies. He served as editor of the Canadian Alpine Journal for 13 years and has won 9 National Magazine Awards.

Geoff has authored several books, including Strange and Dangerous Dreams, which won the Jury Prize at the 2006 Banff Mountain Book Festival and was adapted into a radio series. His second most recent book, Inner Ranges, won the Climbing Literature Prize at the Banff Festival in 2019 and the National Outdoor Book Award in the USA. His most recent book Survival Is Not Assured: The Life of Climber Jim Donini, is the Winner of National Outdoor Book Award in the USA.

This is the second episode of two where Geoff, Jordy and Chris explore the five hazardous attitudes that can impact decision making and risk taking.

Key Takeaways

How to manage hazardous attitudes in ourselves and others:

Anti-authority: Is the “do not tell me what to do,” mindset.

To manage this, recognize that rules, guidelines and best practices exist to help us and follow them! To manage it in others, explain the reason why rules exist, give people control when you can, and involve people in decision making as much as possible.

Impulsivity: Is the “do it quickly,” mindset.

To manage this, be methodical, follow all the steps, and slow things down when we feel the need to rush into things.

Also, make others aware of the risk of rushing into things and encourage them to follow systems and processes without skipping steps. This reduces the chance of errors and missing information. It also ensures everyone knows what to do.

Invulnerability: Is the “It won’t happen to me,” mindset

To manage this, remind yourself that bad outcomes can happen to anyone. For others, try to personalize the fact that bad outcomes can happen to anyone by highlighting mishaps that have happened to people they may know. This can include sharing your own stories of misadventure involving negative outcomes. This can help to make things more real.

Macho: This is the “I can do it,” mindset

To manage this, look for signs of overconfidence. Celebrate humility and model an objective approach to decision making that involves accepting that some things may be beyond our capabilities and that’s normal.

Resignation: This is the “what’s the use,” mindset.

To manage this, believe that you have the power to change or influence the situation you are in. Involve everyone in decision making and ensure everyone is heard. Acting on concerns or suggestions can also demonstrate to others that they do have the power to change their situation.

Guest Bio

Geoff is a retired psychologist, an experienced climber, writer, and adventurer from the Canadian Rockies. He served as editor of the Canadian Alpine Journal for 13 years and has won 9 National Magazine Awards.

Geoff has authored several books, including Strange and Dangerous Dreams, which won the Jury Prize at the 2006 Banff Mountain Book Festival and was adapted into a radio series. His second most recent book, Inner Ranges, won the Climbing Literature Prize at the Banff Festival in 2019 and the National Outdoor Book Award in the USA. His most recent book Survival Is Not Assured: The Life of Climber Jim Donini, is the Winner of National Outdoor Book Award in the USA.

In 2012 Geoff was the recipient of the Summit

How can our attitude affect our decision-making? The Federal Aviation Agency in the US has identified five specific attitudes that are present in airline accidents when human error is the cause of the crash or mishap. They have labeled these attitudes, the five hazardous attitudes.

These attitudes are anti-authority, invulnerability, impulsivity, macho, and resignation. Each of these attitudes can negatively impact our judgement on a sub-conscious level, meaning we may not be aware of their presence.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Geoff Powter joins Chris and Jordy to discuss what the five hazardous attitudes are and how we can recognize them in ourselves and others.

Geoff Powter is a retired psychologist, an experienced climber, writer, and adventurer from the Canadian Rockies. He served as editor of the Canadian Alpine Journal for 13 years and has won 9 National Magazine Awards.

Geoff has authored several books, including Strange and Dangerous Dreams, which won the Jury Prize at the 2006 Banff Mountain Book Festival and was adapted into a radio series. His second most recent book, Inner Ranges, won the Climbing Literature Prize at the Banff Festival in 2019 and the National Outdoor Book Award in the USA. His most recent book Survival Is Not Assured: The Life of Climber Jim Donini, is the Winner of National Outdoor Book Award in the USA.

In this episode, Geoff uses his deep knowledge of phycology and risk taking to help us to better understand the five hazardous attitudes. This is the first of two episodes focussing on how we can recognize and manage these specific human factors.

This is another must listen to episode for anyone who wants to better understand decision making and risk taking.

Key Takeaways

Anti-authority Attitude: This is the “don’t tell me what to do,” mindset.

