BPL-03 – Gareth Lock – Counter-Errorism and a Culture of Safety

Description
My guest today is Gareth Lock. Gareth spent 25 years in the Royal Air Force as a flight instructor, a navigator on C-130
Hercules, a systems engineer and a requirements manager. Following his retirement from the RAF in 2015 he started
work in high-risk industries teaching Human Factors and Crew Resource Management (CRM). Eventually Gareth turned
his attention to diving, applying a military systems approach to diving risk management by creating an organization
called The Human Diver which is focused on what they describe as Counter-Errorism. Specifically, Gareth and his team
provides training globally to high reliability and high-risk organizations on leadership, culture, and practical measures to
improve operator safety. In 2019 Gareth led a team of military experts to undertake a review of UK military diving with
the goal of improving diver safety. Gareth has worked with the US National Parks Service Submerged Resource Centre
(Denver, CO), National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NZ), and the American Academy of Underwater
Sciences (USA) to provide human factors training and high-performance team development courses.
Gareth is the author of the book Under Pressure – Diving Deeper with Human Factors which looks at case studies of near
disasters and applies academic theory to understanding how we can better communicate and lead those in high
risk/high reliability units.
I am excited to have Gareth on because his views of human fallibility, although rooted in diving, have broad lessons to
teach anyone who leads others, especially those working in high-risk areas.