Online Performance Course Syllabus
Module 1: The Arc of Performance
Presentation 1: The Arc of performance
Understand the inverted-U relationship between pressure and performance - the arc of performance
Recognise the features of the four states of performance on the arc of performance – flow, frazzle, freezing and disengagement
Recognise the need for optimal pressure for high performance and hence why we need to own the pressure.
Understand the physiology and physical features of the stress response
Awareness of what performance means to each of us in the context of our roles.
Ability to carry out a pressure assessment
Categorise pressures as intrinsic and extrinsic
Understand the physical and mental health effects of repeated and chronic states of excessive pressure
Understand the risks of cognitive overload in the context of modern living
Understand the principles of cognitive appraisal
Differentiate appraisals of challenge and threat and their relationship to performance
Presentation 2: Owning the pressure
Understand how organisations, teams and individuals can prepare for high pressure.
Understand the four parts of the owning the pressure model: pump, control, testing and pressure relief.
The pressure pump: Organisational culture, strategic leadership and team selection
Pressure control: cognitive aids, communication under pressure, cooperative teamwork and frontline leadership
Pressure testing: Drilling, simulation, stress inoculation and mental rehearsal
Pressure relief: techniques to regain personal composure and regain situational control
Presentation 3: Memory, metacognition and multitasking
Describe the features of analytical and automatic cognition
Understand the benefits and risks of each
Understand when to use automatic and analytical cognition safely and efficiently
Describe the components of short and long term memory relevant to performance: episodic, semantic, procedural, explicit, implicit and working memory
Understand how excessive pressure affects memory and information recall
Understand the value of drilling practical procedures
Understand the value of cognitive aids
Understand the principle of cognitive offloading
Understand how we undertake multiple tasks
Presentation 4: Fatigue, environmental pressure and performance
Describe acute and chronic sleep deprivation
Understand the role of circadian rhythms in fatigue
Describe the negative effects of fatigue on decision making, innovative ability, communication ability and physical task completion.
Describe operational techniques to reduce the effects of fatigue.
Understand that the pressures of the environment can compromise performance, particularly cold, wet, wind and noise.
Understand the value of training in the appropriate environmental conditions
Understand the value of personal protective equipment in reducing environmental pressure.
Presentation 5: Cognitive biases
Understand the concept of heuristics
Understand how cognitive biases can affect judgement and decision making
Describe some of the common cognitive biases including framing, anchoring, confirmation, ascertainment and priming biases.
Understand when we are at risk of bias traps
Describe the use of techniques to reduce the risk of bias traps including cross checking, disconfirming questioning, use of checklists and use of analytical cognition.
Understand the Dunning Kruger effect
Module 2: The pressure pump
Presentation 6: High performance cultures
Awareness of the characteristics of a high performance organisation
Understand how culture empowers and develops individuals in achieving high performance.
Awareness of the value of pride in the organisation, including branding, external communications and history.
Understanding of open cultures and psychological safety
Awareness of the value of reflective practice in an open culture
Understand the value of routine and structured post event debriefing
Understanding of how cognitive dissonance can affect reflective practice.
Awareness of how video recording can help individual and team learning
Understanding of the concept of marginal gains and being a “learning organisation”
Awareness of the components of an effective significant event management system
Understand that performance metrics need to be operationally relevant
How sensitive and specific selection is essential in achieving high performance in a team
Awareness of how a large pool of applicants is required to allow optimal selection.
Awareness of the principles of changing organisational culture
Presentation 7: Strategic leadership
Awareness of the benefits of leadership vulnerability
Understanding of the iceberg model of the psychological contract
Awareness of what individuals need to feel valued and perform optimally, including Maselow’s hierarchy of needs
Understand the value of clear and well communicated strategic goals and overall direction
Understand the value of competence clarity
Understand the need for effective systems for internal communication
Awareness of the value of delegation and emancipation to cognitively offload the leader, achieve optimal performance and develop each individual member of the team.
Understand the value of coaching skills in delegating and empowering individuals
Awareness of the challenges of leading teams of leaders and the need for open, democratic leadership styles.
