Why is it so hard to make good decisions in higher risk situations? High risk situations are ones where a mistake, a miscalculation or a mishap can lead to serious or unmanageable consequences. These situations are the ones where uncertainty and the threat of experiencing serious consequences can apply pressure that can cloud our judgment.

In this episode Chris and Jordy are joined by Colin Zacharius to explore how we can make better decisions in high-risk situations.

Colin is well renowned ACMG /IFMGA Mountain Guide who has worked in the adventure industry since 1980. Colin has worked as a guide, guide trainer, avalanche educator, accident investigator, risk management specialist and speaker.

He has worked extensively in the cat skiing and Heli-skiing industry in Canada and the US. He has trained and examined guides across multiple disciplines for the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides where he previously served as the technical director.

Colin harnesses his extensive experience working in the adventure industry to help us to understand why it so hard to make good decisions in high-risk situations and how we can avoid some of the mistakes that he has seen throughout his career.

Key Takeaways

How to make better decisions in high-risk situations:

Imagine: What the worst-case scenario could look like.

Practice Good Habits: This includes taking the time to be well prepared, being situationally aware so that you know what is happening or likely to happen and being aware of any human factors that may negatively influence your judgment.

Examine Decisions Afterwards: Either by getting peer feedback, debriefing with your team or by using self-assessment. The intention should be to examine decisions that are made regardless of the outcome, with the intent of identifying things that went well and areas that could be improved. What you really want to identify are trends.

Build in an Adequate Margin of Error: This gives you a buffer in case of a mistake, misstep, miscalculation or there is a surprise.

Avoid Normalizing High Risk Situations: When we become too comfortable in high-risk situations, we become complacent to the danger.

Guest Bio

Colin Zacharius is well renowned ACMG /IFMGA Mountain Guide who has worked in the adventure industry since 1980. Colin has worked as a guide, guide trainer, avalanche educator, accident investigator, risk management specialist and speaker.

He has worked extensively in the cat skiing and Heli-skiing industry in Canada and the US. He has trained and examined guides across multiple disciplines for the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides where he previously served as the technical director.

Colin has contracted as an instructor, course leader, and recently as a curriculum developer for Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) Industry Training Programs (Level 1-3). He has also provided consulting services for the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education.

His guiding work has included ski touring, trekking, and climbing adventures with individuals and small groups to domestic and exotic locations (New Zealand, Morocco, Costa Blanca Spain, the Alps, the Dolomites, the Canadian Arctic, Iceland, and the Antarctic Peninsula).

Guest Links

Contact Colin: colinzach@mac.com

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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