Takeaways from the 2022 Wilderness Risk Management Conference
This October, the Cornerstone staff enjoyed meeting with members, the risk management community, and some fresh faces during the 2022 Wilderness Risk Management Conference in Burlington, Vermont.
Dave Dennis, Executive Director, and Madeline Willett, Community Director, posing with the Cornerstone booth at WRMC 2022.
If you’re unfamiliar with the conference, the NOLS-sponsored event is held annually for business leaders and risk management operators in the travel, experiential, and outdoor education industries. Since its conception in 1993, this event has been an opportunity to transparently share case studies, best practices, and challenges in risk management. Attended by interested parties from all over the world, it’s also a great time to connect with colleagues and reinforce that human safety is a shared responsibility, not intellectual property.
Our Cornerstone team was thrilled to host a booth in the exhibitor hall, as well as attend and present a number of sessions. There were hundreds of impassioned speakers and leaders who spoke a common language of belief in the value of outdoor and experiential travel programming. In addition to connecting with colleagues (in person - finally!), it was also a valuable learning opportunity to extract industry-wide themes and speak to innovators in the space.
So, we thought we’d distill some of the key themes and learnings, based on our staff experiences! As is the Cornerstone way, we also included some actionable takeaways from each, so that you can implement these in your organization now.
Key Themes from the Conference
Post-pandemic, risk management transparency even more critical
Operators, educators, and business leaders are feeling the pressure to “level up” their risk management, crisis response, and training plans. There is even more emphasis on not only being prepared for any type of crisis, but also a sense of urgency to ensure these plans are actionable, purposeful, and meet participant expectations. Although the value of a crisis response and management plan was always apparent, organizations are now being asked by participants to be more transparent in sharing and developing these plans.
What to do about it?
Ensure your crisis response plan is in place and is evolving as your organization does.
Audit your current plan for today’s challenges (pandemic, mental health, civil unrest).
Ensure that your staff (especially on-site staff) are familiar with the plan and have ample opportunity to ask questions and receive training (particularly those newly hired/promoted employees).
Include case studies in your training to ensure the plan is truly actionable and relatable to your organization.
Provide thorough vendor vetting and homestay vetting where appropriate, as a preventative measure and also to protect your organization in the event of a lawsuit.
Decide, as a team, which parts of the plan are crucial to present to your external audience and participants. Make those parts of the plan readily accessible.
Involve your participants in the plan by reviewing their responsibility in the duty of care for one another.
Mental health is a growing concern for the industry
Not one session went by without a discussion of mental health. It’s clear that the growing mental health crisis (for nearly all generations of participants) will continue to be a huge factor in the success of organizations. Concerns included how to appropriately screen for mental health conditions in both participants and staff, how to manage mental health crises in the field, and identifying the appropriate training for staff to effectively manage these situations. Several organizations mentioned the need to have access to mental health providers or even on-site therapists in select destinations.
What to do about it?
Include mental health crises in your risk management plan. Identify how you expect staff to manage mental health issues and practice in advance.
Make support available to staff for their own mental health challenges. Use duty of care and the stress continuum as a framework for how they care for themselves and others. Ensure your training and operations include time “away” for staff to take care of their mental health.
Include Emotional First Aid as part of your staff training.
If you’re a Cornerstone member, you’re on the right track! :) Finding on-call mental health support is a must for nearly all organizations and something we include in all membership tiers. This consultation and training must ensure your staff are equipped with the right type of support, which is critical to determining whether participants can or should continue with travel programming when situations occur.
The best risk management practice starts with company culture
Even if your organization has a dedicated risk management team, the expertise shared at this conference reinforced how an organization’s culture throughout all departments truly shapes the ability to manage risk. From marketing the program with transparency and informed consent to determining if vendors are aligned with your mission - how you handle the little things will determine the bandwidth for prevention and the reaction when you inevitably navigate a crisis. Sessions on this topic included a review of how leadership teams’ emotional intelligence impacts psychological safety, the dangers of the halo effect, and how culture trumps strategy.
What to do about it?
Review emotional intelligence with your team and reflect on the psychological safety you’ve established for staff in HQ and on-site.
Be intentional with your culture and mission. Live out your values in your decision making. Create opportunities for staff to approach leadership when decisions aren’t aligned with the mission.
Build out your committee and values dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion (see our Staffing for DEI event this November!). Set real goals for inclusion and make a plan for how you’ll achieve those goals.
Dave Dennis, Executive Director, presenting with Cornerstone Legal Advisor Doug Stevens of Caplan & Earnest.
Keynote address: Lessons from the Thai Cave Rescue
Wow - the keynote address this year was very impactful. We laughed, we cried, and we truly reflected on this case study of an uber-complex crisis and the people who designed the response. Josh Morris, an American living in Thailand for over 20 years, took us through the journey of his climbing and caving career (complete with a climbing gym in Chiang Mai and as a climbing outfitter for student groups and corporate retreats), culminating in his participation in orchestrating the rescue of 12 soccer players and their coach in 2018. You can learn more about this story through both feature films and documentaries, but Josh’s behind-the-scenes look provided some takeaways we can all apply as risk managers.
Lessons from the Thai Cave Rescue:
Cultural context matters. Josh was an expert climber and caver. He’d built his business from the ground up (there’s a climbing joke in there!) and helped his staff reach the highest certifications possible over the last 17 years. However, when push came to shove, it wasn’t only his expertise in caving/climbing that made him a valuable asset to the rescue - it was his ability to translate the language and the culture between foreign rescue teams and Thai leadership. Utilizing his knowledge of cultural nuance and the variety of communication styles, he was able to broker relationships and help leadership reach life-saving decisions.
Situational urgency should not incite emotional or reactionary judgment. Few of us have been tasked with a mission so stressful as saving the lives of 12 children. But throughout his talk, Josh emphasized the importance of staying calm and considering all the options. Several deadly missteps were avoided by consulting experts from a variety of expertise - military officials, his own climbing team, divers, and foreign rescue teams.
Rely on your training and experience. One such deadly misstep was avoided because of Josh’s knowledge of how certain climbing tools would react to the type of limestone within the cave. This deep knowledge of a niche so specific would be life-saving. We put risk management and crisis response plans in place for a reason. We train our teams for a reason. When push comes to shove, understanding your limitations and honoring your expertise can be the difference between success and failure.