SH292: Learning or Blaming: The Choice the Diving Industry Needs to Make. Part 3 of 3.
About this episode
The episode discusses the need for the diving industry to shift from a culture of blame to one of learning and sharing experiences to improve safety.
This final blog explores what the research means and how the diving community can realistically improve learning and safety. It argues that the problem is not broken individuals but a system that quietly encourages blame and silence, making it hard for divers to share honest stories about mistakes and near-misses. Fear—of legal action, criticism, or damage to reputation—plays a big role, even when that fear is not based on real outcomes. The result is weak feedback loops, where lessons from real experiences never reach the people who design training or shape the culture. The blog suggests shifting focus from the idea of a formal “just culture” to a more practical “culture of justness,” where fairness, understanding, and learning are encouraged at a local level by respected leaders. It also highlights how sharing more context reduces blame and improves learning, but notes that most divers are never taught how to do this. While there is no single fix, the way forward includes clearer language, better-designed reporting systems, role modelling by instructors and experienced divers, and introducing honest discussions about incidents into training. Ultimately, meaningful change will…
People in this episode
Host: Gareth Lock
Topics covered
- diving safety
- learning culture
- blame in diving
- human factors
- training improvement
- feedback loops
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Human Diver
More episodes of Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving
- SH297: CRM, ISO 8804, and Scientific Diving: Opportunities and Existing Materials
- SH296: When 'I'm Fine' Isn't True: Speaking Up and Ending the Dive
- SH295: Four Ways We Talk About 'Human Factors' in Diving
- SH294: Clickbait, trolls and comments. How dive incident posts can teach us — if we let them
- SH293: Why does nothing change? Why do the same failures keep happening?
- SH291: What the Data Told Us: Fear, Trust, and the Stories That Never Get Told. Part 2 of 3.
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