Business leaders worldwide are learning vital skills from a former RAF Squadron Leader and high-risk diver

Wiltshire entrepreneur Gareth Lock is applying skills developed from military aviation to make diving safer and to teach business leaders how to perform better in their companies, organisations and corporations.

Gareth, who had a 25-year career with the RAF, is using skills from his military career and his knowledge as an experienced diver to teach business owners the importance of human factors. He’s off to Lisbon shortly to work with a team of Agile project management specialists to help them become better leaders and team members within their own organisations. 

Gareth’s company – Human In The System – uses academic theory, case studies and simulation programmes developed for high-risk industries to help people understand each other’s behaviour and to reflect and adapt accordingly. 

“The skills I am teaching help people deal with uncertainty and complexity and in diving this can mean the difference between life and death.

“In business, it means developing an understanding of people’s behaviour, sometimes under extreme stress, and then being able to co-ordinate and lead a team to benefit the business.”

This autumn, Gareth is travelling to Mexico to work with a team of deep cave explorers with their ‘soft’ or ‘non-technical’ skills – something which can get missed when a team are learning important technical and functional skills.

“Learning technical skills such as how equipment functions and how you need to maintain buoyancy or lay line in a cave is one thing – however learning how to work as a team, to cope under stress and to react when things go wrong unexpectedly, is of vital importance in keeping each other safe and working cohesively. Human error cannot be eliminated but developing an understanding how to predict it and limit its impact is what I do.” 

The courses which Gareth and Human In The System provide teaches divers – or any team undertaking any activity – the importance of decision-making, situational awareness, communication skills, teamwork and managing stress and fatigue. 

Gareth, who lives with his family in Malmesbury, Wiltshire will be delivering the same training to a group of deep wreck divers in Nottingham in November. He will also be travelling to Los Angeles to lead a one-day forum on human factors in scientific diving organised as part of a larger event by the American Academy of Underwater Sciences.