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What do your risk management monsters look like?

11/16/2016

 
When I started working for Colorado Outward Bound my biggest worry was that one of my students would get hurt on a backpacking trip.  I lay awake at night imagining nightmare scenarios: rock fall, lightning, stream crossings, careless students, sprained ankles, broken femurs, helicopter evacuations. I worried constantly between the time I was hired and the day I arrived for training.
 
I felt like a little kid worrying about unseen monsters under my bed.  I didn’t know what they looked like or when they would attack or what they would do, but I knew that dangerous, scary monsters were there – and they were coming to get my students in the Colorado wilderness.
 
Looking back, my fears were completely normal because I did not yet have a framework to define and manage risk.  The monsters I imagined were big and scary and – worst of all – unknown.
 
Then I learned to identify specific hazards.  Once I learned the hazards, I could assess the risks.  Once I understood risks, my co-instructors and I could manage them.  Risks that can be defined and managed are not nearly as scary as the imaginary monster risks under your bed. 

It is worth developing risk management systems to improve your program and calm your mind – and this is an excellent time of year to do just that because risk management learning opportunities abound:
  • I am joining two legendary risk management professionals – Steve Smith of Experiential Consulting and Reb Gregg of Outdoor Liability Law – to deliver a series of webinars for the Association for Experiential Education.  Our three webinars will describe the value of risk to outdoor learning, provide systems to identify and manage risk, teach how to create a risk management culture on courses, and finally give tips on how to navigate legal liability.  The series starts November 30th and the cost of the trilogy is $45 for AEE members, $60 for non-members. 
  • I posted a new video on the RM101 course (and YouTube) about a fatality that occurred on a teen adventure trip in Hawai’i that you and your colleagues can watch and discuss.
  • There is a new risk management discussion group on Facebook that you can join anytime.  Like right now.
 
I can say from experience that risk management monsters are scariest when you ignore them during the day and worry about them at night.  Shine some light on your monsters this month.

What are you afraid of? Share your risk management monsters in the comments below this post for a chance to win FREE enrollment in RM101* ($95 value). 
 
* If you’re already enrolled in the course, think of what a great holiday gift it would be for your boss.  I’ll draw the winner on Tuesday, November 29th- the day right before the world’s greatest risk management webinar trilogy.
Kenneth Wylie link
11/29/2016 03:27:29 pm

One of the issues with the word risk is that it is often equated with something stupid / foolhardy. However, to me it means pay attention, focus, concentrate, assess, decide and draw upon resources and grow from the experience.

I am working on a book right now about risk. It is based on the notion that we need to heal our relationship with risk. To better understand risk in the context of education, and it seems to me that we get very little human development out of the risks adventurers take. Lessons abound and it seems like we are missing them. So it is apparent that we need to heal risk on both sides.

I no longer work with Outward Bound (much) or other Adventure Education operations, even though I believe deeply in Adventure Education. This is because they have been unable to pay living wages in order to hold on to senior staff, who are replaced by young inexperienced people who must have policy to guide them. Youth can and need to learn how to command themselves in risk environments with skilled guidance. If they don't have access to skilled guidance, they will the adventure edge on their own without guidance, which is far more hazardous. (but some would argue important.) As practitioners we need the skill and courage to deliver programs that have real consequence imbedded in them.

Right now, Adventure Education is being carried on the backs of young dedicated staff who break policy in order to offer some semblance of real programming, but they don't have the skill set to manage the risks through pedagogy. They shoulder all of the risk and the organization could hang them out to dry for breaking policy if something does go wrong. (How do I know this? I have asked them.) But without those windows of real adventure none of the participants would recommend the program to their friends. Adventure Education must learn how to retain professionals if it is to survive as a viable form of education.

We have to get a sense of what is really happening in Adventure programming by looking at the whole picture. Outward Bound struggles because the youth are not learning skills. They should be lead rock climbing by the end of 21 days. But many schools don't have the staff that can deliver at that level. I ask. . .why not?

Have a read of my first book. A case study on a tragedy that needed better human risk management.

Angie
11/30/2016 04:31:15 pm

Thanks for your insight, Ken. Your comments about the level of experience of incoming instructors are insightful. The data suggest that young people are spending less time outdoors now than they did when we were kids, so the supply of new instructors with a ton of experience is necessarily dwindling. And you are right that we need to keep young instructors in the field of outdoor education so they can become the sage leaders that teach 21-day rock courses.

I've started a Career Mapping project that I hope will help young people see a path to a viable future in outdoor ed and I am open to suggestions about what else we need in place to encourage people to stay.

Paul Dreyer link
11/30/2016 02:10:51 pm

Risk Management "monster" - fatal van accident with full group of participants.

Angie
11/30/2016 04:35:20 pm

I have that one too! I think it might be a recurring flashback from the van driver training videos they made us watch in graduate school. The worst version is when I am sitting in the passenger seat and the van spins out of control.


Comments are closed.

    Angie Moline, Ph.D.
    Founder of Educate Wild!

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