How to Burn a Bridge Time to get fluffy - Leah Fennema Hall, BCBA January 2021 - PBSuk
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How to Burn a Bridge
Time to get fluffy
Leah Fennema Hall, BCBA
January 2021
To begin, a story…
When people first began flying airplanes, it was only a matter of time before one of them was going
to crash, not because of a malfunction of the aircraft, but because of a malfunction of the human.
This really came to everyone’s attention in the 1970s and 1980s when there were a few
catastrophic crashes that nobody could blame on the aircraft.
© 2021 LUX CONSULTING
Fortunately, this occurred in a way that obviously placed blame on the humans, because otherwise
competent humans had been malfunctioning since the dawn of time, and actually the US Army
had noticed about a decade earlier (1959) – referring to these illusive ‘job related skills involving
people’ as ‘soft skills’ by 1972.
© 2021 LUX CONSULTING
In their efforts to prevent similar things from happening in the future, aviation psychologists
attempted to better understand the sources of ‘pilot error’ – things like the way pilots made
decisions, the way they worked together, the way they communicated, etc. They called these
things nontechnical skills.
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…and this is what you’re here to learn about,
so let’s kick this thing off in true academic fashion
The Oxford English Dictionary defines technical as an adjective “of a person: Skilled in or practically
conversant with some particular art or subject” or “of a thing: Skillfully done or made.”
Nontechnical is defined as an adjective “not relating to or involving science or technology; not
requiring or assuming specialized or technical knowledge.”
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Why do we call them nontechnical?
• Defined as what they’re not?
• Second class skills?
• Based on this definition, it is easy to conclude that technical skills are of high value and
require special training, while nontechnical skills (NTS) are less valuable and do not
require such training – and we see this reflected in the attitudes of technical specialists.
• Behavioural science practitioners included
As behavioural scientists, we must beg to differ – nontechnical skills most certainly do
involve the science of human behaviour
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So, what is a nontechnical skill?
Non-technical skills (NTS) are social, cognitive and personal skills that can enhance the way you or
your staff carry out technical skills, tasks and procedures. (Rail Safety & Standards Board 2021)
Interpersonal
Skills
Communication Cognitive Skills
Leadership Problem Solving
Teamworking Decision Making
Task Management
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What happens if these things go wrong where
you work?
You may not find yourself responsible for
an air accident, but it is likely you’ll at least
burn a bridge or two.
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How to burn a bridge, Step 1: Terrible task
management skills
No better way to throw
a spanner in the works
than to repeatedly miss
deadlines.
Who is relying on you?
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Task management skills
• Working efficiently without excessive prompting
• Arriving to meetings on time
• Prioritising tasks
• Effective scheduling
• Adhering to deadlines
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGStep 2: Make sure your writing is inappropriate,
unintelligible, and way too long
Anyone had
an email like
this?
What is at risk if you have
poor written
communication skills?
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGWritten communication skills
• Writing that positively reflects on you and your company
• Functionally and professionally communicating thoughts and ideas to a variety of
readers
• Clear and understandable by the target audience
• Concise with no unnecessary details
• Adopting an appropriate tone – professional, friendly, or formal when
appropriate
• Good spelling and grammar are important
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGStep 3: Throw your hands in the air like you
just don’t… know how to solve problems
…but wh
y won’t
they just
take
data?!
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGProblem solving skills
New technologies and a rapidly changing world mean constant adaptation and a need to
continuously create and implement solutions
• Remaining calm and working through problems even when things that are unexpected
and uncertain
• Taking time for research and analysis, avoiding over-reliance on previously used
solutions or bad advice
• Focusing on opportunities instead of barriers
• Resilience and flexible thinking: bouncing back and changing your approach when
appropriate
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGStep 4: Dysfunctionally communicate
extinction
discr
imina avoidance
tio n
dep Schedule of class
r ivat reinforcement
ion
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGOral communication skills
• Adopting a tone that is appropriate for the person you’re speaking to
• Functionally and persuasively conveying information to a variety of audiences
• Public speaking
• Speaking in meetings
• Speaking to clients and colleagues – mum test
• Avoiding the use of complicated jargon, inappropriate body language,
inattention, and appearing disinterested
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGStep 5: put the “I” in TEAM
I hea
r
hang d he
with s out
SLTs
and
OTs
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGTeamwork
Very few of us are working in complete isolation – the rest of us will need to
collaborate, integrate, and relate to others
• Working well with other practitioners
• Working well in MDTs
• Sometimes it is not better to be right than to be popular
• Remaining flexible and collaborating with others
• Building relationships and positively influencing others
• Treating all team members with equal respect
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGIn the event you’re still not sold:
Google’s Project Oxygen found that the seven top characteristics of success at
Google are all soft skills; STEM expertise came in dead last.
Google’s Project Aristotle found that its most successful teams were not its ‘A-
teams’, assembled with top scientists; instead, the most important and productive
ideas came from B-teams who exhibited a range of soft skills with psychological
safety being the most important characteristic of these successful teams.
© 2021 LUX CONSULTING…still no??
• You are an expert in your field (there is no doubt about that), but you must have
certain transferable skills to succeed in any industry.
• Your career success depends on it (people hire and retain those with good soft
skills)
• Your client’s success depends on it (stakeholder and colleague support,
programme success and treatment fidelity)
• Our field’s success depends on it (dissemination and working with others)
• Even if you don’t plan to stay in the field, these skills are critical for transferring
to another field successfully
© 2021 LUX CONSULTING…and the robot apocalypse is coming!
The influence of technology pervades every industry and this will only continue. With
improvements in technology, many industries require fewer individuals with technical skills and
have changed their hiring criteria and competency frameworks to match this demand. Even in the
most technical positions, employers want to hire people with transferrable, nontechnical skills.
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGHow do I learn more about this stuff?
For a bunch of experts in human behaviour… we’re late to the game. Fortunately, we’re
experts in human behaviour and there are lots of options:
• Take a course
• Do some research
• Every job is different, so some skills will be more valuable than others
• Human factors, Aviation, Healthcare, Rail, Occupational psychology, self management lit in BA
• Ask for feedback, even if it hurts – from people in and outside our field (mostly outside)
• Do the work, then ask for feedback again/ regularly
• look for evidence of improvement (just like we take data on the number of times a client approaches
us without prompts)
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGTricky skills to learn
• People find it much easier to teach technical skills than nontechnical skills
• They are tricky to define but this should not scare us
• Wicked learning – sometimes you engage in the ‘correct’ behaviour but still get
a punishing outcome
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGTake home message:
Survive the robot apocalypse, work on your nontechnical skills!
© 2021 LUX CONSULTINGwww.luxconsulting.co.uk
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