Understanding of the need for effective internal communication systems
Module 3: Pressure control
Presentation 8: Cognitive aids
Awareness of how excessive pressure and fatigue affect cognitive ability and memory recall
Describe a range of cognitive aids including guidelines, standard operating procedures, preparedness checklists, procedural guides, calculators and emergency action cards
Understand the value of cognitive aids in supporting shared mental models and cooperative teamwork
Understand the benefits of cognitive aids for recall, decision making and regaining control in high pressure situations
Describe the design features of cognitive aids intended for use in high pressure situations including structure, font size, length, terminology used and graphic design
Understand the process of designing, refining and introducing cognitive aids
Awareness of the various storage and dissemination methods for cognitive aids including hard copies, internet, intranet and smartphone applications.
Awareness of the necessity for version control
Understand the potential need for team specific guidelines
Knowledge of how to use a two person check and response checklist
Understand the potential disadvantages of cognitive aids
Presentation 9: Communication under pressure
Describe the characteristics of explicit and implicit communication
Understanding of need to manage posture and facial expression
Awareness of the effects of stress, the environment, PPE and fatigue on communication
Describe the pressures which compromise communication, including time, distractions, limited multi-tasking ability, jargon, limited working memory capacity, stress, the serial position effect, command gradients and group think
Describe how communication is particularly challenging in flash teams.
Awareness of communication techniques – closed loop, ready to receive?, structure, focussed attention, graded assertiveness, repetition, keywords, intonation, use of the serial position effect, rate of speaking and body language management.
Understanding of how pre-event briefings can improve subsequent communication
Awareness of training and reflective techniques to improve communication under pressure
Presentation 10: Teamwork and frontline leadership
Awareness of the five components of effective teamwork: situational awareness, communication, cooperative behaviour, leadership and coordination
Understanding of the benefits of briefings in terms of achieving a shared mental model, creating a flat hierarchy, role identification and clarification of expectation.
Understanding the risks of “over briefing” and the serial position effect
Understand the benefits of rally points in achieving. Shared mental model, identifying and prioritising actions and delegating
Understand the challenges involved in working with flash teams
Understand the risks of becoming task fixated and going “heads in”
Understand how to delegate efficiently
Awareness of the role of task coordination
Awareness of how emotional intelligence improves team effectiveness
Awareness of the importance of projecting, planning and communicating direction.
Awareness of the need to project positivity and optimism
Awareness of when to show vulnerability
Teamworking is improved with simulation, operational filming, coaching and debriefing
Awareness of the effects of mirroring in teamwork – both positive and negative
Module 4: Pressure testing
Presentation 11: Training for pressure
Understand the value of clearly defined competencies and how they can be used to create training objectives
Understand the value of well written guidelines for training, especially at induction
Awareness of the different roles of drilling and simulation
Understand the need for drilling for completion of predictable tasks and decision making. Plan, practice and perfect the predictable
Understand the value and uses of simulation – developing analytical processing ability, innovation skills, development of communication skills (explicit and implicit), cooperative teamwork, frontline lead and competency assessment
Awareness of characteristics of an effective simulation and debrief
Awareness of the value of simulation in developing guidelines, procedures and introducing new pieces of equipment
Awareness of the role of simulation in competency assessment
Awareness of the features of immersive simulation – environment, equipment, clothing, information feed, supporting roles.
Awareness of the requirements for simulation planning -creating a cognitive appraisal of challenge not threat, timing, number of objectives
Understanding the features of an effective simulation debrief – reflective practice, open questioning, participants identify their own learning.
Awareness of the role and stages of stress inoculation
Awareness of the value and role of deliberate practice
Presentation 12: Personal; preparation for performance
Understand the benefits of mental rehearsal – improved confidence, speed of execution, spare cognitive capacity, managing issues
Awareness of using mental rehearsal for personal reflective practice
Awareness of mental rehearsal techniques
Awareness of dissociative visualisation
Awareness of the “sterile shift” principle to optimise cognitive capacity and emotional response to pressure
Awareness of benefits of managing emotional responses to pressure
Awareness of the benefits of memorising core knowledge for time critical situations
Awareness of benefits of mantras for extreme pressure
Awareness of benefits of physical fitness to optimise performance
Awareness of the benefits of mindfulness techniques for high pressure performance
Module 5: Pressure relief valves
Presentation 13: Pressure relief valves
Understanding of techniques to regain personal composure including:
Controlled breathing
Positive self-talk
Cognitive reframing
Nutrition and hydration
Use of cognitive aids including emergency action cards
Use of mantras
Understanding of techniques to regain situational control including:
Using rally points to achieve situational control
Listing and prioritising problems and actions
Cognitive offloading through delegation
Using a “helicopter view”
Cognitive offloading through “phoning a friend”