Mark Dawes' Podcasts

Latest episode of Why Complicate the Uncomplicated?

The September 2018 Update from the Security Industry Authority has caused a bit of confusion in relation to one of the articles which stated: "For best practice we recommend that security operatives should only use the techniques that they have been trained to use as part of their SIA-linked training on physical intervention", so I have been in touch with the SIA who has issued me with a statement via email that should put everyone's minds at ease.

What we believe and why we believe is integral to who we are and how we function as human beings. But what are beliefs, and why are we so easily fooled into believing things to be true when they are not? This episode explains what beliefs are, where they come from and how they affect us.

Yesterday I did a podcast entitled 'Complicating the Uncomplicated' and today I want to follow on from that with this podcast entitled 'Strategic Blindness, Situational Awareness, Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba and Physical Skills Training', because it adds more weight to the argument that teaching physical skills in a complex manner only adds to the cognitive workload of the learner, increases the margin for error to occur which in turn increases the risk of injury, serious assault and even death.

In this episode, I'm also going to draw on the findings in the recent court appeal case of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, as there are some interesting insights in this case that highlight the failings of a system as opposed to the failings of the individual.

Today in many physical restraint/physical intervention and disengagement/breakaway systems, many techniques are taught in way that seems designed to 'complicate the uncomplicated'.

And what I mean by that is a system of teaching is employed that breaks the technique down into each component part which is then taught within a complex system of instruction making it hard for the learner to learn, remember and recall the techniques when needed, especially when put under pressure.

This increases the margin for error and thus the risk of someone being hurt, seriously injured, or even killed.

So, my question is, why do organisations use training providers that use these systems to deliver a system of techniques that are highly probably designed to fail, to their staff?