Flash Teams with Ben Watts

In this conversation we will examine the concept of flash teams
with Ben Watts. We will focus on why they can pose such
a challenge in highly stressful situations. We examine the
concepts and issues of ego, lack of team ethos, lack of shared
understanding/clear plan, poor communications, name use, active
listening issues, poor followship, anchoring and much more. We
also examine when things are working well and some of the core
fundamental components of this including collaboration, use of
checklists, feedback mechanisms, closed loop communication,
affirmation, shared mental models and overt followship and
leadership. We also look at one of the key fundamental tenets of
flash teams, that of consistently calm cadence of
communication. 


 To do this I have Ben Watts with me, Ben is no stranger to
the podcast and has spoken with me on a number of episodes, most
recently around the bleeding patient. Ben is a critical care
retrieval practitioner working with the Emergency Medical
Retrieval Service (EMRS) in Scotland and also works as a World
Extreme Medicine (WEM) faculty member. In the conversation
we examine:  





·      The concept of flash
teams 


·      When it goes right –
what this looks like from a flow of communication


·      When it goes wrong and how
can we correct it


·      The importance of effective
communication 


·      Feedback mechanisms to
course correct for future performance


·      Error detection – Ben’s
approach to error trapping 


·      Distraction and
environmental factors - signal versus noise 


·      Decision making paralysis
and the concept of ‘overwhelm’.


·      Correcting poor teams when
they are going wrong.


·      Training and education
around flash teams 








My thanks to Ben for an engaging and interesting conversation