Recognizing this in ourselves requires us to really question whether our decisions are being made because of our ego and the need to push back on being told what to do. Or is our judgment being influenced by reasoned self-confidence?

Impulsivity Attitude: This is the “do it quickly,” mindset. We can spot this by looking to see if we are skipping steps that we either would normally do or know we should be doing. Also, asking ourselves if we do really need to rush and involving others in discussions can be very beneficial in spotting this in ourselves.

Impulsivity is the one attitude that can cause us to move into situations faster which can push us into the hazard zone more quickly.

Invulnerability Attitude: This is the “It won’t happen to me,” mindset. Invulnerability affects our ability to objectively assess the probability and consequence of taking risks.

Spotting invulnerability requires us to be very aware of whether we really believe that a bad outcome can happen to us.

Macho Attitude: This is the “I can do it,” mentality. The challenge with Macho is that it can cause us to become overconfident. As Geoff pointed out, there is also no macha attitude meaning that the macho attitude is more of a male dominated attitude.

Resignation Attitude: This is the “what’s the use,” mentality. This is the attitude that can cause us to believe that there is nothing that we can do to prevent bad outcomes. This can leave us feeling resigned to fate. This can cause people to go along with what the group says, even if a person feels the group may be wrong.

Resignation attitude can happen when we don’t care or we don’t trust our judgment. It can also happen when we feel helpless or we are not being heard.

Guest Bio

Geoff is a retired psychologist, an experienced climber, writer, and adventurer from the Canadian Rockies. He served as editor of the Canadian Alpine Journal for 13 years and has won 9 National Magazine Awards.

Geoff has authored several books, including Strange

Longevity Delivering Adventure with Nadio Hachey

What does it take to enjoy a long career as an adventure guide, instructor or manager?

The reality is that there is quite a high rate of attrition in the adventure industry when it comes to guides and instructors. It can be costly to get certifications and experience in both time and money. It can be physically demanding. It can also be far from financially lucrative. For all of these reasons many people drop out early in their career.

That said, there are many people who have enjoyed long careers. One of these people is Nadio Hachey. Nadio has enjoyed a career in the ski and bike instruction and guiding industry that spans over forty years. Nadio supervises and trains ski and bike instructors at a high level and teaches at that level himself.

Nadio joins Jordy and Chris to discuss what it takes to make delivering adventure into a sustainable career. He shares his insights on everything from decision making on the mountain to making smart choices with your finances.

Nadio Hachey is a longtime manager in the Whistler Blackcomb Snow and Bike School. He is a PSIC level 4 certified ski instructor and a Level 4 PSIC LPT Trainer. He is also a certified level 2 PMBIA mountain bike instructor.

This is an engaging and candid discussion about some topics that often go unspoken about.

Key Takeaways

Master Your Trade: If you want to have a long career on a professional, or even amateur level, you need to master the necessary hard skills. This includes things like navigation, skiing, snowboarding, biking or whatever it is - you have to be good at what you are actually doing. This keeps you safer and quite frankly, the people you may want to lead, expect you to be good at what you are leading.

Decision making: It doesn’t matter how good you are at the hard skills of your activity. If you can’t make good decisions leading yourself and others, you won’t enjoy a long career. It’s that simple. People expect adventure guides, instructors and coaches to be able to make good decisions.

Motivated to Help People: It doesn’t matter if you are in Search and Rescue, heli-skiing, surfing, biking, hiking, ski and snowboard instructing or a guide trainer. If you want to have a long career, you have to want to help people. Just wanting to do your sport or activity is not going to be enough for you. The people you are going to be dealing with are also going to figure out very quickly if you are there for them or yourself.

Financial Needs: To sustain a long career in the adventure industry you need to be able to make enough and save enough to survive over the long term. This may mean picking up extra jobs, learning to cook so you can spend less going out, and being smarter with your money.

Guest Bio

Nadio Hachey has enjoyed a career in the ski and bike instruction and guiding industry that spans over forty years. Nadio supervises and trains ski and bike instructors at a high level and teaches at that level himself. This makes him a great person to share with us the secrets of what it takes to have a long career in the adventure industry.

Nadio Hachey is a longtime manager in the Whistler Blackcomb Snow and Bike School. He is a PSIC level 4 certified ski instructor and a Level 4 PSIC LPT Trainer. He is also a certified level 2 PMBIA mountain bike instructor.

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