Episode 9 - A Behavioral Incident, or an Organizational Incident? (Chris Bartram)

Well, let's, let's jump into the part, Chris, where we do a little bit more analysis of the story itself, and thank you for all those incredible, um, specific details and all those different layers.

You know, I, I do think that there is kind of a simple story that we could settle for, or maybe even a simple story at the time-

Mm

... that you may have been telling yourself as an instructor in the field-

Sure

... to be fair, and I'm wondering, like, what would you say-- what is the simple story?

Yeah, I mean, I think the simple story, at least a-as I told it to myself, which led to some of these impacts that we're gonna talk about, is that it felt like we weren't effectively supported by our supervisor in our decision-making, um, and assessment of this student.

And then I think the other actor in this situation is the organizational pressure to enroll these programs with students that may or may not be the right fit.

And, um, I don't know how that student's screening went, but, you know, if the marker of the standard for student enrollment is putting a 40-some-odd-year-old student on a group of 16 to 18-year-olds, that feels telling to me.

You know, you could imagine some real simple story where you guys did everything right, and it was just this bad apple that you had in your group, and we just need to do a better job with screening in the future, right?

I think that, like, the ultimate simple fix for me, which I-- it's so funny, like, being in nonprofit and higher ed program management, it's always the culprit, is financials, right? [chuckles] 'Cause, like, if we weren't finan- in a place of financial stress, then we wouldn't be in a situation where we had to accept students on the program that weren't the right fit or would've been more okay with dismissing the student from course due to not being worried about having to give them a potential refund.

So the way kinda those pieces intermix, I feel like that's, like, often the, the culprit is the financial pressure.

You're familiar with the Accimap model, Rasmussen's Accimap, that looks at the contributing factors in an incident o-on many different levels.

Yeah.

And instead of settling for some simple linear story of bad student, bad outcome, or need more money, better program.

[chuckles]

Yes.

Instead of settling for that simple story, the Accimap approach or systems thinking in general, you know, invites us to recognize lots of the different contributing factors and how they interrelate with each other.

I'm thinking about things that are more subtle things like permitting on the course that required you to climb 3,500 feet on that very first day when students have already flown in from sea level just to be there, climbing to 12,000 feet due to permitting restrictions.

And then we can look at organizational things like financial pressure or the screening questions or the fact that you have these age waiver rules in place that are probably ways to sort of stretch your margins a little bit and accommodate students that you might not-- the program might not exactly be designed for, right? So, you know, when we start looking at it through that systems thinking lens and seeing all those different pieces together, it, it, it, it forces us to get away from the simple story and the simple fix.

Well, funny enough, I started building my own Accimap and thinking through this a bit.

And I think that, you know, if we're looking out at, like, government laws and regulations, I think that permitting is a big challenge.

That was a big challenge in kinda the tone of this, just in the way that it impacted it.

Like, we were restricted to certain areas.

We couldn't camp in this area 'cause we didn't have user days, so we had to camp in this area instead.

Well, let's, let's jump into the part, Chris, where we do a little bit more analysis of the story itself, and thank you for all those incredible, um, specific details and all those different layers.

You know, I, I do think that there is kind of a simple story that we could settle for, or maybe even a simple story at the time-

Mm

... that you may have been telling yourself as an instructor in the field-

Sure

... to be fair, and I'm wondering, like, what would you say-- what is the simple story?

Yeah, I mean, I think the simple story, at least a-as I told it to myself, which led to some of these impacts that we're gonna talk about, is that it felt like we weren't effectively supported by our supervisor in our decision-making, um, and assessment of this student.

And then I think the other actor in this situation is the organizational pressure to enroll these programs with students that may or may not be the right fit.

And, um, I don't know how that student's screening went, but, you know, if the marker of the standard for student enrollment is putting a 40-some-odd-year-old student on a group of 16 to 18-year-olds, that feels telling to me.

You know, you could imagine some real simple story where you guys did everything right, and it was just this bad apple that you had in your group, and we just need to do a better job with screening in the future, right?

I think that, like, the ultimate simple fix for me, which I-- it's so funny, like, being in nonprofit and higher ed program management, it's always the culprit, is financials, right? [chuckles] 'Cause, like, if we weren't finan- in a place of financial stress, then we wouldn't be in a situation where we had to accept students on the program that weren't the right fit or would've been more okay with dismissing the student from course due to not being worried about having to give them a potential refund.

So the way kinda those pieces intermix, I feel like that's, like, often the, the culprit is the financial pressure.

You're familiar with the Accimap model, Rasmussen's Accimap, that looks at the contributing factors in an incident o-on many different levels.

Yeah.

And instead of settling for some simple linear story of bad student, bad outcome, or need more money, better program.

[chuckles]

Yes.

Instead of settling for that simple story, the Accimap approach or systems thinking in general, you know, invites us to recognize lots of the different contributing factors and how they interrelate with each other.

I'm thinking about things that are more subtle things like permitting on the course that required you to climb 3,500 feet on that very first day when students have already flown in from sea level just to be there, climbing to 12,000 feet due to permitting restrictions.

And then we can look at organizational things like financial pressure or the screening questions or the fact that you have these age waiver rules in place that are probably ways to sort of stretch your margins a little bit and accommodate students that you might not-- the program might not exactly be designed for, right? So, you know, when we start looking at it through that systems thinking lens and seeing all those different pieces together, it, it, it, it forces us to get away from the simple story and the simple fix.

Well, funny enough, I started building my own Accimap and thinking through this a bit.

And I think that, you know, if we're looking out at, like, government laws and regulations, I think that permitting is a big challenge.

That was a big challenge in kinda the tone of this, just in the way that it impacted it.

Like, we were restricted to certain areas.

We couldn't camp in this area 'cause we didn't have user days, so we had to camp in this area instead.