How should a leader communicate to people when they are under stress? One of the hardest situations that a leader can find themselves in, is managing a group that isn’t doing what the leader wants. It could be kids who forgot what their instructor told them, teenagers who are ignoring their teacher on purpose, or adults who misunderstood what their guide said. Regardless of the reason, these situations can be frustrating for leaders and can pose safety risks to everyone in dangerous situations.

In this episode, CSGA Ski Guide Erin Tierney shares a stressful situation from her guiding career where the communication style she chose to use led to conflict with the group she was leading. Using this story, Chris and Jordy then share some strategies and discuss leadership communication styles that leaders can use to avoid conflict.

Key Takeaways

Lead with a soft touch: When we lead this way, we rely on gentle persuasion and selling to start. This can involve including people in decision making, subtlety guiding them towards choices you want them to make and generally being flexible and showing some tolerance for mistakes.

Try to follow with a firm edge, instead of leading with one: If a soft touch doesn’t work, or there isn’t time to be polite, we may need to resort to a more autocratic, telling style.

Explain why we want people to do certain things: When people understand why they are doing things a certain way, there is less chance of there being a misunderstanding or conflict.

Taking ownership of the initial instructions: We need to remember that we can’t always just blame the receiver of the message if they don’t understand. We need to be aware of the fact that if people don’t understand or do what we want, we may not have communicated things as well as we could.

People tend to remember the last thing they hear more than anything else: If we want people to focus on certain instructions, especially ones that relate to directions and safety, we need to position them last.

Investigate why people did what they did: Avoid jumping to conclusions by taking time to investigate why people made the decisions they made.

Guest Links

Whistler Heli-Skiing: https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/explore-the-resort/activities-and-events/whistler-heli-skiing/whistler-heli-skiing.aspx

Canadian Ski Guide Association: https://canskiguide.com/

The Avalanche Hour Podcast with Erin Tierney: https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/tah-erin-tierney-csga-10

Guest Bio

Erin is a certified CSGA ski guide and the current President of the Canadian Ski Guide Association. In addition, to guiding in the Heli-ski industry since 1999, Erin is also a guide trainer and examiner with the Canadian Ski Guide Institute. Erin currently works as the General manager of Whistler Heli-skiing.

Erin has worked extensively with teams of guests and guides in a number of roles, which makes her a perfect person to give us some insights on being a leader!

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How can we ever know when we should turn back or keep going? On paper, the safest decision to make is often to turn around or choose the route that takes on less risk. However, in reality, delivering adventure isn’t always about picking the safest choice. At the core of every adventure is an element of risk taking. Being able to decide when to go for it, and when not to, is a defining trait of professional adventure guides and instructors.

Helping us to identify when it’s okay to keep going is Mike Adolph. Mike is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. There are a number of factors that can hold us back from continuing onwards towards an objective including self doubt, fear, and uncertainty.

We discuss some key strategies with Mike that we can use that can help us to determine if we should abort a plan or whether we are well positioned to keep going.

Key Takeaways:

How can we know when we should push forward and keep going with a plan when we may feel like doing the opposite? A few of the strategies that can help to guide our decision making include:

Set goals around experiences: Instead of hard destinations or milestones, make it about the experience. When it comes to delivering adventure, we can box ourselves in by setting our expectations around achieving certain objectives.

Identifying data points that support the decision to continue: This includes the amount of time taken to accomplish a task, competency level of skills, the interest level of group, the weather, the conditions, the amount of risk and the amount risk tolerance within the group.

Remove pressure from the leader: Talk to the group for their feedback to ensure you are not the one driving the group or holding them back.

If uncertainty is rising, ask yourself why: This uncertainty could include self doubt, the ability level of yourself or the group to handle the situation, the interest level of everyone involved, the conditions, and the actual route or path you want to take.

Don’t make a decision until you have to: This allows us the opportunity to collect as much information as possible before making a commitment.

Guest Bio

Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. In addition to guiding custom outdoor adventures for small groups, Mike also works as a guide trainer and examiner for the ACMG’s Training and Assessment Program.

Mike started in the outdoor industry in 1994 after his family, in a joint venture, opened the Sheiling Mountain Lodge and the Center for Outdoor Education in Nordegg, Alberta. He completed his final ACMG exam and received his IFMGA International Federation of Mountain Guides Association Mountain Guide designation in 2009. He always admired his instructors and examiners, even if they were a bit harsh at times, which lead to him getting involved with the instructor/examiner team in 2012. When the job posting for the interim ACMG technical director came up in 2018, he thought, why not?

The mountains have taught him to be open to all possibilities, have several options and go with the flow. I feel lucky to have this as a career and am extremely grateful to my loving and understanding wife Jennifer and our two boys Lucas and Tyler.

Guest Links

ACMG Technical Manuals: https://www.acmg.ca/03public/resources/publications.aspx

Association of Mountain Guides: www.acmg.ca

David Thomson Via Ferratas: www.viaferratacanada.com

Mike Adolph Email:

Have you ever pushed forward with something even when it became clear that you should probably change your plan or abort? If so, you may have succumbed to plan continuation bias. When this happens, we can become predisposed to continue towards completing our original plan, even when conditions change, or new information becomes known that indicates that continuing on is not advisable.

Mike Adolph joins us to discuss some of the strategies that we can use to recognize and manage plan continuation bias. Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and is the current Technical Director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

Mike dips into his extensive guiding and instructing experience to share some great examples and advice.

Key Takeaways

What is plan continuation bias: It is when a person ignores the fact that conditions or the situation has changed in a way that should cause them to rethink their initial plan, but the person decides to push on towards their objective anyway.

Reasons for plan continuation bias: There are often a number of human factors at play including pressure to keep going from others, a need or desire to make money if you are getting paid to keep going, and a belief that we are more likely to experience a positive outcome. We may also end up ignoring or downplaying information that indicates that we should change course.

Set key decisions points beforehand: For example, we will decide if we continue once we reach the ridge, or after lunch, or once we have worked on this skill.

Removing pressures beforehand: Examples of this can include communicating expectations, decision points and the overall plan beforehand.

Guest Bio

Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. In addition to guiding custom outdoor adventures for small groups, Mike also works as a guide trainer and examiner for the ACMG’s Training and Assessment Program.

Mike started in the outdoor industry in 1994 after his family, in a joint venture, opened the Sheiling Mountain Lodge and the Center for Outdoor Education in Nordegg, Alberta. He completed his final ACMG exam and received his IFMGA International Federation of Mountain Guides Association Mountain Guide designation in 2009. He always admired his instructors and examiners, even if they were a bit harsh at times, which lead to him getting involved with the instructor/examiner team in 2012. When the job posting for the interim ACMG technical director came up in 2018, he thought, why not?

The mountains have taught him to be open to all possibilities, have several options and go with the flow. I feel lucky to have this as a career and am extremely grateful to my loving and understanding wife Jennifer and our two boys Lucas and Tyler.

Guest Links

ACMG Technical Manuals: https://www.acmg.ca/03public/resources/publications.aspx

Association of Mountain Guides: www.acmg.ca

David Thomson Via Ferratas: www.viaferratacanada.com

Mike Adolph Email: msadolph@gmail.com

Mike Adolph Instagram: @ mikeatcoe

Avalanche Hour with Mike Adolph: https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/avalanche-hour-podcast-mike-adolph-acmg-10

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