Complacency: The Silent Killer. But its not that simple!!

Hey <<First Name>>

The recent case of Wes Skiles’ death on a rebreather dive in 2010 has brought home the stark reality that ‘complacency’ can kill. The use of the word “complacency" and the term "complacency, the silent killer” have come up frequently on social media in the last few days to explain why the event ended like it did. However, as with many things in life, it is not that simple. This newsletter will provide a quick summary of the issues at hand and then link to a more detailed piece on the Human Factors Academy Blog (link lower down).

So what is "Complacency"?

Merriam online defines it as “self-satisfaction especially, when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies”, and the Google Dictionary defines it as “a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements.”  Considering these definitions, both awareness and critical reflection of oneself, will be discussed below.

Unfortunately complacency often appears in accident and incident reports as a causal or contributory factor, and normally refers to someone missing something crucial which led to the adverse event occurring.

The post-event attribution is informed using hindsight bias combined with the outcome of the event. If we have done something efficient and not followed all of the ‘rules’ and nothing goes wrong, would we consider that to be complacent? What if the same activity ended up with an adverse or negative outcome? Would we consider that to be complacent? Humans are heavily influenced by outcomes. However, if the clues were that obvious to those involved, surely people wouldn’t end up dead or injured!

Consider the two following examples, one first non-diving, the second diving.

You are driving a car and approach a roundabout (or traffic circle if you are in the US!) and are second to join with a car in front of you. You look to the direction of travel, there is some traffic but there is a gap in about 10-15 seconds which you think is large enough to get you and the car in front into. The gap appears, you glance forward, the car in front moves, you look to the direction of traffic/gap keeping an eye on the gap closing, and move off, and hit the car in front! 

Your model of expectation (car in front moved, therefore was going to pull into the gap) had a mismatch with reality: your awareness was not complete (you didn’t notice the car stop after it had started to move) and you drove forward without looking where you were going? Would you consider this to be due to complacency?

Now a diving example. You drop off some cylinders at your local dive shop. You’ve always used them, they have always been within 1% of what you asked for. On the day in question, you arrive at the dive shop late, you are in a hurry, you go to analyse the gas but the analyser in the shop is broken, you take the cylinders with you planning to analyse at the dive site. The traffic is bad, you arrive late at the boat, you load the gear, and the boat sails for a wreck you have always wanted to dive. The weather is perfect, flat calm and visibility has been reported as 20m+. You get to the site and realise that you haven’t analysed your gas and there isn’t one on the boat. You have a buddy with you and both of you have paid £75 in boat fees. You decide that the shop has always been perfect in their blending, and given everything else that is lining up, you decide to jump in…






…and the dive was awesome! This wreck was certainly worth diving, you got some brilliant photos and video footage. There was a pod of dolphins swimming by whilst you were on deco too! How much better could it have been…?


So, would you consider this to be complacency?  

Life is never simple. Human behaviour certainly isn't. For that reason we need to understand the context, not just look at the outcome. We need to understand why guidelines are in place, that even if we are experts we are still fallible and can fall foul of drift. We need to create the environment whereby others, who might be less experienced, are able to speak up when they are not happy with the 'drift' that is happening. 


I have written a more comprehensive article here which takes this further looking at Endlsey’s Situational Awareness model, research into automation and decision-aids and the impact that effective training can have on reducing complacency.  These are all covered in the classes I run, details of which are available below.


Complacency might be considered an easy ‘out’ when it comes to incidents and accidents causality, but if the term comes up in an accident report, we need to understand why that complacency occurred. Complacency is an outcome, the same as ‘loss of situational awareness’ or human error are. If we are looking to improve personal performance or safety, they should not be considered causal factors. If we stop at “complacency”, we will not improve things.

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Human Factors Skills in Diving Course Details

“Implementing the debriefing structure we learned in our Human Factors course proved invaluable as everyone in the team felt comfortable providing both critical and positive feedback for everyone (including the instructors) in the team. The goal shifted from the typical “do the skills well to pass the course” to “do the skills well to better support the team”, and it was a lot of fun to watch.”
 

Planned Course Dates

This page always has the latest dates available but those currently planned are below with direct links to the booking pages.

25-26 Jun - 4 spaces, Hinckley Golf Course, UK Midlands << NEW, only one month away
17-18 Sep - 6 spaces Rhode Island.
19-20 Sep - 6 spaces, Rhode Island.
10-11 Oct - 2 spaces, Birmingham, UK (linked with Eurotek)
21-22 Oct - 5 spaces, Dubai << NEW
3-4 Dec - 3 spaces, Seattle << NEW
10-11 Dec - full. Seattle.
21-22 Jan - 4 spaces, Vinkeneen (near Amsterdam) (immediately after Cave Night) << NEW
28-29 Jan - 5 spaces, Gainesville area << NEW
3-4 Feb - 5 spaces, Orlando << NEW
15-16 Mar - 6 spaces, Sydney (linked with OzTek)
20-21 Mar - 6 spaces, Sydney
May 2017 - 10 spaces, Inner Space, Cayman Islands.



Safe Diving

Gareth