Have you ever been, as a team-member, in a position where you are sure that something isn´t quite right, but you trust a superior’s judgement entirely and refrain from speaking up with your observations? This, quite unfortunately, is a very common observable behavior in several industries with a strong authority gradient; aviation not being the exception. Today we would like to challenge you to ask yourself, what can we learn from aviation´s methodology of thought on this field, that we can implement in a broader scope of industries?
The concept of CRM in aviation dates back, quite surprisingly, to recent decades only. The acronym stands for Crew Resource Management, and it is a set of crew member competencies, essential for a safe interchange of information and execution of duties, as well as awareness of our capabilities and limitations.
Historically, there are numerous examples of autocracy in aircraft flight decks which hinder confidence and communication skills of subordinate crew members. It is therefore essential to distinguish between authority, which is assigned; and leadership, which is earned from every single team member, on every single shift. Having your team feel involved, with an open communication environment, where information and thoughts are shared for a common situational awareness, is inevitably fruitful. Let´s of course not diminish the authority position of any manager, but it is indeed crucial to highlight that, with a healthy combination of authority and leadership, managers can benefit from team members who can comfortably contribute their observations.
Occasionally, those might be items that a manager might have overseen, and in an autocratic environment, a subordinate might be indeed aware of a key piece of information, yet unconfident to speak up. Perfection is therefore a word we endeavor to avoid within CRM leadership, and we rather place our focus on open feedback. The process of decision making is a team effort, while the decision itself is a question of authority, simply because of the responsibility it carries.
Additional modules such as the human interaction with machinery, in the aspect of automation; together with the operator´s safety culture in which all employees interact, is an area of deep analysis within CRM with the purpose of examining how procedures are followed, but also how they are designed in order to fit the user, which is a human being. CRM also focuses on creating awareness of human performance limitations, where humans are seen fallible and acceptance of this is at the core of all analysis within a safety analysis.
Stress and fatigue are other areas of analysis of CRM, and together with all the already mentioned concepts, we are sure you can already identify that CRM is an essential component of study in industrial training, since it incites SELF AWARENESS AND REFLECTION within team members about their human interaction within an environment composed of other humans, software, and hardware.
Autocracy requires perfection, which is unrealistic; and CRM advocates for a maximization of input from all team-members to enhance Situational Awareness within an operation, with awareness of human performance limitations in order to better assess a team´s capabilities and consequently assist the authority figure in making a better-informed decision, with far more points of view available than those which would arise from undergoing this process solo.
You will have surely noticed some concepts throughout this article that are highlighted in bold, and in conjunction with the figure below, you will notice that these are the training modules of a CRM package. Hirscher Consulting offers training within the full scope of the CRM modules, as well as corporate consultation in the implementation of a safety culture and procedures design in line with CRM philosophy.
Contact us today and tell us about challanges your are facing at in your company.
Yours,
Pablo Alvarez
