ABSTRACT
Think of someone you know in the field of spill response who has deep technical expertise in a particular area. Now think about how they got to where they are. Chances are, they have a background in a related field, and stumbled into spill response opportunistically. They found it interesting, and set about investing time and energy in a particular area until they became recognised across the industry as a subject matter expert. If you look at your own career path, you may recognise similarities.
In the ‘nature vs nurture’ argument, this is ‘nature’ - the organic development of an oil spill expert over a long period, reliant on being in the right place, at the right time, many times over. So can an oil spill subject matter expert be nurtured and developed under a form of stewardship programme?
There are no shortcuts to developing deep expertise, but there are efficiencies to be realised. This is especially pertinent in today’s industry backdrop of cost-control and ‘doing more with less’ in the context of succession planning for future expertise. We need a structured, efficient and deliberate framework to build the next generation.
This paper will describe an approach to growing subject matter experts in spill response, which starts with OSRL’s 30-plus years of training oil spill experts, mixes in the best from industry’s graduate and SME development programmes and blends in techniques drawn from the UK’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst’s officer training programmes and the world of sport psychology.
The approach is underpinned by the principles of andragogy – the method and practice of teaching adult learners – and designed around the distinct capabilities defined in the Tiered Preparedness and Response framework. In practice, the approach combines structured competence-based training, values based leadership, and focussed coaching and mentoring.
It accelerates the development of someone with no spill response experience and provides the building blocks which allow them to become a solid oil spill expert. For those who wish to specialise, it gives pathways and opportunities to achieving deep expertise in niche aspects of our discipline.
We can’t strip out the need to be in the right place, at the right time, time after time… but this approach reduces the role that luck plays in an individual’s journey to become an industry-recognised authority.
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