Leadership / teamwork exercises

[Swingwing]

Hi All,
As we all know, the medical world is finally picking up on some of this CRM/ human factors stuff we've been banging on about in aviation for years. Having taught a few courses in my time, I've been asked to deliver some training to a bunch of medical people, focusing on leadership and teamwork (and then possibly leading into the broader human factors / CRM concepts at a later date).
The first part of it should be pretty easy - they want it "you know, exciting and upbeat" (apparently it's a boring all-day conference, and this is a distraction for them). So, I'll rev 'em up with a bit of video footage of me with my helmet on roaring around Red Flag at Nellis, ;) , or maybe some piccies of the Blue Angels, and then a bit of gumph about "Plan - Brief - Execute - Debrief" or some such fighter / aviation-ish model.
The difficult bit is that I will need to give them some sort of leadership / team building exercise for the breakout session. I'd like to continue the aviation theme, but although they're an educated and technical audience, they aren't pilots, so I can't just give them one of the standard CRM exercises - can I? Conversely, the reason they've asked me is that they're sick of the usual corporate training providers and their "radioactive pond" scenarios that are the usual leadership workshop fare, so that's no good either.
I'm thinking I'll have to design something from scratch - but before I do, does anyone have any suggestions, ie:
* Good exercises you've been given on courses; or
* Useful websites (I've perused the ones in the sticky with no great success to date)
Any and all suggestions gratefully received, thanks!
SW

[Brian Abraham]

I'd say stick with an aviation example, although they might not be educated aviation wise I reckon they would pick up on a majority of the errors made. It's not often rocket science. I got bored to death with the number of times we went through the Midlands/Kegworth 737 accident on CRM courses but it is an accident your audience could easily pick up on the cause/effect.

[crew the screw]

the DODAR model of decision making is also one widely used in Aviation

http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk/ljdm/talkppt/BolandLJDM.pdf#search=%22dodar%20decision%20making%20%22

Try the above from Cranfield UK... "dey is da Bomb" when it comes to flight studies.

good luck with it!

Crew

[Tigs2]

SwingWing

Unless you have been briefed otherwise i would completely steer clear of aviation examples. I have done a lot of work with these people and on the quiet they get really miffed when we try and talk about CRM from an aviation perspective. They are Doctors and Nurses. There are many good medical case studies out there that highlight the effects of fatigue on performance, Stress,. communications, leadership and teamwork. Get hold of a Doctor to dig up some case studies and talk you through them. Medical Lingo is as Alien to us as Aviation lingo is to them. If you stick with aviation they just wont get it, Honest!

[Swingwing]

Thanks guys, all good suggestions!

Tigs: I hear what you say, but I've been asked specifically to give an aviation perspective - that said, I don't want to bombard them with terminology that they won't understand, any more than I would appreciate being lectured by doctors about how to use operating theatre techniques in the cockpit!

The "crossover" bit is what makes it difficult (and interesting) - hence my questions to you all.

thanks again everyone, keep 'em coming!

SW

[main gear touchdown]

What kind of exercise are you planning- giving them an aviation example and let them play "spot the mistake"? :) Or would they have to apply their newly-learned leadership skills in a hypothetical situation?

As you've been asked to give an aviation perspective sticking with aviation examples may be fine as long as its clear how they relate to medicine and as long as it doesn't get to technical. (That's the advantage of examples like UAL 232, Eastern 401 or Kegworth- they're quite easy to understand even if you're non-aviation)
If they're motivated they may be happy to do a bit of thinking to transfer the lesson from aviation to medicine...maybe help them a bit with how it transfers to medicine.

Btw, if you come up with a new exercise would you mind sharing it with us? I always like to hear about other people's exercises and teaching strategies...

[alf5071h]

Use an example with a positive outcome. Consider the A300 vs missile in Baghdad. There is a good pilot orientated write-up of the airmanship issues (I am looking for a link) and Airbus have a ‘graphical’ presentation (Operators Conferences) with animation of the final approach and landing (FDR).
If you would like to try something ‘out of the ordinary’ see Combating omission errors through task analysis and good reminders (http://qhc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/11/1/40) from James Reason and involves a photocopier.

[tubby one]

Swingwing - given your intro I wonder why you were asked!! CRM and its application in aviation and eslewhere is not a 'whizz-bang' but a very serious and important skill and should be treated as such.
However, that said you could consider using Kern's 'Darker shade of blue'. Although aviation the key aspects are clear enough to be recognisable by anyone with a professional bent.
You could also have a look at Uni of Texas, particulary at any of the work by Ashley (ashleigh) Merritt an Aussie who has done a lot of work on transitioning CRM to the operating theatre. Or the 2000 Manly conference which had a medical professionals beakout - you may find this occured in later conferences as well.

[ITCZ]

Try these...

Thomas, E.J., & Helmreich, R.L. (2002). Will airline safety models work in medicine? In M.M. Rosenthal & K.M. Sutcliffe (Eds.), Medical Error: What do we know? What do we do? (pp. 217-234). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Helmreich, R.L. (2002). Managing threat and error in aviation and medicine. In Proceedings of the Third LOSA Week (ICAO) (pp. 15-22). , Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 14-16, 2002.

The second was published in a British medical journal. It contained as a sidebar a case study of an eight year old boy that died during a simple procedure. Combination of anaethestist off his game(sic), surgeon that was focusing on other issues, theatre nurses that noted but didn't speak up after observing unusual behaviour, etc.

Might be a good kickoff.

Seeing as you are in Brisbane, try also Dr Anne Miller at humanfactors.uq.edu.au. Former nurse now in charge of human factors research in the applied psych department at uq.

[Swingwing]

Thanks again all for the suggestions.

Tubby one - appreciate your thoughts on sources. Am across the Merrit stuff, and have thought about using it. In relation to your other rather gratuitous point -

Swingwing - given your intro I wonder why you were asked!! CRM and its application in aviation and eslewhere is not a 'whizz-bang' but a very serious and important skill and should be treated as such.

Getting training from you must be an absolute blast. It is possible to teach people something and still be entertaining at the same time you know.

I won't bore you with my resume, but my combined academic / civilian / military / instructional experience was obviously such as to convince the client that I had something to offer. But more relevantly, to remind you of the client brief I outlined:

- they want it "you know, exciting and upbeat" (apparently it's a boring all-day conference, and this is a distraction for them).

If they wanted another plonker in a grey suit droning on about "embracing change" or banging on with hours of Powerpoint about the Reason model they would have hired one. I perhaps didn't give you enough detail about what was requested, but it's a combination of leadership / team building / motivation etc - as well as a stand alone section on the CRM / human factors applications of aviation. The latter was added at my request, because I completely agree with you that CRM is a serious subject which, if correctly applied, has been demonstrated to have considerable benefits in the medical field.

I'm leaning towards a couple of case study exercises, one from the aviation world (probably Kegworth, as even though we've all done it to death it's still the classic - or maybe the Florida Everglades as a counterpoint where there was arguably too much teamwork and not enough command) and one from medicine, probably the anaesthetics accident to which ITCZ refers. (knew about it, but was lacking the link - cheers mate.)

So, thanks again all. If I come up with something that I think is reasonably well synthesised I'll let you know - including the feedback from participants, as I'm planning to survey them after the sessions for possible improvements. After all, I'm going to talk to them about debriefs and why they're important to teams, so better practice what I preach!!

SW